The Tab Easter study guide

Your first step on the road to success

We all know the feeling – exams are looming, but you don’t know quite what to do with the ever-decreasing amount of time until that fateful day.

Do you set yourself motivational yet truthfully unrealistic targets, only to crumble under the pressure of your own inadequacy?

No, because today I bring you a foolproof and all too realistic study plan for your Easter break – you can thank me later.

7am – Alarm goes off – press snooze

7:15am – Alarm goes off again – press snooze

7:30am – Alarm begins to grate away at your happiness – decide that you’ll be far more productive if you wake up naturally

12:03pm – Wake up naturally

12:15pm – Go on the search for revision fuel

12:17pm – Sigh in frustration at the realisation that no food has appeared in your house since you went on a similar ravenous rampage during last night’s (this early morning’s) marathon of Peep Show.

12:18pm – Accept defeat and compile a dubious brunch of a defrosted bread roll, a can of baked beans and a few slices of ham

12:20pm – Pick up where you left off last night – obviously you can’t do any work while you’re eating

12:41pm – Realise you’ve just watched the first half of a two-parter

12:41.5pm – Watch the second part

13:02pm – Accept the need to begin work

13:03pm – Contemplate taking your work to the library to decrease possibility of distraction

13:04pm – Realise the library will be full of annoying kids from your high school ‘revising’ for their GCSEs

13:05pm – Take a moment to indulge in incredibly original smug thoughts about how they think GCSEs are hard work

13:06pm – Get some books/folders/paper/pens/pencils/felt tips/colouring pencils (if you’re a geographer)/scissors (if you’re a geographer)/pritt stick (if you’re a geographer) out and arrange on your desk until they are aesthetically pleasing

13.10pm – Open a book and begin to read

13:12pm – Decide reading this book is not the most productive use of your time

13:13pm – Get out your laptop because you’ve decided working from past papers is a much more effective way of working

14:02pm – Press ‘place order’ on your newly formed and rather lengthy ASOS basket

14:03pm – Cry a little that all you’ve achieved so far today is a dent to the tune of ~£60 in your rapidly growing overdraft

14:05pm – Plough ahead with your work with a new determination

14:24pm – Aren’t you supposed to take a break from working every 20 minutes?

14:25pm – Take a well-deserved break, time for a nice cup of tea

15:09pm – After three cups of tea and seven biscuits, return to your studies

15:14pm – Stare out of window

15:17pm – Cease staring out of window

 

15:26pm – Decide that for your work to be truly productive, your entire filing system needs an overhaul

15:57pm – Congratulations, you have a beautiful new system, give yourself a well-earned break

15:58pm – Begin next episode

17:01pm – Realise three episodes is probably enough for now, although you can’t be blamed, it’s Netflix’s fault for skipping automatically to the next one, you’re merely a passive bystander

17:02pm – With newfound confidence in your innocence, continue watching

17:23pm – Be hit with the realisation that it’s past 5pm and you haven’t left your pyjamas, let alone your house

17:24pm – Decide to go for a run – not only will it make you leave the house, but also everyone knows exercise releases endorphins, so it would actually be less productive to start working right now

17:26pm – Set off on run

17:30pm – Change to a power walk

17:33pm – Walk past Sainsburys – decide you ought to pop in as a favour to your family, as you seem to have somehow run out of crisps, ice cream and chocolate spread

17:40pm – Walk home leisurely

17:51pm – Wow, that sure was hard work, you definitely need to wash (this may have more to do with the fact that you spent all day festering in the clothes you slept in)

17:52pm – Decide that for the first time in 2 years, today you really want to bathe

17:53pm – Open Netflix and then carefully position your laptop so it can be seen from the tub

19:07pm – Get shouted downstairs for dinner, hence ending tub-time

19:54pm – Come on, you really do need to finish this essay plan, sit down and do some work

20:12pm – Give up, it’s late, instead channel enthusiasm into finishing series

23:35pm – Pause briefly to write a Tab article about your futile day, so that other people can read it during one of their equally futile days.