Learn and Work Smarter

134. Behind-the-Scenes of Real Student Coaching (Sneak Peek Access)

• Katie Azevedo • Episode 134

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Come peek behind the curtain of SchoolHabits University! Every month inside my signature study skills program, I offer live coaching on Zoom so student never get stuck navigating the program, school, their courses, or anything else on their minds.

In this special episode of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast, I’m sharing a Q&A call from a few months back when the calls weren’t live. (Since then, they're all live!) Listen in as I answer a ton of questions that students submitted in advance.

Want me to answer your unlimited questions too? Join us on the inside!

What You Learn:

  • How to deal with a disorganized and "bad" professor
  • How to find time to study when planning out your week
  • Finding time to use spaced repetition when you're super busy
  • Putting things in our own words when the teacher/textbook says it better
  • Remembering what you study when you have ADHD
  • Managing and syncing multiple calendars (Outlook and Google)

🔗 Resources Mentioned:

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Got your own burning question you'd like me to answer on a future episode? AWESOME! You can submit your questions via the form on my homepage right here.

Please follow the show and leave a review if what you hear is helpful. Doing so helps me more than you'll ever know. Thank you!!

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For hundreds of tutorials featuring tips on studying, productivity, organization, learning, time management and more, head to my blog: SchoolHabits.com.

Well, hi there. Welcome to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. I'm Katie, and this is episode 134. Today's episode is gonna be a little different than what you're used to hearing or watching. In fact, of the 134 episodes of this show, I have never done anything quite like this before. Instead of teaching a specific strategy or methodology or interviewing an expert or answering questions that are submitted by listeners of the show, I'm gonna give you a behind-the-scenes look at something that normally only SchoolHabits University students get access to. What you are about to hear is a recording from one of the Q&A sessions inside SchoolHabits University. Now, this recording comes from a time when the Q&A sessions were not live. Students would submit questions in advance. I would record detailed answers that were then added to a Q&A library inside the program. Since then, I have changed the Q&A model and sessions are now live. Students can attend, they can ask questions directly, get coaching in real time. You can always submit questions in advance and get my answers on the replay as well, but I want to share this older recording because the questions are excellent, the coaching is timeless, and it gives you a good sense of the kinds of conversations that we have inside the program. I have been running SchoolHabits University since 2023, and over the years, students have submitted questions about, you know, everything

you can imagine:

