Assignments are due, deadlines are approaching, finals are imminent, and you’ve slacked off all term. That’s OK because this article will help you through it. With extensive experience in cramming and all-nighters (that’s how I got to fourth year), I am going to lay out the steps to take when it’s crunch time.
The first step of pulling an all-nighter is procrastination. There are endless ways of achieving this. Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, video games, Breaking Bad marathons, cooking extravagant meals, playing sports, cleaning your house, catching up on all the web comics. Everyone has their own vice but when you pull an all-nighter you need to procrastinate even more than usual. If you do not complete this step, you will fail. You would have already completed your assignments and finished studying. The added pressure of upcoming deadlines is what makes all-nighter so effective. If there is no urgency, there is no motivation and necessity for an all-nighter. Believe it or not, there are people who have made it through a Waterloo Engineering education without having to go through the trial of an all-nighter, and they’ve done this by avoiding step one like the plague.
Once you’ve completed step one, deliberately or not, you need to know what you need to know. Try to collect as many resources as you can to complete that assignment or study for that exam. This includes getting notes for lectures you’ve missed, assignment solutions from the solution manual or classmates, and help from other procrastinators. Working with fellow all-nighters will help motivate you and keep you from being distracted. Try to concentrate on specific tasks that need to complete by morning. Attainable and measureable goals with a time limit are ideal, the more specific the better. For example, set a goal of completing a chapter an hour and make adjustments if you can’t keep up with that rate. If you’ve missed out on a lot of class, you might feel that you need to study the entire course; I’ve found it best to start at the end of the course. One of the hardest parts of studying for a course where you missed the majority of the lectures is to know what topics to cover. Most engineering and math courses build on material from the week before. Starting from the end of the course will tell you know what you don’t know. There will be certain concepts that you will not fully understand until you have the base knowledge first. When this happens, move back a chapter. Through this method, you will cover the more advanced topics first which will make understanding the simpler concepts easier.
You should also be rewarding yourself by taking frequent, but short, breaks. It’s nearly impossible to study for an entire night without a break, so make sure to work that into your schedule. I follow the 50/10 rule: work for 50 minutes, rest for 10 minutes. This technique works because it breaks up long study sessions into more manageable 1 hour chunks. Covering an entire course in a single 8 hour session might seem like a daunting task when viewed from afar, but this technique breaks up long study sessions into more manageable 1 hour chunks. Fifty minutes is an acceptable amount of time for uninterrupted work and a ten-minute break is just enough to restore your drive. It is just as important to only work for the scheduled amount of time as it is to take the scheduled amount of time off. The 50/10 rule works because it allows you to take a break before you feel burnt out and feel like you deserve a really big break from all the hard work. During the 50 minute study period, you are not allowed texting, eating, or Facebook, in fact anything not directly related to your studies is forbidden. It’s not too hard hold out on these things for 50 minutes. You can also combine this technique with your goals where you complete a specific task during each study period. Using this technique, the night just flies by.
Sometime in the early morning, usually right when the sun comes up, you might experience a second wind. You’ve fought through an entire night of sleep and it is now around the time when your body usually wakes up. Your circadian rhythm is a very powerful mechanism that dictates your sleep cycles. However, the second wind is usually quickly followed by “the bonk” or “hitting the wall” in the early afternoon. It is very easy to take a nap at this point but try your best to not give submission. This seemingly harmless nap will destroy your circadian rhythm having you wake up in the middle of the night. Do not go back to sleep until the night. Some people make the mistake of allowing themselves only 8 hours of sleep after an all-nighter, but you’ve accumulated sleep debt. You’ll need at least 12 hours of sleep to recover from the all-nighter and reset your circadian rhythm. A quick recovery from an all-nighter is arguably even more important than the all-nighter itself. After trying so hard to get caught up, you don’t want to miss more class.
If you do end up finishing your work in the early morning with enough time to sneak in a quick nap before the exam, sleep with your lights on. Again, it is important to keep your circadian rhythm synced with the rising of the sun. Closing all your blinds, turning off your lights, and ridding your entire room of light will prepare your body for a full night of sleep when you can’t spare the time. If you have less than 4 hours to sleep, sleeping with the lights on will ensure that you do not over sleep the exam.
All-nighters suck, a lot. So make sure you only use these tips when they are absolute necessary. If you do have to pull one, just do it – but always remember that the first step towards an all-nighter is lots and lots of procrastination.
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