Tips on time management

You're listening to the Study Clicks podcast. Your number one source for junior cycle and leading search tips. We make exams easier. Hello and welcome back to the Study Clicks podcast. You're listening to Imran Nessa, two people who have worked for Study Clicks for some time and we're here to once, as always, give you our Learned Wisdom. Does that make sense? Learned wisdom? Yes. It's probably not the best termination of words. Wendy, I never know. I would love to use Learned correctly. Learned versus learned. I think someone can be learned. What if you? You and I are learning something at school today. I have learned. Yeah, I think it's when it's like describing a person you're learning it. Anyway, what a great start to the podcast day. Thank you for spending that to me. You were still learning it. Excellent to use with the word Learned. So we are back this week and this is kind of a follow-up podcast to the last one we recorded, which was the prioritization month, how to prioritize your study, what to put first, how to weigh up the items that you need to study and decide which ones are more important to do and how to how many to do in your day and that kind of stuff, but it ties in being sort of conquering that and deciding the right thing to do in that space. Only really works out to me, if you also have a good grasp on time management and knowing how best to organize your time and those tasks that you have prioritized. So we mentioned in the other podcast that we'll be doing this one and that you should listen to it as well. It's sort of combined the two once you have a good understanding of it, so that's what we're here to do today with this one. That's what we're here to do today. I'm sorry to keep a good introduction going, but I feel like it's been a number of podcasts since we've just never know how to introduce it, but that we are sisters. Should we like just mention that every now and again? Does that enhance the listener experience? Do you think we could come up with some snappy line about being like, like a chicken? Because because we always do, we make exams these year and then could we also have like a very rough, well, I don't believe in doing things really rehearse, but like, welcome back. I'm Emre. You know Vanessa. Where's sister? And we love studying. Yeah, we're never going to top the one where we, I can't remember what we said, something like we found out we were sisters after we know we weren't just studying clicks, but we found out we were sisters. Yeah, that's tough to hear. No, that's not how we met. We met at home. How we met at that version of the parent tribe. Anyway, yeah, we are sisters and we both work for study clicks and we've both been doing this podcast a while, helping you guys learn better study tips, how to optimize the way that you work and giving you advice on getting through the exams and school and all of the different things you might encounter in that world. I think we do an okay job with it, Vanessa. Yeah, so that gives us enough qualifications to keep doing it. Just so people know, we are only related to each other. There's no nepotism going on in study clicks apart from the nepotism between myself and Emre, but don't let that sway like your thoughts on our experience and knowledge. What is the actual definition of nepotism? Is it we're going to get into this? Well, I'm just wondering because usually it's funny that to me, like real nepotism is like father to son or like older author to figure give something to their child, whereas I'm your younger sister and suggested you for the role of social media manager. It doesn't feel like direct nepotism. It feels like. I listen to a good few pop culture podcasts and obviously nepotism usually refers to the children of famous people like, you know, what's the name of bungeum bungeum bungeum bungeobies son who's like who's just engaged. That's crazy. Sorry, this isn't a pop culture podcast. Well, we pivot, let's pivot and no. Yeah, all these anyway, you know, the general one's just like a million myahawk. I'm just going off to stranger things class now, but there's a podcast that doesn't do which when a genonada del right, her father has started getting into making music and the podcast host refers to that as reverse nepotism, even though I think they just made that up. It's interesting. It's interesting. Well, we can also think there's like, there's another like layer to that where it's like nepotism, reverse nepotism at the same time. For example, I feel like Billy Ray Cyrus, obviously, was famous for my ex Iris, but now he's kind of feeling off her fame. Yeah, her fame. So she's hearing him relevant. Yeah. When you love if this was a living cert subject, you know, like it should be, it's important. I feel like I 100% think that media literacy needs to be start being taught in schools. And when you like, like, I don't get it in study clicks as audiences because this generation grew up with the internet, but will you see like the older like your parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles who were on Facebook. And they're just, they, they take in a lot of news and they don't, they kind of like don't have the knowledge to know how to actually take headlines and read it and actually know what it means and read the subtext and all that. I think that's 100% of the skill that people might not ever learn, depends on the industry you get into. And I'm like, make make it a living cert subject and it would be so interesting and students teenagers would be so good at it. Some day you should write a letter to Norma Foley. She listened to me. We've derailed this entirely and clearly maybe aren't the best people to be talking with. Because we don't know how to manage our podcast. Yeah, sorry. