Turn good into excellent

Why should I plan? Why should I finish assigned tasks early? I can do it the night before and still pass. Here, I must ask, is just passing really what it is all about?

Once you have finished a large piece of work, spend some really valuable time on it and review it. Valuable? Yes,valuable, because it will give you more value than just another passing grade will give. If you have basically finished an assigned task, then you have done all the hard work; researched, reviewed sites and articles, sorted the information and written it into something that flows reasonably well, found definitions and put it all down and then transformed all this into your report. If you get this far, you have done all you need to do to get high grades. You may, however, still get a low grade. Even after the hard work, missed fun with the gang, loss of sleep and even stress, your mark may not stand out. Why? How can this be?

Success is measured by how well we do. But who is the judge? Too often the high school 'system' is the judge and that is the cause of much grief. You may be judged 'satisfactory' with a grade of C and 'excellent' with an A grade. How bad is that? What if, in the past, you could only manage a D for a subject? What if you tried really hard, put in lots of extra hours, worked on homework and notes, and finally got a C grade. Surely that is worth much more than a 'satisfactory' type comment? It sure is. To do that is awesome. To repeat that result is outstanding.

We should measure ourselves against measures that give a true picture of our achievements, not by 'perfection is great but less is questionable' but by how we stack up against ourselves and people similar to us with similar opportunity and similar support. So to step above satisfactory on that scale is where we really want to go. If that can be done, the other kudos and awards will follow.

How to do it on the assigned task we are talking about here. Well, firstly, be proud of the work you hand in. Be honest about what you put into it and what grade it should be awarded. If you finish well on time due to good planning you will be able to submit work that really does represent you at your best. After all, it will be how you are judged. Not by potential but by what you put in front of the teacher. What you submit that says 'this is my level of ability'; because that is all anyone has to go by. No use arguing because the thinking is: 'why would anyone submit stuff that does not show their best?' So in your mind you are an A level student being awarded a C-. From the employer's point of view or the College's point of view, you are a C- student who is making excuses for bad marks; less than 'satisfactory'.

Do something about it. Now.

Firstly, the reason to finish early is that your brain is now full of all the information it needs. Your brain knows all the hard work is done and so it can relax to assemble a better representation of that information. This is what it does best. If you just hand in work straight after it is finished, there is no opportunity for polish. So, let your brain go into automatic and work out better sentences, reasoning, structure. It will do this in the background; while you eat, play, dance, sleep. While it is doing that, try to get someone to read through your submission. Not to understand but to see if it seems to flow, to see if explanations read well, to see if it answers the question(s) put to you by the task. The easy bit is to make make good, excellent. You will find yourself readily deleting waffle and adding quality. As you do this, automatic learning about structure is taking place. This is hard to teach but such skills will strengthen your future submissions enormously.

Re-read. Re-type.

Submit something of high quality that truly represents work matching your capabilities. You will know that what sits on the teacher's desk awaiting grading reflects something you are proud of. What they do with it is up to them. You know at this very point you have done what you can. Relax and wait. There is no more you can do.

Good luck with your high school experience. Find successes

Have a great day

Time management II

After completing the preparation phase, move on to make use of the time and strength of purpose that follows serious preparation. Do not be happy with the first model. Experiment. Take notes of what works and what seems a bit klutzy. The favours will all lie with you. You will find time you didn't think you had, the ability to relax at times you would normally stress, and be able to produce work of higher quality and, consequently be awarded better grades. The aim is not trying to fill your time with even more jobs to do. The effort here is part of the plan to use time more efficiently and so at exam time or when large reports are due, you watch all your friends stress around you, their workload out of control, while you know you have everything ticked off ready to go. While others stress, you are thinking of the final touches to a job well done and thinking you may go to the movies as a reward. That should be encouraging for you to persist. Maybe you might just go to the beach, or have a few hours in the snow. Who knows!

So you have been recording the information you need to set aside times for. Activities such as sleep, part time work, sport, monthly meetings, weekly meetings, religious events, entertainment and party (caution here), going to library, in class time, lunch and other meals. You can be as detailed as you want. Have you got an approximate time attached to each activity? This does sound like a big job hey? Take my word, it does get easier. Once you have completed a first run through, then the future additions are just built on top, the time it takes is much reduced (is that a far off cheer I hear?).

