Author: study.skills

Student perspective: Maintaining an asynchronous routine for synchronous students

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Note: This post was written during the covid-19 pandemic. While university teaching is no longer 100% online, online learning is here to stay… whether in the form of online lectures or simply a quick Teams/ Zoom/ Skype call with your project group. So we think this blog post is just as relevant as ever! Now read on…

Photo of Claudia, the author of the post

 

by Claudia Raymond-Hayling, Second year Theatre and English (BA) student and Bristol Futures Advocate.

During this very strange year, working from home or university accommodation is something we all are adjusting to. Since starting the first teaching block, I have learnt a few things about staying organised and keeping that daily routine in check.

1. Regularity with your timings of the day

Make sure you get up at a good time (before 10am). This will allow you to spread out your tasks across the day, so you use your time efficiently and effectively. Also, having a rough idea of the timings you eat your meals will make it easier to schedule your work around the break you might want to have at mealtimes. Exercise is a great way to help your mental and physical wellbeing, so you may also find it helpful to schedule this at regular times during the week.

2. Make a list of the work you need to do at the start of the week.

Writing down the things you need to get done can help so much in terms of visualising your goals. It can make tasks feel much more manageable and accomplishable. Even things that aren’t university-related, put them onto your list.

3. At the start of each day, choose things from your to-do list and make a schedule.

Making a daily schedule might seem excessive, but it allows you to organise your day and prioritise the things that need to be completed more urgently. It also can help you to feel motivated by having a smaller, more manageable list each day, rather than being daunted by your weekly to-do list. If you make a daily schedule, it will also mean that you can organise your tasks around other plans you might have – as unexpected things often come up!

4. Make your daily goals realistic.

It’s easy to overestimate the work you can achieve in a day, and how much time each task will take you. Sometimes 30-minute lectures can take up to 2 hours, simply because of the difficulty of the concepts being taught. Make sure your daily goals are realistic, as it can really help with your time management, but also your mindset and attitude towards a day’s work.

5. Vary the environment you’re working in.

Try working in a different room – ask your flatmate to swap rooms for the afternoon or maybe go to the library. You’d be surprised how much a change of scene can alter your approach and attitude towards your work.

6. Take breaks! Do things you enjoy.

Allow yourself to have breaks, don’t burn yourself out. Go for a walk with a friend, watch Netflix for an hour or do any hobby that you really enjoy. Breaks allow you to work more effectively, and if you schedule them, you’ll have a cut-off time. Sometimes, you might need to take a longer break, or have a day not working, which is also okay. It’s important to prioritise your own wellbeing during this time at home too – don’t be harsh on yourself if you need a breather. And remember, if you’re struggling to meet deadlines for this reason, extension requests are always available to you.

I’ve gradually been implementing these steps into my life and my work schedule, and my routine has felt much more structured. Different techniques work for different people, but these are what have made a profound difference to my life during lockdown. Since many aspects of life can feel so unstructured right now, taking steps to help yourself have more of a routine can be hugely beneficial in terms of wellbeing and completing those daily things that we need to do.

If you need any support in study skills, you are always welcome at the drop-in sessions run by the student advocates within each faculty. These sessions can help with the general skills that facilitate your learning in a way that can be really helpful to your academic progress, specifically through speaking to other members of your faculty – which can be very insightful! The university Study Skills also have many online resources that can be invaluable to many specific aspects of working effectively.

Wishing you all lots of luck, and perhaps have a think about the things that have helped you stay in a good routine during this time and post in the comments below!

Letter to my undergraduate self: Anna Wallace – ‘Making better choices got me back on track’

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In a nod to the Big Issue’s regular feature Letter to My Younger Self, we’re asking staff to think back to their own experiences as a student and tell us what advice they would give to their undergraduate selves.

This month we’re talking to Anna Wallace, Admin Assistant in Library Services.

What and where did you study? 

English and Philosophy at Leeds University. 

Did you experience a culture shock when you started University? 

