1. Weekly Meal Plans.  > Not hardcore, know what each of your meals are going to be, meal-plans, but you should be able to shop bi-weekly for your groceries, and make the portions last for the 3-4 days that you’ll need them, without having to go out and buy more food. I’ve found that as well as saving some money, this is also a great way of getting more fresh food into your diet, since it means that you need only keep fresh food for 3-4 days max. before you will eat it. This will also reduce your wasted food items, which will in turn minimize your cost per calorie.
2. Pre-drink.  > We all know drinks at the bar cost a heck load more than when you buy it at the off-license or supermarket. So limit yourself to entry fee + one drink inside the club. You don’t need buy more drinks when you’re out…
3. Eat out as a treat, and look for deals.  > The last two times I ate out were on 2-for-1 offers. The cost was significantly less, and the food was equally good. Since you’re buying your groceries twice a week, eating out is no longer required out of necessity: make sure you buy enough when you shop, and you wont go hungry. Instead, you can eat out once or twice a week, and it will be a treat. Go with a friend or two and enjoy it.
4. Simplify your wardrobe.  > This is a moot point, and some girls wont be able to do this.  Guys, on the other hand, should think about their clothes stash, and what they currently wear and don’t wear. Do you need that new t-shirt that you saw in Top Shop or can it wait to be gifted at a Birthday or Christmas? I find, if I make a point of waiting a week or two before making a decision, I find that I haven’t really missed the item, and so don’t buy it after all.  On the other hand, if there’s a good sale on…
5. Don’t snack & keep to water.  > These are two biggie’s. Snacking out on chocolate bars and, really, anything other than fruit will substantially increase the amount spent on food in a week. Good way of avoiding the temptation to snack-out are: not buying the stuff on your grocery shop, switching to fruit snacks (apples, oranges etc.) and also exercise, which depresses the hormones which tell your brain you’re hungry. Drinking water, as opposed to soft drinks, will keep your food bill way down.

These few tips should decrease costs by 30-40% each week, which you can either save, or put towards something you’ve had your eyes on for a while. For instance, with the money I saved over the last two weeks (+a little extra) I decided to splash out on a nice new keyboard to use with my laptop. It’s the Logitech DiNovo Keyboard for Notebooks, and it’s super hot!

I mate of mine had the same exam, and had done as little work towards this module as I had, so we agreed to revise yesterday for it. Sadly, we both got up at around lunchtime and did nothing but play FIFA and go to the gym until around 10pm. Having done no work during the day, it was clear we were in for the long haul, and went to the shop to grab some redbull and sweeties for an immense double-team combo of caffeine and sugar. We managed to revise the whole subject in about 5 hours (1-7:30, broken up with FIFA and an occasional power-nap [crucial])

Anyway, the paper was as expected, and I felt like I knew a fair bit about each of the questions I was writing on, but I just didn’t get any real content into the answers. It’s a good thing this module is only worth 3 credits, but I still need to pass it. We shall see.

What we both agreed on, was that cramming seems to work pretty well for most people, but not immediately before the exam. Instead, it should be done a day or two before, leaving your brain a proper night’s sleep to organize the information in your brain.

Now, I have a nice break until Friday 29th, the last exam (but I do need to do an essay by the end of the week as well, on a wholly unrelated topic).

[I originally found this on Frank Kern's (the marketer) blog, posted under the title:  Who knew this guy was so cool?]

I like QASANA for 3 separate reasons:

1. The style of learning. I find that whatever memory experts may tell you, some rote-learning of vocabulary is sometimes required, and has done me pretty well over the years. QASANA puts vocab in chunks of 20 words, all categorically similar, and then tests you on all of them, from your native language to the foreign language.
2. The breadth of vocabulary. 1500 useful words is a great start to building your active vocabulary in any language. (An active vocabulary being the words you could put into a sentence you construct yourself, whereas passive vocabulary are the words that you could recognize, but not necessarily recall for your own use.)
3. The site design. I really dislike using websites that are overly busy, have bad navigation, or are full of distractions, be it advertising, or just bad design. QASANA is so standalone and application-like, that I actually created an application shortcut (Chrome users know what I’m on about) so that I can just call the website up by itself, and use it distraction free.

Stumbler’s or avid internet users may have already come across  this website before but for those that have not, or needed reminding of its existence, I thought the resource had earnt its own post.

1. keep my new years resolutions.
2. make a list of things to do before going to bed/after waking up.
3. re-start an activity that you’ve stopped, but wish you hadn’t.
4. make some new friends in your lectures.
5. get a weekend/part-time job.
6. make yourself an exercise routine and schedule.
7. make separate weekly planners for school-work, sports, social, work and meals.
8. make a habit of review your school-work and goals once a week.
9. think about time management and spending your time optimally.
10. attend all of your classes.

