I love to read. At least, I did love to read. But somehow, the last couple of years I fell asleep watching the latest episode of How I Met Your Mother, rewatching Friends or playing the new episode of Diggnation.

Anyway, I did anything but read. And back in my childhood, I read for hours before going to sleep. Sure, I had to be in bed by 9 pm, but did this withhold me from reading until 2 AM? Of course not!

But somehow I didn’t do this anymore. And I pity this. So I began to wonder what it was and I start to taking books in bed and everything, but somehow I just didn’t read in bed. Until Steve Jobs’ Biography came out. I got this book on my iPhone and start reading. And I was thinking: ‘well, if I can read from a screen, maybe I should get an e-reader’.

After talking to some friends with an iPad I decided I didn’t want one for reading books. The problem on my phone was that I would still switch over to another app and I hated the bright screen. Especially in bed, this wasn’t perfect in any way. Apps in the background can be VERY distracting..

Having some gift cards from Amazon, I decided to get an Amazon Kindle and started reading on it.

Kindle for Students – My Experience

I started with Steve Jobs, as I didn’t finished it yet on my iPhone (have you seen the size of this book?!), and I was astonished. The screen of the Kindle is just not a normal screen, it isn’t anything like it.The e-ink of which they are really proud simply works. If I play a game on my phone for an hour (favorite game of this moment is Muffin Knight) my eyes hurt. After reading for half a day I don’t have any problems with the Kindle!

Getting books on the device is really easy as well, just a USB-cable (WiFi doesn’t seem to work, probably as I don’t live in the US or something) and it is done.

And I finally started reading again. Read Steve Jobs, I Will Teach You to be Rich and am currently reading Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. This is more than I read in an entire year last couple of years (with the holidays excluded).

Study Material

The thing is, I hate printing. There are tons of people who print all the summaries, print all the assignments and just print whenever they can. My reaction? The question ‘Do you just hate trees or something?’ We live in a time where printing isn’t necessary anymore, so please stop printing at every moment you can.

The Kindle is a big solution to this, I put all my summaries, assignments and pieces of text for meetings on it. I can read it as easily as a sheet of paper, so why wouldn’t I?

Currently I am using the summaries to read and create flashcards out of them, all of this with the Kindle and without a bright screen. This works out great for me, especially as the Kindle has a great battery life.

Features – So You Know What I am Talking About

So I mentioned already some features, but I want to make a quick sum up for you as well, so you know what I am talking about here. No unimportant sales-letter stuff, but just information students care about.

• Batter life. Long enough. Amazon.com says it is like 15 hours I think, but after using it for a while, the battery life is long enough. I didn’t have any problems yet with an empty battery, with using it a lot. I don’t even look after it, how much battery there is left.
• Weight. I carry my Kindle in my coat. It is really light-weight, something you won’t expect from a device like this. Way better than carrying a book around!
• Size. Again, it fits my coat pocket, it fits my paints pockets as well.
• Screen. The screen is made out of e-ink, so it won’t hurt your eyes – even after days of reading.
• Capacity. Enough. As well, the device can hold up 1400 books, of course, you won’t reach this number.
• Price. Cheap. Not even 80$ on Amazon right now. In my case it included some taxes and shipping as well, but I was still happy to put that money down.

Other People Their Experience with My Kindle

One other thing I love about the Kindle is the reaction of other people. I live in the Netherlands and the Kindle just didn’t make it’s appearance here yet. There isn’t any e-reader very popular over here, except from an iPad (which I think isn’t an e-reader). So the reaction is just hilarious.

Others just don’t get it. The average conversation I had about the Kindle:

‘Hey Stefan, what is this little thing?’ ‘A Kindle, an ereader from Amazon.com, the international version of Bol.com (there are even people who don’t know Amazon..)‘ ‘A ok, some sort of iPad?’ *Start to random touch the screen* ‘No, it is just for books, so no other apps to distract me. And it isn’t a touchscreen, look at the buttons over here. The screen is not lightened, so it won’t hurt your eyes.’ ‘Ah ok, looks cool.’

And then they walk away or something. I have had this conversation a couple of times, but there was one guy who got more interested:

‘So, you have your study material on here as well?’ ‘Yup..’ ‘All of these printed sheets?’ *Points to his own sheets* ‘Yup..’

One week later I saw the guy again, without his stack of papers and waiving his Kindle to me. Priceless.

