Exam Week, How I Revise

Hello hello lovely people I hope that you have all had a lovely week. As promised I'm going to do a post today about how I revise and get myself prepared for exams, no I don't claim to be perfect at this by any means however I'll let you know what works for me. So sit back and enjoy here are my top 10 tips on how I revise and how i stay motivated to revise. 

1. Plan it all out; I do this before the holiday even starts, this is super useful I find because I make sure that on a big A3 sheet I have all my plans written out, so all the days I'm spending with family and friends and working. This helps me because I can then see my holiday  all planned out and it chills me out because I can see the holiday planned and make sure I am fitting everything in.
2. Organising free time; so in the holidays I like to work at the job I had in my gap year. I semi class this as my free time because I love to chill at work enjoy time with my friends. I also class gym time as my chill time, this probably isn't too great for me but oh well I'm still here aren't I? Free time however is very important find what makes you chill and relax because it will allow you to concentrate more when revising.
3. Write out everything you need to go over; I do this by going over all of the lectures I've had and categorising the different aspects. this helps me to see how much time I spend on each thing and ensures that I don't waste time doing part of the syllabus that aren't super important. 
4. Make sure you plan in breaks; I really worked on doing this this year because in the past I'd revise for 3 hours on end. This doesn't work. So this time I gave myself a 15 mins to 30 min break every 1 to 2 hours. This helped me because it meant that I could chill and switch my brain off for a little bit every now and then.
5. Limit your hours; My maximum hours per day this holiday was 7 hours, now this is quite a lot however this was when I was working so I had to revise in any available time. You need to work out the hours that work for you so that you can still concentrate at the very end of the day. 
6. Be specific; When writing out your plan be specific with what you set yourself to do each session, don't overdo it because then you will just get stressed. I say that it's better to plan too little to do in a session then you can always add to it rather than planning too much and being stressed.
7. Work out how you learn; now I've still not perfected this which is rather frustrating but I'm getting there. For me I like visual things so I tend to make big A3 posters of my information and for some factual topics i make flashcards. This is what I've found to work for me however you may work by being able to read over something and then remember it, or watch a video and remember it or listen to something and know the facts. Everyone is different and you have to find what works for you. 
8. Know when to stop; If you are working and you are sitting there thinking nothing is going in or that you're not even concentrating on the revision anymore then stop. This is an important thing to learn, even if it sets you behind on your plan there's no point it tiring your brain out more trying to force things in. Maybe try take a break and go back to it but if it's still not working then call it quits for the day. I always like to go do some exercise when this happens. 
9. Don't copy word for word; This for me is tough because when I get tired a am so bad at always doing this, make sure that if you are writing something out from a document or a book that you read the paragraph and then try to put the words into your own and make it shorter and pull out the important bits. 
10. Don't stress; This is so hypercritical of me because I am the queen of stressing. I have an exam tomorrow that covers a very large topic and even though I have been revising most of the holiday in between all of the family bereavements, I still feel super under prepared and I have to keep telling myself that it will all be OK and that I know more than I think I do. And you should all tell yourselves this too !

So that's it my tips for revising. I would also advise using the Forest app because it causes you to not be able to pick up your phone until your 60 mins is over which I find helpful because I always pick up my phone.I hope you enjoyed reading. Wish me the best of luck for tomorrow I'm going to need it. Remember to count your blessings and always smile because it could make someones day.