1. keep my new years resolutions.  > This has probably already evaded a few of you, because you goals were either silly, or you had no well thought out way of achieving them.  Goals should be Specific, Measurable,Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Boxed.  Specific, because vagueness will mean identifying steps towards completion of this goal will be impossible, and failure would be inevitable. Measurable, for the same reasons.  Achievable,  so that you can actually complete the goal. Relevant, so that you’re not wasting your time.  Time-boxed, so that there is some urgency, and you can’t endlessly procrastinate.  For more information, check out the dumb little man blog.
2. make a list of things to do before going to bed/after waking up.  > Having morning and evening rituals is a good idea for many reasons.  For starters, there are bound to be things that you should do at these times of day, that you don’t currently do: so to turn them into habits by creating a ritual.  An example for me would be flossing before bedtime. You can also add things to these lists that you have to/like to do daily, but often find yourself not finding time for whatever reason e.g. reading a chapter of a novel or listening to a podcast.
3. re-start an activity that you’ve stopped, but wish you hadn’t.  > Obviously, don’t make this a bad habit, like biting your fingernails, and don’t turn this into an excuse to start smoking again either! This point is for an activity like reading fiction, something which I’ve tended not to do for the last two years or so. I’ve started reading The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger) and I am enjoying it immensely. Whether it be a sport or a hobby, there’s bound to be something that you’d like t start up again, and this is the perfect opportunity to do so.
4. make some new friends in your lectures. > This is just about getting out of your comfort zone and meeting some new people. You probably know a dozen people in each of your lectures, and you recognize a fair few more around campus. Make the new semester a chance to befriend people you that you know of, but don’t hang out with. Expanding your social circle is never a bad thing, and maybe you’ll meet a couple of people you always thought looked really boring, but you turn out to share a billion interests with them
5. get a weekend/part-time job. > Now that you’re settled in, know your way around campus (and town), and you’ve settled in to some sort of routine of homework, or lack of it, you should consider getting a part-time job.  Even if money isn’t an issue (and let’s face it, most students wouldn’t mind an extra ~hundred $/week) it can be a great way of socializing and getting your mind off school-work. I’m certainly considering one this term, just for the weekends.
6. make yourself an exercise routine and schedule.  > Everyone needs to lose the dreaded holiday flab, and maintaining a gym habit is something a find particularly difficult. Usually, it will develop from a week where I’m sick, and then never get back into the habit properly. So, create or follow a routine that you’ve put together, or start a new one. Then schedule what days and what times you’re going to go to the gym/go on a run and, voila.  Now, the hard part is sticking with it; for inspiration, re-read the first tip.
7. make separate weekly planners for school-work, sports, social, work and meals.  > I find that for organization, nothing beats a pen and a notepad, so start there. Off the back of a successfully-stuck-to revision timetable that I made for this term’s exams, I decided to organize my time by use of a weekly hand-drawn organiser. I’ve never really stuck to a revision schedule so well before, so I figured stick with something that works. Also, BONUS TIP: a useful as it is to Time-box for long-term goals, I’d suggest not doing the same for small/medium sized  ”tasks’. My revision plan merely said what topics had to be covered that day, and I never even measured how long each task took.
8. make a habit of review your school-work and goals once a week.  > This is still something I haven’t fully implemented, but is vital to keeping track on goals, and to make sure you get a close to 100% recall as you can on the subject-matter of the previous week’s classes.  Using memory techniques is also a good way of learning specific groups of data, but I’m sure I’ll get into that in a different post.
9. think about time management and spending your time optimally. > This boils down to once main concept.  When you are working, focus ONLY on your work. Don’t let anything distract from the main task at hand. Get into flow.
10. attend all of your classes.  > This is not something I was able to do, or should I say, chose to do, last semester.  One of my lectures was so mind-numbingly dull, that by the second week, I just didn’t  turn up. Another lecturer just gave out a sheet and we went through it with them for the whole lecture; also ditched by week two. However, I came to realize, however dull these lectures are, if I’m taking the period as a free, I’m still doing less work than all the rest f the students, even though I know that the lecture is not really helping. So, this tip comes with the caveat: if your lectures are truly not worth going to, then make sure you are doing something useful in that time instead. (And it goes without saying, any lectures missing because of laziness must be attended)

I’m sure this list will keep me buzzing to return to Uni and getting uber-productive. So, have you got any interesting resolutions in mind when you get back to College this semester?