Concluding thoughts

Maybe you just need to understand the potential. Maybe you just need ‘get’ it. Anyway, there is a ton of potential in this device. Not having to carry all those papers around, always having a book in your pocket (I carry mine in my coat actually!) and the light weight gives it a very good touch.

I am very happy I made this investment. With only a 79$, you will earn it back soon enough in not having to print everything anymore! Let me know what you think about the Amazon Kindle! And more important, if you have book recommendations, let me know as well!

• Kindle, Wi-Fi, 6" E Ink Display - includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers
• List Price:
• Price: $79.00
• Read Reviews

As mentioned in the latest post I started with a new project to earn a residual income. This project is writing articles for a website which shows 75% of the time my Google Adsense ads.

I write for InfoBarrel, a revenue sharing website. The idea is really simple. There are two big ads on the website and 75% of the time they show ads with the ID of the writer of the specific article. Now, the writer only needs to write articles and he will have his ads on the internet!

Really? That is all? Yup. That is really all!

Passive Income: the Intriging Aspects for Students

I got interested in this website after listening to tons of podcasts from Pat Flynn from SmartPassiveIncome.com. He talks a lot about how to create passive income streams to get a steady income without doing anything. Passive income is all about working hard now and chillaxing later while getting your income automatic!

As probably everybody I am interested in automatic income without doing anything. The main problem with passive income though is it takes a really long time to create. I am not going to lie to you, if you start now with creating passive income streams, you are not very likely to have a good stream of income in the upcoming year. And that is the main problem for students: we don’t need money later, we need money now. As a med student I am pretty certain of a good salary later for instance. But there is still a big reason to work on passive income anyway:

A free income stream. Not only for the near future, but for forever.

The thing with passive income is you don’t need to put any money in it right now, you can start writing articles for free right now and create some income. With that money you could start some niche sites and earn even more money.

My personal goal is earning around 100$-200$ by September 2012, most of all because I will start with residencies by then. I will be in the clinic for 3 years, without payment. Besides that the Dutch government took some measurements which make the life of students way more expensive in the upcoming years. Because I won’t have any time anymore to work side jobs, I find the idea of a passive income stream interesting!

Passive Income Stream: InfoBarrel

I started to write for InfoBarrel, a revenue sharing site. As said above, you write articles and your ads will be shown to your audience. This will result in clicks which result again in money!

Why InfoBarrel is interesting for students:

• Students have tons of knowledge. On InfoBarrel you write articles about every subject you want to write about. We have the advantage of continuously learning new information as students. You can put this information straight into an article and you will have an extra article to make money from! For instance, if you have a class and you make really good notes, it can be pretty easy to write an article from your actual notes. As we are learning everyday something new, we can share this new information and make money from it.
• It’s free to use. You don’t need a starting capital to register a domain name, no need to buy hosting, you can just start writing and start earning!
• It has a great revenue sharing model (especially if you have time). No we don’t have a lot of money as students, but most of us have free time. The good thing with InfoBarrel is that it is great if you have time. The revenue sharing model is you get 75% of the income. But if you write more articles, or write on certain topics, you can earn up to 90%! When your goals are only long term, this won’t really work for you, as you have to keep writing, but if you want to earn a buck now as well, this is better, because you have a higher chance for clicks, thus income!
• InfoBarrel has a great community. I knew something about internet marketing. I did knew a couple of things about SEO as well. But I learnt a lot in a small time frame, thanks to the community. InfoBarrel has a forum where even the top writers are sharing their secrets. The thing I love the most about the forums is how motivating they are.

Writing for InfoBarrel: What is the Next Action?

Hopefully you got enthusiast about the idea to write for InfoBarrel. But what is the next action? What do you need to do right now? Let me give some advice:

1. Sign up for InfoBarrel right now. Get an account and see what is what. Introduce yourself in the forums and enjoy the reactions.
2. Browse the forums and find some nuggets concerning keyword research and how to write for InfoBarrel. My biggest mistake with InfoBarrel is I just started to write. I had no clue about what keywords would make money and which not. I actually wrote an article about a button on Facebook and things about Barney Stinson. But if you want to write successfully for InfoBarrel you need to write articles which could make money. Things about finance for instance do good on Google Adsense, so will do pretty well on InfoBarrel as well probably! But this is a high competitive niche, so it will be hard to have a successful article. This all comes down to keyword research. I will later devote a complete article on keyword research here for you guys. A good forum post to start with is the ‘Consolidated, Ongoing, InfoBarrel 1-tip Thread‘!
3. Write articles and learn while doing! Just try something, just write and see what works or not. When you are writing more you will find what type of articles work for you and what not.
4. Don’t stop because you ‘are not earning anything. At InfoBarrel your success won’t come overnight, well, it won’t even come within two months. The articles need time to mature and you need to write more to make more money. Give it time and have a steady pace with your writing, but make sure you don’t give up!
5. Share your success here! I would love to hear from people who give it a try! I would love to help you as well with your InfoBarrel career. With over 60 articles I learned a few things. I did actually made money with it as well already, around 15$ now! Although it is not a lot, I am already really, really happy with it!