note-taking, studying, procrastination, time management, ADHD, organization, motivation, discipline, homework, assignments, college success, resumes, internships, stress, college applications, jobs, interviews. Literally everything like, everything and all of those recordings live inside a Q&A library that SchoolHabits University students can access with lifetime access whenever they need help. For today's episode, I have selected a handful of questions from one of those recordings, so you can not only get a sneak peek at what kind of support I offer students inside the program, but also so that you, the listener, can benefit from the coaching yourself. If you would like to learn more about SchoolHabits University and how to enroll, I will put the link in the description box and the show notes. Okay. Before we begin, if you are watching on YouTube, make sure to subscribe to the channel. If you are listening in a podcast app like Spotify or Apple, make sure you follow the show and then come find me on Instagram. I'm @schoolhabits, so that we can stay connected between Thursday episodes. Okay. I really do hope you enjoy this behind-the-scenes look inside SchoolHabits University. Let's begin. Well, hello, and welcome to the August 2025 Q&A. We have some good questions today. Okay, let's jump right in. If this is your first Q&A that you're watching, welcome. You should have received a form in your email. Twice a month I send the form. Typically, on the first of the month, it's like, "Hey, it's time to submit your questions for the next Q&A." And then around the 15th of the month, um, I send a reminder, and in that email, there's a link to a form. You can fill out that link, uh, hmm, you can fill out that form as many times as you want. You can put multiple questions in the same form, or you can just keep clicking on the form anytime a question, um, occurs to you. So that's how that works. All right, so let me jump To the questions here. I'm gonna read them. Okay."Hi, Katie. I have a question about getting along with a particular teaching style. I'm a university student, and I took two courses over the summer. The professor of one of my courses was terrible, disorganized, unclear, and had a teaching style that was generally ineffective. In the upcoming semester, I'm taking another course taught by the same professor, and I'm worried I'm gonna have a bad experience as I did over the summer. Any tips for dealing with a professor who is, for a lack of a better word, bad?" I'm sorry that you're dealing with that. Unfortunately, not all, teachers and professors are effective, and I think that goes for any industry. Like, sometimes you have a plumber who isn't effective or a salesperson who, like, can't close sales, right? Like, it's in across any industry, and I'm sorry you're dealing with that. That stinks. I've been in the situation too, and so have my kids. So there's-- the only things that you can do are things within your control, right? Um, unless there is something so wildly outrageous about this professor, then, I mean, going to the dean or going to someone higher up is probably not gonna be a, an ineffective path. It's probably gonna be more about things that you can do. So maybe you've already started classes by the time I'm reading this and by the time you s- by the time you watch this video. But it's probably gonna take about two weeks for you to see the teaching style of this teacher in the class that you are currently in, because maybe the class that you took with this professor over the summer wasn't their favorite class to teach. Maybe they were assigned it out of the blue, and it wasn't their, like, area of expertise or zone of genius or bread and butter or whatever. So maybe the class that you're taking with this p- professor is, um, they're more passionate about it, which will often lead to teaching better. Maybe. That's one approach. Um, the second thing is you're gonna have to figure out what works for you, what levers that you can pull in your own situation. So for example, you said the teacher was, I'm gonna use your words, disorganized. Okay. So there are things that you can do when you have a disorganized teach… I literally have a bl- is it a blog post or, or a Or a, um, podcast. I think it's a blog post called… You know what? I'll search for it and I'll send you an email if, uh, 'cause I definitely have something called like what to do when your teacher's disorganized or something. Um, I'll email it to you. Okay. So look out for that. But there are things you can do that are about your own organization that when your teacher's disorganized. So if your teacher's disorganized and maybe they post their class notes or their slides to like different places in the portal every week and it's hard to find, then you're gonna have to im- like implement a system where maybe after every class that you take with them, so maybe two or three times a week depending what the schedule is, you go into your learning management system and you search around for the resources wherever they might be. They might be all over the place, and you pull them out and you download them and you save them to your own place in Google Drive or OneDrive or whatever you're using. Maybe if your teacher is really poor at, um reminding you guys of assignments and talking about upcoming assignments in class and saying, "Hey, you know, you have a test coming." Maybe it's just all in the