Working and studying--being productive

Question

The summary: I need to be hyper-productive.

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I work more or less for eight hours a day, but I still need to graduate. I can not stop working--I need to do so--but I'm still trying to find a way to proceed with the study using the rare spare time available to me.

I think I'm the type of student suitable for flash cards, the problem is that I do not have time to write and prepare them.

The question of questions is:

Is there any advice I can follow that will allow me, in the long term, to speed up the organization of the material that I use to study?

A list of possible answers include and is not limited to:

• Stop studying;
• Stop working;
• Stop doing both (uhm);
• method <best answer> is better than flash cards because <motivation>;
• You can do this and that in this order because <motivation>;
• Your problem has no solution because <motivation>;
• Your question is off topic;
• I am your teacher, and now that I know the truth will prevent you from graduate;
• Want a cookie to cheer you up?

UPDATES

The test says: Intrapersonal Intelligence. I would say that it fits perfectly.

@weronica

Are you graduating from college, getting a PhD, or what? What field? What kind of classes are you mostly doing? Large projects, small problem-solving tasks, memorization-heavy things? Homework, writing, tests? Which methods are best depends on the kind of task involved.

College. Field is Computer Science. I'm doing mostly memorization-heavy things; also problem solving. Just tests, neither writing nor homework.

Answer 1

From my second year of college I started working part-time (4 hours per day) as software developer while I was finishing my college with good grades. In some periods I also took some more side jobs and was working as teaching assistant for one semester (still working on that part-time job and finishing college). At times it was not easy at all, especially in that semester where I worked as teaching assistant too. I had to do job work, prepare teaching material for classes, do classes, listen to my classes, do exams, etc. Sometimes I was not sleeping for a few days, than crash for a ~15h or sleep continuously a few hours per day. So yes, you can`t cheat time, unless you have 200IQ and can do all easily in no time.

You must know in your head for how long exactly would your physical self suffer to accomplish that 2 things in parallel. For example, in my toughest times I knew that it would last for a semester and that was my motivation to finish it and don't crash fully and abandon one of my tasks/jobs. That is extreme times, but if you know yourself, and know that you would need to put all your time in it for some larger time answer is in the question "Do I really want to sacrifice my social life, my hobbies, my health (you would not have time to prepare food yourself or exercise regularly), to get benefits of working this job while finishing college?"

At less extreme time (when I was just working part-time and going on college) the best way to get everything on time is not to let your self fall behind in materials you have to learn or do for college. Do all in time and be current with tasks as much as you can. Sometimes you will have to again sacrifice some nights sleep, but not that often. And do not be perfectionist, you will suffer greatly and fail in the end if you do. Do as much as it is needed (and at most, a little more) and flow along.

Now, if you can not for some reason do both at the same time (not enough capabilities, time, will to sacrifice...), ask yourself do you really need that job that much so you put your college on hold for an maybe unknown time. And know that it will be harder in the future to continue where you left of, especially if your job is not related to the profession you are learning for in college. If you do not need money desperately, I would personally choose college over job. College is better investment in future, and better future jobs.

Answer 2

I have been there -- working as well as studying. I would suggest you to make enough savings for your graduation and then reduce or give up one of the two things. Hopefully, you will agree that you can achieve much more doing one thing than two things.

Answer 3

Is there any advice I can follow that will allow me, in the long term, to speed up the organization of the material that I use to study?

Yes, my suggestion would be to understand how you learn best so that you can optimize your time. For example, do you prefer to read text, listen to audio, see pictures, or some other characteristic is best for you to retain information? MyPersonality's Multiple Intelligences test may be useful to nail this down.

If you really do want to go down the flash card road, find a friend to draw them up but don't forget that there is something to be said for how to design them. Do pictures convey information better than text for you? Are you trying merely for memorization or are you wanting to know for the sake of application? Just something to ponder here.