Hopefully you got interested to write for InfoBarrel. It wouldn’t harm if you just tried it out.

Please note: I used a referral link in this article. If you sign up for InfoBarrel, 2% of the time my ads will be shown on your article, which is taken off of InfoBarrel’s cut. Not yours. Besides this I can see how many people sign up. So if you sign up, I can directly friend you and therefore help you!

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

College success starts with attitude. There is only one thing in life you have full control over: your attitude. Pay attention to your attitude and you will find that studying becomes easier and your grades will improve.

Towards the end of fall, when the weather starts to get darker and colder and college classes have turned into nightmares taught by evil demons it’s easy to let your attitude slip. Dorm room living can make the entire experience seem like you are stuck in some level of Dante’s Inferno. However don’t despair, here are some quick and easy tips you can use to beat the dorm room boarding blues.

• Add a few funny customized ring tones to your cell phone. Many free and inexpensive ring tones are available and there is no better way to meet new people and brighten up even the dreariest day. An added bonus is that most smart phones will let you assign different ring tones for everything from notifications to calls from special people.
• Buy a bag of mini marshmallows. Marshmallows actually have a medicinal past and they can be good for your health! Even if you don’t like hot chocolate or marshmallows it’s a sure bet some of the people on your dorm room floor will. It’s amazing how fighting over melting lumps of gelatin can instantly turn enemies into friends and brighten everyone’s mood.
• Clean up your dorm room and get organized. No matter how many classes you have, take some time to make your dorm room clean and inviting. This is where you come to rest and recharge. If your space is horrible it will most certainly affect the quality of your rest, your attitude and your studies.
• Along the same lines, get a warm, comfortable dorm room bedding set. All mammals make a nest when they sleep. If you are cold or uncomfortable in your dorm room bed there is no faster way to get the boarding blues.
• Make amends with your horrible roommate or move. By now you and your roommate either like each other or you don’t. Take an honest look at the relationship and decide if it is taking a toll on your attitude. If it is, get over and talk to your resident advisor. If they can’t or won’t do anything for you, talk to the manager of the dorm. In roommate situations the squeaky wheels get to move. Living with a gargoyle who makes it impossible for you to study is absolutely not an option.
• Use music to lighten up your mood and improve your attitude. The power of a new tune is unbeatable. Humming and singing have also been proven to improve circulation and stimulate multiple “feel good” centers in the brain. Music and radio are fantastic because they free up your hands and body to do something else. For students who spend so much time sitting and studying movement is critical for maintaining a healthy body and spirit.

Depression among young adults isn’t funny. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young adults ages 15-24. Take care of your attitude because this is your most valuable possession. Feeling glum this time of year if you live in dorm is pretty normal. Lets face it the rooms are pretty small and uncomfortable and the food is usually less than divine. However, with a good attitude you can make almost anything fun- or at least funny!

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

As promised, I would share this link with you, the microsite of the Adobe. Adobe is organizing a challenge especially for students, called the ‘Imagination Challenge‘.

Express yourself and win $10,000 in the Imagination Challenge

If you show the power and depth of your imagination using the Adobe CS 5.5 Student and Teacher edition software you can win up to $10,000! And that is a lot of money..

But you know what is cool? There isn’t just one chance to win the $10k, but 5 times! Besides that, there are 36 chances to win $550!

Nice right?

Four chances to win: four periods

There are four different periods, with four different periods of voting as well. So if you wanna make more chance, participate four times!

• First period: 8/21/11 – 9/3/11
• Second period: 9/4/11 – 9/17/11
• Third period: 9/18/18 – 10/1/11
• Fourth period: 10/2/11 – 10/15/11

So the first entry period is on August 21st! You have to use an Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Student and Teacher edition (80% cheaper than the normal edition) product to be eligible for the prizes. Don’t have a Creative Suite 5.5 yet? You can get a 30-day free trial as well!

