5 Easy Steps to Increase Efficiency during Finals Week

We are in the home stretch of the fall semester. Congratulations! Today, Abby Murphy, Junior in the House of Corrie ten Boom, explains her strategy for managing the stress and expectations of final exam preparations.

Thanksgiving is over, and you’re missing home. You’re missing the endless amount of food, time with your loved ones, and maybe, if you’re anything like me, the lack of responsibilities. Instead of pushing down the stress, running mindlessly, and frantically asserting, “I’m fine! Just can’t think about it!!”, you have another option. Here are five easy steps to tackle the looming finals week:

1. Relax. Plug in your headphones and get to work, viewing this time as a good use of your time in the efforts of efficiency and productivity. This is an exercise, and it will get better with time as you learn your best study habits.

2. Outline everything. First, lay out all the assignments and finals that you have to complete by the end of finals week, and note their due dates. Start this process a few weeks out (right before or after thanksgiving).
Make a checklist of the tasks and little assignments that can be completed quickly, so you can feel the satisfaction of checking boxes of accomplishments.
Second, expand each assignments requirements, and what you need to get it done.
“Guestimate” on how long each assignment or test prep will take you, and add a bit of cushion time.
Depending on the assignment/final, keep expanding your outline as much as you can even after you start writing your essay. This way, you have some structure to work within even if it shifts a few times.

3. Meet with professors to clarify uncertainties.

4. Depending on the assignment/final, start to memorize.
Meet with friends to quiz each other on the material.
Write out sections that are unfamiliar to you first, then re-write them. Go back to the sections that you are well-versed in, write them out, and then start the process again. Handwriting is statistically proven to increase memory retention.

5. Review the things you’ve memorized before going to sleep the night before, and if you can, two nights before the exam. If you get a full night’s rest, it will effect the-day-after the-day-after. This way, you’ll retain more information than you think, and be physically prepared to take on the next final!