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. So there are a couple of techniques that you can use to manage your time. A couple of them you will definitely already have heard about whether it's through us harping on it and other podcasts about this thing. But it's good to have one coherent podcast or cohesive and where we just go through all of them and you can sort of absorb everything about time management and one nice slick podcast. So I know you are good at the Pomodoro technique and like to mention a lot, do you want to start with that? Yeah, so well, I feel like the Pomodoro technique is one that I have been done about in the past because it's like this method that was come up air, sorry, was developed by I want to say neurologists, people who study the brain and have seen how run experiments about how long people can focus for without like for effectively before their brain starts shutting off and actually taking in the information and all this. So like the technique that they claim up was the Pomodoro technique, which means that you should study in 25. So do your work in 25 minute blocks, take a five minute break and then go again. If this works for you, this is really, really great because there's lots of apps out there to support it forest and I have an extension on my kind of my chrome that blocks all the social media sites and that goes for 25 minutes and then gives me a five minute break. Yeah, I mean, I understand the signs of Pomodoro and I appreciate that there's a lot of thought put into it and it works for many people. I feel I've never used to press me because I don't like being time boxed into that, you know, it has to be this way and sometimes I might get into a flow and be totally fine at working straight for an hour or like is that allowed within the framework of the Pomodoro technique? No, well, like I have actually I've in preparation for this podcast like I watched a number of different people talk about there, time management methods and a lot of people don't actually race, certainly don't rate the Pomodoro technique very high, but it's actually more so that they feel that once like 25 minutes is too short basically, especially it depends on the task you're doing, I guess, but like at 25 minutes you could be reading in the groove and then if you kind of stop that, you're kind of stopping the momentum, taking a break and then when you come back into it, you're kind of the flow isn't there. So maybe some people just found like maybe I'm better off studying for 40 minutes and then taking like a 10 minute break and the cycle, you know, we go again, while I just really like about the Pomodoro technique is that you the way I kind of tell myself to do things because it kind of it ties into motivation as well and like when you don't know where to start, the whole thing with the Pomodoro technique is that you actually just pick one topic and you work on that topic, distraction-free for 25 minutes, you set the timer and you're like I'm not allowed to do anything else but this topic until that timer goes and I just so that's where I kind of see the benefit of it, it can maybe you can take it on like a case-by-case basis, maybe if it's like a math question 25 minutes is perfect, maybe if it's in an English essay, you bring it up to 50 minutes and then you take like a 10 minute break, you know, that kind of a way, but I think working like having that kind of structure that can that works for me and if you kind of feel like you like that structure and it could be a good motivation and a time management too for you, 100% go for it because it works for lots of people and that's why people have built these tools around it because it does work. Yeah, I guess the key takeaway for me from that is orders from the technique in general is to remind us not to take breaks, I know I definitely would have been the person who just gets into a way of thinking I'm just like okay, I'm just going to do this sit down for three hours and not get back up because I just want this done but it is really important to remember to take breaks because by the end of those three hours your brain's not going to be doing the work that it could be doing if you gave it. That's why I think actually the tools are helpful because for me my issue was I would take a break for 10 minutes and then you'll not come back and whereas these tools have like a timer that says okay your breaks over time to start to get back to work, which often I'd be like no, like you're not the boss of me and for it's good to have that. Yeah and the good thing about the Pomodoro Technique is that it's so commonplace everyone, you know you just have to Google it and you'll get loads of free tools that will do it for you or you've got those distraction apps like Forest that essentially apply the Pomodoro Technique and allow you to block distractions on your phone for the period of time that you would want to use with the Pomodoro Technique so it's an easy thing to use in conjunction with other tools that you might have because it's just such a common thing that everyone always uses when it comes to time management and study so shouldn't be hired onto adopt I don't think. Yeah no all the tools are really helpful they're out there use them and they're most summer free. Speaking of tools I think time management and organization go hand in hand so you will lose a lot of time if you're not organized because you will just spend that time being like oh what will I do next? So again in our last podcast we talked about prioritization and a lot of that was essentially how to make a list of things you're going to do, how to make to do this, how to make plan and look we want our plan about making plans because we do that enough but go listen to those podcasts but you know if you have your plan in place and you've made it the night before or you take the first five minutes to make your quick plan before you you know start that study session and using additional tools that will help you put your things in place that you want to do and maybe even a little known on how long you want to do them and that will cut out the time wasted that you could it'll cut out the time that you could potentially waste you know just sort of sitting down and being like okay what will I do next from okay let me check my folder oh don't usually that and it was just don't do that that's it's a waste but you know tools that could help you we like or I like um Trello anyway Trello is a simple tool to help you create like a virtual to-do list and you can drag carrots across when you finish them you can add extra details you can upload files it's really really helpful so use that if you haven't looked at that already we've got a blog that explains how to use it on certificates which is go use the search bar to look up that