How To Study For Any Exam - Unjaded Jade | Modern Wisdom Podcast 368

Jade Bowler is a YouTuber and an author. It's weird that we spend the first 18 years of our lives desperately trying to study and revise for exams, but no one every actually teaches us how to study or revise. Thankfully Jade is kind of a professional nerd and StudyTuber, and today she breaks down exactly what science says are the best ways to own an exam. Expect to learn the fundamental principles for remembering anything, Jade's most effective strategies for revision, how to prepare for the final 24 hours before an exam, the biggest productivity mistakes which pretty much everyone makes and much more... Sponsors: Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at http://bit.ly/modernwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get 20% discount on Reebok’s entire range including the amazing Nano X1 at https://geni.us/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Buy Jade's Book - https://amzn.to/3jzuwRf Follow Jade on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/UnJadedJade Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #unjadedjade #revision #studytips - 00:00 Intro 02:02 Learning How to Study 14:16 Most Effective Study Methods 20:16 How to Schedule a Timetable 25:53 Biggest Productivity Mistakes & Hacks 36:17 Excelling in Homework/Coursework 45:27 The 24 Hours Before an Exam 58:30 Where to Find Jade - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This actually, I think, is one of the most important things that people should understand. Because so much of how people often revise is passive. It's where you're looking at information and it makes you feel intelligent. Because of course, everything you're looking at is right. You know, you're looking at a diagram with everything already labelled for you and you're nodding away, feeling like you're putting it in your brain. You're flicking through that textbook, you're re- re- rereading your notes, you're spending hours rereading. It just feels like you are full of information, but in reality, none of that is going in.

• 0:32Chris Williamson?

  Hi Jade, welcome to the show.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hello Chris, it is an honour to be here.

• 0:37Chris Williamson?

  Tell me about your university. You're doing this multi-city thing, right? What is it?

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Yes, so I go to a relatively new university. It's called Manava. It's based in San Francisco and it's like a super international cohort of people. But every semester, we move. So me and all my friends, we move to different cities that have been predefined by the university. And so it's kind of a study abroad, but built into the fabric of how the degree works. So my first year I spent in San Francisco and then last year I lived in Seoul in South Korea. This term I'll be studying in Berlin in Germany. So it is this crazy whirlwind of a degree for sure.

• 1:19Chris Williamson?

  Are you becoming one of those Russian secret agent things? Because this sounds like, this sounds like one of those prep.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  I don't want to expose myself.

• 1:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I mean, that's also what a Russian secret agent, that's exactly what they would say to try and cover their tracks.

• 1:33Speaker 00

  That is true. I'm just packaged in a innocent-looking girl.

• 1:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, perhaps. So what are you studying? Do you still choose courses in the same way?

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Yes, so because it's the US system, you can do a major and a minor. And I've chosen to do a double major in cognitive neuroscience and business brand management. So very different things, which I think gets across how indecisive I am, but I really love learning. So yeah, I've kind of got the science in there, but also the more practical business stuff.

• 2:01Chris Williamson?

  I like it. Yeah, so given that you've made a YouTube channel and released a book specialising in study tips, why do you think it is that no one ever actually teaches us how to study in school? Because there's obviously a demand for this.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  For sure. This is a question I ask myself a lot because I think a lot in the school system would be solved if only there were dedicated classes teaching you about the science of learning, about how humans learn. And I think they try sometimes. There's things like, oh, are you a visual learner or an auditory learner, which often misses the point because you're asking students to work out themselves as opposed to looking back at real research about how all humans learn and then using that as a base for you to then go away and practise your own revision techniques which work for you. Honestly, I think a lot of the school system is outdated, so it's probably just something that hasn't been caught up with yet.

• 2:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I don't know. It's part of me thinks that it would make the teachers' lives a lot easier. If what you're fighting with for the most part is just combating the fact that the students don't understand how retention works, or don't understand how to link different concepts together. So if I was a teacher, no matter what subject it is, why not just spend the first couple of days of whatever course it is, or even at university, if you took the first hour of the first lecture, it's just about, look, this is how learning works. Here you go. It would just make the rest of your life so much easier.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  For sure. And especially because so much emphasis is put on your exam grades. Effectively, your whole school life is thinking about, how can I condense this textbook into my mind and then put that onto a piece of paper to get a grade, which is going to determine the university that I go to, potentially the job I get, where I live, like the whole rest of my life. And that crucial step between first learning it in the classroom and then getting those exam results is missing from the education system. That middle part of how to revise is up to students.

• 4:03Chris Williamson?

  How would you characterise the sort of student that you were and are?

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Oh, I love learning. So I'm, I was kind of that nerdy student in the back who would sort of keep my head down and just get on with my work. And I really liked what I was doing. And I went to a very average state school. So I often felt quite alienated for loving learning as much as I did. And yeah, I was just kind of thought of myself as very uncool. And there were times where I, I, you know, tried to dull the fact that I like learning and to, you know, to fit in or to pretend to be cool or more popular. But I don't know. Now I think I've really embraced it. And that's part of why my YouTube channel, where

• 4:49Speaker 00

  I pioneered a space called Study Tube, which is all about learning and other students who want to get better at learning or enjoy it. It was a really big thing for me because it sort of validated this, this love of school.

• 5:01Chris Williamson?

  That's what the internet's done, right? It's permitted people that were niched down so hard that they couldn't find someone to resonate with in the real world. It's allowed them to find other people that they can build a community around.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  For sure. Yeah. And I never expected to take off. Can you imagine my surprise? When I was there making videos like, "Study with me for half an hour. Study with me for an hour." I would literally be revising something for a test I had the next day and would just record it on my phone. And videos like that would sometimes get a million views.

• 5:35Chris Williamson?

  And think about how hard it is now to get a million views. Look at all of the work that you have to put into a video, going to places, doing things.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 5:42Chris Williamson?

  Nightmare. Should have just put, just, just put it on loop.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Should have just been studying, Chris.

• 5:46Chris Williamson?

  I know. What a hack. All right. So how do we learn? What are the basics?

