Interesting reading

Success in Law School - A Unique Perspective

During another minute of my procrastination I have found an interesting web site with some good advices

Law Student Division
Adviser
Time is of the essence for smart studiers
by Amy L. Jarmon
Originally published in: Student Lawyer, September 2007, Vol. 36, No. 1, All rights reserved

Time is often a law student’s enemy. We have all heard the stories. Law students lament that they sleep only five hours a night because they are constantly reading for class. They complain about frantically finishing writing assignments hours before the deadline. They consider it impossible to find time to outline, do practice questions, or review for exams.

Charles Buxton once said, “You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.” This adage is certainly true for law students who wish to succeed rather than merely survive. Proven strategies exist that make time for effective studying and still leave time for life.

How does one make time? Here are some techniques that can help you:
Realize that prior study techniques may not match the reality of successful studying for law school. Law school reading is more “dense” because it includes cases, which have a specialized language. Casebooks rarely have introductions, headings, graphics, or summaries. The volume of material covered is daunting. Many law professors guide students rather than tell them exactly what they need to know. Few law students made course outlines in college. Law school final exams focus on the application of material rather than the cases read.

Because of these differences, new strategies and regular review of material are essential. Many law students relate that they earned As in college while studying less than 15 hours per week and cramming for exams. Even those with graduate degrees remark on adjustments to law school studying. Older law students often relate that they have forgotten how to study.

Stop making “ad hoc” study decisions. Many law students decide day by day, or even hour by hour, what they will do. These law students are finding time for tasks instead of making time. They stay very busy, but most of them do not study efficiently or effectively.

Law students who are ad-hoc time managers often expand tasks into the time available (taking four hours to read what could have been read in three and a half hours). They procrastinate because they “have all day” to complete several tasks. They waste time getting ready to study. Consequently, they become focused only on reading for class. Other assignments and tasks are completed haphazardly. They grasp at shortcuts rather than more efficient and effective ways to study.
Make a weekly schedule that includes all of the study tasks for success. By having a regular routine that is modified but not reinvented, you take control of your study tasks. A full-time student will study 55–60 hours per week to complete all study tasks and prepare for exams during the entire semester. A part-time student will study 35–45 hours per week. The rewards are lower stress and guilt-free relaxation.
Critical study tasks to include are reading for class, briefing for class, reviewing before class, reviewing class notes after class, outlining, reviewing outlines, and doing practice questions. Other tasks may vary and include weekly tutoring, study groups, and extracurricular obligations. Following are the steps for making your base study schedule:

1. Make a template table for Monday through Friday with days as column headings and one-hour slots as row headings. Half-hour slots can be designated with a line dividing a slot into two parts.

2. Label time blocks specifically with the tasks. Examples: “read Income Tax,” “outline Evidence,” “review Torts notes.”

3. Include four to eight hours weekly for each project or paper course even if these tasks will start several weeks later. Any unused time initially can be allotted to other tasks or relaxation.

4. Fill in regular commitments first. These commitments may vary depending on your lifestyle. Examples: classes, tutoring sessions, morning prep time, commuting time, bedtime story for your child, church service.

5. Fill in seven to eight hours of sleep at the same time for Sunday through Thursday nights. Vary the weekend sleep cycle by two hours at the most. With more sleep, you will be more productive and retain more information.

6. Fill in a half hour per class to review your readings, briefs, and prior class notes before going to class. You will follow class discussion better, take better notes, and feel more confident.

7. Consider reading your class assignment two days beforehand. On Saturday, you read for Monday’s classes. On Sunday, you read for Tuesday’s classes. On Monday, you read for Wednesday’s classes, and so forth. Advantages of this system: you are less hurried and can learn the material rather than highlighting for later learning, you have more time to brief cases, you will be finished with the week’s reading on Wednesday, you have made time on Thursday and Friday for tasks such as outlining, reviewing, completing practice questions, and writing papers.

8. Write down an estimate for your reading/briefing time for each course for one day’s assignment. Estimate the longest time needed if your daily assignments vary in length. If your estimate is a range such as three to three and a half hours, choose the higher number.

9. Write down an estimate for your outlining time for each course for one week’s material. Estimate the longest time and take the higher number if you estimate a range. If you have no idea, include two hours per week. If you need to catch up, estimate the total time needed. Use that figure initially, and go to the lower weekly figure once you are current.

10. Fill in your reading time for each class. Choose times when you will be most alert. Consider reading for your most difficult course first so that it will not hang over you all day.

11. Fill in time for the remaining tasks: outlining, reviewing course material, working practice questions.

12. Fill in a half hour per class to review your class notes within 24 hours after class. In this time, fill in missing information and organize your notes.

13. Schedule your free time. Most law students schedule free time on Friday and Saturday nights. Choose realistic times to get up and begin studying on the weekend.

14. Add some flex hours that will not be used for studying unless you need them. Psychologically, it is easier to give up this time for study if you have already made that commitment. These flex hours allow you to reconfigure your schedule for unexpected assignments, illness, or other reasons.
Use a monthly calendar to indicate deadline dates. Set an artificial deadline two days earlier than the real deadline. An artificial deadline gives you flexibility if problems arise. Make a list of all of the small tasks to meet a deadline. For each task, estimate how long it will take you. Then, enter on the calendar the specific tasks to be accomplished each day to stay on track.

Use a prioritized daily to-do list for the specific tasks that will be completed in the time blocks designated on your weekly schedule. “Read Torts” is not specific enough. “Read Torts pages 120–148” is better. However, if you need a feeling of accomplishment, break down the assignment by cases or page numbers. Prioritize all tasks with designations that make sense to you.You will need several weeks to monitor and finalize the weekly schedule. Do not give up if things sometimes go awry.