blog NASA will include it in the links as well we also have study clicks planners and again we will not go on and on about it use the search bar nest will include the links but you can use those we've got sort of different ones for daily planners or weekly planners try and put as much in there as you can and then save time on the prep part of of your study and and I know you have another tool that you like to talk about I think I think I mentioned this on the podcast a couple of weeks but definitely wasn't that long ago because I only discovered it and just I remember like discovering it just before Christmas and then spending all of my Christmas like my downtime just putting everything that was like saved in screenshots on my phone like things like oh this hairdo I want to try or this place for brunch in Dublin that I want to try and like having it all saved within this one website and like making little organizational lists and so I won't bang on too much about it but it is it's it's notion it's really really good I love it you can make it look so pretty and I think I mentioned her name before that and influencer we used to work but she used to make lovely YouTube videos for us she's done her leaving start a few years ago now and a length is her name on YouTube she's obsessed with notion and she's done really comprehensive videos on how she uses it and how you can use it too so I would definitely you know I'll drop that link in as well I mean I'll make it very easy but yeah notion is top tier I'm obsessed it's it's I you can get like templates and stuff and I've gotten that to do this template and it like has broken up like Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and and then underneath is all the checkboxes and literally any thought that comes into my head about something I do today I just stick it on it is just it's really really helped how I do my actual like study clicks work of like oh I want to put this piece of content on Instagram or I want to do this tweet you know that kind of the thing it's the kind of thoughts like you come in that come into your head that you're like oh I must do that but because it's like a fleeting thought you kind of forget about it I find it really useful through things like that but yeah it's it's just it's just like a database for my life and I find that really useful you can plan your leaving start holiday on it like I could I can't recommend notion enough and yeah this is not a paid out I presume it's free to use it yes I like most things on the internet it has like a free like a free version and a paid version but I get everything I need out of the free version cool and if you're lazy like me you could just use the notes app on your phone which is also good it's not as pretty and you can't organize it as much but even like you could use both if you're just out and about and you don't have access to your laptop and you want to just quickly know something down to remember to do it later that's what I do like I'll I'll add a couple things to my notes app every day and be like oh when I need to book this I need to like text this person back up I'll I don't do it in the moment but then at the end of the day when I get time I go back over my list and then either move that item somewhere else if it needs to be stored somewhere else or I'll just go and do that task so yeah you could do that if I yeah the note the note app on my phone will always be like number one because it's right there shout out to the notes app and imagine that the study clicks doing like a note app apology for like oh god I feel like the note app and I can imagine that Apple never anticipated how popular the notes app would be surely not like they never put any thought into that so simple anyway so um one thing that I think is important when it comes to time management is is being able to identify what is a soaking up all of your time um because there are bound to be certain things that you're just not doing efficiently yet and that's fine like you're not born into this world knowing how to do everything the right way and and there are different elements of this you know it might be that like just from a very basic level the way your studying is not time efficient and but it might also be that you're the the way you write essays is not time efficient or maybe the way that you're putting your to-do list together isn't time efficient or maybe the way that you're um organizing your schedule you know there's different ways that you that you might be losing out on time so um there's not a one thing fits all thing but it's more about for the first step is just trying to recognize where you think you're spending too much time um I know we did a podcast with Donica a couple of years ago and and he asked the question like what's the best way of studying and I think oh yeah he said yeah but I think I said something like you know it's all about actually finding the right way of studying it's not necessarily studying more or studying for longer it's about finding the right way of studying that's efficient so you can waste so much of your time doing that study method that's not really for you or it doesn't really work for how you tend to absorb information so yeah find that out first we've got other podcasts on you know study methods so listen to that to try and figure out that first that's one way you can try and save some time by picking up a different method that works a bit better for you um I know personally that I use to spend loads of time or just waste hours of my time really on essays like I brought that up for a reason because um that was definitely my issue um and where I last so much time and it would just frustrate it kind of snowballs into this frustration thing because you know you're wasting time and then you get angry yourself for wasting time and then your brain is also slowly getting tired because you're not technically like taking a break but you're just sort of sitting I mean like oh god and then you're just yeah you're really moody and angry by the end of it so it's not helping anyone um I used to just um I found essays hard because I would sit there looking up the sheet of paper and just going I I don't want to write next instead of being proactive about it I would just kind of sit there and get