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Okay, so something I talk about in my book is an acronym I came up with, which is SAD. So S double A D. And the idea is like revision can be very sad. It can be kind of a miserable experience. So rather than it being sad, how can you turn it sad? And each of these things stand for a little hack based off the science of learning, where I've done loads of research into different academic papers and evidence-based techniques. So boiled it down to four things that you can look at every way that you're revising to question yourself whether it's actually effective or not. And I don't know if you want me to run through what those are?

• 6:30Chris Williamson?

  Yes, please.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  I guess I've led a bit of mystery now. Yes, so the first one is S, which is spaced repetition. So this is the idea of the forgetting curve of human memory. So yeah, how we learn is humans, we often like to sit there, we like to cram, think we're studying by revising for 10-hour blocks and then going away and not reviewing this information for a very long time. But that's not how human memory works. We start off at 100% of whatever we've learnt and then it exponentially decreases. Human memory just absolutely decays over time. So you can imagine, you know, you've had a class, you've had a new lesson on something in biology and then two days later, you can't even remember a single thing you've just looked at.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  And then when you come to revise it again in a month, you're starting totally from scratch because you don't even remember what you first learnt. So the idea of spaced repetition is you can hack human memory by reviewing this information at regularly increasing intervals. So for example, you have that day in your classroom where you've learnt something new. Then the day after, you go back and you look at it. Then three days after, you go back and look at it, five days, seven days, and you slowly increase that time and all of a sudden it's being put into your long-term memory. So that is the first S, spaced repetition. And you know, that applies to any technique you're going to use, whether that's flashcards or even highlighting your notes. If you are going to be repeating it, it's going to go in more, a lot, a lot better

• 8:00Speaker 00

  than doing it once in a blue moon.

• 8:02Chris Williamson?

  Do you know if that applies to physical skills as well?

• 8:07Speaker 00

  I wouldn't be surprised if it does, but I don't have a lot of expertise on muscle memory and that kind of thing. Yeah, but I wouldn't be surprised because I guess it's still a facet of human learning.

• 8:18Chris Williamson?

  Interesting. All right, what's the A?

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Okay, so we've got two As in here. We've got active recall. So this is, this actually, I think, is one of the most important things that people should understand because so much of how people often revise is passive. It's where you're looking at information and it makes you feel intelligent because of course, everything you're looking at is right. You know, you're looking at a diagram with everything already labelled for you and you're nodding away, feeling like you're putting it in your brain. You're flicking through that textbook, you're re-reading your notes, you're spending hours re-reading and it just feels like you are full of information. But in reality, none of that is going in. And it's actually really counterintuitive how learning works. It's less about what

• 9:03Speaker 00

  you're putting in and breathing into your brain. It's more about what you're testing yourself on and what you're dragging out. And that is what active recall is. It's sitting down, asking yourself tough questions about the topic that you're trying to learn and trying to find the answers yourself. And if you can't find them, you can then look at them and then the next day you're going to ask yourself the questions again. So it's finding revision techniques which are, yeah, requiring that more active element.

• 9:32Chris Williamson?

  That's something, like, active recall is something that I never knew was a thing when I was at uni. Bonkers.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  It is bonkers. And it's crazy because, you know, even the aesthetic of studying, I feel, is highlighting. You know, you have pastel highlighters and you feel really good about it when you're going through.

• 9:51Chris Williamson?

  That's just you, Jade. That's just you.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  Oh, maybe that's just me in the aesthetic, like, studies Tumblr world, but.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's something about highlighting information which makes you feel like you're doing something valuable. But when you look into the science of it, it doesn't actually do that much for you.

• 10:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it has to be repeated recall, not repeated exposure. Like, that's the difference between the two. And you're totally correct. As you look at something over and over again, you become more familiar with it. But familiarity and recall ability are not the same thing. But they can, they can kind of like seem like they're the same thing. As you read a page, you go, oh, yeah, yeah, that bit, the paragraph about, about the Berlin Wall, or whatever it is that you're learning about. You know what's coming up, but you don't know it enough to be able to close the textbook and do it. So what's a, what's a good way for someone to do active recall? Just look at a, look at a question, close it, try and answer it?

• 10:53Speaker 00

  So one of my favorite techniques, which I talk about in a different chapter of how to apply these methods, is called blurt-ing. And the idea is-

• 11:01Chris Williamson?

  That's a disgusting word.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  It's a horrible name, isn't it? But it's memorable.

• 11:07Chris Williamson?

  I'm not gonna forget that.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, I've talked about this on my YouTube channel before, and I think it's the most popular revision method that's been discussed. I have people, even to this day, messaging me being like, Jade, blurt-ing has changed my life.

• 11:19Chris Williamson?

  All right. Well, let's hold on, let's hold on to that. Let's finish off sad, and then we'll get into that, that word that I really don't want to say.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Um, so yeah, the other A is associations, which is the idea that whenever you're learning something new, if you can associate it to something you already know, the likelihood that you're gonna remember it and that you're gonna, you're gonna make sense of it is exponentially higher. So I use a non-study example, just to explain this to people, is how I'm often able to remember people's names quite well. If you think, you know, you're at a party, you're going around, you're meeting so many new people, and when you hear someone's name, the odds are you've forgotten about it before they've even finished saying it. And the way that you can remember names more easily is if, when, the second you hear their name,

• 12:09Speaker 00

  trying to associate it to something else that you know about either that name, or the way that person looks, or something about that word. And an example I give is, you know, say someone is called Charlotte. So it's a standard name, very easy to forget. But if in that one or two seconds, you can think about a Charlotte that you know, maybe your neighbour's called Charlotte and you're you're taking one second just to think, oh, this person doesn't really look like my neighbour Charlotte. Or, oh, I don't know, like just some something, some element of the name that brings up an association or a memory, um, just means that the next time you see that person, you're bringing to mind this association that you've created for yourself and you're more likely to bring that word, that name back.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  And the way that you can apply this to studying is, say, you're learning something new in a classroom, um, when you're learning something, if you can instantly think, okay, how does this link to the last class I took? How does this link to a different topic or even a different subject? How does this work for a test question I've seen? And even just scribbling notes on the side, like, oh, I've seen something like this before, is really increasing the associations and the the rate of retention that you'll have because you're building on foundations of your existing knowledge.

• 13:26Chris Williamson?

