the encouragement lounge: Ritual and routine can provide study support

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Ritual and routine can provide study support

Most adult students are on a tight timeline when it comes to meeting deadlines for school. Gone are the days of study hall fifth period and after school time to do homework. We are trying to fit school work in between our jobs, family responsibilities and so on. Ideally, we need to be able to sit down when the time is right, and just get right to work. But how do we quickly transition from job to assigned readings, or from taking care of kids to writing a paper?

Many adult students find that a particular activity helps them transition. For example, my friend Lisa takes a brisk walk with her dogs (sometimes in the park pictured above in Birmingham!) to get energized before she begins working. I have at times benefitted from a quick work out, also to increase my energy level. And at other times, I have found that folding laundry (that's right, folding laundry) or some other fairly mindless and slightly repetitive physical activity, cleared my head and allowed me to start thinking about the next page I needed to write for a paper.

How about you? Do you have rituals or routines that help you prepare to work effectively?

Cheering you on!

Harriet

PHOTO BY HLS

1 comment:

Dancing With FeySeptember 23, 2009 at 3:53 PM
I don't have anything in particular that I do. Pretty much whatever I think might help me at the time.

By the way, I nominated this blog for an award. Take a quick look at my blog to see what it is.
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Working adult students, on my mind...

I hope this blog will be helpful to friends and others involved in a variety of endeavors. However, I created the blog with students in mind and continue to develop it with that specific group as my focus.

I believe that with the increase in evening, weekend, and low-residency programs, students are working more and more in isolation. If we were all full-time students on campus, we would have the informal support that comes with being able to go down the hall and talk with a colleague, etc. But instead, we are working late nights and weekends at home in front of the laptop.

With that in mind, I hope the encouragement lounge provides brief moments of respite and energizing connection. This does not at all replace valuable face-to-face contact. Many aspects of the academic journey can only be addressed via in-depth conversations with colleagues and teachers. And I would always rather sit down and talk with someone than to communicate online. Nonetheless, my aim is to give you one more channel for quick hits of support.