frustrated for a while and like try and think of something but then get distracted and then um yeah so like for example I should have recognized that early on and and tried to make and ever to do something about it you know like maybe I would um come up with some sort of technique to um you know if I was getting you know quote unquote writer black or tried to write an essay that I would try and just throw out five keywords that would inspire me to write something else or you know I would quickly google um an online resource about the essay that I'm trying to write and you know just take like a sense from that and let that and spot you know there's like different ways that you could try and that's obviously a very like specific example of how to save time and write an essay but you know it's the point I'm making is that identify first what it is that you're not doing efficiently and then try to brainstorm ways to do it and you know I'm not going to be able to go through all of the potential things that might happen to you now but I can imagine Google is your friend in that case you can be like if it's if it's you know you're spending too much time watching a video in biology and how to understand respiration maybe a watching big long video isn't the best way to study that maybe it's reading like a quick revision book that just has all the points condensed into about it is anyway I'm going to start going through examples because this object is too broad but yeah identify it and then try to figure out how to make it more efficient and the key is sort of being self-aware about the whole thing and rectifying your own actions that's like one of my biggest downfalls I think when it comes to time management is that I can once I get fixated on one task I have to finish it and I I showed come up with a school example for this but the only one that's coming to me now is a me running study because Instagram example and I remember once like I found this video of like a cat running world around the place and I wanted to have I don't know like oh he fell off and that was it was I just wanted to have a caption that move with the cat and be like me trying to get my study together and I spent like three hours trying to make like this one meme and I knew it wasn't work my time but I was just like I just like once I started and I had to finish and like I didn't I never even posted because it didn't even look that good like so it's just like it is like recognizing what like the old manager he states maybe just like is the juice worth the squeeze which is basically it's the effort that you're putting into it worth what you're gonna get out of it and you can kind of apply that to your homework too and like you know you're putting all this effort into and maybe I don't know trying to think of something that's like surprisingly low marks like you know like the pros like the question on that will be on her lama book and the Irish paper is like it's surprisingly the same amount of marks with something really like the same for reading the poem and the oral yeah so it's it's kind of like thinking of it and that like imagine you probably spend way more hours on like reading about how perfect the sheen is I feel like I said that last time you have said it's imprinted in my brain forever and compared to like how you would try to perfect read in the poem and know the orals are are done now don't understood knowing to write about them ever again bogeym yeah it's kind of you it's good when you're coming to think of time management you are you're always thinking of the bigger picture in terms of I how much is this actually what I'm working on now worth in the exam and worth points and like in the grand scheme of things how well I want to do and is this some is this within a subject that I want to improve on is this is my time really well being spent here or am I kind of neglecting something else by spending a lot of time on this I think that's worth looking at as well yeah and that ties directly back in with what we talked about in our last podcast on the prioritization like that is a great way to decide how you should prioritize your things is how how much weight does that thing have in the exam how much is it going to help you in terms of points and your grade and it's such an easy trap to fall into as well I think like I do that exact same thing that of just knowing I'm doing a task that isn't the priority but I'm just like I just want to get this out of the way or half there now and I just want to finish it and you know that's fine to do from time to time as well because they totally understand that feeling of just wanting to get something out of the way but if you're really stressed and there's loads going on you're like I need to get this done then then it is worth taking a second and thinking okay no it's silly to keep working on this thing because I do have all these other things to do yeah I understand yeah be realistic with yourself be self aware yeah the other the my other big of downfall is distractions and I think this is probably a big one for other people because um like this I can just get around them the same way that I can get fixate on the task I can get fixated on the totally non-study or where I relate the task like I would just get into my head I'm really about an online shopping actually unlike D-pop and I could just like to know what I need like a black pool and that jumper and I'd just be in the middle of the day like I would maybe need to prepare for something that's actually like happening immediately but like all of a sudden I'm like I am really need that black like it's a holy percentage weight it can totally weight but my brain's like I'm on D-pop right now you know that kind of thing so it's like I'm like I don't have a D-pop blocker on my phone the same way I have for my social media apps but that's probably like my more common downfall is that like I sometimes go on autopilot when I kind of unlock my phone and I'm just kind of circulating through the same social media apps like Instagram TikTok TikTok is dangerous because you get caught in a chance and I wouldn't even loop it doesn't make sense but just constantly scrolling down the feed and so you have to when it comes to distractions if that's a as big a downfall for you as it