Lay the Table

As with any good meal, you may be (should be) here some time. Make your kitchen, your dining-room, your desk, your workplace, comfortable. A good chair which supports posture. The right height and angle if you’re generally working on a computer or device: on or just below eye level. Surround yourself with your best china and cutlery – your favourite stationery. Subtle, adequate lighting – not too stark. Organised, tidy workplace – tidy mind.

Write your menu for the day. Plan the day’s schedule. Mix up the flavours, the subjects and topics, time the arrival of dishes accounting for rests between courses to allow cerebral digestion. Planned relaxation is vital.

Keep yourself nourished throughout: a balanced, healthy diet, hydrating with water, keeping measure of stimulants and diuretics which provide only short-term benefit with longer-term deficits.

Hors d’oeuvre

An appetizer; a starter for ten. You might like to begin your revision routine with something which, counter-intuitively, is less appealing. A short session on your least favourite subject or topic. Experience shows that many students will, understandably, go first to their most desired dish. Taking the challenge, a dopamine-induced sense of satisfaction may ensue,

the taste buds tickled for tackling the hardest first. A good start to the revision repast.

Give yourself a short, digestory break before moving on to the next course.

Starters

Your second course of the meal may take a little longer – perhaps something which requires more concentration with greater depth and complexity of flavour? It could contrast with prior and following courses, variety stimulating the synapses. The hors d’oeuvre, however unappealing, was something of an amuse-bouche: you are now embarking on the meal itself.

The Main Course

Cooking to time is as important as studying to time and keeping to schedule. Leave it too long, the food is over-cooked, spoiled, wasted. Under-cooked is under-prepared. Planning, preparation and self-discipline are vital ingredients for a successful meal.

Change the utensils: maybe move from cutlery to chopsticks? Too much screen time? No mobiles at the dining table. Kinaesthetic learning is another stimulant, manipulating those chopsticks. Handwriting, copying, summarizing, highlighting notes. Activity will stimulate the learning

palate. Some diners like to have music – others don’t. If there is music, make it gentle, soothing, background only – just like the best restaurants.

If the tummy is too full at any point, stand up, stretch, pace the room, grab a gasp of fresh air.

Dessert

Save the best ’til last. We all like something to look forward to, the anticipation as important an ingredient as the actuality. Choose a dessert about which you are confident; something light and easy. The final assault on the taste buds should leave an aura of accomplishment, the reinforcement of a meal well planned, prepared and completed; the sweetness of success.

Someone, inevitably, has to clear and do the washing up. Review your meal. Which dishes worked best? Which ones needed more attention? Use this in planning your menu for the next day. Above all, don’t kid yourself. I have quoted Edward Bulwer-Lytton before: ‘The easiest person to deceive is one’s self.’

Planning, preparation and self-discipline: a recipe for success.