A new semester is upon us and in this quick video

I wanna give you a few things that you can do

to make sure that semester goes smoothly.

And one of the biggest things I wanna focus on in this video

is setting yourself up to not burn out and lose motivation

as the semester goes on.

'Cause I know when a new semester comes upon us,

you're full of a lot of motivation, right?

You're full of all this like, new, refreshed energy,

and you really wanna do well in all your classes,

and get involved, and hang out with people,

and do all that stuff.

As the semester goes on, you start to lose that motivation, right?

Things just pile on, and due dates start to pile up,

and your motivation starts to wane.

So I wanna talk about some things you can do

to make sure that doesn't happen

or at least, to let you mitigate those effects,

and not let them make you lose steam.

But first, I wanna talk about, just the changing of habits.

So in Charles Duhigg's book, The Power of Habit,

which I have read and highly recommend,

he talks about how people are apt

to change their set patterns, their regular behaviors,

more often during large life changes,

such as moving to a new house, or becoming a parent,

or getting married.

People who get married or move to a new house

are really apt to change the brand of coffee they drink

or the cereal they eat.

And the book mentions

that people going through these big life changes

are actually more vulnerable to marketers

because of these huge upheavals in their life.

Now, this is great information for marketers,

maybe not such great information for you

if you wanna be a discerning shopper.

But it is good information for you

if you wanna change you own habits

because just as those habits are vulnerable to marketers,

they're also vulnerable

to intervention on your own part, right?

So a new semester is the perfect time to look at your habits

and see what changes you can make,

see what systems you can build to become more efficient

and effective as the semester goes on.

So I want to talk about a couple of things

that could really help you out in that regard.

But first, I have some quicker tips

that will help you before the semester starts

or right when it starts,

to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.

Number one,

you wanna know exactly what you require

in terms of gear, and textbooks, and all that good stuff

before the semester starts.

Does this mean you need to buy

all of your textbooks right away, before classes start?

Not necessarily.

What I recommend doing

is at least looking at the book requirements,

maybe even emailing teachers and saying,

"Hey, do I actually need the book?

"Do I need the newest edition? Can I get a used edition?"

And just having that knowledge stored in your pocket,

know it in the back of your mind.

Now, if there are books

that are going to take a while to ship,

you can only get them in paper,

you can't rent them as an e-textbook,

or you can't get them from the campus bookstore in a pinch,

yes, you're gonna want to get those books

well ahead of time just to make sure

you can get a good start on the first week of the semester.

I always think, you know, in my opinion,

that it's better to spend a little bit of money

on a textbook you're not quite sure about

than it is to lose a lot of progress

in your first couple weeks of class,

while you're waiting for it to ship

because that can derail an entire semester.

However, for books at you can rent very quickly

via Amazon Kindle or other e-textbook methods,

or maybe something you can find very cheaply in town,

maybe it's okay to book gamble.

You know, wait 'til the first day of class.

See if you can share a book with a friend or something,

or see if it's actually that required.

And if it is, you can go pick it up very quickly.

If not, you've saved yourself a good amount of money.

Another tip that I have used a lot

during my whole college career

was actually put my professor's office hours

on my Google Calendar.

Now, Google Calendar. Let's you actually create

multiple different calendars that you can turn off and on.

So usually, I would only be showing my class,

and work, and event calendars,

but I had this other calendar

that showed all my professors' office hours

that I could turn on and off at will.

And that way, if I did need to go see a professor,

I didn't need to go digging through the university website

to see when they'd be in the office.

I had it all in the calendar.

I had that set up before the semester started

and everything got busy,

and I could see exactly where their office was,

when I could go in, what their phone number was,

and all that good stuff.

So I highly recommend doing that.

It's really easy, just look on the syllabuses you get,

syllabi, I guess is the plural word,

or look on the university website.

Most professors have their own little website

and you can create that stuff right there.

Now, a couple of other calendar related tips.