The Products:

Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection Student and Teacher Edition-Full

Fire off a great new app, website or video with Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection Student and Teacher Edition. Create without limits – Master Collection has all the tools you need to express your ideas faster and better than ever before.

The Mastercollection includes: Adobe Acrobat X Pro , Adobe PhotoShop CS5 Extended , InDesign CS5.5, Illustrator CS5, Contribute CS5, Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5, Fireworks CS5, Flash Builder Premium 4.5, Flash Catalyst 5.5, Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5, After Effects CS5.5, Premiere Pro CS5.5, Adobe Auditions CS5.5.

Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium Student and Teacher Edition-Full

With CS 5.5 Design Premium Student and Teacher Edition, you can bring your stories to life in web, print, eBook or digital magazines, as well as on smartphones or tablets. Your creative storytelling doesn’t have to be expensive, because Adobe offers student discounts to those developing their talents.

Design Premium includes: Adobe Acrobat X Pro , Adobe PhotoShop CS5 Extended , InDesign CS5.5, Illustrator CS5, Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5, Fireworks CS5, Flash Catalyst 5.5, Adobe Acrobat X Pro.

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium Student and Teacher Edition-Full

The web has endless options and you have endless ideas for how to use it. Revolutionize an existing idea or set your own path with a brand-new concept for desktops, smartphones, tablets or television with CS 5.5 Web Premium Student and Teacher Edition.

Web Premium includes: Adobe Acrobat X Pro , Adobe PhotoShop CS5 Extended , Illustrator CS5, Contribute CS5, Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5, Fireworks CS5, Flash Builder Premium 4.5, Flash Catalyst 5.5, Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5.

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium Student and Teacher Edition-Full

You don’t need Hollywood or a huge budget to make a great film – just your vision, time and talent. With CS 5.5 Production Premium Student and Teachter Edition, Adobe has your back on everything else. Production Premium comes on student discount tot take some of the worry out of learning about movie making.

Production Premium includes: Adobe PhotoShop CS5 Extended , Illustrator CS5, Flash Catalyst 5.5, Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5, After Effects CS5.5, Premiere Pro CS5.5, Adobe Auditions CS5.5.

So far this update, I’ll keep you up to date with more details on this contest later! Don’t forget to enter on August 21st!

Recently I got the idea in my head that standing behind a desk is better than sitting.The idea came from an article of Gina Trapani (known as the founder of Lifehacker.com). There are a couple of benefits to it and it has my interest. But the thing for me was, am I going to maintain this set-up? Therefore I decided not to buy a stand-up desk, but to make my own to test out.

First, why?

Using a Stand-Up Desk: Why Would You?

There are a couple of benefits to the system:

• Better condition. Because I have to stand all day when I am behind my computer, I will stand for a lot more hours, this will benefit my condition. Gina, as a woman, of course pointed out there will be a lot more calories burned (something I don’t consider as important), that would be a thing too.
• Better posture. My main reason. I’m pretty tall, so when I’m sitting I have a bad posture, I tend to hunch when I sit. Now I don’t feel anything from that now, but I know I will have backpain in 10-20 years if I continue to sit like this.
• Better productivity. When standing, you tend to work faster. There are studies which show that when meeting would be standing meeting they would go way faster. I think this is the same with standing behind your desk.

So 3 simple reasons to try this system out.

Now, I was wondering how I could test this out, cheap. And I thought of something.

How to Create a Stand-Up Desk for Almost Nothing

Necessities:

• 12 Pringles packages. These tubular things can carry a lot of weight.
• Two simple bookshelves. Again, easy. They should be big enough to carry your laptop (plus external monitor) and keyboard + mouse
• A Desk.

Creating a Stand-Up Desk

1. Divide the pringles boxes in 4 sets. Three boxes at each set.
2. Put one shelf on 2 set of boxes. This makes 6 pringles boxes in total.
3. Repeat step 2 with the other shelf.
4. Put your laptop, monitor, keyboard and mouse on the shelves.
5. Put your chair away and done!

That easy? Yes that easy. Here a picture of my set up:

Now, this is a good test set-up. After three days I can say now that your legs will hurt at the end of the day. But hey, you need to get your workout right?

Again, this is only a test set-up, if you want to go for the real deal right away, the Safco looks right and is only $236.99 on Amazon.

Let me know what you think about this set-up and about this experiment, are you in?

Contest + Giveaway announcement!