  All right, D.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  D, desirable difficulty. So this is the idea that we don't really like to challenge ourselves naturally. You're always going to reach for what feels easy. And so that means if a subject, you're really good at it, you're more likely to go back and study it than that subject that you really hate. Um, so it's constantly questioning, does this feel really easy for me right now? And if it does, how can I make it harder? So maybe you're looking at a flashcard set and it's just got quite easy for you. Then it's time to move on to test questions or practice papers or something that while you're doing it feels like a challenge. And that's how you know that you're you're spending your time well.

• 14:10Chris Williamson?

  I like it. Okay, so that's the four fundamental pillars of how we study and how we learn. What are the most effective study methods?

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Okay, so, um, I list 10 in my book, uh, one of which is, I know you don't like the word.

• 14:27Chris Williamson?

  It's awful.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Blurring, it is awful. But you know what? You're gonna blur out your knowledge, so it is memorable. Ah, blur, blur that knowledge, Chris.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Awful.

• 14:40Chris Williamson?

  Alright, so let's learn that one first.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Yes. Okay, so the idea is you take something that you're trying to learn, trying to remember. Maybe it's a process in science that's just, you know, not sticking with you and you're like, cool, I'm gonna revise this. What you do is you write yourself a few prompt words about the process or about the chapter. And then you effectively write down, you blurt down everything you can remember from your brain. Like, everything based off these prompt words. So you're listing out the process, you're listing out key words, you draw diagrams. Whatever you can remember, if it's, you know, English literature and you're trying to blurt a theme or about a character. You're just writing down whatever you can remember.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  And then you're going back and you're comparing what you've written down to your notes or to a textbook. And straight away, you can see how much you do and don't know. Like, there's no lying to yourself anymore. There's no reading the textbook.

• 15:41Chris Williamson?

  Is the aim to try and replicate the textbook as closely as possible? Is it just sort of rote memorization here? What are we actually aiming for?

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Yes, it depends on the subject. So unfortunately, the way that our academic system often works is a lot of rote memorization is necessary. So especially science topics, you have to get things almost word for word as the mark scheme wants it in order to get a grade. And so these are the moments where you do want to be able to produce that from your head. You don't want to just understand it. You want to be able to, yeah, recall it. So blurting is where you can write that down and then compare it to your notes and straight away see what you're not strong in. But I think it's also a good way to test your understanding. Because it's one thing to say that you understand how a historical event happened and understand the causes.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  But when it comes to writing it down or explaining it to a friend, teaching someone else, you instantly see these gaps in your knowledge. And then writing it down is just a more formal way of testing yourself and then looking back and be able to fill in those gaps.

• 16:43Chris Williamson?

  Alright, what's another one?

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Flashcards, simple, easy. I'm sure you're familiar with flashcards, right?

• 16:52Chris Williamson?

  Are we talking Anki or are we talking highlighters on the top of a piece of paper?

• 16:57Speaker 00

  Yes, so you can do both. But the beauty of Anki, I don't know if all the listeners are familiar with it. It's a flashcard software that already has the idea of spaced repetition built into it. So you've made your flashcard and they will go back and test you on things that you get wrong. They're going to test you at regular intervals. So it supports the science of learning within the app. But you can also do this with, you know, with your classic pen, your paper. And the beauty of flashcards is you can put test questions on it. You're writing something on one side and then it invites that active recall from yourself because you're not seeing the answer straight away. You have to turn over the flashcard to get the answer out of yourself. So that's a really good technique.

• 17:39Chris Williamson?

  All right, give us one more.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Maybe like quite a niche one, just because that's fun. I don't know if you've heard of Sherlock's Mind Palace.

• 17:52Chris Williamson?

  I have heard of Sherlock's.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  You have, yes. So the idea is it's like object association. So what Sherlock did in order to remember a lot of facts is he would create rich retrieval cues and those retrieval cues can be objects. So thinking about in your house, imagining yourself walking into your living room can be a prompt for you remembering a fact or a piece of knowledge. So if you think every single time that you're going to look in your mirror, you're going to repeat a certain fact to yourself in your head. Then when you're trying to recall that fact, you can just think back to a certain location and it will just be a prompt for you to remember that.

• 18:30Chris Williamson?

  How similar is that to the associations thing that you brought up earlier on? That just sounds like a direct, sort of a direct correlation.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Oh, you mean the the concept of association?

• 18:39Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like the most direct way to do it, surely.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly, yes, which is why it's kind of supported by evidence and science of learning that it works. So if you were to go through that sad framework on each of the techniques I just mentioned, it sort of ticks all the boxes as being something that is actually effective.

• 18:57Chris Williamson?

  It's interesting. I did a talk earlier this year and I searched the internet to find out what's the best way to remember an 18 minute talk. And tons and tons of people suggested to do some sort of a mind palace, but just through your house. So you're walking into your house and the first sentence is there at the front door and then you turn into the living room. For me personally, that felt like it was almost as much work to create the walk through the house as it was to remember it. And I just ended up going for sort of brute force memorization through a bit of spaced repetition and active recall. And that was that was perfectly fine. So I'm going to guess that there must be times where people can overcomplicate

• 19:38Chris Williamson?

  the learning process by trying to use too many tools or by trying to use inappropriate tools.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Yes, I find techniques like this should be used really sparingly. It's if there's something that just for whatever reason isn't going into your head. Like, I think there was one process or something that I just couldn't get my head around, like, you know, ask friends and it just wasn't going in. And then turning to techniques like this, which are a little bit different, almost to make it fun too, because it's not fun to go over and keep learning something that you don't understand or you don't like. Um, yeah, so you shouldn't use this for everything, but is proven to be a good technique when used effectively.

• 20:17Chris Williamson?

  Cool. How should people schedule their study timetable?