Now comes a slightly tricky bit. Prioritise your list into four groups. (1) What must absolutely happen? (2) What is very important and should happen? (3) What do I do that is fairly flexible and not necessary to have if I need a bit extra time allocated to something else? (4) What do I do that could be totally changed or dropped easily to find time? Even if it can be repaid later. Try not to fill 100% of your time. Some time slots should be left blank for free use or for an emergency. You know what schools are like. "Do this by Thursday" sort of request, when you already have a full week.

I think now your list should be put into a computer for ease of manipulation. So you can easily re-order different activities. If you go with a computer list, make the four priorities four different colors so you can easily recognise those activities absolutely locked in and those that are a bit more flexible. You must have sleep, so put that in even in the peak exam period. You must have a break too. Allow for large and small. Use colored pencils or highlighters if you are not putting information into a computer. Make up a table to show a whole term or semester. You will be able to detail the close times while the end of semester is a bit fuzzy.

As you feel you can, begin to place the time zones into days, regular (e.g. every Tuesday and Thursday at 6 p.m.) or into monthly times where you may need three or four hours set aside once a month. Start with your school timetable as the skeleton for this project as it is the area we want to make more successful. Don't forget to take your time to do the detail at first. Make sure it makes sense. Next time you will already have a structure which you can easily change, delete bits from or add stuff to. Are your days and what you do with them starting to take shape? Did you realise any really easy activities that could be modified to help you achieve Success At School.

Do not get disgruntled. Stay fresh as you focus on the future. You want better grades. You want to set yourself up so you are more likely to have a secure future and good career prospects. You want to choose your path through life.

Next we will look at setting up your program.

Good luck with this exercise. Have a great day.

Study zone: comfortable, not too comfortable

At your place? Let's look at where you are going to study this year. Go to where you study most. Is there a television there? Is it usually on? Is there loud music? Are there usually other people in the room? Is it hard to look outside? Is the fresh air flow minimal? Is the light dim? Do you lie on your bed and get too comfortable for your thoughts to be electric and clear? Do you jam ipod buds in your ears and blast music into your head? Do you cram all night before exams? Are your study sessions one long, boring sitting? Do you study without giving yourself some kind of reward? OK there are a lot of things to consider for an ideal study spot. And you can see what we're getting at.

To give yourself the best use of valuable time when you can get to study.

That's what you want. Maximum benefit for the limited time allocated to study. How will you turn all the answers to the above questions into "No."? Seriously, put a plan into action. If there is no such place in your house, then substitute a room at school during breaks or before or after school. See if you can find permission for this. Use the local library, on weekends if necessary. Oh, weekends are just for playing? Then you are just playing at being serious about giving yourself as much chance of success as possible. Do not kid yourself. Setting up a good area now will carry into the future. You will gradually and naturally set up your work area for best production automatically when others will struggle. It is not just for school.

Could you negotiate a quiet time in the house? Sometimes others do not realise the importance of letting your thoughts fully focus on the work of school and how it may help them in the future as your career grows. This may be tough when you are starting out. But every small victory counts. It is not always a final battle that wins but the skirmishes that make up the whole that prove to be decisive. If your success has been limited until now, do not give up. You may have to prove your intent. Step by step. Find the support. Email me.

What is ideal?

Sit at a table, comfortable chair. If possible have only the material you are working on lying on the table. Well lit. A window through which you can easily look outside and open for fresh air. If you have to have music, make it music you can tune out to so it does not interfere with some intense concentration. Make it easy to turn off now and then. Take short breaks from whatever you are doing, glance out at the day, turn off music and enjoy the silence, let knowledge sink in and work its way into your mind and thinking. Set a timeframe, say one hour. Then give yourself a complete break. Stand up. Stretch. Roll your eyes, they need a change too. Have a drink or snack. Limit the break to 5-10 minutes max.

Get serious about your success. Better School Marks is where you can easily start. You have to be there. Take what you can from it to most advantage you. Enjoy doing it. It is the successes, no matter how small, that we look to for our pleasure that we want to get out of school. They are selfishly just for us.

Smart? The world needs you

School may not be what you want to be doing. Suffer! It is just part of the system. It is very often the key to future possibilities of career, study and success. If you are clever, the world needs you. If the academic part of school is easy, make it harder by setting challenges. The world need you. Many potential inventors of medicine, machinery, structures, science and creators of art in all its forms are lost because of brilliant minds losing their gloss in a school delivery mechanism choked with the mundane, the unnecessary and the bland.

