There it is. It is on your desk. It comes with a silent warning: Read this. How long will it take? You have no idea. You can look at the page count (thirty?) but on its own that’s nothing. That might be four hours of intense synthesis or twenty minutes of light skimming. That isn’t […]

There are books you pick up with great expectations. Halfway through, you realize that even though your eyes keeps moving, your brain has wandered away and you’ve read the same paragraph three times. That’s not a failure of will. Generally, that’s bad planning. Reading is like running a mile on an empty stomach: most people […]

Look at the stack: Forty pages of cellular biology, due in three days, and you’re dreading it. What’s the deal? Will it take you twenty hours or two? The length isn’t the issue. Reading becomes studying only once those invisible variables kicks in. These include stopping to think and pausing to take notes. You might […]

You’re panicking three weeks out from finals, when you see that there is fewer days till the end of the semester than pages on your syllabus. You’re stuck on chapter two in your book, with your text open on chapter ten, wondering whether you should goes to sleep. But it’s rarely a lack of discipline […]