Ditch Your Distractions

Studying for exams sucks. You’ve worked your arse off for the last 13 weeks and now you’ve got about 3 hours or less to prove it. And people vary wildly in their studying habits: some simply give their class notes a few quick scans, while others fill their textbooks with so much neon that the thing practically glows in the dark.

But no matter how casual or serious your studying habits are, every student can fall victim to time-sucking distractions. And when you’re studying, absolutely anything can pull you away from your notes. You may start off just wanting to quickly check out the Facebook fan page for Sigmund Freud, but before you know it you’ve ended up following seven labradoodle accounts on Instagram and accidentally liking three bikini models’ posts from 2 years ago. So, in order to help you avoid this pitfall, we’ve put together a list of distractions that you should get out of your system before you study.

1. Give ‘er on George: If you’re a bit of a party animal, have one last bash downtown before you take to the textbooks. This method is also a great way to get a lot of other things out of your system, like all the food you ate over the last 12 hours and any shred of dignity you might have left, for example.
2. Literally Netflix and Chill: Perhaps the biggest distractor for students is TV and movies. So, if there’s a show or movie that you’ve been dying to watch, get that done before you hit the books.
3. Grab a Bite and a Pint: If you’re more of a foodie, you know that there’s plenty of awesome spots to eat in St. John’s. So, if that’s more your speed, head on out and grab yourself a micro-brewed craft beer and a locally-sourced cage-free mushroom burger, or whatever you folks eat.
4. So Fresh and So Clean: For all you neat freaks, all you need to see when you’re studying is a forgotten patch of dust or a poorly folded t-shirt before you go ham and completely rearrange your room, scrub it from top to bottom, and add a fresh coat of paint to the ceiling. We recommend giving your space a sprucin’ before exam time so that you can avoid having to go all Rosie from the Jetsons during your study time.

Here at Paperback, we wish you the best of luck in your exams and we hope that these tips help you stay on task. And when next semester rolls around, don’t forget to buy and sell your textbooks with Paperback. We’ll be launching some new features to help make the app work better for you. Best of luck on your exams!