On Sunday the 14th the microsite of the Adobe Back to School Contest/Sweeptakes will launch. I will notice you in time and there will be more details by then.

Adobe gave me a CS5.5 package to review and to tell you guys about and I have to tell you, it is pretty awesome! Played around with it for a little bit (actually created this Read It Later workflow with it (more on this in Friday’s post!) and it works pretty smooth. The cool thing is, 80% off for students!

So in the near future I will send out updates about the sweepstakes and the contests! I hope you don’t mind, I mean, I’m giving away free copies, so I don’t think you’ll mind! Last note: I will be on (a well deserved) holiday the upcoming weeks, so my excuses if I don’t respond very fast. I have the posts about the contests and everything scheduled, so their won’t be any problem with that! Thanks!

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

Lately I came across a book about Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is one of my favorite artists out there, I’m actually listening to the guy right now as I am writing this article.

The book contains mostly pictures, not so much text. There is a lot to say about his life I recommend ‘Bob Dylan – No Direction Home (only $7.74 on Amazon)‘ for this, but as a picture says more than a thousand words, this book contains mostly out of pictures.

Lovely pictures. Great pictures of him hanging out with kids. Dylan sitting behind a type-writer. Enjoying life. After closing that book I was wondering ‘does those kind of pictures exists from me as well? What if I died right now, people would remember me, but would there be pictures remembering me as well?’

• Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan
• List Price: $18.95
• Price: $4.55
• Read Reviews

This is the actually book I am talking about. Check it out, I love it. (You can check out the ‘look inside’ only as well, so you will get a short overview of what I am meaning!)

Because when you actually look at pictures where you are tagged on Facebook or something these pictures are most of the times posed. There is a camera, everybody looks at the camera and smiles. Not real pictures of that moment. You see smiling people, so they are probably enjoying themselves, but are the pictures real? Probably not.

I started to think further. If these pictures don’t exist, am I actually living such a life? What if somebody took random shots of me, would I be on there smiling, would I be on there like I enjoyed life?

Seeing your life in pictures

This is a great exercise/test to see if your life is as it should be. The upcoming days ask yourself these questions at random moments:

• Are you smiling right now? A smile stands for something more than enjoyment. Do you know the feeling when you are down, you start smiling and you feel better again? When smiling you release endorphins, which result in a more happy feeling. Smiling shows that your are enjoying life. Which brings us to the next point.
• Are you enjoying life? Are you happy with your current position in life? Think about it right now, are you happy? If somebody took random shots of you in one week and you look back at them later, would you call yourself happy on these pictures?
• Are you enjoying whatever you are doing at that moment? When somebody took photo’s of you one day long, are you happy on all of these pictures? Are you happy doing what you are doing?

These questions are all about feeling satisfied with your life, about living a happy life. But as we are here on a productivity kind of website, I would like to ask you one more question, which helped me out big time the last couple of days (will share you shortly with what):

• Are you proud on what you are seeing? Do you see yourself not only as a happy person, but as a person who is making something out of his life? What are you doing? Are you spending time with friends/family? Are you working? Are you watching television?

This question helped me a lot the last couple of days. My semester is over and I have around two months off now. I am going to work for a couple of weeks in the hospital, will go on a vacation as well, but now, this week, I don’t have anything to do. So it is really, really tempting to go and play videogames (which I did a couple of days). But then I thought: ‘Will I be happy/proud with what I am doing right now?’ I know I have a lot of other things which I can do or want to do (spending time with the ones I love/setting up some websites/work on StudySuccessful more/create emails for my email list on successful blogging as a student). The answer was actually no, I wouldn’t be proud of myself. And that was a good realization. That realization put me back behind the computer and I am writing this article now.

Concluding thoughts

Looking back to the beginning of the posts. If I had pictures of myself shot at random times, would that form a nice photo album? Yes it would. I think it was around a month ago or something that I read this book and this thought has been in my head more than once. When I was outside in the sun, enjoying a beer with friends, running with my girlfriend or just cycling around the city I thought ‘Yes, the pictures are at least as good as the ones from Bob Dylan.’

Now, think of pictures of yourself. How do they look? Are you happy? Are you enjoying life? Would you be proud of these pictures? Share your thoughts in the comments! And again: check out the book ‘Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan’ to see what I am talking about, it will give you a good idea of what I am meaning here.

This is a guest post by Ryan from PracticalPremed.com, if you would like to contribute a guest post as well, please visit the contact page.