syllabus, and many teachers will say, "Hey, don't forget, you know, you have a research paper due on Friday. We have an exam next week." But let's say your teacher's disorganized and doesn't give any of those reminders, then that's gonna be on you to maybe once or twice a week log into your learning management system and look at the stuff that's coming up and transfer that into your own learning management sy- uh, your own task management system, which obviously I teach you in, um, module two, right? Task management. Task and homework man- task and homework management. Um, the other thing that you said is the teacher is often unclear, and that's really stinky because you're sitting in class and you're supposed to receive instruction, right? And then the stuff that you do outside of class is supposed to be when you practice that instruction, um, and practice the l- the skills or whatever it is that you're learning and, like, loop back around and reinforce it with homework. That's essentially the idea. But if you have a teacher who's not teaching you the material, unfortunately that's gonna be on you. Couple options. You could go to a TA. Um, you're, yeah, you're a university student, so you should have TAs. Maybe there are peer tutors. A TA is a teaching as- assistant. I have had plenty of students in my private practice who have gotten more from their teaching assistant than they ever did from the professor, and because oftentimes the teaching assistant is more accessible. They have office hours that are, like, several times a week or even at night, which is more convenient sometimes for students. So see if you have a ch- TA and absolutely tap into that. Speaking of office hours, if you don't have a TA or even if you do, see if you can connect with your teacher during office hours. Most professors are required to have office hours. Sometimes they're on Zoom, okay, but that's fine. But during the week when you're working on your materials or you're, you're working on your homework and your assignments or even if you're sitting in class and you're realizing, "I'm not grasping this concept," that's on you to recognize when you're not grasping a concept. Form questions around that and then then bring that to office hours, okay? Even if it's with your professor because I know some professors too might have a for lack of a better word, as you said, a bad way of teaching when they're, like, in a lecture environment, but one-on-one it's completely different. So maybe your teacher is more able to shine their teaching light when it's in a one-on-one kind of, um, environment. And then you might have to turn to, like, YouTube. You might have to turn to your textbooks. I know a lot of times the, um, e-textbooks that you guys have, if that's what you're using, um, there are additional, like, sort of practice questions inside the textbook that are f- often are not, um, assigned to you, but it's more explanation. Maybe the teacher never even assigned a chapter in the textbook, but they taught it in class, and you didn't understand the way they taught it in class. Well, then go to your textbook and read the information there, right? Textbooks are designed to teach sequentially and with a spiral. That's like a teaching method. So maybe, maybe you have to rely on your textbook or of course YouTube, right? You could even ask ChatGPT to explain some of these concepts to you in a way that you understand, and if ChatGPT explains it in a way that you still don't understand, then you prompt it to say, "Okay. Well, can you explain that differently? Can you explain that like I'm new to the topic? Can you give me an analogy? Can you give me examples?" Right? So we're obviously not using ChatGPT to write anything, to think about anything. That's what this is for, our brain is for. But it can absolutely be a good way to help, um, reframe material that's new to you. Uh, of course, it may be wrong. I have I'm like… I keep wanting to make a Okay, so this is a little off-topic, but Grammarly, which is like kinda low-key ch- um, AI, is wrong all of the time, and sometimes the suggestions it gives me are so wildly ridiculous that I screenshot them, and I just like save them in like a little collection I have somewhere. And 'cause Grammarly's pretty good if you're like around a fifth-grade writing level, and it's gonna catch that basic grammar, but when you're a more advanced writer, it doesn't catch it. So, um, ChatGPT also comes up with some wild thing that's called hallucinations, and it says this, and it says that. It… When I asked it about who I was, it said that, um, I have two college degrees from Boston College. Um, I don't. I didn't go to Boston College, right? So it's just, it's, it's just wild. So make sure that you are validating the information that ChatGPT gives you. But what you could do is input your notes or your teacher's notes into ChatGPT and say, "Can you explain these concepts better to me?" Right? So input something that comes from the classroom, that maybe comes from the textbook, um, comes from what you wrote down in class, and say, "Hey, these are my notes from class. And I don't really understand what I wrote down. Can you, uh, fill in the blanks for me?" Okay, that could be an idea. But yeah, I'm sorry. There's sometimes teachers just, for lack of a better word, um, are bad. Oh, and then you mentioned the teaching style. You know what? I, I do say this on here. This is