New Year, New You: Revamping Your Revision

New Year, New You: Revamping Your Revision

Happy New Year! Now the festivities are over, and the hangovers have (hopefully) cleared, those of us with January exams are most likely getting back into the swing of library sessions, study groups and copious amounts of reading after what seems like much too short a break. However, this isn’t the easiest of things to do, especially if you’ve been lucky enough to have a long time off! If you’ve found yourself in a bit of a post-holidays slump, there’s no better time to get experimental with your studying than the New Year!

Change up your environment!

We all know university libraries and study spaces can get absolutely packed in the lead up to exams, so why not ditch them altogether? If you still believe you can be reasonably productive, try studying at home (avoid studying in your bedroom, it may affect your sleep!) or in a café – it might make your studying feel less like a hard slog, and more casual which can lower your stress levels and, in turn, help you retain information better! A pair of noise-cancelling headphones can be your best friend.

Change what you’re listening to!

This might be controversial, but personally I’ve always listened to TV shows (that I’ve seen before and therefore am not distracted by) and Podcasts when I study – but I thought over the winter break I would try something new and started listening to music while I revise, so I made a playlist of my favourite songs from musicals and it’s become my go-to! I’m now more motivated to revise because I can listen to some great music that I don’t usually listen to. On our Twitter yesterday (@almostlawyers) we ran a poll, that found that 75% of our respondents listened to music, 25% listened to nothing at all and 0% listened to TV or Audiobooks! Maybe this year find a new go-to Playlist, or Podcast (find my favourite series here!) and get more motivated by your new discoveries!

Change your company!

We are huge advocates for study groups at The Almost Lawyers, and we could talk for days about the benefits that we derive from clubbing together to tackle all of our work, but this New Year, I’m going to try and improve my solo studying skills! If you always spend your time in groups, studying alone can seem boring, or even confusing if you and your friends all help each other out! However, being able to work flexibly in groups or alone is a great transferable skill that will be important to future employers no matter what field you go into – so if you usually fly solo, get a group together, and if you usually travel in a pack have a session where you work alone and see how productive you can be!

We wish you the best of luck over the coming weeks with exams and revision, and hope that our posts about study skills are useful to you! If you try revamping your revision in this exam season let us know how it goes, as well as any other transformations you’re making this year!