Is outstanding exam-preparation enough to ensure great grades on tests? Sadly, this is not the case. For students who spend countless hours studying yet continue to receive sub-par test scores, the common response to receiving such scores is to spend even more time studying for the next test. This myth is deeply ingrained in students, especially those committed to grinding away during college years. The problem, however, often lies in the student’s test-taking skills rather than test-preparation. Studying , no matter how excellent, provides only the maximum possible score you can obtain on a test. The ability to take tests often determines the actual score received. A student who spends X hours studying for a midterm will thus have the possibility of obtaining a maximum of 95% on a test. However, if this student has poor test taking skills he or she will receive an actual score of only 80%. Have you ever found yourself looking over tests when you get them back and thinking how many things you would have differently? Sure, given unlimited time and a more relaxed setting, this student could have scored a 95%, but thats not how tests work. There is a limited time frame and test rooms are pressure cookers. So where did those 15% go then?

This disparity of points can often be attributed to three reasons:

1) Weak or Non-Existent Time Management. Failure to mentally budget time can result in a staggering imbalance of time spent on various questions. I’ve been guilty of stubbornly sticking with hard questions I couldn’t figure out and missing out on easy points in the process. Identify what is costing you chunks of time and ruthlessly cut out any time spent not answering questions from your prime test time (from the beginning to 75% of the time allocated).

• Look over the entire test before answering any questions. The natural tendency is going to be to fill out questions as they come, but it is much more important to get a feel of the test as a whole. It keeps time allocated to questions in perspective so as not to go overboard when stuck on a question.
• Identify easy questions and quickly answer them. When going through a test I answer any questions that I immediately know first. The goal is to maximize points and answering all the easy questions first is the best way to build up confidence knowing you have a good chunk of points in the bag. If an answer doesn’t come to mind upon reading the question, I immediately move on. As much as it may pain you to not move through questions in a linear manner, move on. Conquer what you are comfortable with and the other test questions will be shivering in fear of your mighty question answering ability.
• Create a mental time budget of however much time you have left. It’s easy to get carried away when stuck on a question, so be sure to set limits on allocation of time. If you ever feel stuck on a question and find yourself searching the ceilings for answers, STOP and move on. There are other points to be had, and those patterns in the ceiling have yet to arrange themselves into an answer (despite thousands of students intensely staring at them).

2) Freaking Out or Mentally Lapsing During Tests. Tests are often high-pressure situations and can bring out the worst in your nervous system. The combination of stress and sleep-deprivation that often comes around test time can lead to two extremes: freaking out by over-thinking or mental lapses of blank thoughts. The days leading up to a test are crucial to your mental state on test day and can be managed by the following steps:

• Come as physically fresh to a test as possible. Cut out your all-nighters and exercise in the days leading up to a test. You want the oxygen flowing to your brain, and the last I checked mindless zombies tend to make pretty bad students.
• Practice answering questions about the material both out loud and by writing them out. Figure out the test format (multiple choice, short answer, problem solving) and get comfortable working with the format. People fear what they don’t understand and you can eliminate a whole lot of anxiety by becoming comfortable with the question style.
• Eliminate any distractions when practicing answering questions . Again, this is to stimulate test conditions as closely as possible. Turn off your phone, shut off your computer, and put away the headphones. A lot of students advocate listening to music when studying, but I try to stay away from as many distractions as possible. On test day its just you, your pen/pencil, and the test waiting for you to dominate it. Become comfortable with the simulated questions and you’ll be (relatively) more composed come test day.

3) Over-compulsive Answering and Detailing. Have you ever spent an extra 5 minutes filling in extra details for answers even after you hit all the main points? These extra details may net you a point or two, but will cost you crucial time in the process. What good is adding more detail to get those extra two points when you lose time to answer the next twenty point question? Sadly, I’ve found that the a good number of grading styles (i.e. those of stressed out grad students) favor keywords which encourages students to spam the answer box. Resist this temptation and remember that simple is beautiful and efficient.

• It goes against the impulses of most students, but when answering questions strive for “just good enough.” Hit all the main points and include details if they directly support these main ideas. Think, what is the bare minimum to answer this question effectively in a manner in the same manner as the test-maker. I’m often surprised by how little detail the answer key goes into when compared to my answers. Focus on essentials, details can come later.
• When you answer questions as effectively and briefly as possible I guarantee you will find a lot more time to get through every question. Once you’ve hit the main points of all the questions, then you can go in and fill out extra details. I understand the need to add extra detail is too tempting to resist as I often am pretty guilty of it myself. Save this impulse for after working through the main idea of a test to prevent getting carried away.

