"What a dull, heavy creature," says the Hare, "is this Tortoise!"

"And yet," says the Tortoise, "I'll run with you for a wager."

"Done," says the Hare, and then they asked the Fox to be the judge.

They started together, and the Tortoise kept jogging on still, till he came to the end of the course.

The Hare laid himself down midway and took a nap; "for," says he, "I can catch up with the Tortoise when I please."

But it seems he overslept himself, for when he came to wake, though he scudded away as fast as possible, the Tortoise had got to the post before him and won the wager.

Slow and Steady wins the race.

In my early uni days, I was a hare. People knew me to be a bright and energetic sort. I found the idea of sitting still to be very dull. I would find myself sleeping in lectures, then "waking" 2 days before a due assignment, and no matter how fast I Sprinted, I couldn't catch the dull Tortoises that had started weeks before.

Introducing the Stride, the steady, unwavering and determined pace that always reaches its destination.

From a quick research trip on Google for hiking, I discovered a concept that sounds perfect, the "hiking rhythm". There's so much information there, but here's what I feel is important:

• When setting out to do something, like an assignment, do so at the easiest pace possible such that you're not really exerting myself. Just as changing gears often while driving isn't fuel economic or even good for the gearbox, you should also avoid studying in bursts when you can't afford to waste the energy. Finding this pace takes practice, so if you have a spare hour, take the opportunity to get familiar with it.
  
• Take a break every hour or so for about 10 minutes. This doesn't mean browsing to a new page with the latest goss or firing up Counter Strike. This means things like having a stretch, grabbing a cookie, anything that puts you back in the real world. We don't want to be tightly focused, we want to be absorbing the fruits of our labour. Again, it's up to you to find out how long you can work before you lose efficiency, and have to rest.
  
• Don't let yourself be interrupted. Yes, you probably do have time for the interruption. But no, you can't afford to lose rhythm once you've got it going.
  

There's another reason for the breaks each hour as well. Think about going into a lecture, which lasts an hour. If you pay attention and understand, at the end of the lecture you'll have a pretty good recollection of what happened. Fast forward 4 weeks. How much do you suppose you'll remember?

Enter the Review.

Plenty of students seem to avoid reviews because it sounds like cramming. It isn't. A review of a one hour lecture doesn't take an hour. People who stop practicing (such as playing golf) for a while, then "forget" how to do it, coming back to it is much easier then learning from the beginning. A review may take only minutes, even seconds.



So, in brief:

• Work diligently and comfortably without interruption.
• Every hour, break away from work and get a grip of reality.
• When you start up again, look over what you were doing before.
  

I've teased you guys enough with theory, so let's do something real.

Recall that productive sprinting is about revealing weakness thus encourageing growth. So, consider a task you know to be weak at, or wish to improve on. I have chosen "Do Assignment" for my task.

Now, find a timer of some kind. A stopwatch/egg timer will do, but ideally download a timer program that plays music. I'm using this one at the moment.

Next, if you chose the timer software, pick a song. A song that you love, and really gets you going. Something that makes you mad, something that makes you happy, whatever motivates you, ideally, YOUR FAVOURITE SONG.

Take note of the song's duration. Set the timer for about double that. I intentionally chose a 4 minute song so I could have an 8 minute timer.



Stop. Time for a bit of Endurance building theory. I was told long ago that to really build endurance, I should walk in intervals of one minute, jog a minute, then sprint for thirty seconds. These times aren't too important, but the ratios and the theory most definitely are. When we walk for that minute, we are resting, and totally care free. The way rest should be. This is Strolling. It's not Sitting, because a tiny bit of us is moving towards a goal. The less you think of the goal the better, but keep moving.

Minute's up. Time to start jogging. Recall that in Striding, energy expenditure is extremely low. Do not put energy into the jog, just make sure it's not a walk. We jog to prepare us for the sprint, which is where the growth is. When we jog like this, just about the only thing we're thinking of is that sprint in 60 seconds, but we're still moving slowly enough to say hi to passers by.

60 seconds up. BOLT. For a full 30 seconds, we are in hell. Hell. Hell. Hell. Hell. Hell. Hell.

30 seconds over. Mind is clear, save for a trickle of thought on that 60 second timer. And so we repeat.



This is what you guys will be doing, metaphorically speaking. For my "Do Assignment" task, my cycles will be:

Stroll - Don't even think about studying. Go read about dinosaurs or get lost in wikipedia or something. Then set the timer.

Stride - Gather information. Open lecture notes, go over Introductions and Summaries, preparing myself for study and thinking a lot about it but not actually doing study. Build up huge anticipation. If this is not the first cycle, I'll review stuff I did in previous cycles.

Sprint - Timer dings. WRITE. Until the music ends.

And repeat.



Give it a try. Just one cycle at least. Just one.

Then more. make the cycles longer. And add more cycles. Watch how fast you grow.



ADDENDUM: I notice that this may not be so good for reading/study, which should generally be done in silence. That's fine, just use a short buzzer sound or none at all for the timer.