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there are two kinds of students in the
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world here we have student a who has
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been studying for 6 hours is on their
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third coffee cup and has been
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highlighting their notes rereading the
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textbook and doing flashcards all night
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long and here we have student B student
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B has a very calm 2hour study session
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they know exactly what to review how to
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review it and barely waste any time
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highlighting their notes or rereading
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the textbook come exam day I think you
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know who gets the better grade if you
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couldn't tell it's me by the way wait
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how I studied four times longer than you
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in this video I'm going to teach you how
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to study less and get higher grades so I
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graduated as the valid dictorian of my
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high school and I went on to double
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major at MIT and I'm not saying that to
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flex instead I want to provide some
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context so back in high school I took 11
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AP classes peing at five my junior year
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and then at MIT I decided to double
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major pretty late which required me to
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stack up on a bunch of classes all at
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once so as you can imagine I had to be
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very efficient with my studying and the
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entire time I had to keep my GR grades
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up so my first tip is to disconnect
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yourself from the number of hours that
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you study as a student it's very easy to
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get fixated on the amount of time you
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spend studying instead of how you
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actually study and I get it right
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because it's very hard to measure the
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effectiveness of a study session but
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something like the amount of time you
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spend is a very concrete measure though
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it usually masks the true nature of the
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study session for example let's say I
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study for 5 hours now did I spend those
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5 hours rereading my notes and
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highlighting everything I possibly could
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or did I quiz myself pretend to teach
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others and Tackle my weakest Concepts
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first those two behaviors would yield
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drastically different results all right
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so now that you're in the right mindset
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let's move on to tip number two read
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backwards this sounds really weird I
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know but bear with me this is a very
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valuable tip especially if you're
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cramming for an exam at the last minute
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so the night before an exam you're
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probably tempted to pull out your
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textbook and read the chapter the test
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is on but there's a problem the chapter
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is probably very long and you don't have
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enough time so what you're instead going
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to do to start at the end of the chapter
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you're going to start by looking at the
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chapter summaries and the key points and
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then work your way to the beginning and
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now that you're back at the start you're
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still not going to read the chapter
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normally you're going to do what I like
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to call a first pass you're going to
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look at all the headings all the charts
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all the bulit terms all the colorful
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boxes to get a high level understanding
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of what the chapter is about but of
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course you're still missing some of the
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key details so now you're going to do a
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second pass and no you're still not
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going to read the chapter normally
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instead you're going to go Section by
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section and read the first paragraph
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skim the body paragraphs and read the
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last paragraph So now after the second
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pass you should have a decent
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understanding of what the chapter is
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about but if you still have time to
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study now you can go back and read every
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single word individually all right and
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with that let's move on to tip number
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three batch your tasks so a huge problem
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that a lot of students deal with and
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maybe even you is something called
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context switching so for example the
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mindset that you have while reading
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something is different from the mindset
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you have while writing something which
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is different from the mindset you have
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while solving math problems switching
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from one form of thinking to another
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takes time something I like to call the
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transition cost for example let's say
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you spend an hour answering some brutal
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calculus problems and then you have to
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write an essay for your English class
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both of those tasks require very
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different forms of thinking it's
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probably going to take you a good 10 to
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15 minutes just to get into the groove
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of the essay writing process so to save
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time while studying you have to minimize
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the number of transitions through a
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technique called batching and the
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premise of batching is very simple
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you're going to group together similar
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tasks and Tackle them together so for
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example instead of doing some math
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problems then an English essay then some
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science problems and then a history
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essay you're instead first going to do
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the math and science problems first
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together and then you're going to do the
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two essays this way you only have one
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mental transition instead of three now I
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use batching all the time in fact I'm
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using it right now once I finish filming
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this video I'm going to go ahead and
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film another one because I already have
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the light set up I have the camera set
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up I have the background set up if I
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were to film these videos at separate
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times I would just waste time taking
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everything down and then putting it back
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up oh and I have another quick tip for
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batching tasks once you batch your tasks
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you might notice that within a batch
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different tasks have different degrees
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of difficulty I always recommend that
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you tackle the easiest task first within
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any given batch this way it's much
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easier for you to transition into that
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new mental state that you might need to
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be in so for example if you bash
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together a bunch of writing tasks like
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write an essay work on a presentation
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and write a discussion post you should
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probably do the discussion post first
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because that'll take the least amount of
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effort and then you can follow this up
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with the outline and then the essay tip
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number four is to give yourself
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constraints now one of the easiest ways
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to spend less time studying is to give
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yourself less time to study and no I'm
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not being factious I'm 100% serious so
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there's an old adage called Parkinson's
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law that goes as follows work expands so
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as to fill the time available for its
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completion now this idea sounds fancy
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but it's simple however much time you
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give yourself to do a task is however
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much time you're going to take for
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example if you give yourself 3 days to
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work on an essay you're going to take up
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the full 3 days but if you give yourself
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only 3 hours you might be surprised to
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see how fast you can actually finish
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that essay so now while it's nice to
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space out your deadlines you don't want
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to give yourself too much time to work
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on an assignment because then you're
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just going to have the mental comfort of
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telling yourself oh I have hours or days
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or even weeks to complete this task and
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then you'll just work at a slower Pace
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now the easiest way to take advantage of
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Parkinson's law is to set a timer before
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you start an assignment first ask
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yourself how long is this assignment
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going to take then reduce that number by
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10 to 20% and set your timer accordingly