is for me I'm sorry to say it and you want to get worked on you don't want this to be ruining your life you're going to need to set some boundaries and the best thing I like there's a number of solutions to this one if you don't need your phone put in another room use forest that again coming back to the Pomodoro technique it doesn't it's kind of it's default is to kind of lock your phone for 25 minutes and so you don't go on any other app and but I'm pretty sure in the settings you can change it if you want to do it for longer and like I say from extension the one I use the strict workflow is there any other ones that you think I remember these kind of apps to help for focus um well there's the one I use I don't know can I should I mention it because you do have to pay to use it okay I actually this is the one that texted you about the other day yeah I texted that to put it in an infographic on Instagram so I didn't even question like yeah I mean it's like obviously do what you want put your money so this isn't sponsored by this crowd or anything but the app that I use is called one sec and it's it's a bit of a faft to set up because you have to use the shortcut app and and like configure it so it takes it took me like a good 10 50 minutes to sort of set everything up but it is really effective because what it does is when you try to open something like TikTok for example it shows it's like pop up on your screen that's it makes you take a deep breath like you know in for five 10 seconds and then out again five 10 seconds so there's about 20 seconds between you clicking on the app and it actually allowing you in where it gives you the time to reflect on whether you actually do want to open it or not because I find I just kept opening things like the different social media apps without actually registering that I was doing it and then only 20 minutes had to be like I did not open this I don't remember opening this and that's really scary so um so I'm finding that app very um worthwhile because I don't think it's that expensive either but like um it's just it has it gives me that second to reflect and go oh actually yeah you're right I I clicked on this totally it as a second nature thing now that this is forcing me to breathe and think about it no I don't want to open it and not close it again so it just gives you a moment to be more self-aware which is which is good we love self-awareness yeah I quite like to I find I get distracted at work sometimes if a if a task isn't keeping me particularly engaged or just you know some days your brain just does not want to focus as much as it does all the days and what I do is I am a big kind of playlist those and I think it is scientifically proven I could be wrong on the scientific part of this but there is something to sort of like low-fi music and that sort of mindless beat thing that is really good for for concentration and I actually don't listen to I sometimes listen to low-fi ones but I just like there's a lot of like fun whimsical ones on on youtube I'm enjoying one at the moment where it's like some fantasy bookshop in the woods sound it comes with a really nice visual as well but it's just got this like kind of mystical sound and it's very calming but it also I just it's something about having music in the background that isn't distracting music so without lyrics but it it helps me stay focused and then I'm much more likely to not want to look at my phone or not diverge onto something else so recommend plainist and um Gabrielle has has a video on this essentially yeah what you're saying there was like making me think this totally links into our study with me videos so you're probably familiar with us and people tend to do it live on like Instagram and TikTok sometimes where they're like I'm going to be live at six o'clock and I'm going to be studying for an hour and a half and I'm going to be doing this if you want to join me and it's really nice the way you just there's definitely a name for like environmental diversification I don't know but just like knowing that there is someone there in real time and there in this really calm and quiet setting and they're focused on this I'm doing this for the next hour and whatever you can do the live ones because they're really great they can hold if you decide you want to be there for the whole thing it holds you accountable like to a certain time like you're like okay I need to start studying at the same time as them and I will stay studying with them until they finish and but if you just want that kind of just the kind of the time block in general Gabrielle from our YouTube channel she did an hour and a half study with me which is perfect she did three pomodoro blocks and so like 25 minutes 5 minute break 25 minutes 5 minute break so you could like you could decide like okay tonight I'm going to do Gabrielle's hour and a half long study with me on study fixes YouTube and I'm going to take three topics for each of 25 minute blocks and we're going to use it I'm going to take it for three pieces of homework I have so like the first is maybe I have two maths questions to do the second is I have to answer this question about Lady Macbeth and the third is I have to write something about the French strikes hopefully not because that's way too topical or like way too um some of us know that could be someone was asked me about that I heard the oral exam and I was like oh no it's so so close you get asked that it means you'll be you're doing well um but yeah it's that I forgot about that study with me but um until you start saying yeah well no what I what I was referencing was the she did a video on playlist to listen to that's what I was going to say oh I'm so sorry I told him I don't know that's even better all relevant yeah Gabrielle is really good at this kind of thing like she's kind of like really interested in like you know productivity and focus and how like just always studying you know she's she's kind of interested in learning as a kind of a general topic like and so she did a she did a take talk on this first and then she decided to make a kind of a longer version for a YouTube channel but basically about like how to build the perfect study playlist and like you know here's how you start it off and these are the kind of songs