Study suggestion #2: Make study notes in lectures

When you think about it, a lot of time is spent during the process of "studying" just rewriting and organising information. Quite often very little revision is going on; you're automatically transcribing from your notes without absorbing anything. For some subjects, multitasking in lectures can save a massive amount of time; however this is only possible in less conceptual subjects. Where the content is easy to understand the first time the professor explains it, it is fairly easy to turn into concise notes as they do so (especially if you have a printout of their powerpoint slides in front of you as well).

In 'information-heavy' subjects, such as physiology, I start making my study notes as soon as I get into the lecture theatre, and even if something complex comes up during the lecture and I get behind, I will already have a head start on the notes. If there's time, I'll go straight to the library and finish them off while the ideas are still fresh in my mind. There's an added bonus: I don't come across a scribbled note a few weeks later which says something like "regulatory activity", which no longer means anything to me. Now my study time is spent actually revising, rather than frantically making notes as it was in first year.

Study suggestion #1: Find your time

For years I have struggled to work when I'm expected to - i.e. during school hours/after-school homework time, and this has always seemed like the benchmark of how productive I can be. At some point during high school, I started to be allowed to stay up later (that is, after 9pm) working or on the net, rather than going to bed to read. Suddenly I was getting much more done. I'd always just considered myself fast reader, without realising that I was devouring books so fast at night partly because that was when I was most alert.

No matter how hard I try to get assignments done these days in spare time between classes or by getting up early in the morning, I never feel productive. Words come slowly; the process is a painful struggle. I constantly want to go and do something less cerebral - make dinner, water my plants, go running. I eventually chain myself to my chair the night before the assignment is due, and try to force myself to work by refusing to even leave the computer. The struggle continues (and when I say "struggle", I mean "minesweeper"), until about 10pm. Suddenly I find myself working ten times faster than I have been all day.

Of course, I know that my optimal working time is late in the evening, but for some reason I seem to forget this during the day. In the end I just give up in frustration. When I do realise why I've been so unproductive, the stress all melts away.

In short, an important part of time management is recognising when you're most productive, and scheduling everything else around it so the most important tasks fall in that time. For example, one should not write blog posts in "productive time" when there is an essay to be worked on. Oops.

Hurrah, hurrah...

...another year begins. So much for posting all about my CSIRO job! My research turned out to be a little disappointing - not the project itself but my mediocre results. Nonetheless, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about wheat growth, got to mess around with chemicals, and go to Canberra and hear about lots of other interesting projects, so not to worry. Also I did a little bit of stats work in R, which I've never used before, so that was educational (if a bit painful).

In non-science news, moving house is finally sort-of complete. The new place is much bigger & we now have a dedicated office/study room, so hopefully that yields some more productive studying (hah). Also, I've got lots of balcony space for plants, so I can continue my experiments on the topic: Do my plants die because I neglect them, or is Brisbane weather just too ridiculous for gardening?

New units for 2010/1:

• Functional Biochemistry - need to brush up on some organic chem, unfortunately :(
  
• Biomedical Research Technologies - includes a welcome stats refresher
  
• Genetic Research Technologies - arghh, problem-solving workshops again
  
• Plant Genetic Manipulation - apparently we get to make some transgenic tobacco?