Mid-exam season motivation

One exam down, and only the rest to go! 

It’s hard to celebrate after completing your first exam of the semester, especially if you have more exams or assessments. After finishing one exam I felt such a weight lifted off my shoulders, to be fully completed with one course. However, I couldn’t ignore the weight of the remaining exams. Despite the joy, I was aware I still needed to study. I was reminded how freedom and holidays were still another exam away, still another few days of studying away. 

Finishing the first exam had a rewarding feeling of completing all the content for the semester, along with a better and more complete understanding of it. The most rewarding and satisfying part was closing all the notes and browser tabs. I loved having one last look over my finished notes and I could tell even my laptop sighed after closing all the open chrome tabs and windows! 

The next thing to do was to open the next set of windows for the following exam. My laptop and I took a deep breath in as the clicking began. Although, the feelings this time were different. It was a very bumpy start as I found it hard to structure my revision and get started on understanding the content. After finishing an exam, you get a sense of completion, all your notes are finalised (hopefully), and the content makes relatively more sense than it did before. But going from that state to preparing for another exam where none of that is the case felt quite demotivating. Depending on the time between your exams (in my case, it was one day), I didn’t have enough time to catch my breath between the two. In the end, rather than waiting for the motivation to strike me, I decided to push through the final few days because I knew I would regret it if I didn’t give it my best shot. 

How do you keep yourself going during exam season?