What if you have to finish your thesis in two months. Here you are, in the summer, seeing everybody having fun, everybody enjoying the hot weather, their holiday, their free time. But you have to write a thesis. This can be a problem and the deadline is only two months away right? But on the other hand, the deadline is ONLY two months away!

Constant fear
Working with a deadline will give you a constant fear, because you always have the deadline in mind. Of course, having a deadline is the best reason for procrastination, you have two months left, so why start now if you can also start tomorrow! I’ve written two articles on procrastination, why people put things off. The conventional theory is because it is just human nature, we want to wait till the very end of the deadline, so we have to work really hard to get the job done. What I think, and I call that the New Theory, is that people just LOVE procrastination, for three reasons:

1. The moment itself – you will do things that you like more
2. The satisfying feeling afterwards – You will feel more satisfied if you did a job in a short amount of time.
3. You tell everyone – People will notice it and admire you of how fast you can do something.

Admit that you love procrastination and you’ve solved 50% of the problem. Now just don’t give in, just do the job you have to do.

Parkinson’s law
Only two months left and you are starting to freak out? There is so much to do in so little time? Let me tell you one thing, it isn’t that bad at all. And that is because of Parkinson’s law. Parkinson’s law says: ‘Work expands with the amount of time you give it.‘ This means that if you have 2 hours to make a presentation instead of 1, you will make a great presentation, with cool pictures. A good looking presentation. But if you have only 1 hour, the presentation will still be good, but it won’t have the best lay-out ever. A bad thing? Probably not, you’ve saved 50% of your time.

This is the same with your thesis you need to write. You don’t have a lot of time left anymore, but that isn’t a bad thing, basicly because you can now focus on the core content! What really matters to your thesis instead of all the layout tweaks and options.

80/20 principle
And that brings us to the 80/20 principle. If you look at your thesis at a whole project, you will notice that 80% of your time will be in 20% of your thesis, like lay-out. You are probably working a lot on the lay-out, because you find it really important to make that very good. But you should try to use your time and effort for the things that really matter, the important 80%. This means you should try to eliminate things out of the 20% from above. If that 20% is taking up so much of your time, try to find ways of eliminating it. Maybe you can outsource the lay-out to your nephew who is really into graphics and everything. Locate where 80% of your time is going to and see if that is only 20% of the project you are working on. If so, try to eliminate that 20% or find ways to reduce the amount of work what it takes.

Get in the flow and get sh*t done!
Everything what is left now is YOU writing the thesis. Do it, stop procrastinating and get to work. Wake up early, take a shower and have a good breakfast. Make a cup of coffee for yourself and just start writing. Shut everything else down, just write. Within 15 minutes you will be in the flow and you will get sh*t done. If you have problems with starting to write, just do it. Write and after 15 minutes you will be fine. Before you stop writing, look over the first 15 minutes of writing and edit it and it will be as good as the rest again. Have a routine, set up rituals. Schedule 6 hours a day for writing, for a week long. And at the end of the week, look back at what you have done and be satisfied with what you have accomplished, you can rest in the weekends again. Monday again? Start writing again. Your thesis will get shape and you will be finished, in time, without fear and with a great end product! Good luck.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

Do you have the lists of books you need to buy for next semester already in your mail? End of July, holiday just started and you should start thinking about the next academic year again. How are you going to buy your textbooks, in chuncks or all together? And even more important, where do you buy cheap college textbooks? Here are some options and I would like to share a little hack with you in the end.

Where to buy your textbooks the upcoming semester

• BookRenter.com. You’ve seen the ad probably before on this blog, BookRenter is one of StudySuccessful’s sponsors. BookRenter.com is a website where you can rent all textbooks you need for the next year (USA only), instead of buying them. Pretty smart, eh? I’ve been talking about renting instead of buying before, so I won’t bring up that again. But it is something to consider!
• Amazon student. Amazon.com recently started a new thing called Amazon student. Students who sign up now get the ‘Amazon Prime’ for free by giving your school and major. You will get free two-day shipping without aminimum order size. Pretty awesome. If you don’t want to use this service, you can also just browse in their textbooks.
• At your University. That is probably how I am going to get my textbooks. We can buy textbooks at the University for a discounted price and because a lot of books are actually written by the professors themselves, it is a way to make sure that you get all the books you need. I don’t like the idea of prescribed books that are written by the professors who prescribe them (more on that later), but there is no other way.

