to them. As a result they never successfully make them their own, or
feel confident that they have any control over them. In class they strug-
gle to explain the ideas they’ve read, whereas someone else who’s
done only a fraction of the work can bring reason and common sense
to them. They can see the obvious questions to ask about them, they
can identify the weaknesses in the author ’s arguments, and they can
recall the organisational structure behind the passages they’ve read,
all much better than the student who has spent hours reading the text
and taking careful notes from it.
Of course it seems unfair that someone who has spent far fewer
hours at work should get better marks. Our faith in the Protestant work
ethic leads us to assume that those who work hardest get the highest
rewards. Sadly this is more often not the case. It’s the student who
works hard within a well organised and effective timetable, who is most
likely to get the best marks.Working hard means relaxing hardThere are, in fact, obvious reasons for this. Those who have worked
without an organised timetable will know these all too well. As you sit
down to work, time stretches ahead of you unstructured and without
end. You don’t know how long the task will take or what you will do
afterwards. All you know is that the job’s got to be done and you’re
there to do it until it’s completed. This can depress even the most moti-
vated student.
Faced with this daunting prospect we struggle to get down to
work. We search for things to do, to lighten the burden and take
our minds off our work. We suddenly find pencils that urgently
need to be sharpened, or books which have been in the same position
for years that urgently need to be rearranged. It can be anything
just as long as it gives us some respite from our work. Even when
we’ve got down to work, we still see time stretch out ahead with-
out structure. So we search relentlessly for any distraction just to
give us a break. Trivial things easily take hold of our concentration.
We go missing from our work for five or ten minutes at a time.
Obviously these are the breaks we should have planned. Without a
plan, they come more frequently, taking up more time than we can
afford.
In contrast, by planning not just our work but the times for
relaxation too, we give ourselves clear goals and expectations. We128 ResearchHTW17 7/27/01 8:16 AM Page 128