you want to put in the middle like obviously totally up to you what you put into it but she kind of gives us real kind of scientific and structure to how you can make the perfect study playlist for you and it's really interesting so I would I'll link that in the description as well I wish I was right in these days oh god yeah well you need to listen back to the podcast before we said it live anyway yeah just sanity check um yes big surprise to our listeners that this gets edited because we cannot keep in everything that we that's the end of rambling on over yeah um yeah okay so next point um do you want to go next so the next thing is like setting deadlines this is something I only kind of did recently well I kind of do it in conjunction with this other thing which I heard some other one of these time guys unfortunately when I was like time guys I actually have my own podcast and I had no one else to hold me accountable for like the things I say like I was just gonna continue the time guy I just honestly have no idea what you mean my time guy um clock makers no No I'm not talking about like I only know that word from John Joe from the the toy show all those years ago and anyway sorry when I was researching this podcast and I was looking up other people's methods of lifetime management the lines were nearly crossing which you know that side of youtube was just like you should be waiting about five a.m. and always making money um but anyway one of these time guys what they said they kind of describe this thing which is time blocking I think well I realized this is something I super need that like I have all these things that I wanted you kind of in the back of my head but I and like I could put them down to do this but I could do them on any day you know that kind of thing you know the way that like oh I I did this subject back in fifth year I want to revise it but you never actually have there's no you don't have an exam coming up on it like well like you know of like a class test say coming up in photosynthesis it's just something you need to do over yourself before the leaving search and so what you could do is set a deadline for when you want to set for the census like actually set a time and date for when you're going to do this because otherwise like it's just that extra little bit of accounting holding yourself to account to actually do the things that you want to do and but if you like it was called time blocking because like you're like saying I'm going to block off this time in my calendar and I'm going to dedicate it to this thing and I have to get it done by then instead of this kind of general idea you have in your head that you need to go back and revise the subject you have found the time in your calendar your schedule that you're going to dedicate to revising this thing that otherwise you don't really have any pressure on yourself to do it but you're kind of taking upon yourself to make sure it gets done by setting a deadline. Yeah I think as well it's it's not just setting your own deadlines well first of all I think if you want some extra incentive what you can do is is also plan on that deadline to do something nice for yourself like whether it's just if I get this done by 5 May I am going to treat myself to an ice cream or whatever it might be I'm going to let myself buy that t-shirt I really want from wherever so that's one thing because it can be if like it's all one good set of deadline but it's like your hot you're having told yourself out to what whereas if you add little things like that it makes it a little bit more fun and rewarding but also what I sort of feel with the with the deadline stuff is I tend to set myself my own deadlines for things that already have deadlines because it tends to get really stressful in the time running up to that deadline because chances are a lot of people around you also have that deadline and everyone's always getting in each other's heads about that upcoming deadline and it's an amazing feeling if you have your own deadline set before that and then when everyone else is freaking out about the deadline you don't have to worry about it and that sounds a little bit like leaving your friends the dust I mean you can you can recommend all of your friends to do this I guarantee not everyone does this because people lots of people love working like under pressure and just can't work unless it's the night before the thing is due and look that's fine I totally understand that as well but in my experience like the the whole mac food design is like it's a classic it's a classic because you're giving your deadline ages you know how much work you have to do you get your book you know you need to fill out you need to do certain my to work and most people will be like oh I'll do that over the summer but then like loads of people also then just don't time goes by they forget about so yeah I knew I wanted to get that done I knew I didn't want to be in that position a couple of days beforehand like oh god I haven't finished this and each writes all of them staying up late and I so yeah I just I did I got it done and it felt amazing and other people will be not at you so maybe like usually when I do these things I don't tell other people that I have it done I'm just like a fan um like oh god yeah this is really stressful because people will be mad at you for doing this boss for your own sake honest to god it is um it's great it just takes so much pressure off and you're not in that stressful mindset did you I'm trying to get stuff done just a couple of days before it's done minor tangent last slash anecdote did you do that thing in 5th year where you're you get paid to sit outside leaving search and the junior started and bring the examiner T not the examiner T I didn't I think it's definitely something I wanted to do but I think it might have been that I was already working in our local hotel oh yeah well I did that and that's when I got my shirt my home my channel don't because you're not allowed your phone and I was allowed to bring I was allowed to bring my Nintendo though which is great and but yeah and I couldn't help but really be really smug about that because like I had because I that was I that was a great environment to get stuff done and I just like I had these blocks literally