Whenever I study for anything, I always try my hardest to find ways to trick myself into believing that I am working really hard when, in fact, I am not being very productive at all.
I like to call these techniques study-related procrastination.
Examples of study-related procrastination include organising my desk, making a colour- coded revision timetimable, going to the shops to buy various items of stationary and drinking several cups of coffee in order to ‘increase my productivity’, before sitting in a state of caffeine induced anxiety lamenting how I can never seem to get anything done.
One of my favourite forms of study-related procrastination involves going through my revision guides and highlighting the key points.
On the surface, this seems like a good idea – in theory, my brain will find it easier to absorb information if it only has to focus on the important bits.
However, the whole point of a revision guide is that it is essentially a collection of key points, a pre-condensed version of the syllabus, and this means that when I go through with my highlighter, I usually end up highlighting absolutely everything.
All in all, I haven’t actually achieved anything, unless basically colouring in each page in luminescent yellow can be considered an achievement.
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Some Words That Say What I Think 
Reblogged this on blogging807.
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I do the same..different color same practice!
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Lol this is SO “me” and I’m a 59 yr old retired teacher! 😀
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I have bought used textbooks before and the previous owner literally highlighted the whole book with yellow highlighters. I never could understand why. But after reading your excellent post, I now have a keen and sympathetic understanding of why someone would go through 20 highlighter pens to color in all the pages of a textbook.
As for me, I always just wrote witty comments in the margins and hilarious captions to the photos and diagrams. At least … I THOUGHT they were funny. It might have just been my imagination.
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Oh Biff, I did the same! Captions and ‘witty’ comments. My sister loved Archie Digests (you know, with Jughead and Hot Dog et al) – I would fill them with ‘alternate’ storylines with rude dialogue.
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Ha ha! That’s wonderful! Did you keep any of them? You should post some of them on your page (assuming you can figure out a way to get around the rabid Archie Comics lawyers and their “claims” of copyrights.
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Ah, procrastination. That is my middle name.
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Hehe, very good post. There is no end to the nest feathering and other delaying tactics that one can devise to avoid the inevitable! I daresay that nowadays there are even MORE distractions, especially with the existence of cats and their various antics.
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I have the too much coffee/caffeine problem often, too. It helps me get nothing done so much quicker.
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At school/college, I use to spend so long on colour coded revision timetables that I left no time for actual study. I have a post coming soon where I justify my procrastination as ‘I’m not ready yet’. I’m not wasting time, I’m weighing up the pros and cons 😉
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