Staying organised assessment periods, by Dr Vanita Chamdal
Want to go straight to the techniques? Click here for ‘brain dump’, the ‘timetable’, ‘pomodoro technique’, ‘rubber duck’, ‘traffic light system’
Deal with the stress:
The whole premise of this post is to provide support and (actionable) guidance on dealing with periods of acute stress, this could be during exam season, when there are a lot of deadlines in a short period of time, or when there are lots of demands in your personal and university lives.
First and foremost, let’s normalise stress. Experiencing various types of stress is common amongst university students and whilst the vast majority are going through a similar experience to you, everyone’s perspective and approach is unique.
Some level of is stress is good, that’s right! It can be motivating especially when working towards a goal, getting in the zone, feeling creative and engaged (Peng et al., 2019). Of course, as we’re all well aware, too much stress can lead us to feel overwhelmed, burnt out, panicky, and just wanting to give up (which is different to being completely under-stressed, where you can feel unmotivated, bored etc.).
Stress can come from multiple sources where the degree of stress can fluctuate, therefore the management can be a dynamic process where we are tapping into our personal resilience (personality traits, self care strategies) or external resilience (resources from your work, relationships) Stress is a dynamic process that we are continuously dealing various elements challenges and often it is coming from multiple sources. Take this bucket analogy as an example;
You can see ‘maintaining a healthy balance’ and getting to that ‘normal line’ often utilises multiple techniques and resources.
PSA. Before we get into it, it’s important to note that when study/writing just isn’t happening – stepping away for a while (or even an entire day) is more beneficial than sitting there letting panic get in the way of rational thought. A bit of self-compassion goes a long way. Go for a walk, go for a coffee, watch a show, read a book…. Accept when it takes time to feel the rhythm – often we need a bit of a “run up” to studying/writing (think: small wins).
So, what’s around you that you can access?
The university: Your personal tutor, chances are they’ve also been through a similar experience to you, and they know what the university has to offer. Research has found that students accessing and utilising university services are able to manage their stresses more effectively (Reyes et al., 2015). All students are given a personal tutor for this reason, they are there to help and support the complexities of university life! Starting with your personal tutor can help navigate the various resources and services you could have access too.
Check out the university website too.
Your own resilience! Let’s get into it 😊
Often, we don’t realise we already have personal resources to deal with the curve balls thrown at us. Resilience is generally understood as the ability for someone to successfully adapt, recover and maintain psychological growth through experiences of adversity (Joseph, 2012). By this definition, we’re not looking at avoiding stress, but addressing it with the resources we have access to, whether they are internal or external.
Splitting resilience into perspective, staying healthy, and support can give us a holistic, well-rounded understanding of what keeps us ticking.
Holdsworth et al. (2018).
If you’ve managed to get this far and starting to feel like the gif below, then keep reading!
Actionable techniques
Brain dump
Feeling overwhelmed and just want to do a bit of a mind dump? Then go ahead! Put a 20-minute timer on your phone and write out (or dump) all the things you need to do (check out the image below).
The top post it note can be tasks that need to be done immediately, the second one can be easy tasks for when your energy is low or need that *boost* and the final one can be tasks you’ve kept on the back burner for a while.
Timetable
Want a bit more of a structured routine? (My personal favourite), having a timetable can be especially helpful when you just want to get stuck in, check out an example below.
This can be tailored as you progress through the weeks, especially if you use the university outlook calendar which incorporates all your meetings from teams! That way you can see how you’re able to balance every day university tasks (attending classes, revision, study time) as well as exercise (blue), social (green), and mental health (orange).
Pomodoro
The pomodoro technique (very different to the pomodorito technique- see below), found to improve study efficiency, fatigue and concentration among university students (Biwer et al., 2023). This technique is often used when you want to get a chunk of writing done or focus on a particular revision task. This is essentially taking systematic breaks rather than self-regulated breaks that can often happen when we are already feeling drained from the task at hand.
Pro tip: pop your phone somewhere out of reach when doing this.
Rubber Ducky
So, you’ve been trying to get your head round a concept/theory/lecture and still don’t understand it, have you tried explaining it to a rubber duck?
The Rubber Duck Debugging theory is often used by programmers during a coding error, the idea is you assume the rubber duck does not know anything about your subject (something you may need to check out before purchasing the rubber duck). You then explain or teach the topic at hand to the rubber duck. Whilst there isn’t much research on this topic, there are numerous blog posts (here and here) that have found their learning experience can benefit from this.
The traffic light system
The traffic light system can be a helpful tool to navigate a module and work out the areas you need further help on (red), topics you need to focus on a bit more (yellow) and topics you’re fairly confident and can comfortably talk to your rubber duck about (green).
Here is a working example:
Knowing where you stand with your knowledge can help you organise your time on certain topics that require more attention or seeking support from relevant staff members (the lecturer, your personal tutor, librarian etc).
Congratulations on getting this far! I hope you have found some of these tools and strategies useful on your university journey
If you would like to know more about this blog, please do get in touch: vanita.chamdal@rhul.ac.uk
References
Baker, F. R. L., Baker, K. L., & Burrell, J. (2021). Introducing the skills‐based model of personal resilience: Drawing on content and process factors to build resilience in the workplace. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 94(2), 458–481. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12340
Biwer, F., Wiradhany, W., Egbrink, M. G. a. O., & De Bruin, A. B. H. (2023). Understanding effort regulation: Comparing ‘Pomodoro’ breaks and self‐regulated breaks. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(S2), 353–367. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12593
Holdsworth, S., Turner, M., & Scott-Young, C. M. (2017). . . . Not drowning, waving. Resilience and university: a student perspective. Studies in Higher Education, 43(11), 1837–1853. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1284193
Joseph, S. (2012). What doesn’t kill us: The New Psychology of Posttraumatic Growth. Piatkus Books.
Peng, Y., Zhang, W., Xu, X., Matthews, R., & Jex, S. (2019). When do work stressors lead to innovative performance? An examination of the moderating effects of learning goal orientation and job autonomy. International Journal of Stress Management, 26(3), 250–260. https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000109
Reyes, A. T., Andrusyszyn, M., Iwasiw, C., Forchuk, C., & Babenko-Mould, Y. (2015). Resilience in Nursing Education: An Integrative review. Journal of Nursing Education/the Journal of Nursing Education, 54(8), 438–444. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20150717-03