the links of the juniors are the living starting exams so I was able to get my home I turned on in like three days yeah and I didn't have to worry about for the rest of the summer because like everyone else was hanging over them all summer yeah but you could also manufacture environments like that for yourself if you really wanted to that's right yes you were forced to do that because that's the thing that happens every year you're paid for it and you got it but you could also say I'm gonna leave my phone at home I'm gonna go to my grandparents house who they've no Wi-Fi I'm gonna go up to the room and sit by myself you know you you could also create that kind of strict environment for yourself if you think that would help um you know you don't have to be chosen as the regulator assistant thing to yeah it helps but yeah find like a quiet or yeah or just say like I'm going to put aside these three days to just it during the summer or during Easter holidays whatever to do these things and get it on because I do not want to be the person that has to freak out about this that was such a handy job if there's anyone like in five-year and underlisten to this I like even the weather and like kind of summer job and 100% go for that so handy is that a thing that's in every school I wonder oh I just assumed it was or you say they have real blossomed well no I don't know maybe they maybe some schools don't have the same selection process or maybe they just get people they know I don't know yeah I don't know your main job is actually like escorting like the exam students to and from like the bathroom so they don't like throw it off in the middle okay so yeah that's deadlines and stuff oh yeah when we're on the topic of plans earlier now we didn't want to get like too much into it because we have a whole podcast dedicated plans and every single podcast we have is dedicated and I'll go one without say we can't go a podcast that mentioned in plans but when it comes to it's just basically a big part of time management and when you're organized again you're creating your to do this and your sketches and all this especially when you're like a living sort of junior search and you have all of these subjects and you have many many chapters within these multiple subjects you're totally you're automatically already overwhelmed because you have these vast amounts of information across wildly different areas of knowledge and you're just automatically overwhelmed before you even get started and you that kind of doesn't help because you're you're talking about I just need to study French or like oh the exams are coming up I need to study biology and you think of it as a whole subject and it's like so overwhelming and if if you're kind of getting in that kind of stage sometimes it's so overwhelming you can't even start because you don't know where to and so one big thing that we always mention with that is that you have to just keep breaking down something until you get it in chunks and then you can start applying your little things like your your to-do lists and your and your notion planner your study planner so say like for example you want to revise the digestive system and break that down like so say like you have biology break it down so digestive system no pun intended and I did the TikTok on this before and I remember that I made the same joke and so you break down say okay so it was intended it was 100% intent right but just say that then okay anyway you have this the the digestive system and that's that's quite how she brought it up right down even more say you just want to study the diagram of the digestive system and you want to know all the parts and then you put that okay like how long is that going to take me and or you could just say if you could actually get this for the first five minutes because that's another kind of time motivation tool is like just if you don't know where to start just set yourself a timer for five minutes and say you're going to study for five minutes and that just gets the ball rolling so if you keep breaking down the subject until you get a task that will take you five minutes that's a really good way of just making the whole thing a lot more manageable and really good if you struggle to even get started yeah or okay I know we talk so much about plans but and this is maybe going a little overboard but like making a little plan within your plan for each task so for maybe just like for some things lend themselves much better to this like obviously we've talked to the past about making an essay plan and we have a whole template for an essay plan is because that's an example something where you actually do need to say okay well first of all I want to make a list of each of the points I want to make each paragraph and then the first thing on my in my plan after that is to write my introduction and then write decide what my conclusion is going to be and then I fill it you know you've got like a list of a couple of things there to do within one of the items on your list so you can do that for all the things as well like if if you know that you have like a relatively large work item to do within French and you're like okay well let's break this down into this and then within that what do I need to do and just make like really like tiny bullet points like it doesn't have to be big elaborate thing but just the more granular and organized you can get yourself it seems time consuming it might seem a little counterproductive but I think what you're going into the swing of it and like your brain is in that mode of thinking about things in like that that's granted our way and knowing how to plan that and do what and when and it will save you a long time in the long run a lot of time in the long run because you're not wasting all of this time in your head being like hmm so I wonder what I'll do here you waste so much time you know it's just like when you cut that out by just being like right task task task task task task need to do this need to do this don't know how to do this right I'm gonna straight away look up how do I do this you know just cut out the path and that's really good yeah I think I guess that's the last point and I feel like we we shouldn't be in the habit of saying this for every podcast because when we're