Most definitely! Although I had had a year out after my A’Levels and lived abroad in a large city, I wasn’t used to finding my feet in big social groups, and this was a real challenge for me. Having grown up in a rural town with a tight-knit group of friends, I think I put a lot of pressure on myself at the time to make instant friendships. I’ve realised since that friendship usually comes in time and often when you don’t expect it. 

What was your biggest failure and what did you learn from it? 

My second year at Uni was a juggle of socialising, working and studying, possibly in that order, which certainly reflected in some of my marks! It meant that I pulled quite a few all-nighters, missed a couple of essay deadlines and received some late submission penalties. I also didn’t feel up to speed with the reading, or completely engaged with my subjects. But on the plus side I was able to pay for my University living costs and have a few memorable nights out! 

By my third year, I realised that I couldn’t juggle everything, and if I was going to leave Uni with a reasonable degree, then I would need to prioritise my time better and focus more on my studies. In doing that, I would say that my final year was my most enjoyable, I finally engaged with my course and felt all the happier and more content for it. No essays were late, I was up to date with the reading and felt more confident to contribute in my seminars. 

What are you most proud of about your time at university? 

For me, the fact that I stuck with it, pulled my socks up in my final year and made some better choices which got me back on track is probably what I feel proudest of. 

What was the best bit of feedback you received? 

I received a good solid first for an essay on American Literature in my final year. It was an essay that I remember grappling with during the Christmas holidays, with limited resources to use (this was in the days before Google and Wiki!!). I felt very unsure about what I submitted, as I had struggled so much, so to receive positive feedback made all the effort feel worthwhile and was a confidence boost in my ability to build an argument without relying heavily on secondary texts. 

What advice would you give to your undergraduate self? 

If I were to go back and do it all again, I would manage and prioritise my time, which is no easy feat for an Arts student with just a few contact hours each week. I would complete the reading, and (perhaps most importantly) I would find a thread in my unit choices, so that I was building on knowledge each year, and choosing the units that I enjoyed, not the ones that I thought I ought to be good at. 

Student perspective: Using feedback effectively and developing your academic resilience

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Photo of Tiegan, author of this blog postby Tiegan Bingham-Roberts, Bristol Futures Advocate

As the second half of TB1 approaches, there is one thing beginning to loom on our minds and creep up on us – the upcoming assessment periods in December and January. Whether those assessment deadlines are for essays, group projects, or exams, it is important to approach them with a sensible approach of incorporating feedback from previous assessments (at University, school or work) and a skill for academic resilience. Therefore, I hope this blog will help you think about how best to utilise feedback to help your future assessments.

When I was in my first year at University, I was terrified of having to complete my first assessment. I had taken a year out prior to starting University and felt like my academic reading and writing skills were a distant memory of the past, with little hope of being resurrected in time for the approaching deadline. I knew that most of the other students on my course felt the same way too, so this is completely normal.

If you are in your first year right now, you may not have had the opportunity to receive feedback on University work yet. If this applies to you, it might be worth considering ‘feedback’ as any information you have been given about something you have done in the past, and this feedback can be from friends, family, work colleagues, managers, teachers, etc. and is equally as valid as feedback from University tutors. If you think about feedback from general life, you can start to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Once you have a grasp on your general strengths and weaknesses in relation to academia, these can help to inform your approach to assessments. You can identify these by asking the following questions to yourself:

  • What are three words my friends or family would use to describe my approach to academia?
  • Why did I get a better grade in one subject at school over another?
  • How would my teachers describe me to my University tutors?

If you are in your second year upwards right now, you will have some form of feedback from your first year which is usually available on Blackboard. If you cannot find any feedback in the grades section of Blackboard, you can contact your School or Faculty asking them to locate these documents for you or to point you in the right direction. If the type of assessments you did meant you did not receive a great deal of feedback, it is worth remembering the smaller and more informal feedback that you might have received. Every time you communicate with a tutor, lecturer, or your peers is an opportunity for feedback – such as when people acknowledge your contributions during classes and agree or disagree with you. All of these incidents can be beneficial to approaching your future work, as you have a sense of what sorts of things you are doing well, and which things need improvement.