It is the blandness of the system that creates non-creative activities, producing by conformance, a choking of the flow of creative juices in students. Schools will say they do creative writing and all manner of cultural pursuits, designed to promote creative thought but this is all formulaic. Creativity activities need to be set to boundaries that do not limit the mind in its exploration. At school we are all marked "A" or "C" or "very good" or "needs improvement". It's all a mish mash of a marking system. Would Leodardo da Vinci's teacher mark his science as "will not fly, man was not meant to fly - D"? Limiting creativity is one of education's biggest blunders.

"Creative writing", as a subject has myriad rules to define it and what it should consist of and end up looking like. Often teachers turn out creative clones of themselves. Creative? "Art is creative" I hear you say. Well, it should be. But again the rules offer too much definition for students to let their minds wander to the infinite edges. Too little time and too little co-ordinated effort across the curriculum makes sure we are not developing this most important compartment in our brain. Leonardo explored art, science, mathematics, philosophy, logic. Freely swapping one to another. He is recognised regularly in our texts as having had one of the greatest minds.

What can you do? Keep your mind polished. You may have to find ways to create scenarios that constantly challenge. Draw. Paint. Play an instrument. Dance. Create. Write. Stir the depths of your mind. Let it flow to the outer reaches of the universe and the inner secrets of your thoughts. Then look to the academics. If the content of mathematics classes is too slow, too easy then go to a library at the local College and ask to join. Sit there and read books that show you what is coming up next. Then determine to get there by yourself. Go to the College to get the feel and atmosphere. If not, ask your school library to get you some texts on loan.

Take a slow pace and look ahead of where you are. Not necessarily mathematics. For any subject you can see where the class is going and find something that takes you past it. Choose one of your favourite subjects and see where it fits into the world process. However small a step you make here, you will be advantaging the world. See if your desires lie in cultural, scientific, literature, or other but find something to be passionate about and get started. If you are only reasonably able, then your influence on the world can be great. Good luck!

School too easy? Make your own rules

Complacency can happen when we find the "challenge" of school not a challenge at all. Since a young age you may have found it easy to learn new tasks, methods, skills and content; too easy. No wonder you find school boring and think of it as barely useful; a time consuming stepping stone in the years of your career. Your friends and others in your circle such as family think you are doing OK and often reinforce that with you. Most people see success as passing tests or reaching certain grade levels. That certainly is part of the picture but the real image is formed by considering the background, ability and potential of each individual.

How close are your grade levels to your real potential or to a potential stretched by your imagination? Passing and this grade may be a long way apart. So you get that gap that creates some discomfort for you when you receive congratulatory comment on your results. In your heart and mind you may not be totally satisfied. Great. What you need to do here is find your limits, if you have any, and write them down. Think of them always as intermediate and fluid, changeable at any point you care to choose. The changes may occur of their own accord with regular assessment of challenges and targets. Plan to promote your future premier choices for further study or employment and training. Do this by improving the marks you are awarded and the comments written about you by people in school. In this case, you can begin to analyse your capabilities, write them down, target new levels, and know that you need that challenge.

Positions in the queue for employment, training, or student acceptance at College are often pre-set by those institutions. Your best grades and fine comments will move you further to the front of any queue. Where do you want to put yourself? As far up front as possible, naturally. The choices then becomes yours, not to be cut off because you did not reach the necessary pre-ordained numbers set by employers, Colleges and Universities.

There are no "Ten Best Rules" for success

I am sorry to inform you that there is not a set of "ten best rules". Many sites give you a list that appears to be a cure all for all people in all situations, forgetting how individual we are and forgetting to say: "Here is a list of ten points that may help you gain Better School Marks, the list is nowhere near complete." Already in these support pages, you may be getting the idea that there are dozens and dozens of ideas that can be used to help people improve. Some will suit you, some won't. As you read with us, try some, reject some, go back to others, and then make up your own to share with friends. Once you start to form your own you can really give yourself just cause for celebration. You have then fully taken control of your own future prospects.

"Ten Best Rules" is too tempting. Do not get sucked into thinking that: "If I do all these, I am sure to be successful." What if none of the hints suit your style? What if none of the hints refers to the learning expected of you? What if you take a lot of time to put the idea into place and find that it's nothing like you wanted? Be cautious.

Do not be put off looking for ideas but approach with caution anything that offers to fix all your problems. Find new thinking that you are comfortable with. Do not try to implement ten new things at once or you will be swamped with too much to change, making the process of renewal and road to Better School Marks a winding, rocky road with few signposts, driven mostly in the dark. Small changes with a great probability of reaching each goal should be the start point. These then form the foundation and strength to make larger changes and more ambitious plans for targets that really stretch you.