making podcasts about like here's how you do this style but your junior and leaving search and we're just talking about just very practical things you can do and especially there when I mentioned about like the very nature of the junior and leaving search like all the knowledge that you're kind of expected to have and study and be constantly revising is crazy overwhelming so like I said that word like overwhelming you are naturally going to get super super stressed and I get people messaging me all the time thinking that they're literally on the brink of burnout and so I think it's important that we mention after all of this that we've said about how you can help yourself do this and this like all of everything we've said is hopefully to reduce the stress you feel and but just to know like to just be conscious of maybe like if you're making a plan and you're like packing too much into it or like it's getting really close to exams now so you're trying to do as much as you can you're trying to take all our tips on board and then packing all of that into everything you need to do in like the next couple of weeks or whatever and just be just be as realistic as possible like if it's looking like I mean at the stage if your lessons is when we put it out and you're doing like junior and leaving search exams there's only so much you can do you will have to prioritize so like please don't get too overwhelmed with trying to do everything because literally you were just a little human person there is only so much you can do please do not put too much pressure on yourself and just remember that and leaving search is or the junior cycle is never life or death like there's yeah yeah and no two days are the same you might have one day where you feel extremely productive and you get loads done and then the next day you feel like you've given yourself the same amount of task but suddenly you don't get any of it done and then you're really high on yourself because of it and you know just be be mindful that that every day is different and some other thing might have happened in that day to make you less productive or yeah just take every day as it comes and adapt to the how you're feeling but just try as much as you can to to get as much as your brain would allow you to get done in that day but if you feel it it's saying no acknowledge that too and give yourself that break and try again the following day I know especially like at the time that this podcast is going to be coming out it's getting really close to leaving search so people might be like well I don't have time to just give myself break one evening like I have to study study study but that won't do you any good because if your brain is really like I'm out I'm out for the night you you can't do anything about it so just try to listen to what everybody's telling you and and be kind to yourself you will be fine everyone is always fine at the end of the day and and it will all work out even though it doesn't seem like it might at the moment trust us it'll all come quite naturally to you and yeah and if you are leaving search in your listen to this oh my god it's nearly the end like how balls are you yeah isn't it great like yeah you're so close and you will do great and these next few weeks are going to lie like regardless of what you're hearing but like especially if in your in six year I remember I actually couldn't get over how quickly the last few weeks of school went out for Easter and and then the the leaving started itself also thankfully flies and oh my god so it'll be stressful but it's like I would also say well some general life advisors like to make the most of this kind of the last few weeks with your classmates because it's like it's so memorable like I really remember that the last few particularly the last two weeks of school like we all just got super close because we were all so aware that we weren't going to be together this close every day again like it's really like sentimental and sad like so when you're like you're obviously studying and that's kind of like at the forefront of your mind but be thinking of that too it's so important that's what you're going to remember forever not like exactly how many points you got in French you know that kind of thing yeah yeah it's so true so true let's end there I think love a good note and was there anything else you want to talk about no I think that's it and as per usual we are more than happy to hear from you at any time whether that be with podcast recommendations or things you want to hear us talk about whether it's feedback on what we've said or any additional questions you might have we you know our doors are always open here and so we click so get in touch with us via the website you can use the web chat if you have an account you can message us on our social media platforms we are you can email us at info@clixade sorry go ahead but you're social media I thought you said we are studying clicks everywhere facebook twitter instagram and tiktok and you should be able to message us instagram is the best one for messaging in terms of responses and yeah you can get you are just please follow us we do loads of amazing stuff on all those platforms we're constantly like linking back to blogs and stuff that you know you might forget our own study clicks are like remind you of all this great content so it's where else we're like we're really funny on social media but we're also super helpful so I think we're working on it yes definitely I'm I enjoyed even though it's not relevant even even it's not relevant to me it's and even I'm a little biased because I know and like all the people working on that it's fun and it is great so yeah let's leave it there I'm sure we'll be back again with some more tips and tricks and advice and a calming hopefully calming voice helping you and guiding you through school and exams but yeah we will be back soon thank you so much for listening as always we really appreciate all of our listeners out there those who support us if you want to and support us even more you can give us a review on Spotify or anywhere else you can leave us a nice comment you know read the the YouTube channel we're on YouTube we put these podcasts on YouTube so you can 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