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again you might be surprised by how fast
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you can actually finish that work so
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this technique is something that my apsy
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teacher actually used at the start of
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the school year he only gave us 30
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minutes for each exam towards the middle
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of the school year he only gave us 25
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minutes and then towards the end of the
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school year he only gave us 20 minutes
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minutes now Believe It or Not by the end
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of the school year most students were
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able to finish the exams even when only
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given 20 minutes I remember at the start
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of the school year he told us he was
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going to do this and we all thought that
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it was nuts but turns out he was on to
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something DeMarco if you're watching
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this shout out to you you helped me
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learn how to take test effectively all
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right and my next tip is to leverage AI
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now one of my favorite ways to cut down
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on study time is to use AI tools like
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grammarly who's the sponsor of this
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video so many of you know grammarly as a
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spelling and grammar tool but do you
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know that does way more than that let's
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say you have to write an essay you're
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staring at the prompt but have no idea
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what to write about this is where
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grammarly can help just open up
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grammarly and ask it to help you to
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brainstorm topics then tell grammarly
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what your essay is about and almost
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instantly it'll give you a handful of
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topic ideas oh and it doesn't stop there
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once you have your topic grammarly can
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also help you draft a research plan and
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even give you an outline now once you
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have the outline you start writing your
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essay and along the way grammarly
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ensures that your writing is clear and
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concise it'll check for common mistakes
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like passive voice subject verb
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disagreement and misplaced modifiers but
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it'll also analyze your piece as a whole
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and provide suggestions for cohesion
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flow and tone in fact with grammarly Pro
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you can indicate the exact tone you'd
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like to go for whether it's personable
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confident empathetic engaging witty or
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direct oh and once you're done writing
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you can also use grammarly's plagiarism
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detector to ensure that you can submit
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your essays with confidence grammarly is
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a must have for all students sign up and
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upgrade to grammarly Pro for 20% off
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using my link and now now back to the
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video so tip number six is don't idle
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and this again comes from an AP psych
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teacher so while you're working through
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an exam or doing some homework problems
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you are inevitably going to come across
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some problems that stump you and I'm not
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talking about problems that are just a
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little bit challenging I'm talking about
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problems that you legitimately do not
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know how to answer no matter how hard
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you try now the best thing that you can
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do in this scenario is to swallow your
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ego and move on and this was a huge
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issue for me back in school if I had
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spent 20 or 30 minutes trying to solve a
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problem I would feel terrible if I moved
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on without figuring out the answer but
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this ties into a psychological
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phenomenon known as the sunk cost
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fallacy now if you're not familiar with
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the sunos fallacy it is the phenomenon
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whereby a person is reluctant to abandon
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a strategy or course of action because
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they have heavily invested in it even
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when it's clear that abandonment would
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be more beneficial in other words just
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because you put a lot of time and effort
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into solving a problem that's going
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nowhere does not mean that you need to
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waste even more time in most cases
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you're better off tackling other
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problems first and then coming back to
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the ones that stumped you and this
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requires being comfortable answering
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things out of order so if you're doing a
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homework assignment maybe you answer the
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last problems first and the middle ones
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and then make your way to the start and
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if you're working through an exam the
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same principle holds don't ever feel
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compelled to answer all of an exam's
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questions in order unless they build
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upon each other just try to find a
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foothold somewhere work off that and
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then tackle everything else so tip
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number seven is to do mindless work
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first so there are two kinds of tasks
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you have fixed tasks and then you have
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variable tasks fixed Tas tasks are
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usually mindless work like working on
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flashcards or trying to find images for
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a presentation variable tasks usually
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require more mental energy for example
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writing an essay or brainstorming ideas
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for a group project now you should do
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your fixed tasks first and here's why so
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this bar represents the amount of time
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that you have for studying if you drop
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in your variable tasks first they're
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going to follow Parkinson's law in other
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words they're going to inflate and take
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up all of your available time and now
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you won't have time to fit in your fix
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tasks now fixed tasks on the other hand
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don't inflate like variable tasks
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something like create 20 flash cards is
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always going to take the same concrete
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defined amount of time so by doing your
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fixed tasks first you create a
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constraint for your variable tasks so
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when you drop them in yes they're going
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to inflate again but this way you manage
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to fit everything so this is a concept
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that's much easier to understand
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visually and shout out to my editors who
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I know have done an amazing job showing
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you how it works oh and by the way this
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is a concept that I came up with and
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have been following for years let me
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know in the comments how you feel about
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it and if it makes sense because I'm
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down to craft more productivity rules
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but I just want to make sure I don't
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sound like I'm crazy up here okay and
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the eighth and final tip is to tag your
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notes so students waste a ton of time
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rereading notes I have wasted a ton of
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time rereading my notes and this is
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usually because in the days leading up
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to an exam we don't really know what to
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focus on we just tell ourselves oh my
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God there's an exam coming up for unit 3
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time to read everything I have about
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unit 3 but the reality is within any
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given unit there are topics that we know
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like the back of our hand hand and
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others that we're not super familiar
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with so if you want to spend less time
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studying you have to spend less time on
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the topics you're already comfortable
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with and that's why you should tag your
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notes during lecture while your teacher
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is speaking if they say something you're
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not too familiar with just put a star or
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some other symbol next to the bullet
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point this way when it comes time to
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review your notes your eyes are
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automatically drawn to the areas that
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you need to focus on now if you forget
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to tag your notes during lecture don't
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worry you can also do it after class
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just pull out your notes skim them as
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quickly as you can and tag any points
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that you're not super familiar with so
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that wraps up today's video hopefully
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you enjoyed it and by the way comment
00:11:03
below to let me know how the school year
00:11:05
is going for you so far are you enjoying
00:11:07
it is it tough I would actually love to
00:11:09
hear more from you guys and of course if
00:11:10
you haven't already be sure to join the
00:11:12
Discord join my newsletter And subscribe
00:11:13
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