• 20:20Speaker 00

  Okay, so this again is is personal preference. Some people like to schedule minute to minute, but something I discuss in my book is sort of your do's and don'ts for timetabling based off of other people's experiences and research. Yeah, so. What you've got to do to create a good timetable is practise. Like, you need to get good at estimating how long things take you to do. When you've got twenty four subjects, uh twenty four exams, sorry, at GCSE. Some people, you know, take twelve or thirteen subjects, you've got a lot of things to juggle. And the beauty of a timetable is you're using, you're optimising your time before that exam to make sure that you're going over everything most effectively.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Um, but in order to plan stuff, you need to know how long it's going to take you to go over flashcards. You know, how long is it actually realistically going to take you to do some blurting for that thing that you don't remember? Um, so yeah, so I really recommend just even for to for today or for tomorrow, look at your afternoon. Um, and just, just try, like, go on Google Calendar, schedule like five to ten minutes for whatever you're trying to learn. And instantly you'll probably see your, um, uh, your underestimating how long it takes you to do stuff. So then you can go back, you can improve upon your methods of how, how your estimation works.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  Um, I'd say always be super generous with yourself as well when you're planning things. Uh, like, leave an extra ten minutes. Something which I see people not doing a lot is leaving shuffle time. Like, plan shuffle time in between activities. Shuffle time is you putting away your folders, you getting out your textbooks, you opening up Anki. So when you're going from one activity to another, people will often on their timetable just sort of put it at the same time. So like, when I get to six P M, I'm going to stop writing flashcards and I'm going to start, uh, I don't know, blurting. But then they don't leave this five to ten minutes.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  And then all of a sudden, you're, you're running to catch up with your timetable because you're a few minutes behind. So leaving like ten minutes in between is just a really good way to be generous with yourself, to leave time to, um, I don't know, go get a drink of water. Yeah.

• 22:44Chris Williamson?

  How should people, how should people break this up? Should they break it up by topic? Should they break it up by learning style? Is it best to spend an entire day on, let's say that it is GCSEs or it's university or whatever? Is it best to stick to one module for an entire day? Or are you supposed to interleave her? Talk to me about that.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Yes, it's cool you bring up interleaving, actually. So there is science which suggests that if you go between topics, you're more likely to recall them than just being deep in one for too long. So I think the best way to do it is firstly, write down all the topics that you've got to learn, like every, every chapter, every module. And sort of plan how you're going to do your timetable by looking at how difficult your findings, how much attention they need and the urgency. So this is a process that I go through in my book of ranking your subjects and where you're at with them. So if you know that one thing is gonna, is a lot harder, you can rank it as a red or an amber or a green.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  And based off of that, funnel it into your timetable based on how long it needs. And then when you're looking at individual days of planning it, I think it's also worth thinking about when you work best. So some people, that's early morning. Some people, you know, do work better late at night. And thinking about tackling the hardest subjects at the time that you're naturally the best and most on it. So for me, that tended to be the morning. So you could put those tasks in the morning, especially the ones that you're not looking forward to, like writing practice essays or lengthy ones. And then interleaving it in between with subjects that just have a lower cognitive load for you based off of how naturally you find it.

• 24:28Chris Williamson?

  What about taking breaks or moving in between? Stuff like that, because getting out of flow and getting back into flow can be difficult. And sometimes taking a break can be more detrimental. But then after a while, you get diminishing returns. Have you got any advice on how long people should try and block for?

• 24:46Speaker 00

  For sure. So this actually runs into the next chapter, which is the Pomodoro Technique. I'm sure you're familiar with it. It's an amazing productivity hack, but also a great way to plan your timetables. The idea is that you set a timer for 25 minutes, which is one Pomodoro. And you choose just one task to focus on for the full 25 minutes. And if you get distracted, you start the timer again. And it really encourages you to not be half revising, where you're half on your phone and half doing one thing or jumping around between topics. So you spend the 25 minutes doing that one, one, one thing. And then you reward yourself with a five minute break. And I find five minutes is a really good amount of time to.

• 25:26Speaker 00

  Actually relax but not get distracted. So you're being intentional, you're going to the toilet, you're getting a drink, you're doing whatever. But because you've set the timer up, you're not going to get distracted. Like, you're not gonna overly scroll or get too lost in messaging someone or FaceTiming a friend because you know that you've got your next Pomodoro already ready to go. And it's only one task that you're going to be focusing on again.

• 25:53Chris Williamson?

  What are some of the biggest mistakes that you think people make with regards to productivity?

• 25:59Speaker 00

  Oof, so many. I think one of the biggest mistakes in productivity is thinking that you have to be on all the time and almost the definition of what productivity is. To me, productivity is spending time well. That's the definition. And when we're thinking about the grind or the hustle in exam season, that can often be equated to just sitting there and doing work of some kind. You know, that's like studying smarter or studying harder. I think productivity is often equated to this study harder, you know, like flick the textbook more,

• 26:37Speaker 00

  keep inhaling more information, just do, do, do, and not stopping to question what the productive activity actually is and what the output out of it should be. And I go through an equation in my book of how I define productivity and what makes up successful productivity. I can go through that if that's helpful.

• 27:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, absolutely. I think just to just to kind of bookend that, I think you are correct that the hustle side of productivity suggests that you should have your nose on the grindstone. But the number of times that I was in uni and I'd look across and people would be in the library for the entire day just to be able to say that they'd been in the library for the entire day, but they hadn't spent more than an hour or a couple of hours doing their revision. So you've had a miserable day in a place that you don't want to be, surrounded by crap food, where you haven't actually achieved anything. And then you get home and you're completely ashamed of yourself and super guilty. You've had a rubbish day, but you haven't even been able to benefit from the fact that you didn't do revision, which is actually what you did. You didn't, you didn't get

• 27:42Chris Williamson?

  too much revision done. And you just decided to kind of, I don't know, tether yourself to the library in the desperate attempt to make some revision happen.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  For sure. Yeah. And I think what's truly productive is getting the meaningful output, getting that deep work, but also scheduling like fun stuff, you know, like getting it off of the desk and relaxing or doing mindfulness, watching your favorite TV show, spending time with friends, all these equally productive activities because they mean you're also spending your time well and that you're going to be refreshed when you do go back to sit down at that desk.

• 28:19Chris Williamson?

  What's an overhyped productivity tool or strategy?

• 28:24Speaker 00

  Oh, um, hmm. I think screen time blocks on social media are a bit overhyped. You know where people will set a limit of like 30 minutes a day for Instagram or TikTok? Because I think people are almost setting a challenge up for themselves to like use that up. And then like I encourage you, like, oh, you know, I've got that amount allowed today. So you you sit there and you go on it. And then when eventually the little thing pops up to tell you've reached your limit, you can just click it away and just continue scrolling and it's it's really easy. So I think thinking more about systems of how

• 29:07Speaker 00

  you're learning and systems for going on social media as opposed to like short term hacks and short term limits.

