Fill you in on the background
I wrote a post recently about the necessity to develop mantra’s to help me cope with the insanity that is law school. In the comments someone posted “if they can do it, I can do it to” and that goes along the lines of what I was telling myself, and half jokingly tweeted about- “If Elle Woods could do this, so can I.”
I think law school is not a “hard.” Its tedious, its at times boring, its against the very nature of what brought you to law school (MY GOD, YOU MEAN I HAVE TO LOOK AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ARGUMENT AS IF IT HAD MERIT!!!), it also is a molding process- its a trade school, plus its also like high school (sadly…). So this mantra is all about a frame of focus, white the first mantra was all about feeling stupid, and law school really makes folks feel stupid at times (i feel stupid all the time- yeh, I acknowledge I am probably not cut out for law school, but they let me in so I couldn’t refuse).
Mantra 2: Stay in the library.
My second mantra is all about discipline, staying focused and making sacrifices. The problem is that just by repeating over and over again “to stay in the library” won’t make me productive. In fact, I find the more time I spend in the library the more likely I am to use blogging as a distraction, twitter, Facebook, reading the news and all the other wonderful distractions the internet has to offer.
The one thing I realize about the library is that when I go and I stay there, I get things done. Its a place where you get things done. I might stay at home or go to a coffee shop, but I find I get way less done when I am there then when I go to the library.
The trick now is to balance my time at the library. To do that I guess I need to have a “game plan” and a “check list”. Part of that game plan is to map out the time I am in the library, the things I need to get done- what would make me happy if I got to it and what I would like to get done, but might not be able to and so its okay to not get there. Having that time and action list I sit down and I can just check through my list, adjust the time. Once I am done, I leave. I go and treat myself to some TV or go home and sleep. But the library is definitely the place I need to be to be productive.
But its like midterms. Midterms seem like a whole different beast in law school. I am sitting down an only beginning to see how much stuff we went through. I mean its been two freaking months! Where has the time gone? There is a lot of material to go over and the library might not cut it. I find myself competing with folks for prime seating and then the hours and the obligations to family the need to eat and sleep. I find myself shifting back to the comfort of my apartment where I can study unmolested. But its only productive when I have this game plan, I keep the internet shut off, the TV’s unplugged, have all my snacks and drinks at arms length. The joys of studying!
How do folks cope with midterms and studying at law school?
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