Keeping Yourself Motivated (When You Just DESPERATELY Want to Destroy Your Class Notes)

For university students, the madness of final essays has set in. And just as you breathe a shuddering sigh of relief and prepare for some well-deserved hibernation...

You're slapped across the face with a stack of exams.

Perhaps one day educational institutions will one day actually put their grad students to good use and figure out a better way to test your knowledge of the concepts and content. But for now, essays and exams are our lot. Realistically, so is the stress.

So how do you keep yourself going when you're starting to daydream about the poetic curl of burning paper? When you're checking your bank account to see if, after you've forked out money for a stack of books that will be utterly useless to you at the end of the class, you have enough money left over to buy a paper shredder? When you're starting to wonder if closing your eyes for long enough will make it go away?

Even if you aren't a student, one of the best tips I have come across for writers is to stick with your idea until it's finished.

So how do you keep your pen moving, or your fingers typing?

Here are a few ideas:

• Set realistic goals for your day. You have no doubt heard the age-old "plan your work and work your plan". Take it slowly. Plan to finish 100 of pages from your reading, write one outline, write 5 pages of your essay, etc. If you start small, not only will you feel like you've accomplished something, but it will motivate you to keep going, and you might even end up getting more done than you'd planned. Not only that, but taking small bites will give you time to be more thorough.
• Budget your time. I don't mean down to the minute, but plan to spend two hours here, an hour there, etc. It'll keep you sane, and, this is very much related to...
• Take breaks! Plan to take thirty minutes to an hour, even if you can't afford it. If you keep going non-stop, the quality of your work will start to nosedive. In the long run, you'll have wasted time.
• Get sleep. Even if you have to pull an all-nighter, plan to take a few hours here and there. Tanking up on caffeine and sugar will lead to an almighty big crash, and you'll feel even more awful than you otherwise would have.