Number one, get all of you classes into your Google Calendar

before the semester starts.

And, a little less obvious tip to attach to that,

actually look on the university website and map,

figure out what the locations and room numbers

of your classes are, and put that in the details section

of Google Calendar.

I actually wrote an article last year

about how I, every semester before classes started,

would go around campus, making sure I knew exactly where my classes were,

especially if I had multiple classes

that had a very small gap of time between them.

That way, I wasn't wasting time getting lost

and it was just a better way to start the semester, I think.

But having that information in Google Calendar,

even if you don't go looking for your classes' locations

personally, in the flesh, before the classes start,

you'll actually have the information

and you can look up a diagram.

I would also link to the campus maps and building diagrams,

like floor plans, in my Google Calendar,

just in case I got really confused

and needed to see where something was.

On more than one occasion,

I actually was able to help somebody else who was lost

and needed to find a classroom on the same floor

that I was going to.

And lastly, on that calendar front,

it's good to put the semester's significant dates

in your calendar.

I'm talkin' stuff like days when there won't be school,

the start of Spring Break, the start of Thanksgiving Break,

when finals are.

That stuff is usually up on the university website.

They usually have a calendar of significant dates

in the semester

and you can transfer that stuff all towards your calendar.

The reason this is a really good idea

is because I advocate every single week,

looking at your calendar on Sunday

and creating a week's plan of events and tasks.

And if those event's are already on the calendar,

you can look at, say Monday, and say,

"Oh, that's Labor Day. I don't have school.

"I can work on a new project or I can go have fun."

And you don't have to go looking at the university website

for those dates during that week.

And you don't have to be surprised about those

significant dates.

You'll know well in advance

because you put in the groundwork before hand.

Now, let's talk about things you can do to ensure

you don't run out of steam as the semester goes on.

You know, you're really motivated as the semester starts.

We wanna make sure you can keep as much of that motivation

as the months wear on, as the assignments and test pile up.

And the first thing that you want to do

is make sure you have good study habits.

And one of the best ways to build good study habits

is to make sure you have a good location for studying.

If you remember in a previous video,

I talked about a study done at The University of Hawaii,

where students literally just turned their desks

towards a wall and put a note on a lamp

that said Study Area.

And the students that actually did this

were able to raise their GPAs.

So before the semester starts

or maybe during the first week,

identify a good location

for you to do most of your studying in.

And you can pair that with a set studying time each day

or maybe a time that works for each day on you calendar.

So maybe the library is a good location for you.

It's quiet, there's a lot of other people working,

so you kinda get that good vibe of focused work.

And you can put on your calendar

that every day from two to four, or something like that,

you're gonna go there, you're going to get all the studying

and reviewing assignments done that you need to get done,

and that'll start building a habit.

So two months down the line

when you're a little bit stressed

and you've a lot more assignments,

you still have that habit engrained.

You're still gonna be at a library every single day,

like you said you would,

and you're keeping steam going throughout the semester.

One final tip for that first week of classes

is to introduce yourself to your professors.

Maybe go up to them after the first class,

shake their hand, introduce yourself.

And that's gonna make it a lot easier

for you to get over the initial mental blocks

for going to office hours

if you happen to need help during the semester.

You already know the professor,

they're a familiar person, familiar face,

and you won't have as much trouble

going in and asking for help.

That's gonna help you if you run into difficulties

during this semester,

which could otherwise cause you to derail on your studies.

The worst thing is getting behind.

Yes, you can recover from getting behind

with a lot of hard work,

but if you can prevent that by seeking help

and assistance when you need it,

and you can make that as easy as possible,

then that's going to be to your benefit.

So I hope these quick tips helped you out.

If you're watching this at the beginning of a new semester,

I hope your new semester gets off to an awesome start

and stays that way.

Thanks for watchin' and I'll see you next week.

- [Voiceover] Hey, guys.

Thanks so much for watching this video

on how to get a great start to the new semester.

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