It is easy to fall into the trap of feedback avoidance – perhaps because you were not particularly proud of the piece of work so you do not want to go back and revisit it, perhaps because it just feels like too much effort to trapse through Blackboard to find the right document, or perhaps because you are worried it will confuse your new assessment topic. I have definitely been guilty of this in the past but over time I have learnt to develop my academic resilience, which makes looking at feedback a lot less daunting and a lot more productive.

What do I mean by academic resilience? I mean that when you receive negative feedback, you are able to digest it and work upon it within a reasonable amount of time, without allowing it to throw you off track to achieve your academic goals. You can develop this important skill by doing the following:

  • Try to remove your personal attachment to the piece of work you have received negative feedback on. Although you might have poured blood, sweat, and tears into the piece of work during the time leading up to the deadline, and you may have celebrated after pressing the bittersweet ‘submit’ button, those feelings should not act as a barrier after that point.
  • Try to turn the phrase ‘negative feedback’ into ‘constructive feedback’ – if you are able to use the feedback to better your grades and your academic development at University, to graduate having learnt something new which you did not know how to do perfectly at the beginning, then ‘negative feedback’ is not negative at all, it is actually something positive!
  • Try to be balanced in your response, there is almost always something positive amidst the sea of feedback that rushes towards you as you open the document. It is easy to focus on the negatives because you want to know what you did wrong, why you did not get a higher mark, but the positives are equally important in letting you know what you did right and should replicate in the next assessment.
  • Try to change your mindset from ‘fixed mindset’ to ‘growth mindset’. If you have a fixed mindset, you believe that your abilities, intelligence and talents are just fixed traits – that there is no point trying to get better at something because you simply cannot do it. If you have a growth mindset, you do not believe that your abilities, intelligence and talents are fixed entities – instead, you get better at something through effort and persistence.

After developing this academic resilience, you will be able to use your feedback more effectively. You could make a document with all of the feedback you have collated in your academic career so far, going back as far as you are able to gather information for. With this document, you can then draw connections between the feedback to highlight any common themes. If more than one person has given you feedback on a particular point, then it is clearly something you need to work on, such as by having a meeting with your personal tutor, attending a tutorial or a workshop with Bristol Study Skills, or going to your PASS sessions. Likewise, if there is something you are consistently being praised for, then you can categorise this as one of your strengths and feel confident about that aspect of your assessment.

If you want to speak to me or another Bristol Futures Advocate about how to use feedback effectively and develop your academic resilience, feel free to attend one of our student-led drop-in sessions by following the page here and finding the dates and times for your Faculty.

Best of luck!

Student perspective: Making lockdown happy, healthy and productive

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Photo of Alby, author of the blogby Alby Stevens, Bristol Futures Advocate

The biggest threat to our studies during the next few weeks is that posed by feeling isolated and unmotivated, so I wanted this blog post to focus on staying healthy through the rest of TB1 in spite of the national lockdown that has just begun. When the pandemic hit back in March I found that despite all the time I had available to study it was so much harder to be productive. I know I wasn’t alone in feeling like this. As lockdown begins again I believe it’s worth taking some time to reflect about how you can cultivate a positive working environment over the next month or so in spite of the unnatural circumstances.

The 5 tips below are proven ways to look after both mental wellbeing and your studies, particularly over lockdown, and would be a great place for you to start from in reflecting upon what works best for you. It would be fantastic if you posted what works for you in the comments below so that we can all get ideas from each other:

  • Get ahead – Whilst it may feel a little cliché to get into a routine right from the start it is a really healthy way for you to stay in control. With so much time in isolation ahead of us, the temptation is to push everything back: work, physical health, mental wellbeing. By staying on top of things while you feel fresh you should be able take some stress off of yourself when the novelty of lockdown wears off.