• 29:15Chris Williamson?

  What's your system for controlling social media use?

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. So it comes back to timetabling for me, just thinking about my priorities. So if I know I've got an exam in a few days, the priority should be doing effective revision. It doesn't need to take up the whole day. But if I can put that into my into my timetable first, you just feel great when you've got like the most important things done. And then social media is great, too. Like, it isn't just procrastination. Like, it's also super enjoyable and you should be able to like go and go on a mindless scroll. So I think it's it's setting up the other stuff first and planning that in advance. So you don't feel guilty when you are doing so-called mindless activities.

• 29:59Chris Williamson?

  All right. So what about productivity hacks for studying? What are your best ones?

• 30:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the Pomodoro technique is definitely one of the best, but I also love the idea of sanctity of space. I don't know if you've heard of this before, it's the idea that you have only one location for a certain thing. So if you think about the way you're setting up your brain, when you go to the kitchen, you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna eat or I'm gonna make food. Generally, when you lie down in bed, you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna relax or I'm gonna go to sleep. So it's thinking about when you are at your desk, what do you want to be doing? What is your brain coming to associate your desk with? Is it like scrolling on your phone? Is it also calling your friends and studying?

• 30:43Speaker 00

  Like when you go to the library, are you thinking, oh, cool, I can go meet my mates and we can go chat there and sit there and just chill? So if you can develop one space, which is where you go to do your deep work, then that is that is one of the best techniques because you're creating a sanctity, a discipline around doing a certain activity there. And it means you're less likely to overstay, you're more likely to be productive and do the work when you need to. Um, yeah, so I highly recommend that, even if it is, um, you're like staying behind at school or a library, like if home isn't the best place to create that space.

• 31:19Chris Williamson?

  But think about the environmental triggers that you have when you go to the gym. Everyone during COVID, no one has ever worked out as hard in their house as they have when they actually go to the gym. And it's because of the ritual. You pack your bag and you get in the car and you put Spotify on and you listen to the thing and you say hello to the receptionist and you put your bag in the locker and it's all part of the priming, those environmental triggers prime you. It's interesting, there's an equivalent in powerlifting. One of my buddies is a really high level powerlifting competitor. And he has a playlist of about four or five songs that he only listens to when he's going for a PR or when he's competing. So these songs, if he hears them come on in a supermarket, he'll just sprint out of the supermarket.

• 32:05Chris Williamson?

  Or he'll turn the radio off because he only wants to hear that when it's time to be 100% switched on.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, and as you say, it's a ritual, right? So like for some people, they'll have a certain playlist, like a study playlist or a certain jumper that you're gonna put on, like an outfit.

• 32:22Chris Williamson?

  Have you got a revision outfit?

• 32:24Speaker 00

  Um, I, I don't, but I do.

• 32:26Chris Williamson?

  Revision sucks.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Just like, you know, like a slumpy, like cute outfit where you're like, yeah, okay, cool, like, especially when you have to wear school uniform in the UK. There's just something so nice about coming home and like ripping that off and putting something comfy on to get that work done.

• 32:44Chris Williamson?

  Okay, what else? Productivity hacks for studying. Pomodora technique, keeping your space sacred.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Ah, yes. Um, are you familiar with the eighty twenty rule?

• 32:55Chris Williamson?

  Yes, but not in terms of how it relates to studying.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  Yes, um, so this is kind of the whole concept of work smarter, not harder. I don't, so for everyone listening who's not familiar with the eighty twenty principle, Pareto principle, the idea is that eighty percent of the outcome or the grade that you're gonna get generally comes from twenty percent of the input. So if you think about all your total time spent learning something in a classroom or preparing revision resources or going over those resources, doing practice papers, like not all of that is gonna directly contribute to you getting a mark in an exam or not. Um, so it's, it's kind of working out what the twenty percent of your entire revision process is and optimizing that.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  So that comes back to using these techniques which are guaranteed to work, setting up your space to allow yourself to get into that deep work. Um, yeah, and then finding ways to optimize that twenty percent to get the most, uh, in terms of grades and translating it to the exams.

• 34:00Chris Williamson?

  How do you identify that twenty percent?

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think it is going back to firstly, the framework, asking yourself the questions of the sad techniques.

• 34:10Chris Williamson?

  So does it fit into one of those four pillars?

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Exactly, is what I'm doing fitting into those four pillars, then it's likely fitting into this 20% of good revision.

• 34:21Chris Williamson?

  What would be an example of something that that people might do that doesn't fit into that?

• 34:29Speaker 00

  Hmm, I think making your resources can take a super, like a very long time, whether that is creating your Anki decks, or you know, creating flashcards, setting up a whole mind palace, that is the necessary stuff to do the 20%, but there are ways that you can optimize that. If you think about, you know, you have friends who are taking the same courses as you, can you come together and create an Anki deck for the same course and optimize that part of it, so that when you're doing the 20%, which is going to get you the grade, revising it, you've already optimized your time.

• 35:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, people definitely obsess over how stuff looks. I've seen your notion, so I appreciate, I appreciate that there's a, there's an aesthetic that some people prefer to work in, but you can definitely overcook that. And you can spend so much time just making stuff look nice, and it's low key procrastination, right? I am working, yeah, but you're not doing the thing that actually matters. You're not doing something within the 20 that creates the 80.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, this is, I actually have a whole section in my book about ditching the aesthetics, because I had a lot of friends, you know, who would labor over how their notes would look and spend so much time directly copying up what they've done in class onto a new piece of paper, or onto a new flashcard, and have music blaring in the back, and it becomes a fun activity, which is great if you want studying to be the fun part for you, but thinking about the 20% which is going to get you the grade, if you're just purely looking to optimize your time, then definitely cut out the aesthetics.

• 36:08Chris Williamson?

  Ditch the highlighters, yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's no science on the highlighters being that great.

• 36:12Chris Williamson?

