I have had it..... productively, though

I do not approach studying very well. When I think about it, an awful lot of "shoulds" and "oughts" creep into my thinking... and then my thinking gets messy, noproductive, and guilt-inducing. I have to admit that the normal rules don't apply here, though; they say you're supposed to spend two hours outside of class for every hour in class, but if I did that, it'd be 30 hours in class and 60 hours of studying every week. Uh.... no. I find myself in the QA engineer position once again, trying to figure out how to get something accomplished with fewer resources than it actually requires.

When I actually do it, I leave it until the last minute, then try to cram. By analogy, this would be training for a 5k running race by running 10 miles the day before. Uh..... no. This is not a pleasant, productive, or workable strategy.

In thinking about it, I have decided that coaching works for me (in sport) because the coach tells me what to do (and, Lord help me, I'll do what the coach says, but not what I tell MYSELF to do) and because the coach gives me a finite, accomplishable goal... and because the coach has a body of knowledge (in exercise physiology) and keeps records of my performance and modifies my training schedule accordingly.

Okay. So. What motivates me to exercise is the combination of coaching and racing (the coach tells me what to do, and I do it so I will be prepared for the race on my schedule). By analogy, I need to spend some time every week coaching myself (that is, deciding how much time I will spend on what subject, and more importantly, scheduling the study sessions and making them _of limited duration_, so I feel like I can do things like buy groceries, clean the house, get my hair cut, and for lord's sake go out and have fun once in a while.)

Two things to think about:

1) Effective training requires goals (like "run the 5k in 20 minutes"). Fine. I want to score 90% on any given exam. (The last 10% is just not worth the time and effort to deliberately aim for.)

2) I want to do the least amount of the most specific STUDYING to accomplish my goals. (When I train people, I give them the least amount of the most specific training.... but it works for studying too).

Fine. For added veracity, I will make a dang schedule and _post it here_ so you all can see whether I actually do it or not and what the results are. (Hmm... sort of like having your race results posted for all to see. I'm not sure whether I really want y'all to see how I do on that anatomy test, but what the heck.)

and more

More thinking: I am not willing to "work" more than 60 hours a week.

So.... here are the parameters:

- I will aim for 90% on every exam. - I will not study more than 30 hours a week. If that means I score lower than 90% on my exams, fine. (For the record, Elon considers 90% to be an A-, which would give me a 3.7 GPA.... not a 4.0.)

- I will study in sessions that are scheduled and limited in duration.

Next up, I examine my schedule and see:

1) How much I am studying now (my hunch is that it's a lot less than 30 hours)
2) Where I could fit 30 hours in, if I wanted to
3) What my other time constraints are (regular workouts are NOT optional).

I'm such a triathlon geek, I tell ya. I am arranging my life on a triathlon training model. How about that. ;-)