a little bit of tough, tough love, but teaching style It, it doesn't-- it's almost irrelevant. I mean, it matters in the sense that if a teacher has a way of delivering content that doesn't work for you, that stinks, but that means that it's on you to figure out, okay, well, let's say they're super auditory and you need something that's more, visual, then it's on you to get those visuals from whatever they're giving you auditorily. Auditor- yeah, auditorily. So for example, um, if it's just a very lecture-based class where they're speaking and you're writing things down, but you need to see visuals, then it's probably go to your textbook where there's gonna be a lot of visuals. Use Google Images, like input stuff into Google and put Google, Google Images. See if you can ask ChatGPT to create an image or a graphic for some of the stuff that you are learning. Um, that's just called like, you know, being in charge of your own education. You know what I mean? As cheesy as that sounds. I'm sorry. Um, okay. So another one."Hi, Katie. I'm working on building out my study schedule and calendars. For the sake of time management, would you consider studying and homework the same, just for the sake of mapping them out and planning my week?" Yes. They are both tasks that take up time. And we are quicker to accept that, like, doing 30 math problems is, like, a legitimate assignment that's gonna take amount of time on our calendar. So when we're planning out the afternoon or planning out the week, um, you're saying, "Okay, well, I need forty-five minutes on Tuesday to do this math assignment," right? But when we have s- to study, that's more of a vague, abstract concept that isn't like a submittable thing where you, like, turn it into, you know, Google Classroom or Canvas or to your teacher, whatever. It's more something that's on you. So sometimes we are, less inclined to consider that as something that we need to work into our weekly calendar or our weekly plan. But absolutely, yes. So if you are trying to map out your week and figure out, okay, where are my poc-- I don't know if you're in high school or college, and that does matter because when you're in high school, you really only have the time after class, um, if school is dismissed, in order to do your homework and to study for upcoming things. But when you're in college, you have those sort of random pockets of time throughout the week, right? In between classes. So mapping out your schedule can look a little bit different. So I'll do this for both. If you're a high schooler, let's say that you get out of school at, um, you get home at three and you don't have after-school activities. So you get home at-- or two thirty, right? And you have until, um, I don't know. You wanna try to finish your stuff by seven. Okay. So in that four and a half hours, you should be planning time to work on your homework assignments, but also to plan 25-minute study sessions for whatever tests, quizzes, and exams that you have coming up. If you ha- if it's Monday and you have a test on Friday, then on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, there should be a 25-minute at least study session on each of those days to start making your materials, reviewing your materials, right? Using the FOMSO five-step study framework. That's why that framework exists. So that in those study sessions that we're planning throughout the week, okay, and then we're allotting our self time in the week to study, but in reality, one of those study sessions could be figuring out what's on the test and organizing your study materials. Maybe the Tuesday's 25-minute study session is making your study materials. So taking your notes and making your flashcards from them, okay? Or making your grid quiz study guide. In the process of making your study materials, there was some studying involved al- already. So Wednesday and Thursday, you could work in two spaced repetition sessions on each of those days. Maybe one after school and one in the evening on Wednesday, one in the after s- uh, after school and one in the evening on Thursday. That's four spaced repetition study sessions, um, and then maybe one in the morning on Friday before the test, like on the bus or however you get there. Uh, that is… would never be possible if you didn't allot time for those study sessions in your weekly plan. Um, yes, yes, yes. The other thing that people… You didn't ask about this, but reading is also one of those more abstract tasks that people forget to… that like, it actually consumes time, and you need to put… budget time in your daily or weekly schedule to read. So sometimes, uh, you know, I'll have a, a… it can be like, "Oh, I need to read, you know, five chapters by Thursday." And so it's Wednesday night and they're trying to read five chapters and they're like, "Wait a minute. Each chapter takes me 45 minutes and I've got five chapters. This isn't happening." Right? It's like, okay, well, read five chapters is a large project that needs to have been broken down and reverse engineered and scheduled for the days leading up to when it was due on Thursday. You know what I mean? Okay."I have a question about using spaced repetition." Look at that."I'm a high school student who plays sports after school. I don't get home until at least 6:30 and have at least three hours of homework a night. I have to shower and eat dinner, and if I don't go to bed by 10:30 or 11, I don't