  So we should be skeptical, highly skeptical of anything that's highlighted. Right, fine, I'm in for that. What about coursework and homework? Obviously, not everyone is assessed purely through exam. What are some of the tips that you've got for coursework and homework?

• 36:27Speaker 00

  Yes, um, I think routine is the best one. So I wrote a whole chapter about habit formation and drawing on a lot of incredible books like Atomic Habits. I don't know if you've read that book. Um, and sort of breaking down what is a habit, like if you look at the loop. Um, uh, every habit is three things. You've got a routine, which is you performing the habit. You've got something that cues you doing the habit. And then you've also got a reward, so something that you're craving out of getting this habit done. So if you look at, you know, how you brush your teeth every day. What you're looking for is the feeling of cleanliness or that that minty freshness. And then you've built a routine, maybe straight away after getting out of bed, you're going and brushing your teeth. Um, and then you you're getting that reward, you're craving it.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  Um, and thinking about when you come home from school, for example, what are you doing first? Are you taking off your school uniform? Are you like getting a snack? Are you talking with friends? Do you go on your phone? And if you can create a routine around getting homework done at the same time every day for a similar amount of time. It just takes out all the stress and the friction. All of routines and habits are eliminating friction because you're making things no longer a choice. You're not choosing to come home and either do your homework or go on your phone. You've decided that every day you're gonna do your homework for like half an hour. And then you've got a whole afternoon to do whatever you want. So, yeah, if you can think about when you come home, what is it that you're doing right now?

• 37:57Speaker 00

  And how can you, how can you use something that exists in your routine to create a new homework habit? So if the first thing that you do when you come home is get a glass of water. Maybe you can say to yourself, when I grab that glass of water, I'm gonna walk straight upstairs. Put it down on the table and get out my planner and see what homework I've got to do for the day. And then that's, that's more likely to stick to your routine because you're attaching this new habit of getting your homework done at that time to an existing habit of getting your glass of water every day. And then the more that you can repeat this, preferably over thirty days or a month or so, um, then it will, it will just start to not become a chore.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  You know, you come home, you get your glass of water, you come home, you put it down, you do your homework and you don't think about it. And then all of a sudden, you've got a whole afternoon evening to do whatever you want.

• 38:48Chris Williamson?

  This is the equivalent for people who are doing continuous professional development, whether it's at work or whatever as well, right? You finished work, you drive home, you get home, what am I going to do? One piece of advice that I would try and give people is to probably reduce the number of steps between doing the thing that you already do and doing the thing that you want to do. So let's say that you do get home, oh, well, I might go for a walk for a bit and then make food and then do a bit of stretching and then I'll go and revise. It's like, no, no, no, just, just get to the thing that you don't want to do as quickly as possible. It's the reason that morning routines work. You, you do the thing that you're trying to do before you can realise that you've started doing it.

• 39:30Chris Williamson?

  You're like, oh, God, before I knew it, I've actually done the thing and now I've finished. I think that a lot of the time it is kind of like low key procrastination that people don't really tell themselves it is when I'm going to do this first and I'll do that. Well, yeah, because I deserve a stretch because if I ease my back out, if my back's a little bit looser, then I'm going to be more upright when I'm sitting and revise it. It's like, no, just get it done.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 39:56Chris Williamson?

  Good, good. Well, if it's got your seal of approval, that'll work. So a lot of students are probably frozen by perfectionism and a fear of failure. And it sounds like, at least at school, that was something that you struggled with. How can people get past that?

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, it's such a tough one because there are expectations from everyone to do well. You know, like even if you're not that invested in school, you still know that it's going to affect your life in some way. Whether that is next steps, apprenticeships, university, and there, there's often a lot of weight around the grades that you're getting. And I know that for myself, I developed quite an unhealthy perfectionism around. Getting that next better grade, like even if I got eighty percent, well, why didn't I get eighty one percent or eighty two percent? Um, and I think the way that the school system currently works, where you are just given these numerical values off and off of what you just wrote memorized.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  Um, you can come to associate your sense of self-worth in these grades that you're getting and it's not good, it's not healthy. Um, and some things that really helped me are taking a step back firstly and thinking about the whole system in perspective and your place in it. Cause I think when you're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, all your whole life is sort of going to school and then doing stuff outside of school and, and that's it. So it's no wonder that you are placing so much thought into these exams. But when you see it in the grand scheme of your life, there are so many skills and parts to you as a person, which are far more valuable than this grade you're gonna get.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  And I think it reduces the perfectionism when you see that you doing your best in that moment with the resources that you've got, with the time that you've got, is enough, it really is enough, like you are gonna succeed, whether you get the eighty percent or the eighty one percent, whether you miss a grade and, you know, you don't get what you're expected to get, whether you go to a different university or plans change. All you can do is your best and things are gonna work out for you, you know, you've got a whole personality, people skills, other interests that school can't grade you on. And so especially people who aren't that academic, um, it's just worth seeing yourself outside of this very narrow system that you're currently in

• 42:19Speaker 00

  and trying to put less pressure on it, still motivate yourself to do well within it and optimize your techniques and develop habits like good discipline, but also not get too caught up in what these grades could mean for the rest of your life.

• 42:33Chris Williamson?

  That's a microcosm for the rest of your existence. People obsess over a very sort of narrow band of things that they're trying to do, whether this be becoming a chartered accountant while they work at one of the big four accountancy firms, or whether it's getting to a level of body fat percentage whilst they're in the gym, or whatever it might be. We presume that we magnify the impact that this particular one pursuit is going to have. And obviously, when you're younger, if you are 14, 15, 16, you don't have that breadth of experience. But I don't think that the compulsion goes away as you grow up and you get through your twenties.

• 43:12Chris Williamson?

  One of the things that I noticed that happened, I never had the perfectionist trap for academia ever. Very, very sort of average student, two, one at uni and then a masters with a, with a pass, like a high pass. No merit, sorry, a high merit, but I never once felt that lack when it was, oh, I got 67 instead of 68. I'm like, thank fuck I got 67. I thought I was gonna get 57. Yeah, exactly. Survived another year of university. That was kind of how I saw it. However, where I did get that perfectionist trap was in business. So I attached my sense of self-worth very quickly to the success of the business. What's the revenue looking like? How busy is it? What are the sort of reviews?

