I was hoping this would be less awkward the second time around but doesn't look like it okay welcome
to my second YouTube video my last video was just a very generic 40 facts about me but now
I think with this video you'll actually get to see what I want this channel to be so I just want to
say that I'm a student like you that's probably watching this but I think I've learned a lot of
things along the way and hopefully that can help you so for me I think it's really important not
only to work hard in school and get good grades get that 4.0 GPA that everyone wants but also to
do it efficiently because you've probably heard this from teachers all the time but it's not only
your GPA that matters it's not only your classes but it's also your extracurriculars what you do
outside of school and if you are not efficient with your schoolwork you're not gonna have time
for all that stuff and maybe even more importantly you're not gonna have time for what makes you you
what you're passionate about and so along the way I've learned a bunch of things that helped
me work faster work smarter not harder like my old chemistry teacher used to say and it's
honestly made my life a lot better I used to be the kind of student that kind of blindly followed
everything I did whatever my teachers told me to do and did my best in it try to do extra credit
but then especially as junior year rolled around I realized there were other things that I really
wanted to put time into and that it just didn't make sense to put all of my effort into school
when I could actually put a lot less effort into it and still get the same result that I wanted
which was an a basically I definitely want to get a 4.0 but I want to do it in a way that requires
the least effort all right so I've got my list of stuff that I want to talk about all typed out
so I've organized this in - when you're at school and when you're at home the whole point of trying
to be efficient is trying to get it done at school as much as possible so that it's not homework so
my first step might be too obvious but I think it requires a mention just because it is so important
take advantage of the homework time that you get it makes me so frustrated when I see people they
just go on their phone or they talk to their friends and they do nothing productive and then
those are the same people complaining about how they have to stay up late working on homework so
when the teacher gives you home work time use it think about the work that you won't have to do at
home if you get it done now number two you won't always get explicit homework time and so make your
own homework time sometimes especially in math the teacher will be going over something that's
pretty easy to me and that I've already understood pretty well and so I just take out my homework I
can start working on it now if some teachers get annoyed by that but if you have a teacher like
my math teacher who doesn't care take charge of your own time if what the teacher is talking about
isn't useful to you and they're okay with you pulling out your work start working on homework
get ahead of the game I just had a panic moment or I thought I didn't turn on the microphone but it's
on so we're all good number three I don't know if I need to even keep counting these number three
is when you are working on homework at school try to knock out those little homeworks that's usually
things like your language homework your Spanish or French yeah I don't know what other classes
like that to be honest but when you have those little assignments that the teacher basically
only gives you to make sure that you're reviewing material trying to get those out of the way at
school and the reason is this so like when you go home and you have a five-minute Spanish worksheet
or something it's not gonna take you five minutes because let's say you were doing math before you
have to switch your brain for a math to Spanish to very different language and you have to get
all your Spanish out you just have to completely reset your mind and that takes time so those
transition periods you want to try and eliminate them and it doesn't really make sense to start on
a long project because you're not gonna get into that workflow you're not going to get into that
mental mode and you're not gonna get any real productive work done something that helps me be
productive in class now this doesn't really apply to classes where the teacher has a set up plan for
you and you're constantly busy the teacher won't for example talk for half the class and then give
you half of it to work on homework something that really helps me is writing out my intentions for
the class before the class starts so something I've started doing is bringing my boogie board
where I can write things and erase them by pressing the button which saves paper I'll get
to class and I'll basically write down what I want to work on so I'll make a plan so for example I'll
write down I want to try and finish my homework and then if I finish my homework I want to maybe
pull out my laptop and do these tasks that I have to do for some club or some other class and having
that list just keeps me motivated because I really want to get through it and it keeps me from having
that moment where I don't know what to work on because that's not good you want to have a plan of
action I also bring earplugs to school I started doing that a couple of months ago for some reason
I used to feel awkward about that because no one else really wears earplugs at school everyone just
either talks during work time or works but they can tolerate the noise around them and it's just
something that I had to accept about myself that I need as quiet as possible of an environment to
be able to work but bringing earplugs like change the game for me I can put in my earplugs and just
get completely in my zone and really get a lot of work done if it helps you focus do it do it for
you don't worry about what you look like wearing earplugs because now outside of class moving on
to lunch time in high school you probably pretty long lunch at my school we have 50 minutes and so
that's more than I usually need to eat I try to use my lunch time intentionally and please don't
