Weekly Lists #1: Things you should probably not be doing as a study break

Every week, I post a list of random stuff. This week: 5 things you should probably not be doing as a study break…

Now, this is a list for my personal, future reference (because I do all of these, way too often) and, yes, these things are probably really, really obvious – but you know what? They can’t be that obvious, because I am somehow still doing them – even if I should know so much better. So here’s the study break-version of:

(How do you like my Paint-capacities? They’re mediocre at best, but hey, I’m blogging when I’m supposed to be studying, I obviously had the time to do it this way )

1. Watch the newest vlog by one of your favourite youtubers.

You will end up going to one of the links suggested next to the video, and that will lead you to another, and that will lead you to another, and no matter how interesting BuzzFeed, Grace Helbig, Sorted Food and RachhLoves are, watching 1 of their videos and suddenly having lost an hour of your study time? Just not worth it.

2. Begin a new book.

You may think you have the strength to read just one chapter, but you will ‘accidentally’ not realise that the chapter is done, completely read over the new chapter’s title, and suddenly you will be 100 pages in and it’ll be too exciting to put the book down now.

3. Reread an old book.

You’d think this would be better, because you already know what’s going to happen and as such, you won’t be as enthralled by the plot and you’ll be more aware of how much time has come to pass, but…
Nope. There’s a reason you want to re-read this book, and that’s the simple fact that you love it so much that you will most certainly be sucked into the story and won’t emerge until you suddenly realise that you could have gotten through at least 2 chapters of your French vocabulary.

4. Go make a snack, something healthy.

Unless this snack consists of some fruit with possible some yoghurt, you’ll end up making something way too complicated (because you love cooking and, quite frankly, at this point even your subconscious is just sort of going “how about we do this first, and then this, and then this, and NO STUDYING WILL BE DONE”). Just grab an apple or a cookie – the deliciousness is, at this point, just not worth the time you will lose.

5. Look something interesting up on the internet.

Be it Wikipedia, a Blog or a tutorial – there are links that will lead you to something else that’s also really interesting, and then there are some more on that page, and some more on the next page, and you will forget that such a thing as linguistics even exists until you suddenly start wondering how exactly you ever ended up on a page discussing the use of ‘Slingshot Arguments’ in 19th century philosophy (in this particular case, I had started out just looking up something about the IPA, International Phonetic Alphabet).

As a matter of fact, really, just don’t take breaks at all – just crawl into your room with some cherry tomatoes, a large bottle of water and a fleece, and don’t leave it for the next 4 hours. It’s the only way you’ll get anything done anyways.

(And yes, writing this blog could definitely have become the 6th element on that list)
(Don’t judge me, there’s only so much French vocabulary I can take before random ideas start popping up in my head)

What about you? Are there any things you typically do in order to stave of having to study? Any that I should make sure to avoid? Tell me below!

-Saar