• 43:54Chris Williamson?

  Is it popular? And that compulsion, it's just like this mechanism which exists that, that pulls people along. And just because you've escaped it, for the students who are resonating more with me and saying, well, I don't have this perfectionist concern with university or school or whatever my developments, it's like, yeah, wait until you come up against the thing that you actually do. Because there's probably something out there that is going to compel you to be completely obsessive about it. And these rules still apply. There is far more to you than that one pursuit in your life. You are going to succeed and you're going to be absolutely fine. Like, there's no mortal catastrophe waiting for you on the other side of a failed exam

• 44:37Chris Williamson?

  or a business that doesn't do quite as well as you thought it was going to.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 44:41Chris Williamson?

  So just sort of let it go.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. And you know what? You learn more from failing. It's just the truth, you know? Like when you do badly in a test or a paper, or you don't get the grade for the university. You're gonna learn, you're gonna learn good things either way. And I think we have this assumption that success is where you learn and that that's like almost an achievement for having learnt all the lessons you need to. But in reality, it's in doing worse that I think you develop more as a person. So just doing your best and seeing the outcomes and either way, you're gonna get something out of it.

• 45:17Chris Williamson?

  Floyd Mayweather is the only person who's got an unbroken record of wins, I think. And pretty much everyone else has got some, got some fails in their life.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  We're out here struggling.

• 45:24Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I know. Yeah, I'll try not to be punched in the face. Right, 24 hours leading up to an exam. What should people do?

• 45:34Speaker 00

  Oof, okay, so I think so much about going into an exam is all about mindset. You've had all the time in the world to do your last minute cramming, to revise everything. And while I do think you should go over a few, a few things, like a few concepts that you potentially feel weak on. What you should focus on the night before is setting yourself up for being calm. So I'm a big advocate of mindfulness, meditation. Like, it's not just a hippie thing where you, you sit there and pretend you're breathing. Like, it's, it's an amazing technique with a lot of science behind it to prove that even spending two minutes

• 46:16Speaker 00

  of just with your eyes closed and doing intentional breathing, so breathing in for a count of six and breathing out for a count of eight and just repeating that. That can change your brain chemistry already to be calmer. And I think this is a skill that you should develop so that by the time the night before an exam rolls around and you are starting to feel that anxiety or pressure about what's to come, you sort of can lean on that breathing technique and find some calm within it.

• 46:44Chris Williamson?

  So why are you wanting to be calm?

• 46:46Speaker 00

  So your brain works a lot better when you're calm. You can access information more easily, you're more rational, you see time more rationally too. You're not rushing to get things done or when you're hitting that exam room and there's a question that you don't understand, instead of getting stressed and panicked and seeing every part of your future suddenly falling away from you, you can come back to that breathing technique, find a sense of calm and then work through it as methodically as possible.

• 47:18Chris Williamson?

  If someone is feeling that anxiety and they know that they're a little bit behind in their knowledge for the exam the next day, what would be the best strategy for getting the most information in the quickest?

• 47:30Speaker 00

  Yes, so I recommend having a cheat sheet. It's a bad name, you're not cheating, but just having a sheet of paper where as you've been going over, going over all the topics, there are things that you feel weak on, you just shove them on the cheat sheet and then the night before an exam, you can just go back through those and I really do recommend blurting. It's a brilliant technique. You pick those things and you just write them, you write whatever you can remember about that topic and then you go back, you check your notes, whatever you don't remember, you add it in and then you do it again, you just blurt it out again to yourself, you write it down, hopefully remembering those new things that you've just looked at in your notes and you just keep doing that until you feel like you have more of a grasp on

• 48:15Speaker 00

  that last minute concept.

• 48:17Chris Williamson?

  Have you ever pulled an all-nighter before an exam?

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Not a full all-nighter, no, but like I've definitely done the cramming and it's not, I think it's overrated personally.

• 48:28Chris Williamson?

  As a revision strategy?

• 48:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:30Chris Williamson?

  It's not enjoyable, I can tell you that much.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  It's not enjoyable, yeah, like you're trying so hard to lean on your short-term memory, but then you're sacrificing the thing that compounds your memory, which is sleep. Because when you're sleeping, everything that you're learning is going in, you know. It's if you're skipping the most crucial part of the night, then the next day you're not going to be as rational, you're more prone to stress, especially if you're leaning on coffee, you know, you've got a higher heart rate. So I don't think it is the best strategy, but I understand why people do it. You feel compelled to stare at as much information, put it in your head as much as possible.

• 49:08Chris Williamson?

  I remember one exam, there was this drip somewhere in the house that I was living in at uni, and it was dripping randomly about once every seven seconds, really loudly. And it kept me, it kept me up until four, it was like Japanese water torture. And I ended up sleeping on the couch, woke up three hours later, bleary eyed. One of the boys came down and was like, all right, mate, have you pulled an all lighter? Like, not quite, kind of, kind of, but it wasn't revising. All right. So we've done some breath work, we've made sure that we feel nice and calm and cool and controlled, cheat sheet and some blurting to, I hate that word, to get.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  But you remember it.

• 49:48Chris Williamson?

  Well, yeah, but remembered it in the same way as stepping in a pile of sort of something unsavoury is memorable because it's terrible. So we've done that in the night time. We've tried to get as much sleep as we can do. Waking up the next morning, what then?

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Okay, so something I really recommend is positive visualization. So the idea is close your eyes, kind of similar, similar to meditation, and you imagine yourself in the exam hall. And for some people, just the thought of doing that will bring up feelings of fear, because you know, you're imagining a past exam where you ran out of time or where you didn't understand something, and just noticing whatever feeling comes up. And then instead doing the opposite and visualizing it going really well. You're visualizing yourself being really confident in that seat. You're visualizing going through being calm, being rational, being methodical with all these questions, approaching something that you don't understand, working through it, and just imagining the best version of yourself

• 50:45Speaker 00

  in that exam hall. And I think the whole fake it till you make it thing is amazing for mindset on the day of an exam. But more practically, something I go through in my book is kind of a, it's like a tick box. Um, under the acronym of morning. So from my memory, it's M is materials. So you're going to go through, you're going to check that you have everything. From your pen to your calculator, especially if it's a maths exam, there is no greater stress. And someone having forgotten their calculator on a calculator maths exam. Um, secondly, in morning is O, organise early. I think waking up even twenty minutes earlier than you might usually do.