get mad at me for saying the word intentionally over and over but I feel like it just applies to
so many situations that doesn't mean that I always am doing homework during lunch that means that I
decide what I want to do during lunch so sometimes my brain needs a break sometimes I've been having
a really stressful week and so I'll decide that okay during this lunch hour all I'm gonna do is
focus on enjoying my time with friends enjoying my lunch and I don't need to worry about doing
any work but the important thing is that I made that decision I don't feel guilty about not doing
homework I don't try to pull out some homework but only half focus on it and then get nothing
done and also not give my full attention to my friends I just decide that I'm gonna enjoy that
time and then there's other days where I actually have quite a bit of energy and so I'll go to the
library or something and try to get some of those short assignments out of the way just have a plan
I usually think about this in the morning when I'm looking at what I have to do for the day or during
my morning classes I'll see how much homework my teachers are assigning me and what I'll want to
do during lunch whether it's working and making a dent in your homework or relaxing and refreshing
your brain so you can work faster later if you decide what you're gonna do you're gonna have a
productive lunch something you might want to do during lunch but also during class is talking to
your teachers admittedly I don't do this a ton there are some teachers I'm kind of shy around
and I don't talk to them a lot but there are some classes like especially English where expectations
for assignments aren't always super clear but if you can talk to the teacher about what you're
working on show them the draft of what you've got so far they can give you some really good advice
and they're the person who's grading so you know that the advice are gonna give you will help you
get a better grade all right let's move on to being at home this might be the most important
part because I mean it's homework you might be able to get a good bit of it done at school but
chances are you're still gonna be doing the bulk of it at home whether you like it or not so first
make a plan of attack I just love planning and planning can't solve everything but it can solve a
heck of a lot if you go home and you just look at your pile of homework you're probably gonna feel a
little overwhelmed so it really helps to know what you're gonna do it in what order you're gonna do
it so when I get home I look at my school planner and I just take a pencil and I write in little
numbers number 1 2 3 4 5 what order I'm gonna do things in it's like a plan of attack you know
it makes you really want to get down to it get it done as quickly as possible so when you're putting
together your order some things to consider are getting your hardest homework out of the way first
when you're just starting you probably have the most energy and the most willpower honestly to do
that stuff that really sucks there's this concept out there called eat the frog I don't remember
the story behind it there's some story basically the idea is most days you have some task on your
to-do list that you're really dreading and it's best for you to just get that done first and so
they say eat your frog first thing in the morning and then you won't have to think about it for the
rest of the day but that also applies to getting a home from school so eat the frog do your homework
that's the hardest at first and then by the time you've got that done and you're feeling pretty
tired all you've got left is the small easy stuff you also need to consider how I guess defined the
homework is I don't know if that's the best word but basically I always do math homework first
because it's a set of problems with a set process for doing each problem and I can just get it done
in about 30 minutes to an hour each time whereas things like writing a report or studying for a
test they're much more open-ended and so I don't want to start working on a report as the first
piece of homework that I do and just let it take over my evening I don't want to spend two hours
on it and then be like crap I still have to do my math and everything else so when you actually get
to your homework which is the important part walking the walk I highly recommend using the
Pomodoro timer pomo doro Pomodoro I'm not sure the technique states that you should work in 25-minute
chunks with five minute breaks so you do 25 525 525 525 and then you take a longer 20-minute
break now I don't follow that completely but I do utilize the method of 25-minute chunks of working
and then a few minutes of break time this helps so much I honestly like at this point I can't
understand how people work just long stretches of time because my brain gets exhausted it's based
on science the 25 minutes is based on science so taking that little break when your brain is
starting to become tired and not working at its peak it will really keep you energized and it'll
really delay the onset of fatigue that'll make homework go super slow another benefit of those
25 minutes is that you feel super motivated to really get down to the work you know that you have
a break coming so you want to make the most of the 25 minutes that you're spending working don't have
any distractions around you obviously if you can do everything you can to make an environment for
yourself that's conducive to working so turn off the TV put away your phone if you don't need it
close all distracting tabs on your computer just make that 25 minutes really worth it and then
when you take your break you also gotta make that worth it so personally I am amazed at how
quickly the break goes by when I go on my phone and I'll just be like oh I'll check Instagram for
a couple of minutes that will be fun and then six minutes go by and it felt like that but if I avoid
technology and I just get up and move around brake feels like forever so avoid technology
during your breaks get up and move I think is the most important thing I will literally just go and
do headstands I don't know why it helps maybe like there is blood flowing to my head or something and
that helps me think but I do headstands push ups just like walk around my room and then by the time
