Sweaty palms, shaky hands, and a fidgety disposition had become a common sight in nearly every classroom. It wasn’t surprising. After all, exams were around the corner. A known ‘anxiety sufferer’, I know that academic stress – often brought on by exams – only makes my anxiety worse. As I began looking for solutions, one seemed obvious, but overlooked by me and most of my peers.
Over time, I’ve found that not having a schedule made me more stressed, the uncertainty triggered my anxiety. In an article on “How uncertainty fuels anxiety”, published in 2015 on ‘The Atlantic’, Julie Beck writes, “not knowing what to do, not knowing what’s going to happen, not knowing what other people are thinking and feeling—these situations are ripe to breed anxiety in anyone, depending on how well they’re able to tolerate uncertainty.” Given this, I wondered whether teaching students about scheduling could be a remarkable intervention.
My Experiments With Scheduling Techniques
But why wouldn’t students already know how to schedule? Helicopter Parenting, a term that gained wide currency when American college administrators began using it in the early 2000s, could be the culprit. With parents taking over schedules, children never learned how to do it for themselves. A 2010 study by Neil Montgomery, a psychologist at Keene State College, New Hampshire, found that students with helicopter parents tended to be less open to new ideas and actions, and were more vulnerable, anxious, dependent, and self-conscious.
So, I decided to experiment with the art of scheduling. Doing so, I found that it helped me to have everything in place and even find time for leisure activities. Often underestimated, scheduling is relatively simple and straightforward, but it takes a few hits and trials to find what works for you.
Over two months, I tried setting times for each task in a day. But the times I set were too unrealistic and I was unable to follow them. When interruptions and distractions threw my schedule off, I got more anxious. So, I tried another technique for a month. Creating a master schedule for that month, I blocked out important dates and assigned a few lessons for each day. To my surprise, that didn’t work either! Some lessons took longer than I’d assumed, and by the end of the month, I had a huge pile of lessons left to study.
And I Finally Found Mine!
So instead, I started formulating weekly schedules for myself, along with detailed daily to-do lists. This is what has worked the best. I also found that writing everything down helped. A 2015 study by psychologist Gail Matthews showed when people wrote down their goals, they were 33% more successful in achieving them than those who formulated outcomes in their heads. Furthermore, creating to-do lists before going to bed, is a great way to get uncertainty out of the way.
A study led by Dr Michael Scullin from Baylor University shows “Those who wrote detailed to-do lists got to sleep 15 minutes quicker than everyone else”. To do lists enforce a sense of self-control and ease uncertainty based anxiety.
There are a vast number of scheduling techniques out there like the master scheduling and ’90 minute focus sessions’ for you to pick from and see what works for you. However, whichever one you chose, it’s important to prioritize. You don’t want to keep the most important or most difficult tasks for the last minute. So, now I start my day with a big, difficult lesson and then progressively move on to an easier one. If I have too many ‘difficult tasks’ to do, I end my day with one as well, so I don’t feel exhausted from too many difficult tasks at the same time.
Finding Breathing Spaces Between Tasks
Taking breaks is crucial as well. Our mind has a certain attention span and gets easily tired and distracted when that drains out. Breaks allow you to recharge your brain. It can be as simple as taking a walk around the house, calling up a friend, taking a short power nap, or engaging in your favourite hobby. A recent study from Princeton University suggests that some good, old-fashioned exercise is a great alternative to hopping online during study breaks. While Mayo Clinic finds that meditating for just a few minutes every day not only eases school-related stress but also fights against depression, fatigue, high blood pressure, and insomnia. Finally, a self-rewarding system is vital. Treating myself after completing a lesson that I didn’t like, or a lesson that was too tough motivated me.
So why not make the most of the time this pandemic had gifted to us, and start experimenting with different scheduling techniques. It can lead to better outcomes in terms of studying, and in turn, less stress!