How do you know you get the cheapest price?

And here is the hack. I recently got an email in my inbox from a reader who told me about a website called ‘campusbooks.com‘. You can enter any ISBN number, author or keyword and campusbooks.com will compare the prices from different sellers and renters. Campusbooks will show you where you can buy cheap college textbooks and where you can rent it for the lowest price. Pretty awesome. I don’t own a iPhone myself, but the reader who’ve send me the email told me you can just scan any barcode (by making a picture) and the Campusbooks app will compare the price with other sellers/renters. So imagine: You are in a bookstore, scanning a barcode and saying to the owner of the store: ‘Sorry bro, the book is cheaper somewhere else, bye!’ Awe-some.

You will spend a lot of money this year (again) on books, make an educated decision on where you are going to buy your books and whether or not you are actually going to buy them!

This is a guest post by Kyle

There’s no two ways about it; medical school is time consuming. With many years of expensive schooling ahead of you, it’s no wonder you’re beginning to panic about how you’re going to squeeze in the work hours you need to stay afloat and still attend to all of your studies. Indeed, most professors recommend that, due to the workload associated with a degree in medicine, students forego even part-time jobs in order to ensure the outstanding grades needed to attend the best schools (and secure the best jobs). However, even students who manage to get help with tuition (through scholarships, grants, and loans) still have to pay for books and living expenses, so it should come as no surprise that part-time work comes with the territory. But with tons of freelance jobs available for every conceivable interest, experience level, and walk of life, there is no reason medical students can’t make a little money on the side and take control of when and how much they work.

1. Writing. Freelance writing is a viable part-time profession for many reasons. For starters, any student who goes into medicine must have a solid grasp of language since a large part of the job hinges on concise communication. By that standard (and because the program is so reading and writing intensive), writing is an ideal method of monetary gain for medical students. You can opt to write for websites, magazines, and even medical journals on just about any topic you’re interested in and get paid to do it. Plus, you can take on as much or as little work as you like during your tenure in college. To get started, create an account on ODesk, Elance, or Text Broker to apply for job postings and allow potential clients to view your profile and samples of your work.
2. Proofreading. Like writing, it is something that almost anyone with an excellent grasp of language can do, but it doesn’t require the same creativity (and it may be significantly less stressful…although it also pays less). Familiarize yourself with the Chicago and/or MLA style before you start and you’ll be zipping through copy in red strikethrough before you can say “PayPal account”. Job opportunities can be found at the freelance sites listed above.
3. Medical billing. This may be a good option for several reasons. For one thing, it’s a related field, which can only help you broaden your understanding of the profession as a whole. It can also give you an in-depth look at patient information and how it is processed. Finally, you can do just about as much or as little as you want, working for a small or large private practice (or several). If you don’t want to advertise your own services locally, consider signing on with an agency like BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) for a more traditional job situation.
4. Tutoring. The standby of college students everywhere, this is just an all-around easy way to make some extra cash. You can tutor younger students either on your own or by signing on with a local service (although many require you to attend to students in their homes), or you can tutor your peers on-campus (from your dorm, the library, or other common areas). If you tutor in medical-related subjects, you can also expand or brush up on your own knowledge. For generic subjects, you can try to get a job with a tutoring service like Sylvan Learning Center, or help college hopefuls with SAT prep through The Princeton Review (they also offer tutoring for the MCAT).
5. Medical sales representative. As freelance jobs go, you may stand to make the most money with this one, but it is also likely to demand more time and effort. You will almost certainly be required to cold call and visit local medical practices (public and private) in order to offer the latest advances in the medical field (your company may specialize in pharmaceuticals, software, equipment, or any number of other products). As a result, your earnings will largely be based upon your sales, so you’d better have the personality to go with your pitch if you want to succeed. To search for jobs in your area (or get advice on which ones are legit) log onto the forum at Indeed and get started. You can apply for work and get the insider lowdown on which jobs are worth it.

