Mind escaping from exams!

      Mind in escape mode

It’s an another beautiful day. You feel like singing, dancing , watching your favorite flick, listening to your favorite artist, cook something delicious and different, travel to fun places or want to spend a quiet time with yourself, but you just look at the wall clock and the act wakes you up  from a daydream to realize you have an exam  tomorrow. You  are in no mood to indulge in your academic books but the novel of  your favorite author. Have you ever thought ,why this happens ?

Few days back, when I had my exam next day, I saw a new status update on facebook which says , “why its only during exams that we develop so many hobbies?” And this “Why” struck my mind to think about it and dig out the answers to this open question. I personally feel like doing everything else but studies during exams and that I have to deliberately keep myself focused. The reasons are manifold . Like

•     Because you think you still have many hours left to study and you can do whatever you feel like doing in the meantime.

•   You don’t  like to dive into books for it’s full of theories, models etc that you have to make your way through cramming.

• You don’t know from where to start and how to start (studying after being left with less time).

•   You are habitually trained to spend time with your hobbies when you should actually do it with studies during tests.

•  You have not studied the whole year or semester ,  and the times come to cram all that have possibility to appear on the question paper but the  lazy mind assumes it a herculean task, hence escaping ( thats what laziness phenomenon is) .

•   Or because you lose all hope that nothing could be done at the nick of time. You wish if you have utilized your time properly or studied before.

In “Seven habits of effective people” , Stephen R Covey illustrated the matrix of time management that has four quadrants into it. Each quadrant represents the tasks based on priorities.

I Quadrant – Urgent and Important

II Quadrant – Importent but not Urgent

III Quadrant – Urgent but not Important

IV Quadrant – Not Urgent, Not Important.

The chapter explains, “When people don’t spend maximum time in II Q , they have to deal with I Q and when they don’t want to be in I Q , they shift to IV Q”

For example in context of exams, II Q involves studying daily or regularly to be updated (which is important but not urgent ), I Q is studying at the last moment to get through the exams (urgent and important) , IV Q is the normal escapal chamber (not urgent and not important).

In short , to achieve positive and productive results with no end time jitters , to avoid escaping from an important task , spend maximum of time in II Quadrant.

I hope I have made my point clear on why our mind like to be in escape mode during exams.

And I just realized , writing too (that I am doing right now)  is the kind of escape  from stress building up due to exams and project deadlines. I should better stop it right here and get back to work or sleep for it’s already 1 at night.

Keep studying and Smiling!! :)