• 51:26Speaker 00

  It just reduces stress, it allows for that early bit of traffic in the morning or something going wrong. Um, thirdly, revise. This is optional, but I think leaning on your cheat sheet again, going over anything last minute that you feel. A little bit uncomfortable with, you can do this on the bus to school. Um, fourth is no stress conversations. I think this is honestly one of the biggest things that makes people get into that exam. Scared, anxiety, hype before an exam is, you know, your mate going up to you and being like. Oh my god, Jade, I heard that the question's going to be about.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Insert topic that you know that you have no idea about and it's just really hard and you're like, oh my god, what if this comes up? Like, I'm done, my future's gone. Um, or people, you know, asking you to explain concepts and you realising that you don't know it. I think there is something so stressful about that lead up. So if you can, trying to step out of these stressful conversations is a really good way to set yourself up. For success. Um, and then in the morning acronym, I is for inhale, exhale. Leaning on breathing techniques as you're going into an exam hall is great just to set yourself up. Um, and then the N and the G are just to like finish off morning. N is for nice reward, what are you going to be doing after this exam? It's not going to last forever.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Tonight you can go home, you can watch a series. And then G is for go for it and just smash it.

• 53:00Chris Williamson?

  There's an equivalent to the no bad conversations thing before CrossFit workouts. So in CrossFit, there is a big event called the open and they release the workouts shortly before you actually have to do them. And then everybody all over the world does them together. And what happens on a Friday night in gyms, people will arrive and everyone will warm up in a room together. So the 7pm heat will be warming up, foam rolling and talking about whatever, whatever. And everyone that's in there is usually saying some variant of this is really going to hurt. How many reps are you going to go for? Like, have you got a particular process that you're going to go through here? How are you going to split it up? I'm going to try and go unbroken. I'm going

• 53:41Chris Williamson?

  to try and do this. And yeah, when you're trying to keep heart rate low and focus on having distractions that just make you feel more and more sympathetic, that make you feel more and more concerned and neurotic, it's not going to work.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  For sure. But it is hard to step out of them.

• 54:05Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it is. And the number of times that people have stood outside of exam halls, I remember at uni, standing outside of exam halls and just, I don't know, part of it, it almost feels like a pressure release valve. But I think another bit of it is that you you're giving yourself the opportunity to almost forewarn people about why you see this again in CrossFit. So people will say, oh, man, I'm really not looking forward to this workout because like last week, last week I was I was doing some overhead work and my shoulders just sort of still not quite there. And today's got a lot of overhead work in it. And what you're basically doing is forewarning other people, look, if I don't perform in this particular workout, I've put out into the world

• 54:49Chris Williamson?

  my excuse for why I shouldn't be as culpable as perhaps I would have been. And it's kind of the same thing that, oh, dude, I don't think. And the number of people that there's so many different archetypes, the guy that goes in and you know has done tons and tons of revision, but says, yeah, I haven't really prepared that much. The really, you know, the really smart person that you know is going to walk through the exam, the stupid person that doesn't really matter and always seems to get lucky. You know, there's all of these different archetypes. And what you're doing is allowing your mindset to be dragged away by each of their different identities.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  And you know what it comes down to, it's fear of failure again, because no one wants to fail. Even if you've spent 10 hours cramming the night before, you will always have this feeling of I've not done enough. And something about giving that excuse to other people, as you say, is like a get out of free card on results day and gives people that that reason for you to not have done as well, but it's mainly for yourself.

• 55:45Chris Williamson?

  What about in between exams? So giving yourself a little reward after the exam might not work if you're just going back to back to back. Is there any strategies for maintaining motivation throughout an extended exam period?

• 56:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think firstly, a nice reward should always come. It doesn't have to be massive. Like I had a friend who binge watched Friends throughout the exam season and she would reward herself by like watching two episodes after any exam and then the rest of the evening was spent revising for the next one. And I think it is nice to have something that marks a separation from today and tomorrow. So no matter how it went today, you can sort of sit with it. You know, okay, it went really shit, like it's fine, we'll just we'll get on with it the next day. Um, yeah, so like let yourself to grieve if you feel like it went really badly. Let yourself celebrate if it went well and then refocus to the next one. I recommend even putting out the revision resources for the next day's exams.

• 56:46Speaker 00

  So there's no friction, like you can get home, you can have your little reward and then you just sit down and you just get on with the next one.

• 56:52Chris Williamson?

  I like it. Anything else? Any things that you think we haven't covered for people that are struggling with their exams and the revision?

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  I know I've briefly touched on it, but I really think it's the idea of just doing your best. And when I say this to some people after they've done an exam that went really poorly, they're like, oh, but that wasn't my best, that wasn't my best performance. You know, I've done better in past papers and they're kind of missing the point. It's not about your best of all time. It's not your personal best. It's your best in that moment with those circumstances on that one day where, yes, you're going to be tested on the last two years of knowledge, but you did your best in that moment. And I think people really need to remember that and cut themselves some slack.

• 57:38Chris Williamson?

  If people remember that experience, so go back to the exam that you failed in, and if you can actually put yourself in there, were you thinking as you looked at the piece of paper, I'm really not bothered about trying my best at this? No, you tried to wrangle every single megahertz of mental horsepower to try and deploy it onto that paper. You were giving it everything that you had. What you're saying is that it just didn't come out the way that I thought. The outcome wasn't the best, but the performance usually is. It's very rare that you actually go into anything and don't give it full beans. And if you do, then all right, it's a learning opportunity.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  For sure. Yeah.

• 58:18Chris Williamson?

  Love it. Jade, thank you very much for coming on. The only study guide you'll ever need, simple tips, tricks and techniques to help you ace your studies and pass your exams, will be linked in the show notes below. And if people want to check out more of your stuff, where should they go?

• 58:33Speaker 00

  Yes, you can find me on YouTube at Unjaded Jade. I'm also the same on TikTok, Instagram and most other social platforms.

• 58:41Chris Williamson?

  Cool. Enjoy Berlin.

• 58:44Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thanks so much for having me, Chris.