Kyle Simpson writes for Medical Billing and Coding Training where you can find more information about a career in medical billing and coding.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

When I was flying back from my holiday address I watched the movie ‘How to train your dragon’. A movie about a boy living in a viking town, this town is under attack a lot by dragons. So these Vikings are trained to kill the dragons. But this boy (Hiccup) is different, he is a clumsy, little boy who is nothing like the other Vikings. Until he shoots his first dragon. The deadly and feared Night Fury. The dragon isn’t dead, it is just injured and can’t fly anymore. Hiccup becomes friends with the dragon and helps him with a prothesis, so he can fly again. And eventually Hiccup flies on the dragon, the very first time a Viking did that. I think we can learn, as students, 3 things from the movie How to train your dragon.

3 lessons from How to train your dragon

1. Improve, test and improve again. The tail of the Night Fury is injured and Hiccup makes a prothesis-tail. The first time wasn’t a success, the second time neither. Hiccup keeps testing his makings and keeps improving it. Exactly what we need to do as college students. We need to keep testing our ways of studying and keep improving it. Does it work or doesn’t it work? If it does, don’t shut your eyes for other ways of studying, if it allows you to improve, it may be worth it! Keep improving and keep testing your improvements.
2. You don’t have to be big to win. Hiccup is a small and clumsy boy. He isn’t the stereotype hero, but he definitly is the stereotype protagonist. He shows that size doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter where you came from, it is you who decides whether you succeed or not. You don’t need the big brains, you don’t need the big muscles. All you need is the big motivation to do what you want to do.
3. Look beyond what is realistic. The Vikings have to kill the dragons. That was the normal thing, that was realistic. Hiccup didn’t thought so, what if they could live together with the dragons? What if the Viking-Dragon relation could be a good relationship in stead of a relation which can only cause death. Think out of the box, the solutions you grew up with aren’t always the best solutions. There are always other options, you just need to find them. Don’t restrict your thoughts, whether you are 12 or 62, always keep thinking like a child. The sky is the limit, that kind of thoughts.

However the movie is a movie for kids, I enjoyed it. And because it is a kid-movie, the message is always clear. A recommendation? Definitly.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

‘I’m waving the flag, I’m waving the flag’ says the World Cup/Coca Cola song ‘Waving flag‘ by K’naan. Obvious, with the world cup around everybody seems to be waving a flag. We wave the Dutch flag over here, the States probably waved the stars and stripes and in South Africa there are all kinds of flags waving.

What kind of flag do you wave?
When you look at people their life, people are waving flags. It resembles where they are in life and what they are all about right now. Newly weds will wave a flag which says newly wed, new fathers will wave the ‘Just got a son flag’ and students will wave the ‘Party!!! flag’.

Now I want to ask you, if you have a flag in your hand and anything can be on it, what kind of flag do you wave? What is on your flag? What are you waving about right now in your life? What are you all about right now in your life? And are you satisfied with the picture that is on your flag? If not, you should probably stop waving and start putting down the flag, in order to change it and wave another flag!

Pick out your flag and start waving it. It doesn’t matter what is on the flag you are waving, as long as you are proud of it!

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

Finals! Scary scary. A lot of work to do, a lot of material to cover. In a short amount of time. And then there is one more problem. The world cup is on. Whoops, now what?

According to me, you should never skip a match of your own country. Even when it is finals week and you are ‘way too busy to do anything but studying’. I think you should stop studying for 90 minutes every once in a while to watch a game of soccer (Yes people from the US, we in Europe are big supporters of soccer and I think you are becoming two!).

Why you should watch a game while you are in finals week

• It gets your mind off. We all know that your subconscious can solve a lot of problems, as long as you give it some time. When you are in finals week, your mind needs rest. You need breaks in order to study harder the next session, in order to memorize more! Watching a game can be a good distraction from studying.
• You can let go. A soccer match is the perfect way to let yourself completely go. Go watch with friends and curse the referee. Say how hard your team sucks and cheer even harder when they win however. You can let go all of your emotions when you are watching the World Cup!
• It is great for the patriot in you! Watching how your country is winning is awesome! You are supporting the beautiful country you are living in, is there anything more patriotic? You are on the couch with clothes on in the colour of your country (orange!) and you are cheering because you country is winning!
• It is fun. It is just fun and you need a laugh in your final week. Fulltime stress doesn’t do good to anyone, so please don’t let stress overrule the week, have fun, enjoy the game!

Watching a game of soccer isn’t really that bad. It can be a good thing actually. Have fun and enjoy the game. And please pray with me that the Dutch are going to win the world cup.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

The end is near, my fellow students! At least of this academic year. Finals are right in front of us which makes it almost time to close up a little bit, to end the academic year.