It’s worth taking a look at the Study Skills time management resources to help you with this one or you could procrastinate by watching this video about how to not procrastinate!

  • Don’t wear yourself out – Do things sustainably and tend to all the little parts of your life that are important to your happiness from cooking healthy meals to getting enough exercise. Trying new things is a great way to stimulate the mind but equally the next 28 days doesn’t have to be some sort of language learning, baking or early morning yoga boot camp! I’m always tempted to start off too fast and wear myself out within a week so this time around I’m focusing on doing what I can and doing the amount that makes me feel good.
  • Get outside – Humans are not designed to spend their lives indoors and so if you are able, make sure to get outside daily. It doesn’t have to be a 12 mile hike – I prefer wrapping up warm and taking a coffee to a new street in Bristol – but the benefits of fresh air, sunlight and new surroundings are so important. Take the time to notice the trees changing colour, the days getting shorter or the people wandering around doing the same as you!
  • Engage with online society events – Even if it’s not really your thing, keeping communities together whilst we’re apart could be so valuable to someone else. There is never a bad time to join a new society and you can always try something out in the knowledge that it doesn’t have to be forever if it turns out to not be for you.

Here is the link to the SU societies page.

  • Connect with people – This one is the most important but the easiest to forget. More than ever we must make the effort to make sure that the people around us are okay and to ask for help if we are struggling. In my opinion, no piece of university work is more important than a 10 minute chat in the kitchen with a housemate that might need it. Looking out for others is scientifically proven to make us feel good too.

I’ve taken some ideas for this from a website called Action for Happiness which is well worth taking a look at. Their ‘10 Keys to Happier Living’ are really easy to understand and are always a great reminder to me that often the things that make us happy are different to what we imagine them to be.

Here is the link to Bristol University’s wellbeing services for anyone that is struggling and would like to look through some resources or talk to someone. The right kind of help is there for everyone.

 

Letter to my undergraduate self: Jenny Norris – ‘Failure isn’t the end of the world’

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In a nod to the Big Issue’s regular feature Letter to My Younger Self, we’re asking staff to think back to their own experiences as a student and tell us what advice they would give to their undergraduate (or sometimes even postgraduate) selves.

First up is Jenny Norris, Study Skills Tutor.

What and where did you study?

Mathematics at Bath University.

Did you experience culture shock when you started university?

I felt very grown up when I started university because I’d taken a gap year and lived in Cape Town for 10 months. So I’d already experienced moving away from home and having to do my own cooking and laundry. Coming from south-east London via South Africa, the biggest culture shocks were the lack of cultural diversity and the fact that I could safely go out after dark on my own.

The teaching and learning culture was also very different to school. We were taught in massive lectures with 200 people, so there was very little interaction with lecturers. The most useful things were the weekly problem classes, where you went through the problem sheets in smaller groups. I think the culture has changed a lot even since I was studying. Bath now has a maths support centre and runs courses specifically for maths students transitioning to university. I think it’s much less ‘sink or swim’ than it used to be, which is definitely a good thing.

What was your biggest failure and what did you learn from it?

I once got 0% on an essay. As a maths student I managed to avoid essays completely until I took an optional unit called ‘Issues in Science Education’ in my final year, so it counted towards my overall grade. I duly handed in an essay about maths education. After much debate between the lecturers it was decided that maths didn’t count as a science, so it was deemed to be too unrelated to the course title to even be marked. I discovered afterwards that I could have gone and talked through my title with the course tutor before I wrote it and got some feedback on my essay plan. Because the culture in the maths department was just to get on with coursework on your own, it didn’t even cross my mind that that might be an option. I was pretty devastated at the time but I learnt that failure isn’t the end of the world (I still came out with a 2:1).

What are you most proud of about your time at university?

My work-life balance. I got involved with the Salsa Society and the Christian Union early on and had an absolute ball (sometimes literally). I did work hard but it never felt 24/7. I’ve lost touch with most of those people but I did come away with one or two friends for life.

