You have decided to spend the weekend studying, but you don’t want to be stuck away in your room, or be distracted by the dulcet tones of your roommate singing along to Metallica. You could go to a secluded lakeside villa where birdsong soothes your mind and the rhythmic lapping of water focuses your concentration. But instead, you’ve decided to head out to your backyard, bring your books, and get studying.
When you’re studying outside, it’s a good idea to have paperweights. You don’t want to spend your day chasing papers around your backyard each time there’s a gust of wind. If you don’t have any paperweights lying around, you could just place your books on top of any papers you aren’t using. It’s also a good idea to have a garden umbrella to go over your table, because you don’t want to go into the house momentarily, and come back to see that the rain has fried your laptop and soaked your expensive book on particle physics, or GAAP accounting, or whatever it is you study.
“Make sure you have somewhere comfortable to sit, or else you’ll end up heading back into your house in no time at all,” explains All Backyard Fun. “Have a big spacious table where you can spread out your books and sit your laptop. If it gets cold, there’s nothing better than being able to light up an outdoor fire pit. If you don’t have one already, it’s a great investment to ensure you’re ready to study.”
Remember to keep yourself hydrated. Studies show that people’s minds work so much better when they are properly hydrated, and it’s easy to forget to drink enough when you’re sitting outside all day. You should try to drink around eight glasses of water a day under normal circumstances, but you should increase this number if you’re sitting outside in the scorching sun. The same goes for eating. Make sure to take regular breaks to eat, or you’ll end up feeling sluggish and your productivity will slump as a result.
You want to pick a quiet place. Not somewhere your little brother is going to be playing with his friends, or where fellow students will be playing football. If no quiet place is available, you should bring headphones and listen to music. Don’t opt for music with loud and abrasive sounds. You want something soothing – something that you forget about after it’s been playing for 10 minutes or so.
Remember to take regular breaks when you study. You should read a book, watch TV or even lie down in your bed and go for a nap. The important thing to remember is that your mind can only remember so much at once, and you will come back to your studies refreshed after a short break.
Psychologists have shown that spaced repetition is essential to committing something to long-term memory. After you learn something come back to it in increasingly spaced intervals until it’s stuck in your mind for good.
Image source: http://www.bk.psu.edu/Images/Academics/StudyOutside_rdax_254x300_90.jpg
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