Organizing Your Study Space For Finals Season
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When finals season is in full swing, it can be difficult to focus on anything else. And nothing else should be taking up your attention during this time—your tests and studies are too important! You need to make the most of your study time so you can get the best grades possible. But how exactly can you make the most of your study time?
Of course, you can make sure that you have the best materials to study from. You can make sure that you give yourself enough time to study based on your needs and the timing of the test. But you also need to make sure that your time spent studying is distraction-free. The best way you can do that is to make sure that your main study space is organized to be distraction-free. And what is the best way to do that? Read on to learn how to organize your study space for finals season!
Have Enough Space
The first thing you need to do when organizing your study space for finals season is to make sure that you have enough space to get your studies done. You have a lot to accomplish in a very short amount of time. A full-time student is minimally enrolled in 12 credit hours (or the equivalent of four classes). That means you have four final exams, essays, or projects to complete at the minimum.
You are not just studying for one final, you are studying for multiple, so you want to make sure that you have enough space around you for all of your materials. That way you can jump between subjects or projects as you need breaks, as ideas come to you, and more. You want to be able to spread out, to feel like you know where everything is, and to lay everything out in exactly the way or place that you need it.
It is a terrible feeling to try and study when you feel cramped, closed in, and confined like you cannot fit in the space that you have to inhabit, that you cannot find what you need or that there is not enough room for it. It can be pretty stressful!
Avoid extra stress on you during this time. Organize your study space and make sure you have enough space to get your studying done in.
Open Space
Going hand in hand with making sure you have enough space, you also want to have that open space. The previous point explores how trying to study in a space that is too small can negatively impact your studying. Some people think that studying in a small space means that they will stay more focused or that there will be fewer distractions that way. For those people, studying in a small space works just fine.
However, for many others, that claustrophobic feeling can seriously harm their studying. Decide what’s best for you!
Comfortable Seating
Another way to organize and design your study space during finals season is to consider your seating. How comfortable a seat you sit in while you study is incredibly influential on how productive your studying session might be. There have even been studies done exploring how seating affects learning.
Dr. Tim Springer, the founder of the Human Environmental Research Organization (HERO, inc.), is an expert in measuring worker performance, ergonomics, behavior and the environment. He says, “The only truly effective way to maintain a seated posture for extended durations is to continuously cycle through a range of natural, centered and healthful positions.” When you sit down to study or have a cram session, you are sitting for a long, long time. Making sure that the way you sit for these long sessions is important otherwise it will hinder your learning.
Everyone finds comfort from different settings. Some people need a straight, hardback to keep themselves focused and on track in their studies. Others need cushy chairs they can sink into so that they can better immerse themselves in their studies. Others need chairs that move around so that they can cycle through the range of healthful positions that Dr. Springer referred to.
You want to make sure you facilitate the best study session you can, so do not overlook your choice of seating. It could really benefit you (and your grade!) to find the chair that best suits your studying needs.
Finals season is right around the corner, but that does not mean you are too late. Instead, it means this is the perfect time to re-evaluate your studying habits and make sure you are fully prepared for your finals. And hey, take what you learn from this and apply it to your everyday studying habits so that you can be studying and learning in peak conditions year-round, not just during finals.
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