get enough sleep because I get up at 5:

15. If I have multiple tests to study for every week, how do I have time to use spaced repetition when I hardly have time to do my homework?" So I actually didn't put these questions back to back, but they're so related to the one that I just answered. So you have to budget the ti- the word budget, sorry. But you have to- Create time in your schedule for these study sessions the same way that you do for your homework. And maybe it's that you just have to be a little creative in where these pockets of time come. You're a high school student, so maybe you take the bus, all right? And maybe it's a 15-minute bus ride. The bus isn't the perfect focus environment, obviously. But maybe you put on, you know, headphones once in a while, whenever you have a heavy day, a heavy week of exams or tests, and maybe you use that 10 or 15 minutes on the bus to review some concepts, to run through your flashcards, okay? Maybe you have a study in school, and I know that it-- when you have, like, a free period or a study and your friends are in there, it's so tempting to do, like, a thousand other things and to work on your homework assignments. But maybe during your study, that's when you actually plan your study sessions. So when you're using spaced repetition, the idea is that you have to have… And you guys have the whole spaced repetition lesson inside module five, the study skills module. But the whole idea be-behind spaced repetition is that you have to have time in between your study sessions in order to let the material that you're learning kinda be washed out of your working memory. And typically, that happens overnight. And we want you to semi forget it so that when you go to review the material again, you have to work hard, but not as hard, to bring that material back as you study and review the flashcards or GoodQuiz study guide or whatever study methods you're using, active recall. And then the next day, you kind of forget it again, but not as much, and then you study it again, and you're like, "Okay," and it starts to stick. It's this constant revisiting of the material that builds the neural networks in our brain that finally moves the stuff from our short-term memory into our long-term memory. That's the difference between memorization, you know, when you memorize something and you, like, forget it the next day, and actual learning. Now, there is a hack I don't love hacks, but if you're super busy and you can't get in multiple space- spaced repetitions, let's say you have a test on Friday. You say you have, um, three quizzes, and they're all on Friday, okay? And you're like, "I don't have time to have a spaced repetition study session for all three tests Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday." Okay? And if each one is twenty-five minutes, we're looking at like an hour and a half, and you're like, "I don't have an hour and a half to study for my exams." Then maybe-- Well, then I would say get, get creative with your, with your pockets of time, like the bus maybe. It's something you didn't mention, um, exercise or anything, but maybe if you do work out and you're on a, and you're on a, um, machine, you could start, you know, reviewing your stuff, like when you're on the treadmill or when you're on a reclined bike. But anyway, the hack that I was gonna say is if you don't have time to wait overnight to force the stuff from your working memory, the hack is that if you do something in between two spaced repetition study sessions in the same day, but if you do something… You can do that, but if you do something in between that's vastly different and it's hard, it's like a cognitive task between those two study sessions, sometimes that's enough to force the information from your working memory, which is the ultimate goal. So for example, let's say you're studying Spanish vocab, and you have a twenty-five minute ses- study session right after school, and then you go work on your calc homework, okay? And then you have dinner. Later that evening, you could have another spaced repetition study session for that vocabulary, Spanish vocab. I, I j- it's ideal if you can do overnight, but it sounds like your schedule may not allow for that. But because you focused on something really challenging like your calc homework, now your working memory put all its resources toward trying to focus on calc and learn those concepts. It didn't have time. I'm oversimplifying what happens in the brain, okay? But it doesn't have the space to hold onto your Spanish vocab words at the same time, okay? But it, this won't work, this hack won't work if you have a spaced repetition study session for your vocabulary and then, and then you like go eat dinner and then you come back and study it again because eating dinner isn't something that's using your brain. It's not using your cognitive resources, right? It's not. And so that space rep… that v- Spanish vocab that you learned right before dinner is still kind of floating around in your working memory. So you have to do something to force it out. Or maybe that's what you're doing on the bus. So that you can absolutely maximize every moment that you have to do your spaced repetition study sessions, the, you know, testing yourself, the active recall, the forcing yourself to answer a question without the materials in front of you and thinking and getting uncomfortable and being like, "What's the answer to that? What's the answer to that?" And you're tempted to flip over the card, and sometimes you have to, but if you had to flip over the card, that means you didn't know it yet, right? That's the active recall. You guys have the active recall lesson. Um, it's probably, probably the most critical lesson in my entire program is the active recall lesson. So maybe if you're s- tight on time, and you're like, "Okay, well, I