“2026 is going to be my year!” We’re all guilty of saying this, but how many people are seriously implementing changes? This year we’re breaking the cycle (of year-end “wow, that was NOT my year” comments), and here’s some ways you can actively make 2026 your year. 

Study Tips (Isa & Tyra) 

• Instead of setting a time to start studying, set a deadline to finish. 
  • Keeping to your deadline goal will create pressure (for procrastinators like me who work better/faster under pressure), keep your time spent studying short so that you have time left for recreation, socialisation, sleep, etc. 

• Instead of 20 tasks a day, choose 2-5 actually important tasks to prioritise.
  • This minimises the stress from taking a look at your to-do list, becoming overwhelmed and procrastinating. 

• Deceptive Deadlines
  • In your calendar, mark down deadlines and test dates a few days before the actual deadline. They give you a healthy timeline to complete your work on time rather than wait down to the last minute to complete it. 

• Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
  • A trick I like to use is writing/typing down all my tasks and classifying them into either fixed or flexible tasks. Fixed tasks are those you’d take a certain amount of time to complete (eg Math tutorials), while flexible tasks are tasks that are unpredictable and don’t have a certain amount of time they take to complete (eg making PowerPoint presentation slides). Always do the fixed tasks first, as this leaves less time for the flexible tasks, thus forcing you to finish the flexible tasks in a shorter timeframe. 

• Most simply: review all your class work after every day. 
  • You’ve probably heard this from every teacher ever, but it’s really important. Reviewing after lessons helps you to better remember lesson content, as well as allow you to research any gaps in your knowledge. 

• After studying, take 15-20 minutes to summarise to yourself what you have learnt.
  • Looking back at the summary will help you to check on your recall (how good you actually remember the content) later on, in case you have to go over it again.  

• Practise, practise, practise! 
  • Unlike reading notes, a form of passive studying, doing practice questions forces you to try and recall information, a.k.a. active studying. This boosts your retention and comprehension, which helps especially during closed book exams. 
  • When attempting questions for the first time, I mark those I had difficulty doing but still tried (marked with a “-”), and those which I had no idea how to do and had to refer to the notes (marked with a circle). When marking, simply circle those you got wrong. 
    • Tip: I like keeping a document of questions I’ve gotten wrong and where these questions are from. This makes it efficient to know which materials (e.g. Math notes, tutorials, practice worksheets, assignments) I’ll need to look at for the marked questions, and I can flip to the question directly instead of looking through all the notes for marked questions. (Questions in red are those I’ve repeatedly gotten wrong)
  • Closer to the test dates (2-3 days in advance or whenever you have time), cover up the marked questions and redo them. This allows you to learn from your previous mistakes. If you’re still getting the question wrong, you can tell ChatGPT the question and ask it to generate different questions which test the same concepts but have different contexts (theory questions) and/or values (calculation questions).

• Organisation is Key! 
  • Always take down tests and exam dates the week you get them. You can use a digital planner (eg Notion, Google Calendar), or a physical planner. This makes assessment dates much more accessible, so you can easily decide what to study based on test dates.  

Sleep (Tyra) 

Sleeping the right number of hours may not seem essential in an environment where school ends at 6pm at least 60% of the time (assuming 2 CCA days and double electives), and there’s barely enough time to fit homework, hobbies, extracurriculars, etc. However, sleep not only plays an essential role in growth, and memory consolidation and retention, it also reduces risk of diseases (eg diabetes, heart disease, obesity), and even depression. 

So how much sleep should you be getting each night? Firstly, it’s important to know how sleep works. When we sleep, we go through many stages of sleep, including both REM (rapid eye movement) and Non-REM sleep. Each sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes, and it’s best to wake up at the end of a cycle rather than halfway through one (waking up in the middle of deep sleep can take an hour to simply be fully awake). Additionally, humans need a minimum of 4 cycles (6h) of sleep each night. Thus, it’s best to sleep in multiples of 1.5h, eg 6h, 7.5h, 9h. 

It’s your choice. Will 2026 be your year?