The planning will become easier once you get going. Targets will be easier to come up with. Time estimates will be more realistic. Please, at this early stage of renewal, don't put too much expectation on yourself. The entire focus is on improvement at a sustainable level. A level that is a measure made up entirely of steps toward sealing greater opportunity in your future. Step up and enjoy the feeling that success brings.

Reduce distraction for Better School Marks

You know how when you are in class how easy it is to be distracted by something more exciting than the lesson? Smart comment. Random fart will do it. Screeching car. Teacher's fly undone. Someone makes funny face through door. They happen all the time. Well, you just can't get rid of these, they will always be there and will often be more annoying than a source of amusement. It will take some concentration and practise to get over these quickly and get back to the job. They clutter your clear concentration, stop your brain building links between the important bits. Most of all they waste precious time. Time when you could be learning that really key link or idea that makes you go: "Oh! That's what you mean. Now I get it!" Whatever the "it" may be.

Do not be one of those annoying extremists on the other end who wouldn't know how to have fun if you poked them in the ribs with a funny stick. But do recognise lost time as one of the few valuable assets we have that can never be regained once lost. If the distraction looks like taking over for a while (you know, one of those things that disrupts and keeps going with the class in no mood to settle back down), glance down at your notes to see if you can make some sense of bits that may have been vague. Do not openly ignore the activities or you may be ostracised for it but do take furtive glances at your notes or even take a furtive view into recent work in your mind's eye. Just think back to the last lesson or two and see if you can recall what you learned. It would look just like you were daydreaming, so not really ignoring the class at all.

Carry with you at all times, in your mind, your picture of you after fulfilling the next success task. Remind yourself of what you have achieved, even if you have begun with your success planner as mentioned a couple of posts back. This is good reinforcement for the effort you have put in so far and will give you proper reward for a job well done, so far. It is your success and your focus we are building on.

You cannot blame a disruptive day for a way out of work. What others do should be a separate world away from what you are trying to do. "They were talking"; "They didn't study"; "They did no work"; "They had no notetaking equipment". Being drawn into this is what a lot of people use as an excuse for their own laziness. Keep above it and don't become part of it. It will suck you down toward failure.

De-clutter at home

Home is often set up as the worst place to study and to prepare and get on with the plan for Better School Marks. Remember we are looking to set you up so you give yourself as much chance as possible of driving a successful future. Sometimes, especially at the start, things seem a bit tough. If they are, just email, and we'll try to sort it out. Somehow you need to allocate study space. If that solution is not immediately obvious, how about you find a spot around the school where there will be the peace to study. Note, not "try to find" but "find". Don't let yourself have excuses in such important matters. Could you use the local library?

Home is best because you can leave your stuff out without it getting stolen when you go for a break. You do need quiet. You do need calm.

Get rid of the ipod, phone, tv. Do not be tempted by the buzz of unanswered texts or the chance to listen to the latest song or by your favourite program or a possible facebook comment. Plan around all this. They can all wait until you are ready to consider them. They are not as important as you and your future. In this future you will much more likely be the rule maker. So, plan around all this. Did I already say "Plan around all this'? Well, if you are serious, do it.

What you are looking for, as much as possible, is for one signal to be going into your head and that is why the peace is so important. No tv, no phone, no friends over, no music, no facebook. Try to make a dedicated space in your room. It does not have to be showy. Flat top for desk, comfortable chair you can sit in for about 2h at a time, a lamp would be good as would be a specific spot to store your important notes. If your school uses computers a lot, then the space for this would also come in. But it is far more important to have book and pen space.

Get the equipment ready and lay it out. Get your head into focus. That may mean you have to bully yourself a little at first, until you start to notice the difference. Sit in that space, zone out to the rest of the world. This is the time that is dedicated to your success. Be very selfish about it.

How do you know if you are successful

So, we have written what we want down? Maybe that is proving to be harder than we thought. What sort of record should we keep? Get a notebook. Not large, say A5 size, and certainly not expensive.

It's a nice feeling to put pen to paper for a plan. So you may find your plan grows outside of school to become the way you look at life and its future. Oh, yeah. Now you're getting to the exciting part. Dream your future and then plan how to get there and then do it.

You know you are successful if you reach clearly defined goals. So you can be successful often. As many times as you reach a goal, however small, that is a success. Fill your life full of successes.

What sort of things would you define as being where you are at now? This can be somewhat overwhelming to answer. You do not have to put everything down. The more detail you have, the easier the task of future planning becomes. Notes can be added at any stage as you decide to include information. You might start with the grades you received over the last few exam and test sessions, grades for assignments, even how much you have in the bank. It all forms part of the picture of your growth.

