Achieving your goals on time is easy by these two simple steps
Assimilation and reflections should be slower than your reading speed
Preferably this post is for those who are wanting to achieve academic goals. Still, this discussion shall help all writers, leaders, skilled workers and students to timely accomplish their numerous end points set by them for their learning.
One of my friends had difficulty preparing for exams. He confessed he cannot understand the text but was intelligent. I asked him to show me practically, I noticed his mind works faster than the text, so he does not assimilate what he reads and he seldom reflects upon what he reads. Because his mind wants to conclude sooner than his speed of processing information. He does not read most of the day. He dreads reading and escapes to listlessness, sleeping more and watching movies only, with no attempt to achieve or become better than himself. To help him and the like, I have devised these steps that helped even me personally when I was not so focused, but with patience I achieved. So the steps:
Be routine bound and similar environmental conditions bound- Most achievers have very few places in their dwellings where they can concentrate and learn. We just cannot do everything anytime and anywhere. So one must have those routine bound endeavors so that what was difficult earlier could be achieved easily as the back-up is prepared through previous night’s routine. The night’s routine has been backed by a few hours of relaxation in the evening and a routine bound list of activities during the day that add on to the pleasure of achievement. Without a routine we cannot take care of ourselves. Without that care we will always be uncomfortable with a nervous mind that does not find any particular way to achieve conflicting goals. Something like, you want to do this now but why not that also!! Routine saves time. Getting up early at 4 am, exercising, reading a bit, taking a shower, cleaning your place and having breakfast by 8 am to 9 am is a huge success in itself. You are done with what most do not accomplish by about more than 12 pm in most households. That said, after breakfast, carry out the most difficult activity- academic learning. Make it a 4 hour non-stop endeavor because in the beginning you cannot concentrate more than 15 minutes, but its not fiction. Its learning, boring, mundane full of known and unknown facts, so you need to push yourself till 4 hours time-span daily (if you are on a job these 4 hours can be divided in chunks throughout the day at spaces where you are most comfortable, like your study, living room or bedroom, a library or a cafe). Divide learning into 1 hour endeavor with a gap of 25 minutes and then another hour learning, 25 minutes break and so on. Push yourself, there is no other way out to achieve initially, and once you are routine bound, you accomplish at ease.
The rest of the day requires surfing internet, getting ideas, cook meals, watch news and provide yourself time around 2–3 hours before going to bed to reread and assimilate what you learned in the daily 4 hours time, or in the podcast or what obstacles you are facing that are making yourself uncomfortable to learn. It could be things like plumbing, mopping, dust accumulation due to a mud storm and so on. Get up the next day and correct what you can yourself before 9 am, or wait for help in the later part of the evening.
Those undeterred 4 hours that you adhere to can also be prolonged based on your enhanced capacity. These hours are the stepping stones towards achievement. There are people who can concentrate more than 7–8 hours at a stretch to finish their academic work on time and after that they do something not so difficult but pleasure giving on a particular day. So set a routine. Calculate that you have 28 hours of learning, 30 hours working at job and 7 hours of exercise (420 minutes) in a week at the least, with flexibility to increase time for any activity or entertaining friends and family. 21 hours of revision (3 hours per day) before retiring to bed can boost your psychology for greater achievement in the entire week. The routine that you are bound to, would guarantee success in whatever you do. Spaces where you learn should make you feel settled, calm and more secure. Such a comfortable mindset grasps quickly from books and lectures. If you are not at home with yourself you will wander away in life without fruition. Concentrate through spatial permanence also. If a child changes his ambience daily to learn he can become a scatter-brain.
Stick to the reading ritual- With my medical teaching experience, I found that at least 20 percent of my students do not do self-reading everyday. They mostly stress with the idea of learning and reading with some amount of mental fatigue which can grow into exhaustion to the limit that they cannot come out of it leading to a student’s depression. Therefore, to achieve academic success one must read daily, gradually increasing the time taken to do so. If not your textbook, build your vocabulary with fiction for half an hour, and then have something to eat followed by the textbook learning. Do not exhaust yourself. But keep reading in light mode persistently to combat absent-mindedness also. Something goes into the head so you do not need to do rote learning routinely, neither do you need to be scared of enormous syllabus. You did attend lectures, classes, online learning materials, your seminars, research and so on. So now only read and assimilate intelligently. Try to connect and prime your brain to do better than before everyday. Reflect on what you read to remember and thus you are prepared for the future to achieve anything. Some people are skilled, for them also, read stuff to enhance that skill and practice, imagine, create for at least 4 hours in a day. For medical students, mnemonics do not help, conceptual learning is the most elaborate, detailed and relaxing learning method. Keep mnemonics only for 1 month before exams and else keep reading and conceptualizing which can accumulate in the form of your academic wealth or skilled expertise!! Before you study for difficult exams that require 10 hrs preparation daily, learn to find 4 hours of time in a routine day of individual study after classes. It helps to assimilate intelligently. Then you can discuss with your friends or teachers. If routine practice suffers, exam day preparation will not give you the desired satisfaction out of your study session, and you would not get marks accordingly. Learn the vocabulary of your subject. That comes with a 4 hours reading ritual that is difficult in the beginning but becomes a routine later.
These two steps are a guarantor of success, so sit up tight and set out on a difficult journey till 25–30 years of age after which you only have to relax and follow an easy routine, and abide by a more shortened reading ritual for achievement.
