My tips for managing revision and stress

I’m in the upper sixth and I’ll be sitting my A levels next month. I’ve found myself becoming more and more stressed because I feel overwhelmed about the amount of content I need to know and how important my grades are to me. I feel like my mind is blocking me from revising by telling me I can’t do it and its too hard, which is impacting my motivation and effectiveness of revision.

Here are some of the things I’ve done to try and help myself in the last push to revise before exams…

Work out how you revise well

I did this by making two lists to help me work out the best conditions to revise so I can get the most out of my revision.

1. When I like to revise/when I’m productive

   (for me it’s when other people are revising with me, in silence or with music with no words, when I can get immediate feedback e.g. past papers with mark schemes)

2. When I find it hard to revise/when I am unproductive

   (for me it’s after too long doing the same thing or being in the same place, with distractions e.g. phone, laptop)

Break topics down so they’re less overwhelming

I broke down the content of each course I’m doing by writing out a summary of each of the topics in a mind map.

This helps because you can visually see everything you need to know and work out which bits you are best at and which you need to go over, and sometimes when you’ve written everything out it puts the amount of content into perspective and it isn’t as much as you thought.

Time management

Be aware of how much time you have before each exam, so you can plan and fit everything in. You don’t have to make a really detailed plan and completely stick to it, but it’s useful to know how many weeks you have left until your exams, so you know how much time you have and how much you need to prioritise your work.