What was the best bit of feedback you received?

I once got a bonus mark on a piece of computer programming coursework for “effort rather than understanding”. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know what I was doing at all so had just written down everything that could possibly be relevant.

What advice would you give to your undergraduate self?

I would tell my 19 year old self to ask for help at every opportunity, rather than trying to struggle through some pretty hefty mathematical concepts on my own. I’d tell myself not to be afraid to put my hand up in lectures to ask a really silly question (that everyone else was probably thinking) and to make a nuisance of myself by knocking on lecturer’s doors on a regular basis (because that’s that’s what they’re there for, and they probably weren’t as scary as I thought). Looking back I’m astonished that I didn’t ever make use of the careers service, or go talk to my personal tutor about module choices. I only realised after I graduated that I really enjoyed the probability side of maths and it was always my top mark. If I’d noticed sooner, maybe my career would have taken a whole different path.

Student perspective: How to generate creative and innovative ideas in group work

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by Beth Robinson, Bristol Futures AdvocatePhoto of Beth, author of the blog

For many people, challenging their assumptions about what it means to be creative can be difficult, especially for those who already define themselves as being either distinctly creative or decidedly not creative.

It can be easy to define yourself and your own level of success, but working creatively in a group is, in my experience, completely different. I’ve learned that it‘s so much more than ‘what the best and worst ideas are’, and ‘brainstorming creative ideas.’ Today I’d like to share some tips and links which I hope you might find useful when trying to generate new ideas and projects in a team. 

3 Key things I’ve learned  

1) ‘No ideas should be left behind’. Irrespective of how good, bad or even ridiculous you think an idea is, keep it written down. It may have had a detailed thought process behind it which wasn’t expressed more clearly, and/or could provide some inspiration later.

2) ‘There are no such thing as bad ideas, only opportunities for growth’. If you think someone has suggested a bad idea, consider it an opportunity for further innovation. Instead of saying ‘no’, say ‘yes – AND *suggest a way to further the idea*’

3) Have fun! In using some of these techniques, groups I work with have written some peculiar sounding words or suggestions to begin – often completely different from the brief. But these initial ideas are springboards and prompts, and don’t have to be perfect before you say them out loud. 

Some techniques 

These techniques are designed to help with idea generation and to boost creativity, and further information on them can be found by clicking on the links:

  • ‘Random Pictures’ – starting with a random picture, writing down random words associated with it, and then working on relating these to the subject matter (Random Images Technique).

  • ‘Out-and-out-reversal‘ – creating a statement which is the opposite of what you want to achieve and working out how to solve the problem to then apply it to the initial brief – this is my personal favourite! (Reversal)

  • ‘Bringing in time’ – when you start to build ideas, ask ‘how would I go about this if I had only one day to execute it? Or one month? A year, or century? This can be helpful in working out anything related to logistics in a project. 

There then, of course, needs to be a slightly more ‘down to earth’ selection, refinement, and structuring process of developing the idea fully. One way to approach this is to build on any ideas you’ve generated and then make them better by creating timelines, asking questions, and using the SWOT technique (SWOT) to critically analyse concepts.

I hope that some of these tips will help you as they’ve helped me in finding it easier to innovate in a group setting. Of course, different things work for different people, so leave any tips, problems, and solutions in the comments section, we’d love to hear from you! 

Student perspective: Overcoming the trials and tribulations of the group Zoom call

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Note: This post was written during the covid-19 pandemic. While university teaching is no longer 100% online, online learning is here to stay… whether in the form of online lectures or simply a quick Teams/ Zoom/ Skype call with your project group. So we think this blog post is just as relevant as ever! Now read on…

by Beth Robinson, Bristol Futures Advocate

‘Group work’ gets mixed reviews at the best of times, let alone when everyone’s internet connection keeps dropping and the speakers aren’t working properly. For the most part, I’m really enjoying online meetings. But whether it be with a project supervisor, as part of a study group or yet another virtual quiz, something’s bound to go wrong at some point. In an academic sense, I’ve noticed that it can be hard to make online calls as productive as they could be. These are solutions others and I have found to the trials and tribulations of group Zoom (/Skype) calls.