Since we are about Better School Marks how about figuring out things like: how much actual study you do each day; how much homework you do each day (yes they are different and each important in its own way); a description of the place where you do learning work, including writing materials; how you learn best; when (time of day and day) you study; when you do other stuff like sport, chores, part time work; your satisfaction with each of these current situations. You can see this part is really important but also can be done in sections.

Once this picture starts to emerge, then you have something to compare with. Now you need to start picturing what it means to you to be successful. Be nice to yourself. Think about each of the above and add to them as you come up with new ideas. Draw up a table with five columns headed: "What" (Pick some of the things you want to target); "Current" (Your current position); "Next" (Put where you want to take this in the next stage of your growth. This allows for future changes, so some of these statements can be that you are OK with where you are now); "Timing" (How long you expect it to take. This can be things like: "by the end of this month I will be ..."; or "in the next examination period ..."; or "When I finish school ..."); "Feeling/thoughts" (what you think it will be like to be at this point or how you will feel about achieving this).

Again you can do things bit at a time. Early targets should be easily doable, creating lots of early successes. Make the commitment to yourself. A few moments now will hugely increase your chance of Better School Marks and hence a higher probability of a more secure future.

Measuring success with better school marks

What is success? There are a myriad measures of success and discussions (just look at tv, gossip magazines, blogs, twitter, facebook, msn ...) about who is/isn't successful or famous. Who is/isn't successful in $$'s, lifestyle, happiness, looks, skill, power .... How can we define and who defines our success? Yes, our success. There are just hundreds of ways to define what is "successful" and matching hundreds of experts willing to tell us what we should and shouldn't do to be considered successful. However the particular "successful" we are exploring is "better school marks".

What do we mean by "better school marks". This will be one of your measures of success so we must know what we mean by it. What will your "better school marks" be? What we are looking for here is a way for you to check if you have reached a level appropriate to your inbuilt ability. Yes, your ability. So, who needs all the experts when the success we are playing with here is very personal. It belongs to a single person. A single person who is able to declare that a pinnacle has been reached. The definer is YOU.

Make your own decision about your personal "better school marks". Take a long, careful look at where you are now. Write it down somewhere that you will keep as a record. It may be a long term record in which you put down thoughts, plans, successes along the way but make sure you can prove to yourself what has been done, what has been achieved, and what's next. Set a realistic (but not low target) mission. Aim high. If you miss high you may get reasonable for the first few shots. Don't worry about that, especially if success has been hard to come by in the past. The build to success may be a bit slow at first if this is the case. But, if you aim low to start with, the best you can get is low.

Remember, be selfish about this. It is for you. Who cares what others say. Once we reach a target we can stabilise and maintain that or go on to a higher plateau. Do not limit yourself under outside influence. Satisfy your own personal goals. Dream a bit. What sort of future do you want? What do you need to do to get there? Who will you be? Take your time to answer all these questions. Be sure to write it all down. Draw diagrams. Make up "what if ..." scenarios. Enjoy the thought of being successful now and in the future.

So, you wanna be a rock star

Or is it "movie star" or "sports star" or "famous artist" (performance or production) of some sort? Don't be fooled by the hype. Consider, quietly and clearly, just how many people you know would love to be a famous (and of course sickeningly well paid) identity and multiply that by how many communities there are like yours in your town, country, the world. Yes, world. All the above are international jobs. How many stars actually are right at the top? How many people want to be there? How many have the connections you don't (i.e. those with famous relatives willing to help out family)? How many have the financial support you don't? How many have "good luck"?

Extras in movies, local bar bands, local team players do not make much money. Most people in the arts area who have made it will tell you the best training in the arts world is bar work. You'll likely make more money doing that.

Always have a dream destination. The caution is that the odds of success in such competitive industries, with so few highly paid participants, are very low. Be realistic.

So, back to the success at school (where "school" is any formalized structure of learning) notion (not the easier "fail" path). Vomit? Sux? Nerdy? Wimpy? Oh, no. These people (successful at school) have the easier path to a dream lifestyle, whichever way you look at it. The idea of success at school is to have a good backup plan if plan A (being a fabulously wealthy and famous "____ star") does not quite happen. Qualified professionals, entrepreneurs and highly experienced people in most industries can be very well paid and live extraordinary lifestyles. And, there are hundreds of thousands more jobs like these. So plan B looks great too. Success, you will find, is a magnet for excitement and fun.

If you cover plan A and plan B as well as you can, surely your future has loads more potential fun.