can't do twenty-five minutes of all three exams every day or tests every day," maybe you reduce it to fifteen, but you are so locked in for those three fifteen-minute study sessions, um, that day. You know, thr- I say three 'cause I'm pretending that you have three different classes to study for. And you're-- You've already made your materials, and you've already… Like, you've done that during the, the school day or on the bus or in some weird pockets of time. Or maybe even gradually, so as you're taking notes in class, and you are… You know, maybe you're definitely using two-column notes so that your, your two-column notes are kind of already your study materials 'cause you have, like, the terms on one side and the concepts on the other. And so you can just jump right in and study from your notes. You can only study for your notes if they're set up for active recall, right? Um, it's doable. It's doable. And then hopefully you have some weeks where, where it's a little lighter.. Okay."In a few of your videos, you talk about how it's important to put things in our own words. For example, when we're taking notes or making flashcards. But how do I put things in my own words when the way the teacher or how the textbook says it is better than, uh, how I could say it? Thanks, Katie." Um, I, I love this question, and I've actually gotten it before. Um, but I, I love answering it. So never not ask me a question because you think someone's asked it before. M- most people have asked some version of all these questions, but, I want to answer it for you. So a textbook is probably gonna phrase the definition, let's just stay with definitions or something, like, more accurately than anybody else because, like, the person writing the textbook, like, that was their job. But we don't talk like textbooks, and it is so important for the material that you're learning to be phrased in a way that makes sense for your brain. Because if you're trying to study a definition, and it is so Academic. And it is-- You hardly even understand the definition. Then how are you gonna understand the concept? Like, if you're so focused on the order of the words and the fancy words and the definition, you're stuck on that, that you never even get to focus on the concept. I don't want the phrasing of a definition or the phrasing of a, of a concept to get in the way of you actually understanding the meaning. You know what I mean? So even if your definition or the way you phrase things is more basic sounding than your teacher or the textbook, or you feel like it's too dumbed down, it's still gonna be better than what the textbook says. Now, it still needs to be accurate, right? So one strategy for doing this is to, let's just say textbook, for example, is to look at the way the textbook phrased something and read it. Make sure you understand it, like really, truly understand it, because we can't put something in our own words if we didn't understand it to begin with. So read the way they said it. If, if you don't understand it, then figure it out. So Google words you don't understand. Like, make sure you grasp the concept. Then don't look at the text. Turn away from it and say, "Okay, I'm gonna put that in my own words." Never look at words or how something is phrased as you're trying to paraphrase it in your own language. Like, I don't want it to be in your line of sight, because your brain will be like, "Well, that's all there is." Like, that's the only way to say it, because it's literally looking at the words. Remove it from your, from your line of sight. Try to come up with your own paraphrase. And if you're afraid you vastly missed something, When you're done writing your own version, you can go look back at the textbook and make sure that you, like covered all your, all your ground. and even with, like the way that the teacher says it, I mean… You mean, like in class? Like, if you're writing your notes down? Sometimes a teacher will write like a definition on the board, and you're just trying to write your notes. It's fine if you write a word for word definition. When you guys take notes, you never wanna be writing word for word what the teacher says. But let's say the definition is so technical that you have to write it down word for word. That's fine. But when you go back in the second phase of your note-taking, like later that day, when you go and just make sure that your notes are complete and legible and organized, maybe at that point you can look at the definition that you wrote from the teacher, from the board, and you look at it and you're like, "What does that even mean?" That is your opportunity to maybe underneath it, rephrase it into your own, into your own words. And then when you make your flashcards or your grid quiz study guide or your active recall study materials, you use your definition. Okay. Um, last question. How am I doing for time? I haven't even looked at the clock 'cause the camera hides. Uh, I'm doing good. I'm talking fast."All right. I have a question, and I'm not sure if it's related to my ADHD or not, but whenever I study something, even if I have taken my medication and can focus when I'm studying, I forget most of what I studied overnight. Is it because of my ADHD, or am I doing something wrong? I do tend to forget things, but I'm learning to write them down on sticky notes and lists, but how do I stop forgetting what I studied?" So the first thing, I remember when this… Oh, actually, that's not the last question. Just kidding. Okay. Um, but when this question came in, I kinda got excited to, for the, like, I'm like, "Oh, I can't wait to answer this one," because I wanted to commend you so much for one part of this. It says, "I do tend to forget things, but I'm learning to write them down on sticky notes and lists." Like, seriously, like, I'm clapping you up, and not from a