When meetings are unproductive 

We’ve all been there. The calls where you speak for an hour or two without actually getting anywhere. So, ahead of group study or even 1:1 calls, make sure you set a clear agenda. Perhaps working on setting goals and/or time slots of exactly what you want to cover and when may work. Or, if you are not able to do this (or indeed don’t feel comfortable doing so), work out what it is you personally want to get out of the meeting. Because, no matter how unproductive a meeting may feel, it’s likely you’ll be able to find something valuable in it. For example, being able to empathise with what someone else is experiencing or thinking about any next steps you can take with respect to your personal development.  (One useful tool to help with PDP can be found here)

When the WiFi/video/microphones are being temperamental 

If quitting and rejoining doesn’t work, the student laptop and phone clinic at the University of Bristol is still running, so if you are having tech or connectivity problems then be sure to reach out to them. If you have very limited access to internet more generally, don’t be afraid to contact a unit or programme director – in such difficult times I doubt they’d want to see you experience an unfair disadvantage. 

When it’s hard to find the right space  

It can be difficult to find the right environment to be on a group call, especially if you’re somewhere with no desk and/or a house full of people. That being said, I’ve seen some great creative solutions out there! Pinterest has lots of cool ideas – for example ways to get creative with tabletop spaces if you don’t have a desk, and interesting lighting and sound solutions. Depending on the nature of the call, adding a green-screen background on Zoom or going around the group and sharing a ‘unique item’ from where you are living can be a nice icebreaker! 

Hope you’re all keeping safe and well, especially as we move forwards into exams! What have been your biggest annoyances and solutions to group video calls? 

Student perspective: On mindful studying

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by Beth Robinson, Bristol Futures Advocate

Mindfulness doesn’t have to comprise of sitting in a dark room for 15 minutes each morning listening to a playlist which professes to make you feel more alert for the day. In fact, it’s about just noticing things – being in the moment, and it can take whichever form you’d like. The sensation of your lips pressing against a glass of water; the temperature of the room you’re in; the texture of the fur of a pet. You get the idea – it’s not ‘all or nothing’, and it can take a completely different form for everyone. I often feel like I’m ‘too busy to be mindful’, although I do find it to be a useful tool when studying. So, these are just three of the things which have worked well for me to be mindful whilst studying, shared in the hope they might be useful to others! 

1) Breathe. Just breathe. Need I say more? I’m not an expert on mindful breathing, but I found this website useful: https://www.mindful.org/a-five-minute-breathing-meditation/

2) Notice the feeling of your fingertips as you type on a keyboard. Notice how much pressure it takes you to push them down; the temperature of the keys; the soft clicking sounds and the texture of the surface when you move your hands over it. The same goes for if you’re writing on paper – noticing the slight indentations the words create and any slight tinge to the paper can really help your mind to focus on the task. How many tabs are open on your computer? How many sheets of paper are on your desk? When you feel distracted, try to stay within that same environment, even if it’s not thinking directly about the task you’re trying to complete.

3) Download ‘Forest’. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s an app that awards you credits for staying off social media – then these credits are used to plant trees all around the world. Not only is it a great tool for staying off your phone, it’s also a way to be mindful of the environment around you and how your presence can contribute to making something fantastic happen. 

These are my three favourite ways to be mindful whilst studying, which I also find to increase my productivity and make me feel more content with the work I am doing. Whilst it can take some effort, it really is worth it in the long run.

More on mindfulness can be found here:  https://www.mindful.org/how-to-practice-mindfulness/

How do you practice mindfulness and which strategies do you use to stay focused whilst studying? Leave a note in the comments and see if anyone else has any top tips.