Ending the academic year.
What is next? What do you need to do before you go back to your parents’ place?

• Clean up! Everything around you is probably a mess. You need to clean up, clean your room, but also clean your head. Empty it, write down. Furthermore, leftover to-do lists. Do you need to pay some bills? Do you still need to return a book to the library? Meet with a couple of friends before you leave? Gather all your to-do’s and write them down on a big ‘Before I leave To-Do list’. In that way, you will have a view on what you need to do before you take the plane back home!
• Go back to your parents. You will live with your parents for a couple of months again. How is that going to be? On one side, they will take care of you. This means good food and clean clothes again! But on the other side, they will keep an eye on you and you will notice. You can’t just stay away from home, you need to inform your parents. Make sure you get in the state of mind again, or you will definitly clash with your makers!
• Set a goal for the summer. I will explain this one later this week. But for now. Make sure you do something with the big amount of free time you are going to get. Spending 3 weeks on a couch isn’t very nice, not for yourself, not for others. Enjoy your free time, but make it count also!

With this post, I would also like to anounce that I am going to have a new schedule for the summer. Instead of 3 posts, Monday, Wednesday and Friday I will post twice a week. Probably on Tuesday and Thursday. Just because there isn’t much to write about in the summer on a college blog! After the summer I will take back my normal schedule of 3 posts a week!

Happy summer everybody.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

Certain people seem to do a lot of great things, even exceptional things. And these are always the same people. Is there a reason for this focusses on certain people with certain actions? Why are always the same people doing the cool stuff and the rest mediocre things?

Because they have higher standards. Doing cool things all the time is normal to them, normal as doing normal things is to you. Awesome things are just the cool things you do every once in a while, they are just cool to them, not awesome.

An example. Peter is a finance major, aside from his major, Peter is in an organisation who improves the financial situation of people in third world countries with micro-finance. And on top of all of this, Peter is president in the executive board of an international congress about microfinance with over 700 visitors! So he is doing really cool things and on top of it an AWESOME thing! How is this possible?

The awesome thing Peter is doing isn’t awesome anymore according to him, it is just cool. Improving the financial situation of people in third world countries is just something he does, just normal. His standard is way higher than ours.

And that is the key. You need to higher your standard in order to do awesome things. Doing cool things is one thing, but when you are doing a lot of cool things, your standard will be higher and the cool things you do are just normal and everyday stuff!

It is like you are driving with 35 mph all the time, 70 mph seems very fast. But if 65 mph is your normal speed, 70 doesn’t seems that fast at all!

How to higher your standards

1. Find some cool things to do. Are you now in a committee? In some sort of organisation? And that is cool? Do something more and make it normal. When you are in three different committees, the one you did isn’t cool any more, because it is just an average thing to do, just another committee.
2. Shift your mindset. You will notice that your mindset is shifting, cool isn’t cool like two years ago. You are doing things right now which were cool back then, but normal nowadays.
3. Find new cool things! A committee is just normal now, what about a daily/executive board? That is cool, right?

Shall I answer the last question for you? An executive board, that is cool right? No it isn’t. It is f***ing AWESOME. You only shifted your mindset in such a way that doing something awesome is just cool now.

I find this idea hard to write down, I hope you understand the general idea I try to transfer to you. In order to do awesome things, cool should be your new standard. Higher your standards to higher the results of your everyday activities.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

I couldn’t prevent to overhear a conversation of two guys in the train today. They were talking about side jobs for students and said something about the perfect side job. It was a job were a guy didn’t do anything. Just sit there, hang out a little bit. Is that really a nice side job? What do you wanna do when you are making money?

What makes a good student side job?
This view is my view. How I see it and I am really curious about what you think.

• Interesting. A nice side job should be interesting, you need to get up every day and be interested in what you do.
• You can learn from it. Of course, I am some sort of wanting-to-be life-long-learner. So everything what I do needs to help me with that goal. A job? You are working like twelve hours a week, make it useful, make it something you can learn from!
• Well paid. Obvious, you are spending a fair amount of your student life to that job, make it worth it! Get paid well, make it worth your time.

Your opinion
What is your view on this? What kind of side jobs do you have? Share your thoughts in this little poll I have over here. I’m curious what you think about it, what we can learn from your experience.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!