When I was in school, I remember teachers assigning research projects with a required minimum of 12 sources.  This always came with a stern warning: And no more than four of them can be from the internet! Or something like that.  Today I pay my bills by doing research for a non-profit organization that analyzes government policy in Maryland and I do it all from home — on the internet.

The internet, and technology in general, is a powerful tool.  There is more information floating around in cyberspace these days than could possibly have been contained in my school’s library.  Unfortunately, finding useful, reliable information can be difficult.  The outlets with which most people are familiar tend to be those that appeal to average users, not people on the lookout for educational material.

There are those who would suggest that sites like YouTube are better at locating amusing diversions than helping students with their homework — and they might be right.  YouTube may have a lot of everything, but sifting through it can be difficult.  I have found that it is often only worth checking YouTube for something useful if you already know exactly (or mostly) what you’re looking for.

Example: when I was doing research on the stimulus act, I didn’t search YouTube for “stimulus.”  This would have yielded far too many results; far too few of them relevant to my work.  Instead, I would read the news and look for mentions of interviews with people talking about the stimulus.  Often a newspaper article would record only a few choice sentences from an interview, while a YouTube search for the interviewee’s name would bring up the entire clip.

This is just one example from one site.  Like I said, the internet is a powerful tool.  But it can also become a strong distraction or a misleading navigator.  It is easy to get lost in the sea of content that’s out there, or to become too reliant on Google to answer each one of your questions.  The trick to using the internet to help with your education or your work is to learn how to leverage its most potent resources.

Identify websites or services that help you find the results you are looking for efficiently so that you’re not just turning to Google again for each new query.  This means doing some searching for trusted sources on your general area of study before you start looking for answers to specific questions and may mean subscribing to legitimate websites or databases.  If investing in your education isn’t already worth it to you then consider that the less time you spend on research the quicker you can move on to something else.

Another important thing to keep in mind is to not treat the internet like a crutch.  I find mental math a difficult task because I am used to turning to my cell phone’s calculator whenever I need to do a quick computation, such as calculate my gas mileage.  Imagine how much better at long division I would be if I did this in my head every time I filled up the tank!  Keep this in mind when you turn to the internet for help with your studies.  There are ways to challenge yourself to help you retain information, and there are ways to treat technology like one big cell phone calculator.

Leverage the internet to make you better at what you do, not incapable of functioning without it.

Here is a sample schedule for you to try to increase your productiveness and decrease your anxiety:
Tuesday 7/20/10
10PM: Goodnight
Wednesday 7/21/10
8:30AM: Good morning –Try to get up around the same time every day; create a regular sleep schedule.
9AM: Breakfast- eat something that will keep you full for a while so you are not distracted by hunger/snacking. I would recommend a bowl of cereal with fruit with coffee to drink!
9:30AM: Start your studying. Try to study straight through until 12:30PM. This will give you a solid three hours of studying-uninterrupted.
12:30PM: Lunch. Eat a decent size lunch either a sandwich with protein like peanut butter or turkey or a super healthy yogurt parfait. Make sure you munch on some snack foods during lunch so the cravings do not distract you during the rest of your day. Also, if you need to, refill the caffeine with either a second cup of coffee or a cup of tea with honey.
1PM: Relax/Break Time. This is the time to decompress; let your brain take it easy. Watch your favorite shows that you recorded and/or take a short nap. Just relax during this time, until approximately 3PM.
3PM: At this point it is up to you how you spend the rest of your day, but I would suggest the following: 1. Head to the gym. Burn off any excess stress left and get rid of the extra adrenaline which will only cause you anxiety later. 2. Study some more-more review never hurts. Go back to those areas that troubled you (the ones you flagged for review!)
5PM: Dinner time.
6PM: Shower and get ready for bed. I know it sounds really early, but you have had a long day and its nice to be ready early and enjoy that time to relax.
7PM: Until 8PM review what you studied today. Go back and annotate your practice questions. For example, the ones you got wrong, go back and try to figure out why and write down steps. Also, mark questions that still trouble you to come back to at a later time/date with more assistance. Lastly, make sure you know your formulas! Maybe you could create flashcards just for formulas and review them during this time as well.
9PM-10PM: Use this time to relax and to go to sleep in bed. It has been a long day and you are doing it all over again tomorrow morning! Good luck and good night!

The sun is beaming your friends are calling. How do you resist? Here are a few tips to smart summer studying:

1. It all goes back to your planning and organizational skills. Did you buy your 15 minute planner yet? Plan a few hours a day to hang out with your book, then reward yourself by seeing your friends or the beach.
2. When you study…study. Turn off your phone and any other distractions. I would also recommend studying inside in a closed place (like without a bay window to temp you to go outside!)
3. Make a study plan for yourself. Set your goals early. If you want to take 4 full-length practice tests, plan it in. Make an 8 week study plan for one book and take a test every other week. You have to train yourself to follow a regimented schedule.
4. See the light at the end of the tunnel. If you ever find yourself wondering why am I doing this when I could be doing that remind yourself of you ultimate goal. Let’s say you are studying for the DAT. It is trying at times and you often want to give up. When it gets to that point, you have to tell yourself I am doing this for a reason. This is what I have worked so hard for. I have always wanted to be a Dentist and I want to help people. This is worth it.
5. Try to focus on the positives and don’t forget to compliment yourself once and a while! If you are extraordinarily successful on a section of practice problems…allow yourself an extra 15 minute break or to sleep in a few minutes in the morning!
6. Make the most out of your studying. Do not make it a job, but make it something you want to do, as opposed to need to do. You have to want it to get it and to appreciate the efforts. Be dedicated but not obsessed.
7. Be reasonable with your goals and never give up too soon! Do your research first and be able to look at your scores and see where you stand against other applicants. It will ease your mind and boost your confidence!
8. Good luck!

These days it is more difficult than ever before to stop working.  Nearly all of us are carrying around miniature computers that allow us to receive calls, check emails, and access our company’s website 24-7.  While we love our blackberries, iPhones, and androids for how much easier they make things, we also curse them for being such unforgiving masters of our work life.

This age of constant communication is a boon for business but can be a major source of stress for employees.  Americans have never been great at taking all of our vacation days, but at this point more and more people aren’t even allowing themselves a vacation at all.  The pressure to perform, especially when so many have been laid off, drives us to push too hard.

There are lots of people talking about this already, often on a macro scale.  What do we do when we find that our lives have grown too busy; too complex?   Simplify, simplify, simplify — right?  But easier said than done.

The important thing to understand about this “go go go” lifestyle and work ethic is that it has immediate, short-term effects on the quality of our output on top of the long-term, “stressed-out” feeling we get from being our own slave drivers.

In short: there is as much a need for us to simplify in our day-to-day schedule as in our lives in general.  Cluttering each day with so many little time-sinks is the stress-inducing equivalent of having too many possessions.  The stress that they create just isn’t worth it, and more importantly they make us worse at paying attention to the stuff that really matters.

Change does not have to be a radical, life-altering sacrifice.  It can begin as a simple effort, each day, to take some time to yourself to make sure that you’re not running yourself ragged.  Sometimes one of the most productive things you can do is choose to be truly unproductive for a short while so that you can come back to your work refreshed and ready to start again.

What works for you may be completely different from what works for other people, but the basic idea of taking a break every now and again — a real break — is solid across the board.  Do some experimentation to find how you decompress most effectively.  And, to get the ball rolling, here are a few suggestions.