It’s that time of year again when some students start to panic that their GCSEs are just around the corner and a revision plan needs to be created.

Every minute of every day is packed with some ambitious target.

Day 1: success. But exhausted.

Day 2: the cracks from the overzealous optimism are starting to show.

Day 3: take a break. Start again tomorrow.

Tomorrow never comes…

Can I suggest that when you create a revision plan, just schedule in short sessions with plenty of rest breaks. This way you are more likely to hit your target which will motivate you to move forward.

If you achieve more than you had planned (which is more likely) you will start again tomorrow. If each day you feel like you are playing catch up from the day before you will start to feel like you are drowning in it and walk away, admitting defeat.

Prior to each session starting, decide exactly what you will use that time for. So, if, for example, you have decided that you will revise maths on Monday at 7pm for half an hour, know that in that session you will be working on the quadratic formula, for instance. This means that you will need a calculator.

Knowing what you are doing means that you can have everything ready in advance and not need to spend part of that time hunting things down in order to achieve them, or just gazing absently out of the window deciding what to do only to realise your time is up and you have nothing to show for it.

Give yourself a day to catch-up as well, so that if for some reason you don’t get everything done during the previous sessions, you can still keep moving forward.

At the end of each day write down what you have achieved. This is a huge motivator (I do it with growing the business) because you soon realise that things you were unable to do a couple of weeks/months back, you are now able to do with ease. What were once challenges, you can now do with ease.

Finally, also make sure that you record the things that you can do as well as those that you can’t. It often seems disheartening seeing this long list of things still to be learned. But what you end up ignoring is the longer list of things that you already know.

Good luck with the exams.

Walk in there knowing that you have done everything possible to get the grades that you aspire to. Feel confident, embrace the challenge. Research has shown that those who tell themselves that instead of being scared they are looking forward to the challenge, statistically score higher.

You’ve got this