Personal Study Habits

 I am taking six credit hours of college courses from God's Bible School and College through their Aldersgate Distance Education Program.  ADEP’s website is http://www.gbs.edu/adep. One of the classes I am taking is Time Management. For this week’s assignment, I have read some articles online on the subject of how to study effectively in my college work. In this blog post, I will mention the methods that I will incorporate into my lifestyle. I must make these methods to be habitual in my life.

First, I will outline two of the articles I have read. Then, I will explain them. At the bottom of this post is the links of the respective web sites.

Article: Overcome Inertia and Get the Really Important Things Done by Odette Pollar. (Pollar, 2010)

1)      Recognize procrastination and identify cause

a)      Is fear the cause?

i)        Fear of failing

ii)       Fear of men

b)      Is mismanagement the cause?

i)        Failure to assess requirement of the activity (time, energy)

ii)       Failure to determine if activity matched life goals

2)      Apply corrective action.

a)      Use fears as growth opportunities

b)      Use wisdom in choosing new activities

Article: Improving Your Note Taking from EducationAtlas.com, (EducationAtlas, 2010)

1)      Apply excellent practices in note taking.

a)      Write notes accurately

b)      Be aware of material to be covered

c)       Compare notes with other students

d)      Minimize distractions

e)      Keep your notes in order

i)        Orderly words

ii)       Orderly papers

f)       Use abbreviations appropriately

g)      Leave room around new ideas

h)      Review your notes often

i)        Record questions and ask teacher

From this point in my life, forward, I want to be very careful of procrastination. I am going to search for procrastination both in my life currently and in the temptations of the future.

 Pollar (Pollar, 2010) says that fear can cause procrastination. I can testify to the hindrances of both the fear of failing at my responsibility and the fear of what people will think of me. God has and I know will continue to stretch me into a mature man glorifying to Him. He can use the challenging circumstances I am in to prepare me for what is ahead. Fear is not the only cause for procrastination though; Pollar (Pollar, 2010) also says that laziness in our planning can trigger this problem. When I start a new endeavor and I fail to look ahead at the requirements for my time and energy it touts, I cause myself a trap. I must learn to consider my activities in the constraint of my current schedule and my life goals. Anything that does not fit will only hinder me.

More scholastically sensitive is the second article on excellent note taking practices (EducationAtlas, 2010).  In accordance to the wise advice of the writer on EducationAtlas.com, I will put these methods into habit.

In order to be able to review and understand my notes I must write my notes accurately with good spelling and form. I have been frustrated before when I wrote down a note quickly, and was not able to read it because I did not take time to make it readable.

I must if possible have an overview of what material I need to learn so that I can plan for recording the most important parts.

With my learning style, I need to be careful to minimize distractions around me. Whether it is a noisy room, a fly, or an interesting email, if I need to be studying and taking notes about something, it will be a determent to my concentration. Along this same line is the potential distraction unorganized notes can be. Whether the form of the words or points in my notes is chaotic, or if the papers I need are not where I need them to be, disorganization can waste time.

There are also tools that are helpful like using abbreviations appropriately to save time and leaving paper space around new ideas for further.

I find it very necessary to implement a habit in my studies of reviewing my notes often, and recording questions I find to ask my teacher.

Works Cited

Pollar, O. (2010). Overcome Inertia and Get the Really Important Things Done. Retrieved October 6, 2010, from Day-Timer USA: http://www.daytimer.com/Time-Management-Resources/Overcome-Inertia-and-Get-the-Really-Important-Things-Done/1172516828874FE197440FCA336D842B/False

EducationAtlas. (2010). Improving Your Note Taking. Retrieved September 8, 2010, from EducationAtlas.com: http://www.educationatlas.com/taking-notes-in-class.html