Are you maximizing your test-scores with your test performance? Test are culminations of months of material and the pressure can be overwhelming at times, but the right preparation and delivery can significantly reduce the mental anxiety. If you feel you have great studying techniques but ultimately don’t get the scores you want, consider refining your test-taking skills as opposed to spending more time studying. Outstanding preparation demands outstanding delivery. Use some of these tips on your next test and let me know how you dominated. Also, if you can have test-taking strategies of your own I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

This guest post was written by Ryan Nguyen from PracticalPremed. He writes about unconventional strategies and systems to maximize academic results and despises traditional study habits.

After reading my report ‘How To Build A Blog As A Student‘ lots of readers started their own blog, not only personal blogs, but also niche blogs (this blog is in the ‘college life’ niche)! Today I will share with you a case study, Ryan’s blog called ‘Practical Premed‘.

Practical Premed is a blog filled with tips for premeds. Ryan himself is a premed, so he knows everything about it. After the site was live and Ryan had written around 5 articles for it, I had a Skype call with him, with some suggestions. I’ll include these suggestions in the end.

First things first, why and how this blog?

How and why did Ryan start a blog?

Why did Ryan wanted a blog?

As a premed, you need to stand out in order to get into med school eventually. Ryan decided that he wanted to do something not a lot of people do, starting a blog. He was reading several college blogs (including this one) already and found the tips helpful. Besides blogs, he had also read Tim Ferriss’ ‘The 4-Hour Workweek
‘ and the The 80/20 Principle
, he loved that these authors actually earned money with helping people!

So he wanted to do something similiar. The Tipping Point was when he read the post ‘22 reasons to start a blog as a student‘ on this site. He decided to start a blog himself!

How did Ryan start a blog in the first place?

After reading the ebook ‘How To Build A Blog As A Student‘ he wasn’t sure if he would like writing as much as he was thinking he was going to. Clever as he is, he decided to start a .wordpress.com blog first, in order to find this out. I highly advice this for anyone who likes to start with the blogging thing. I did this myself as well, when I reached 10 articles I found out I really liked this, so I bought my own domain name!

After having written a couple of articles, Ryan found himself ‘suitable’ as a writer, so he did the same as I do! He got his own domain name. This went all according to the book (the ebook in fact ) and now his site is live!

Suggestions I gave to Ryan

1. Professionality. At the top of the site Ryan posted a question ‘What is the Practical Premed???’ Three question marks, while one should be more than enough. This seems like a small point, but it resembles more. When you are building a professional blog, you want to be professional. Your blog should breath professionality. And you should find this back in every sentence. Especially on the homepage.
2. Convert small titles in longer titles. Ryan had articles named ‘Be Assertive’ and ‘The Change’. Catchy titles of course, but if you would find a link somewhere with the title: ‘Be Assertive’, would you click on it? You have no idea what it is about right? To have more compelling titles, they have to be longer. Besides, if you want some basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization), longer titles contain more keywords, so are better.
3. Create a brand. After you’ve read this sentence you should close this page: ‘Where do you think about when you think about StudySuccessful?’ Opened the page again? What did you think about? I think something like the color blue. StudySuccessful‘s brand is blue. As CampusByte‘s color is green, CollegeThrive‘s black/orange and HackCollege‘s dark blue. Blogs who have been in here for the long haul have a clear brand. Ryan’s blog was white and minimalistic. Of course, this could be a brand as well, but it doesn’t seperate as well as a color. My advice was to lose the minimalistic design and get a more brandable design.
4. Don’t even think about monetizing before you have 1k (thousand) visitors a month. Period. Don’t try Google Ads or anything, you won’t get rich from it. Google Adwords can bring in some money if you have over 10k visitors a month. If you desperate for trying to earning money, try affiliate links. When you have around 1k visitors you can think about 125×125 ads (like in the sidebar on the right on this blog), because this still looks pretty professional. Ryan isn’t in here for the money, he is just having a nice project to focus on and something with which he will stand out from other premeds.
5. Read blogs about blogging. It only starts with these tips. There are tons of other sites who deliver you tons of free content to enhance your blogging experience. Three of my favourits: Problogger (best blog about blogging), Viperchill (great site by Glen Allsopp on internet marketing, blogging and entrepreneurship in general) and Copyblogger (great site about writing for the internet)

With these suggestions I left Ryan (as it was also 2am in Europe, where I live). The day after, he implemented the changes and the site looked way better.

