The Study Game 👾

Besides acting as a good cardio workout and the obvious stress relief. Dance can actually be used as a way to improve focus and strengthen certain areas of the brain. As a self-taught dancer and graduate student, I find it difficult to just completely focus on my studies for a very long period of time. My mind would usually drift off which makes my work less productive. The idea of breaks comes to mind. A break can be anything from going for a walk to even dancing. For a "dance break," you just need to get up and imagine moves with/without music. It can be difficult at first but this will stimulate the right brain, which takes on motor and creative functions for our body, to become activated and reshape/add new neurons to the brain's morphology. I recently did some research online where studies showed that practicing one dance move multiple times not only creates a muscle memory to that ability but also reshapes the structure of the brain. Reshaping the brain is a p...

Have you ever reached a point in the year where the amount of work feels too big to handle and your motivation and free time feels like ideas that existed in a far off dream? I definitely have especially in graduate school. As someone who is very involved in school, I must admit that everything truly does come with some sort of cost and you can't always have the best of both worlds. I'll share with you some tips on how I learned to fight these weaknesses in my work and productivity systems. 1. Buy More Time: this actually makes a lot more sense than you think because if you set time out for work and reach a state of true discipline, you save your future self some time and worry which is honestly one of the best feelings there is. Just remember not to burn out as you grind through those focused pomodoro sessions. 2. Stop what you're doing and walk: as humans we weren't meant to sit too long. It's important to remember to stand up and walk for at least 5 minutes...

How many times do we feel regret or worry too much about that new startup or job that we spent loads of hours pursuing. It probably occurs quite often. Today, I wanted to challenge the belief that fear and doubts play no role in your path towards success.  It happens to the best of us. We come up with an amazing idea, product, or creative solution to a problem but can’t seem to get our voice out to others due to fear of being judged. The feeling that we will be criticized for our idea or worse someone already could have proposed a similar idea in the past making yours look insignificant. Now, I want you imagine the amount of harm this actually causes to you or anyone and you’ll soon find out that other people’s opinions matter about 0% in the grand scheme of your life. Worrying about the opinions of others has been proven time and time again to be a recipe for disaster. It leads to worrying about those opinions that truly wastes your time leading to issues in your productivity and ...

A lot of people wouldn't believe it but many of people struggle with being content with being present with where they're at right now. A lot of the reasons for getting the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and jealousy ties back to our fears with facing ourselves. It is the fears of being alone and facing ourselves that leads us to face these problems. In this article, I outline some solutions that could hopefully help you get over your moments of FOMO and jealousy. The Connection : Loneliness It can be difficult to tell especially when you're so focused on accomplishing your goals but it happens to everyone who at least owns a phone or has friends at some point. Looking at how amazing other people's lives are and constantly wanting more and more leads to feelings of loneliness. If you don't make your joy internal and place your happiness on external factors such as the accompaniment of many friends or the thrill of posting on social media, you will never feel satis...

The two apps discussed here are both found in the Apple App Store. The question is, which one should you use to blog on your mobile device? It will depend. I recently stumbled upon these apps while I was searching for a mobile version to type blog posts on for my iPad and here is the conclusion. iPad Use: BlogTouch for blogger is currently the best mobile version to type blog posts for Blogger on your iPad. Price: Full version is $5 in order to publish blog posts which is a one time purchase. You can view all your blog posts offline too. Note: when you first log in you may have to delete the app then log in again on your phone in order to access your account. iPhone Use: Blogg for Blogger is better to use for this app because the app is optimized for phone usage. DO NOT buy the app if you plan on using it to blog on your iPad. I made this mistake and ended up wasting $3. Lots of phone related features here and the look of the app is different from BlogTouch because on...

After owning my first Apple Airpods for almost a year now, I got to say this is one of the most worth while investments I have ever made. After experimenting with bluetooth headphones in the past, I soon discovered that nothing was as portable and comfortable as wearing a pair of airpods. Current Benefits I currently use my airpods for studying and hobbies such as this blog post. I purchased the original version of the airpods which does the main tasks of any portable headphones. I use it every time I go out for a workout in the gym or go for a run in light rain. I use it for studying just about everyday of school. They easily switch between my Apple devices. I use it to record Youtube videos and podcast episodes I enjoy listening to music and even dancing while wearing them. They are overall stylish. For creating music to tune out my surroundings and amplify the sound of my instrument or voice. The charging and battery life is surprisingly long lasting. I rarely run out ...

Lately, I've been listening to Youtuber Aileen Xu aka "Lavendaire" and I've been learning about this idea that time management isn't the same as attention management. In contrast, it describes how properly we spend our time. The things we place our attention can dictates how we will manage our time. A large majority of people own smart phones. An interesting feature now added to iOS devices is called "Screen Time" which lets you see how long you've been staring at your phone screen and what activities you've been engaging on in your apps such as productivity, social media, etc. When you look at these number it can easily strike a lot of fear because you wouldn't believe how much hours you actually could spend on your phone. Besides time, these hours describes our level of attention. Similar to easily switching between apps our attention level can receive a huge spike based on the information given but if we are given too much information th...

If you own a Mac, Windows, or just about any computer, you would probably agree that one thing that steals a lot of our time and atenttion are notifications. It can be notifications for emails, text messages, or system updates. The problem is that majority of the time these don't really need an immediate response. A method I learned from the book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" was the Eisenhower method. The way it worked is it allowed you to categorize your todo list based on your main priorities for the day through deciding whether you view the task as URGENT or IMPORTANT. It's especially important to get this straightened out the night before your day begins. The following day is when things get hard we get bombarded with emails, text messages, and all kinds of notifications that take time away from our work. It decreases your productivity, attention span, and will power. We only have a short amount of hours in a day and as the saying goes, "Time ...