The two-day method is easiest to start or restart on Saturday. Your law school experience will be more successful when you make time rather than find time.
Amy L. Jarmon is assistant dean for academic success programs at Texas Tech University School of Law in Lubbock.

The source is Academic Success

Procrastination

While procrastinating I have found this article:

PROCRASTINATING AGAIN? HOW TO KICK THE HABIT.
ALTHOUGH BIOLOGY IS PARTLY TO BLAME FOR FOOT-DRAGGING, ANYONE CAN LEARN TO QUIT.

Raymond, a high-powered attorney, habitually put off returning important business calls and penning legal briefs, behaviors that seriously threatened his career. Raymond (not his real name) sought help from clinical psychologist William Knaus, who practices in Longmeadow, Mass. As a first step, Knaus gave Raymond a two-page synopsis of procrastination and asked him to read it “and see if the description applied.” Raymond agreed to do so on a flight to Europe. Instead he watched a movie. He next vowed to read it the first night at his hotel, but he fell asleep early. After that, each day brought something more compelling to do. In the end, Knaus calculated that the lawyer had spent 40 hours delaying a task that would have taken about two minutes to complete.

The article is really long but the end I found most useful:

In Raymond’s case, getting to the task was, indeed, the hard part. Knaus helped him to do that by first determining the reason for his instinct to delay: Raymond feared being tested on the synopsis and looking foolish. So Knaus asked him to pick the lesser of two evils, doing his work—and risking imperfection—or avoiding difficult tasks and losing his job. When Knaus put it that way, the lawyer was able to “just grind it out.” Instead of being fired, Raymond became a “superstar” at his firm.

In other words, when I have that great desire to procrastinate a little, what I need is to think about my finals and that if I do not study, I will fail.

It WORKS now!!! I go to study!

Life is full of .... [fill a blank]

So what did I do today? I had a midterm on Income Tax class... yeahhh ... I was behind in studying and therefore I was nervous like never booooo... I did not sleep. Actually, I slept 3-4 hours at night... I studied and after I could not fall asleep. What a life! Consequently today I was exhausted and tired. Exam was easy. The problem is that I have realized that after I wrote an exam and left a classroom. What do I think of the exam? I failed ... [cursing]. I forgot to answer third question - yes forgot, even though I might have known the answer, and I messed up parties (as always) of the transactions (no suprise for me). as a result I applied wrong rules. I am miserable now and I want to cry but I do not have tears. The point of this giberish is not complaining (enough of it I had on these pages), but to discuss the fact of life - I study for exam and do not sleep at night, because I want to have a good result, and then I come to exam and almost fall asleep there, at least my mind did this. As a result I will have result not better than if I slept at night instead of snoozing above a textbook. Conclusion? study smart! do this step by step. I avoided that and here is the result :-(((

I am back

I have disappeared from this blog for the whole summer. wow... that was a long time. The thing is that it was not laziness or just a bad memory, because I kept writing another blog I have but which is not dedicated to the law school as much as this one. But I sensed that this phenomena was not nothing more than a longing to forget a law school for whole summer. When I opened this blog, my purpose was to reflect my life as an immigrant but not as a law student. After I began my 1L it turned out to be stories about my studying and not much else. May I say that I disgraced my blog by diverging from its original purpose? Partialll yes. But I will not continue on this theme, as I am back, and I have a feeling that this blog will continue to be the blog of a law student - 2L at this point.

About my summer. It was SUPER great!!! I visited my parents for a month, met my friends, relatives. I went to Mediterranean for 10 days. Then I spent a couple of days on Hawaii (I love you Hawaii, it is the paradise), and just recently I came back from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Actually I took one summer class - Evidence. It was not so bad. Professor was very funny, and it gave some color to a boredom of the class.

I must confess my GPA got worse than it was after 1st semester. I do not cry, I am tough now to the bad grades. But I want (dream, plan, long to) get better. For some reason 1L passed by like a horrible dream with my laziness and denial to do a homework. I noticed same thing in my previous studyings, but this year was the absolute pick. What was wrong? Do not ask me. I can only guess, and one of my guesses is that I just got scared of being a loser, I got scared of horror stories about 1L and its competitiveness. I was an IDIOT to follow all that crap. I had just study and think about my knowledge and nothing more else, and to kill all the doubts in my own capabilities. Anyway, I do not want to write more about my damn bad experiences in 1L, at least in this post. I would better get clip and paste some advice about how to succeed in law school which I, unfortunately, did not follow at all, and I think that was another reason why I did not succeed - I did nothing during my weekends but watching stupid TV shows and surfing Web. If you are 1L - read and do not do what I did.

One of my favorite clients from this year who is packing up to attend George Mason School of Law sent me this e-mail yesterday:
"about what kind of time commitment *is* law school, in practice, to succeed (by my definition, "succeed" meaning be in the top 15 or 10% of the class)?"

My answer was: Take off Friday afternoons and evenings to see a movie and relax. At all other times when not in class, eating, or sleeping, then study. I also gave him the secret to my own success in law school (top 8% of my class, magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, blah, blah, blah) - spend every weekend reviewing and outlining your class notes from the week before. That way, your outlines are done and you can just study them while everyone else is scrambling to outline tons of material. This means, of course, keeping up with your class reading during the week.And it does get easier as a 2L and 3L - the work is harder but you know what you're doing by then and get a system down.

Taken from How to Succeed in Law School