My Top Study Suggestion for my Daughters

Next month my youngest daughter heads into her second year of University and my oldest into her first year of Graduate Studies, and although I've told both of them my various tips and tricks for studying, a good friend reminded me today I've never written them down, so here goes:

Introductory Time Management (a.k.a. Use a Calendar)
Remember how Junior High (middle school) and High School orientation days always included getting a student calendar/day planner? If you were like me, you'd kind of flip through the book, remove any fast food coupons, then toss it to the bottom of you bag or the back of your locker until it was time to clear everything out at the end of the year.

Here's the funny thing, if you actually use that calendar, it can make your life a whole lot simpler.

Personally, I create my own calendar, which is filled out as soon as I get my various course outlines, so that I can step back and look at all of my upcoming assignments, tests, presentations, etc. and decide where is the best way for me to spend my time for today.

Looking at my sample calendar for the month of October, I can see a couple tight spots, specifically at the beginning of the month where two mid-terms and an assignment fall; this let's me know that I should really make sure the assignment is through the rough stages before the tests, only leaving me with revisions after I write a mid-term on the 3rd.

Another great use of this method, is it let's you know at a glance, where the tightest spots are, so that you can go to your teacher way ahead of time and ask if you can hand in/present your work early. For obvious reasons this doesn't work with tests, but a little wiggle room for one paper can give you that much more time to work on your group presentation over the weekend.

Now there are many different ways of getting this type of work done (I've recently been looking at bullet journals as a possible alternative), but for me, the process of creating a term(or semester)-long calendar gives you a great visualization as to exactly where to do your school work most effectively.

Things I've Noticed: Choosing a Calendar can be Tricky

I know, I know - It seems silly, but seriously, sometimes this is the stuff I think about.  As November is nearing the end, and as I'm one of those people who tends to get their Christmas shopping done before December 1st, I'm actually on to the next big holiday decision I have to make every year.

Calendar choice

In my life there are four calendars I deal with on a regular basis - my desk calendar at work, the wall calendar in my home, and the calendars my kids put up in their rooms.

First, calendars for the kids - in the past they've had everything from cute puppies and landscapes to TV-show and movie calendars.  As the person who purchases their calendars for them each year, this can be a lot of fun or pretty uncomfortable.  Honestly, the kids let us know what kind of calendars they want, so in terms of choice, the first two calendars are not a big deal for me.

Next is my work Calendar, over the last few years I've either used the Life's Little Instruction Book Day-To-Day Calendar or a horror-themed calendar.  But since my old job was in a cubicle by myself, not many people got a look at my calendar, and at my new place, calendars are noticed (and commented on) - so I've got to pick a good one.  Do I want to spend the year being known as Sudoku-guy?  or Word-of-the-day-guy?  maybe I'll be Island-view guy?  I'm really not sure - perhaps there is a library-themed calendar I can use to self-identify with.

Finally there is our home calendar, which is usually either a landscape calendar or cute primate calendar (my wife likes monkeys and great apes), but due to a sad lack of good primate calendars this year, I may have to put in a vote, and this time it will end up being something she sees more often than me so I'd better make it count.  Right now I'm leading towards The Hobbit but perhaps we'll try Modern Family or something related to books - you know I really don't know.

Anyway, here are my key tips for calendar selection:

1) No Girly/Guy Calendars - seriously, at some point your mom/dad/son/daughter is going to come over, look at your calendar and judge you.

2) Realize you will be judged on your calendar selection (I'm judging you right now)

3) Make sure you really like whatever the subject of your calendar is - your going to be looking at it for the next year and that "Knock Knock-Joke-A-Day Calendar" you are looking at will get pretty old pretty fast

4) Make sure you go calendar shopping early as the good ones get snapped up quick (unless you're ordering online)

5) You have my full permission to smack anyone who tells you that you are putting far too much thought into your calendar purchase - don't these people know how important this is!?!

Things I've Noticed: I'm Starting to become a Zombie Expert

I once heard that if you want to be an expert in anything you need to spend 10,000 hours studying it. When I think of the things I’ve spent even close to that time studying the list gets pretty small (Obvsiously not including my wife, kids, schooling, etc.l.

1) Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

2) Fantasy Stories

3) Horror Stories

4) Science Fiction Stories

5) Reading

6) Watching Television

7) Watching Movies

After that, there are a few things I’ve studied for maybe 5000 hours; comic books, vampire stories, role playing games and zombie-themed horror stories

For Christmas last year I received a Zombie-themed desk calendar, which has been giving me new quotes, books, movies and games related to zombies for the past 47 days. Slowly but surely I’m building my knowledge of zombies in popular culture and this nifty little calendar his given me a lot of interesting starting points.

Now here’s my question for today – we (well, most of us) have losts of chunks of 10,000 hours to go in our lives – what exactly would you like to spend them on towards becoming an expert at?

For me (right now) it’s zombie trivia and knowledge, but eventually I’ll want to add Grandparenting, swimming, and other stuff to the list.

So I’ll leave you with the best advice I can give you on the topic, in the immortal words of any number of zombies...

BRAINS!!!

Read into that what you will.