I sit back down at my desk I'm not feeling all stagnant and tired and next up do the work okay
don't put it off there are many classes where teachers will give you stuff they'll give you
a deadline far away in advance and you have to figure out how you're gonna portion that out and
get it done it's tempting to leave it all to the last few days but really try to break your work up
into chunks do a chunk of reading a chunk of notes every day not only will I feel less overwhelming
and less overwhelming means less stress which means more productivity you'll also learn it
better because you're really taking the time to do it you're doing it in a lower stress way by
the time you get to the test you won't have to do as much studying because most of the material will
already just naturally be in your head you don't have to relearn things you just do a quick review
and that saves a lot of time thinking of studying less for tests study efficiently maybe you have a
natural talent for it or it's just an easy class there are some classes like that and it doesn't
make sense to spend a lot of time trying to review and study for those classes I used to really put a
lot of work into studying I had some experiences where I wasn't able to study for the test and I
still did well and I was like maybe I should do that more often on my freshman year history final
I mixed up my final schedule and I showed up all ready to take my Spanish final and found out like
ten minutes before that I was actually taking my history final which I had hardly reviewed for we
were allowed to prepare notes sheet so I scribbled some amendments onto a piece of paper and I got an
A on that final I saved so much time just because of that mix-up that I would have wasted otherwise
studying for a test that I actually was able to do really well on without any preparation so put
your time where it's most needed recognized which classes you're juggling in where you really need
to review the material but if you've got an easy class just be grateful that you've got an easy
class and take advantage of that by not putting a lot of time into it while we're on the topic of
not putting a lot of time into things where it's not necessary my final tip is don't let homework
creep into all of your time and I think with that I basically want to say that you have passions in
life you have extracurriculars that hopefully you're excited about hopefully you're not doing
them just to impress a college you have things in your life that really excite you and are important
to you and also contribute to your future and you need to consciously make time for that homework
and school can be very easy to get caught up in especially if your friends are the kind who really
stress out a lot about school and it takes up most of their time in there I guess headspace it's most
of what they think about it can become easy to put those things that make you who you are on
the back burned and you don't want to do that like this year I committed to getting back to blogging
and that was one of the best things I've ever done and in order to do that I had to make all
of these changes that I just talked about I had to make sure that I wasn't spending so much time
on homework that I had no time left to dedicate to blogging the result wasn't me doing bad in school
it was me continuing to do well in school not getting exhausted by school not getting as sick of
school as I used to get because I also had these things that I absolutely loved doing and that
were really contributing to my skills and giving me ideas for what I wanted to do in the future I
actually took it a step further and I decided to commit to not doing homework Friday's two Sundays
now there are obviously some weeks where this just doesn't work but for most normal weeks been able
to achieve no homework from Friday all the way to Sunday this is honestly been a game-changer you
know they say you need to have work-life balance I feel like people just don't emphasize that as
much with school but it's still important you need to have school life balance and so I really
work hard to make sure that I can get things done Monday through Thursday I use my class time I try
to work fast at home do what's most important and then Friday through Sunday I have to blog and work
on stuff for my extracurriculars and things like that and it's having that clear separation really
helps me be more effective in all aspects of my life because I have these defined times to work
on those things it also gives my brain a break if I'm doing school and extracurriculars and blogging
every single day I'm gonna get exhausted I'm gonna need it but when I do a homework Monday through
Thursday and then I have Friday to Sunday to not do homework I come back to school on Monday ready
for the cycle to start again it's also important especially I think when you're in high school and
you still have to take a lot of required core classes that don't necessarily pertain to what
you want to do in the future it's important to make sure that all that doesn't creep into
what's truly important to you important to you in here that's a good ending to the video I think so
on my last video the one with all the facts I just kind of ended it abruptly I was like man all these
other youtubers like have a nice conclusion where they ask people to subscribe and stuff I should
probably do that so I'm gonna do that right now please like this video and subscribe to my channel
I've got a whole bunch of content already planned out if you have any ideas for videos based on what
I've talked about so far which is only two videos so you probably don't really have a sense of what
my channel is gonna be about but basically I love planning productivity life tips i guess so if you
have any ideas in that realm comment below and I can always use some more ideas for my big list
that I've started also let me know what you do to be efficient with school what do you do at school
what do you do when you're at home working on homework and why is it important to you that
you are efficient with schoolwork what is it in your life that you want to make more time for so
yeah that's all for me I think that's all I wanted to say um yeah bye I'll get better at ending yeah