Are you thinking about starting your own blog? But you are still not sure? Check the post ‘22 reasons to start a blog as a student‘ and you will be convinced! After that, download the free ebook ‘How To Build A Blog As A Student’ and start building your blog! After that, email me with your brand new blog, I would love to take a quick look, maybe I can share some tips!

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

Everybody wants to be liked, why is that? Is it because we care about the relationships that much? Probably not, why would you want to have a good relationship with the guy next to you in the bus? You won’t ever see him again. Because we want to make the world a little bit better? Does a friendly conversation in the bus make that much of a difference? Or do we just believe in karma?

Those reasons won’t be the reasons why we want to be liked. We need to break down it a little bit.

What brings being liked us?

If you help somebody out, if you remove your bag from the seat in the bus so somebody can sit there, this will mean you increase your score at that person. The person who likes you somehow thinks of you as ‘+1′ or something. And he wants to even that score.

How? By doing something nice in return. He will say hello, grant you with a smile or shares an insight with you.

When you are being liked, this isn’t a +1 alone anymore, it is way more. You are being liked, somebody actually wants to spend time with you. This means they want to give big things in return. And what can that possibly mean? They can give you opportunities! And those are awesome.

Being liked results in opportunities. When you are asked: ‘Who should make a chance in a game to win a laptop?’ You won’t name a person you hate, you will name close friends, or people who you just like in general. You will give that opportunity to people you like, as people who like you will do to you. This is obvious! And this probably will be the reason why we want to be liked. It results in opportunities.

And what about those people at the top? They don’t care at all

True! But do they still need opportunities? Or will the opportunities be in abundance to them? For instance, Tucker Max doesn’t want to be liked and he tells you to not want to also. Assholes finish first, is what he says. If you are getting opportunities already, of course! Maybe there is a complete different philosophy behind it. But people who need the opportunities will always be a person who wants to be liked.

What is your opinion on this? Share it in the comments.

I got this insight from an interview I saw online with Stephen Fry, a great watch for every lifelong learner/student here. Watch it here

Walking almost on bare feet through the snow is crazy, of course. That is why I did it. Let me share the reason and some insights with you.

I can highly recommend you watching the video above, so you will see the proof, also you will hear the explanation right from my mouth, instead of through words typed afterwards!

Walking on flipflops through the snow

It was an experiment, I don’t walk all the time on my flipflops through the snow. What I did was putting on my flipflops, walking to the supermarket, buying a pizza and walking back. This meant I had to go through the snow, be in a public place and going back trough the snow. This experiments has a couple of components. First it is to see what is more important: An organ or the image people have of me. Second it was to get back to nature: Thousands of years ago we didn’t wear shoes, right?

What is more important? Your feet or your image?

When I went out and visited the supermarket, my feet were freezing. They actually hurt and they needed half an hour to get on temperature again. And then I entered the supermarket. A place where I know people and at a time that it was really busy there (just before dinner).

Now, about what would I care more? On my hurting/freezing feet or my image? What is more important? How people look at you or an extremity? I can tell you, you will still care about people looking to you (or your feet). I went straight to the shelf where I had to be and went right to the checkout counter. Not because I wanted to get home, but I didn’t want people see me.

I actually saw somebody I know, but I didn’t go to him, I just walked on. Why? Because I didn’t want to explain what I was doing. As I wrote in the last post, an experimental lifestyle is something a lot of people can’t understand. And when you are doing experiments, people will think you are crazy. And it is hard to accept, hard to keep explaining. So I chose to just skip it, don’t go to him, just go pay and leave.

To conclude, your image is apparantly that important that you care about it more than hurting feet..

Going back to nature

Thousands of years ago, what were people wearing on their feet? Probably nothing right? Even in the snow, they would just walk. Having watched a video of the Iceman (Wim Hof, a Dutch guy with 18 world records concerning cold). I wanted to get back to nature as well. So I walked (almost) bare feet in the snow. You wouldn’t think you care about it when your feet are hurting, but it felt kind of cool. I was actually feeling closer to nature, closer to how we lived years ago. Strange, abstract, but a nice feeling. I can recommend you doing something like it, just for the feeling!

A recommendation?

Yes. Absolutely. This experiment is a great way to learn more about yourself and how you care about different things.

For now, get your flipflops on and get out!