condescending, like, good job way, but from, like, a genuine, like, oh my gosh, that is amazing. Because you have ADHD, you do have differences in your brain. That is anatomy. That's biology. That's chemistry, period. And oftentimes, like, as an ADHD expert, as an ADHD coach, I work with people who say, "Well, I have ADHD, and therefore nothing's gonna work for me. I have ADHD, and so I'm just doomed to forget." And working memory is less strong in someone with ADHD, but that does not mean that that's the end of the sentence, right? Working memory is less strong for someone with ADHD and therefore you have to rely more than anybody else on tools to support your working memory, which you're doing, right? So that is awesome. I wish every single person with ADHD, um, who struggles with this, um, could, like, sit down with you and you could be like, "No, it's true. Like, it, it actually works." I love it. I love it."But how do I stop forgetting what I studied?" So first things first, we're supposed to forget what we studied overnight. Absolutely. We are absolutely supposed to forget what we studied overnight. If you didn't forget it, I'd say it's probably 'cause you, like, already… it was already locked in your long-term memory. Um, the things we don't forget overnight are the things that are, like, already part of our mental schema, like my kids' names, I'm not gonna forget that overnight, you know? But when you're learning new material, it is a biological process, I've said this before, but I don't know if I've said it on this, um, these Q&As. But learning new information is a biological process just like digestion is. And I know that's gross, but, like, if you eat something, you can't demand that your body digest it faster just 'cause you want it to, right? And so when we're learning something, we can't demand that our brain learn it faster immediately just because we want it to. It doesn't work like that. Our actual brain neurons, the electric stuff that's happening up in our brain, needs time to build and to strengthen and to form connections with other neurons and little networks that are already existing in our brain. We can't make that process happen any faster. And where people get frustrated, and maybe you're getting frustrated with this too, is that you study something and you put a lot of work into it, and then overnight you forget it. But the reality is that is supposed to happen. You didn't forget 100%, but you're gonna forget… I think the statistics are, like, you forget something like, um, s- like 80% of… We forget 80% of what we learn if we don't come back to it regularly, okay, um, or within 24 hours. So that's the b- that's the magic of spaced repetition, right? That's why spaced repetition is so essential. So you, you study something for a little bit- And then we assume that we're gonna forget it because that's actually what happens. And then the next day when we come back to it using active recall, we're reinforcing those concepts again. So we're working, and then we do that multiple times over, you know, five days to a couple weeks, however long you're studying for. When we're using spaced repetition, we are accepting and embracing the f- the fact that our brain works this way. When we don't use spaced repetition, we're fighting against biologic, biology and, and that doesn't usually work, right? Especially if you have ADHD. So for you, so i, I mean, you say, "Is it my ADHD or am I doing something wrong?" I mean, I'm not a medical doctor and I can't, diagnose nor treat medical conditions, and we're talking about medication, and it says you have taken your medication. Assuming your medication is like the right dose and the right kind and it works for you in general, then I'd say it's not your ADHD. It's just what happens. And the important part is to not fight that, try not to get frustrated with that event when you forget it the next day and just be like, "Whoop, this is, this is what happens, so I'm gonna restudy it." But when you restudy it and you come back to that second spaced repetition s- study session, you're not studying from scratch. You're not starting from square one. It's more of like a, "Oh yeah, I knew this yesterday, but oh yeah, yeah." It's kind of like that, and then the next day you're like remember more of it and more of it, and then it becomes just review because you haven't forgotten it. The other thing is I do wanna make sure that your study sessions are probably No more than half an hour. So the, the ideal range I typically say is 25 to 45 minutes for a study session, even if you have, like, really incredible focus, 25 to 45 minutes, before taking a break. And so I would stay within the 25 to half hour range if I were you, just so that you are not running the risk of pushing up against, ADHD and, limited attention span., It's not limited. It's that people with ADHD pay attention to everything, right? So, and make sure that your environment is optimized. But yeah, it's, it's normal. It's supposed to happen. It is frustrating. I know. I so totally know. Okay, so that wasn't the last question. There is one more."Hi, Katie and everyone else in the program." Hi."I might be the oldest student in here, but I have to tell you that I've learned more from this program than I've learned from anything else. I'm in my 50s." You are not the oldest student in here, okay? Um, "Going back to school, and how I wish I had all of these skills when I was younger, it's hard not to wonder if my career would have been different." Who knows? Um, "Thank you for everything." You're welcome."My question has to do with digital calendars. I've always used Google Calendar for my personal tasks and work tasks, but my new graduate program is all in Microsoft. The Microsoft calendar, in my opinion, is not as good as Google Calendar." That's my opinion, too. Um, "And