Student perspective: Disconnecting and reconnecting

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by Beth Robinson, Bristol Futures Advocate

When brainstorming solutions to feeling isolated, a friend mentioned the word ‘disconnected’ to describe their current state whilst in isolation. It resonated, both in that it’s a powerful word, but also one which also has many interpretations. So, here’s some ways you can reconnect whilst in isolation, to help you study more effectively:

1)    Reconnect with yourself. (because it turns out you don’t need a gap year for that, just government mandated quarantine). Something I’ve heard a lot is ‘my degree feels less valuable now.’ So, take the time to work out the value you find in it. The fact it will provide you with future opportunities? The enjoyment you’ve found from learning about the subject? Or even the friends you’ve made along the way. Take some time to reflect, and work out what is most important for you to focus on right now. And give meditation a go while you’re at it! If you find yourself in need of some support, rest assured the wellbeing service is still running, as is the Students’ Health Service (phone appointments).

2)    Reconnect with the online world. A struggle for many in isolation has been adjusting to a new way of living. I’ve been struggling with the idea of being online a lot, especially since I enjoy being in a library whilst working. But the University have set up a bunch of resources beyond online teaching for specific courses. My personal favourites have been the Global Lounge’s online language cafes, virtual dissertation writing retreats and events put on by societies (check out their Facebook pages or websites for all the info!) I find the combination of learning something new, getting motivated to write my diss., and having some down time an effective way to get online whilst not scrolling mindlessly through Instagram all day.

3)    Reconnect with friends. Talk to your course mates about what you’re all doing to stay focused, and have open conversations about how everyone’s getting on. Start an online revision club; come up with a new project; go along to an online society event together. That one person on your course you got on with in first year but gradually drifted from? I’m sure they’d love to hear from you. If you’re looking for a sign, this is it.

And as for disconnecting? Disconnect from any news sources which are making you feel anxious whilst trying to write or study and disconnect from using social media too much (cliché but true). Finally, disconnect with the idea that this part of your degree is any less valuable than any other parts. Because despite the chaos, this is a powerful opportunity to reconnect with a new way of learning.

What are some of the ways you intend to reconnect with the world throughout isolation? Leave some inspiration in the comments to connect with the next person who comes along.

Student perspective: Productivity – what does it mean to you?

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Note: This post was written during the covid-19 pandemic. While university teaching is no longer 100% online, online learning is here to stay… whether in the form of online lectures or simply a quick Teams/ Zoom/ Skype call with your project group. So we think this blog post is just as relevant as ever! Now read on…

by Beth Robinson, Bristol Futures Advocate

My Facebook feed over the past couple of months has been bombarded with two types of posts:

  1. The ‘Fun things to do in quarantine!’ style posts – Largely comprising of how to learn a new language and/or all the various online courses you can now take for free.
  2. The ‘Don’t worry if all you did today was get up’ posts – Making the highly relevant point that your worth isn’t determined by your productivity, especially in such trying times.

Both are good points. And of course, it’s not as black and white as ‘doing everything at once’ or ‘never doing anything.’

So, what about when it comes to studying? Recently I’ve seen people getting down about their lack of productivity – so I’d like to pose a question: What does productivity mean to you? For example, it could mean ‘working for 3 hours a day’, or ‘practicing yoga and writing 500 words of an essay every day’, or ‘taking at least one day a week off to allow for better productivity throughout the week. Because there’s no ‘gold standard’; it’s different for everyone.

Your worth isn’t dependent on your productivity, but in equal measure there are active steps you can take towards being more productive if that is something you’d like to do.

Personally, I experience 3 different types of productivity, captured nicely in the three TED talks below:

1)    Inside the mind of a master procrastinator (relatable content): https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator

2)    The happy secret to better work (on working smarter): https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work

3)    How to make stress your friend (on finding a healthy relationship with stress when trying to be productive): https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend

Give them a watch and leave your answer in the comments: What does productivity mean to you?