SHOW NOTES

Ep. 80
What could your teen consider doing less of next year in their study to create success, rather than always thinking about doing more? 
This is definitely something I need to consider too - as I’m naturally a 'more is more' person, so if your teen also has the tendency to think they need to do more and more in their study in order to get more marks, but is already working really hard, then maybe it's time to consider how to be more strategic, by doing less of certain things.


FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
 

• Episode 34: Hardworking Vs. Overworking
   
• Episode 71: What Are You Doing Differently?
   
• Get the Free Parent Guide: 3 Huge Mistakes (Even Smart!) Students Make in Exams and Assignments - and how to fix them immediately so your teen confidently achieves their best ever grades.
   
• Follow Rock Solid Study on Facebook
   
• Follow Rock Solid Study on Instagram
   
• Have your teen trained by me in the 10WGT: 10 Week Grade Transformation Program

TRANSCRIPT:
 

You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode number 80 - what could your teen consider doing less of next year in their study to create success, rather than always thinking about doing more. This is definitely something I need to consider too - as I’m naturally a more is more person, so if your teen also has the tendency to think they need to do more study in order to get more marks, then stay tuned.
 

Hey VIPs! How are you! I hope you and your teens are doing amazing. Likely, they’ve now finished school for the year. Maybe another week to go depending on where you’re listening from. And maybe you’re just done and enjoying the bliss of exams being done, of the craziness of activities from the last week of school, and just being able to take a breath. Or, maybe you’re in reflective mode, reflecting back on the year, or, maybe you’re already thinking about January and next year. I have to say, I’m definitely someone who is always thinking about the next thing, I’ll be the one who is already thinking about next year, before we’ve finished this year. Which has it’s pros and cons - I’m definitely not your example of living in the moment, which I know from all the lessons of life is not great, but I am also good at getting things done, being organised and basically having things well-planned. 

What I’m not so good with, is when things don’t run perfectly to my plan and life doesn’t actually follow my plan. I could definitely do better with those things - but awareness is the first step, right?! I’m also someone who always thinks they need to do more in order to achieve more, and this episode came out of a conversation I had with my coach recently where I was talking about my thoughts and plans for next year with Rock Solid Study, and they asked me a GREAT question - or at least I thought it was a great question - for me at least - - they asked - what do you need to do less of? 

They don’t know this, but I actually have a mini post-it note stuck to the bottom of my computer screen that says ‘More is not More’. Because I’m naturally the go-go-go person, more is more person, who needs to be reminded that more is not always more. For me, or my work, or my clients - the parents and students who I serve.  So, I was like - ‘what a GOOD question!’. And it really did get me thinking,  what do I actually need to do less of? Why? What would that create? 

Naturally, that led to me thinking about how I see this in students and thought it might be helpful to share. SO if you or your teen are like me and can’t just enjoy the moment of finishing this school year and are already thinking ahead to next year, then definitely listen in. If you prefer to keep that stuff for when that time actually comes, then keep this episode in your back pocket for January. Because this is going to be our final episode for the year! No matter how dedicated your teen is, I don’t think any student or parent needs to be listening to study-related podcasts during their Christmas break.

And so, on that note, let’s get into considering what else - aside from not having you listen to podcasts on their behalf over summer - what they might actually BENEFIT from doing less of in their study.

So, a bit of a different angle on a reflectoin of a review. On that note, Episode 71 of this podcast - "What are you doing differently?" is another episode you might like to check out around this, and also Episode 34 - "Hardworking vs Overworking". I've had a lot of good feedback and a lot of people comment on that episode. So I'll put direct links to those into the show notes. Those are other episodes so that if this resonates or you find this helpful or is applicable to your teen, those might be helpful as well. And they aren't just me talking about the same things, they are a different way to look at things or other things to consider. 

Because, always trying to do more, can sometimes lead to unproductive stress or burnout for students. Especially if they are already working hard. So, this is about making smart and strategic decisions about where your teen will put their time and effort and brainpower. It’s not suddenly saying ‘stop doing this - or stop doing that’. It’s about considering where they might be doing things that aren’t really paying off, or have an opportunity cost because even though they are producing SOME small benefit, they’re taking up time or energy that could be better spent elsewhere, or even better spent on recharging the batteries.

Because, it’s true - more is not always more. Sometimes it might be ,and I’ll come to that in a moment, but sometimes it isn’t. How do we know?

First of all, having too much selection or things we COULD be doing just leads to overwhelm. I think that’s why we see restaurant turnaround shows almost always say ‘cut down your menu’, do less dishes but do them better, or reno and home makeover shows minimise clutter. Have one or two statement pieces.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that learning more and more subject content is not going to make any difference to marks if your teen doesn’t have the skills of applying that knowledge to the way the Q is asked and the mark scheme requires. If subject knowledge actually isn’t the weakest link for them. It’s like putting more and more fuel into the car, when the car doesn’t have any wheels, right? We need to figure out and fix the missing link, or the weakest link that’s holding eveything else back.

So, we want to get smart about things and figure out what TO do more of, and why and how.And also to know what will make no difference if they do more of. 
Indeed, even what they could do less of and it wouldn’t reduce their results, and in fact would create the potential to INCREASE results because either they could take more time for themselves and their wellbeing or because it would make space for what they do need to do more of. 

So, let’s say the restaurant that’s getting an overhaul already has 10 dishes for their starters, ten for mains, ten for dessert. Do we think that adding more new dishes is what will increase their booking, increase their takings, increase their customer satisfaction? Probably not. It might be their customer service. It might be the QUALITY of those dishes. It might be creating an online booking system. It might be the style of food doesn’t fit well with the locals.