I'm not sure I have it in me to learn something different. Plus, I don't like the idea of having two calendars. I don't wanna move all of my… don't wanna move all of my personal and work tasks to Microsoft. I'm not sure how to approach this. Do you have any suggestions?" Yes. So definitely I would not have two separate calendars. I would not. And I, I Googled this'cause I'm a Google fan. You can… And I, I'm gonna read you the steps here too, and you know what? I'll send this in to you… I'll send this to you in an email You can bring, you can integrate, um, Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar. So, and it can go in both ways. So if you, you d- this isn't you, but if somebody really likes Outlook Calendar and they were forced to be u- using Google for school, you can make it so that your Outlook Calendar shows everything that you have in Google Calendar, and it works in reverse as well. There is a way to integrate Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar so that you can just log into Google Calendar and keep using it the way you want to use it. But everything that is on your Outlook Calendar, so things that your school, um… Work? Do you, we, were… Oh, yeah, yeah, graduate school. Your graduate school program, anything that your teachers add to Outlook or the school itself, like events or whatever, or your, um, counselors or whatever, whatever they add to Google-- Outlook Calendar will appear in your Google Calendar. Now, technology and, changes all the time and, you know, where buttons are on a screen changes all the time, so if you're not watch-- if you're watching this video like waaaay in the future, then maybe the steps are different. But here's what you can do. So this method allows… I, I Googled it, um, and so I'm gonna read it to you. This method allows Google Calendar to view your Outlook events by subscribing to an iCal feed. Okay? iCal is, is Outlook. Okay. So you get the iCal link from Outlook. That's the step number one. So you have to do this on the web version. For all these sort of like, calendar integrations, you have to be on the computer, not through an app. Okay, in the web version of Outlook Calendar, go to settings and find the option to publish or share your calendar. Settings is usually like a, a little cog wheel or something like that. But Sit at your computer, open up Outlook Calendar, find settings, and you're gonna find something that says Publish or Share Your Calendar. And you're gonna get a URL, like a big long URL, and you're gonna wanna copy that. So highlight it and Control + C, um, or right click and, um, copy. And then when you're in there, when you're copying that, that URL, you're gonna select your desired calendar, which might be just school or you might only have one Outlook Calendar. Set the permissions to Can view all details and click Publish. So you're giving somebody who has that link permission. The somebody's gonna be Google Calendar. You're giving Google Calendar permission to view everything on your Outlook Calendar. That step's important. So you copy the link, and then also on that, um, dialogue box that pops up, there's gonna be something that says, "Can view all details." It's under permissions. Then inside, now you're gonna go into Google Calendar, and in, this is on the computer, not in the app. Inside Google Calendar, open it up, click the plus sign next to other calendars, so that's usually on, I can picture it's on the left. You can, a plus sign, add calendars, select from URL, 'cause there's different ways to add calendars. There's gonna be one that says from URL, and paste that link that you took from Outlook into that little field. Okay? And then, um, if there's a save or a publish or whatever. Sometimes it does say here, sometimes it can take 24 hours for Google Calendar to fetch, is what it's called, all of the events inside Outlook, but that will, that, it's doable. And it, it can happen. So that's what I would do. I would never have two digital calendars going at once. That's bananas. I do promote having a digital calendar and then a paper calendar if it's part of your agenda or part of the way that, like, you operate in your family, things like that. But two digital calendars is bananas. Okay, my friends. We're right around the 40-minute mark. I will send out a link in the next few days to submit your questions for September. I love September. Back to school season's my absolute favorite holiday in the world. Anyways, uh, thanks for your questions, and I will see you next month. Bye for now. Whoo. All right. Before I wrap up today's episode, I wanna thank you for listening and for joining me for something a little different. What you heard today is just a small sample of the coaching and the support available inside SchoolHabits University. In addition to the full course curriculum, students get access to live Q&A sessions, an extensive library of past Q&A recordings, practical templates, tools, systems that make school, work, and life more manageable. I have students in there everywhere from middle school to adults in graduate education. And if you've been listening to this podcast and thinking, "I understand the concepts, but I need someone to show me exactly how to do all this," then SchoolHabits University is exactly for you. I give 100% of myself to that program and to the students inside of it, and I want that to be you. You can find the link to learn more in the description box below. As always, thank you for spending part of your day with me. If this episode was helpful, consider sharing it with someone you think might benefit from hearing it. Until next time, keep showing up, keep doing the hard work, keep asking the hard questions, and never stop learning.

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Katie Azevedo

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