There could be all sorts of things they could change or improve, that ISN’T just about adding MORE food.  AND what we often see, is that they could increase their success by actually having LESS dishes on the menu. And with that, they’d actually have to buy less ingredients, have less choices, make their life EASIER- and still increase the number of covers, their revenue, their profit, their reviews - whatever success means for them. 

The trap that we tend to fall into - and this was definitely me as a student AND like I said, is still me today but in other ways - is that we need to DO more in order to create more success. 

Now, that MAY be the case. If you’re listening to this and you know your teen isn’t doing their homework, isn’t bothering to find enough of the best quotations for their essay, if they aren’t doing any revision for exams, then yes, the probably DO need to do more.

Just like if a restaurant only serves one choice of starter, main and dessert, then maybe they would do better by offering a couple more. Although I do know a restaurant that does just do that. The owner has one menu that he serves for a period of time - a week or two. It does change over time, but you go for dinner, and he tells you what he’s making for dinner. But he does it absolutely BRILLIANTLY. The quality is amazing. And that idea that he will cook what he deems to be the best combination of dishes for the meal is part of the experience of it all. 

So, maybe there is actually a LOT less your teen (and I) could be doing less of, but doing what they strategically choose to keep doing BRILLIANTLY, EXCELLENTLY, at a high level.

And if they currently truly aren’t doing ENOUGH in their study, but they do want to do better next year, then maybe they need to do LESS procrastination, spend LESS time on their phone or scrolling the internet or social media or on games. Maybe they need to be LESS distracted. 

Now, I know that just saying those things isn’t enough to make them happen, but it could be a starting point, just to identify ONE thing they might do LESS of and making a plan of how to make that happen.

So, let me give you a specific example of what doing less, for the student who is already doing a LOT might look like.

Let’s take Maths. Maths practice and revision. Certainly practising lots of questions, rehearsing the procedures, using the formulae in multiple ways with multiple problems is a way to get better at maths, and a good way to prep for an exam. It’s not the only way, but it is a way that I would indeed recommend. However, what I also recommend, is strategically selecting which questions to actually do.  Because if we do a hundred questions, that are repetitive and all operating at about the same level, asking the same sorts of questions, is that going to be effective? 

Now, yes, some repetition is valid, but could doing 50, maybe even 25 questions that have a spread of difficulty, that have less familiar question styles or complex ways the formula or process needs to be applied, be MORE useful? Probably. 

Now, that might take us less time, it might take us the same amount of time, it might even take us MORE time. But it will be less actual questions, it will be higher QUALITY practise and it will almost certainly get us a better result. 

If it’s Science. Could we get smarter about our planning and research? SO much time is taken up with researching information. Some of it will end up being used, some of it won’t. If we have the skills to be more laser focused on exactly what we need to do and show and include and produce in order to achieve a certain result, we can almost always be more direct with our research. Saving not just time, but also, often overwhelm along the way as well.

Same goes for general ‘reading around the subject. I never advise students to read around the subject. Not because it doesn’t have value, but because, if they’re doing it to improve their results, there are always other things they could be doing that would give a much better pay off, be much more effective for them.

If it’s English, could they focus on writing less in the first draft of an essay or a speech or an article? I know so many students go way over the word count on their first draft - and also on their second and third drafts, and it becomes a painful experience cutting half of it. 

It is not at uncommon for students to present me with a draft on a coaching call and they tell me the word limit is 2000 and this document on the screen is currently at 4128 words. So, if that’s your teen, please know they are not alone.  And please also know that this is solvable.

Which brings me to the HOW. You know I’m all about the HOW.

Just saying - okay, stay within the word limit doesn’t suddenly magically make it happen. Be nice if it did, and yes, acknowledgement or awareness is certainly the first step. But I’m afraid it isn’t the only step. 

So, here’s the key. 

Once they’ve identified something that it would potentially be good for them to do LESS of, how can they do that, whilst also maintaining or increasing their results?

So, for the word count in the English essay, I’ve spent a lot of time with students PLANNING their response. We plan the points they want to make, we plan the evidence they are going to use. We plan the order they’ll put it in. AND we plan how many words each section, or each paragraph will be. 

In a Science report, we’ll literally say, okay 100 words for the Intro. 75 words for the Methodology. 200 for the results, 500 for the discussion, and 300 for the conclusion. Or whatever it might be. So that as soon as they’re starting to go over in body paragraph 1 of the English essay, or in the intro of the Science report, they can address it.  Not wait til they’ve spent twice as much time, writing twice as much as they were supposed to and spending that much time AGAIN cutting it all. And, if they realise they don’t KNOW how to do things differently, or they don’t know where they might be doing more than they need to, or they aren’t SURE of how to be more strategic, then that in itself may be the issue that needs solving. 

And, just saying - One way to solve that is to enrol them into the 10WGT - and it will probably become apparent just through doing the training. The 10WGT is all about having your teen work smarter not harder, but specifically giving the strategies, skills and techniques to actually DO it, know HOW to do it. 

So, if your teen has worked hard this year, and you’re perhaps concerned about what levelling up for next year is actually going to look like with that, then consider, or have them consider, what do they actually need to be doing less of?  Where are they putting time and energy into that actually, may not be giving optimal pay off? Is there something that is taking time or energy or brain space away from the thing that actually NEEDS to happen? And do they know why and also how to actually do that?

Might lead to some interesting conversations. 

Have a wonderful rest of your week and an amazing summer holiday, christmas, new year or any other celebration or time out you’re having.

I’ll meet you back here again in late January 2024. I can’t wait to do next year with you and hopefully maybe also your teen. I’ll meet you back here then, take care, bye!