thanks to Fiverr for sponsoring this video all right class that does it for this school year I hope you all have an amazing summer and I'll see you again in the fall dang I can't believe school's already over I'm going to do so much this summer I'm going to travel I'm going to game I'm going to work out I'm going to make some bread but you know what I'm feeling kind of tired right now let me just go ahead and take a nap wait what first day of school the new school year is right around the corner and this is going to be your year this is going to be the year build better study habits get better grades crush your extracurriculars and even get enough sleep well hopefully in this video I'm going to cover eight tips to help you make this your best school year yet tip number one you're not who you were last year chances are you're taking harder courses this year than you did last year and it makes sense if you feel nervous especially if you didn't do that well in your classes last year but I've noticed that students approach this feeling in one of two ways either with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset having that growth mindset is critical if you want to do well this school year a growth mindset is when you believe you can develop your intelligence and your skills through hard work for example let's say you get a c on a test instead of seeing that c as a setback you see that as an opportunity to develop your study habits and get a better grade on the next exam now a person with the fixed mindset on the other hand believes their skills and intelligence are set in stone so if they get a Cen test they're just going to assume that's how the world works and they're going to think there's nothing they can do to improve their grade but I'm here to tell you something special if you are watching this video it means you have a growth mindset because you believe that by listening to the advice in this video that you can improve your academic performance now just to give you an idea of how powerful a growth mindset can be a paper from Stanford Professor Carol DWI who actually coined these terms growth mindset and fixed mindset found that students with a growth mindset consistently outperformed those with a fixed mindset here's a quote from one of her papers although students with more of a fixed mindset and students with more growth mindset entered junior high school with identical past achievement test scores their math grades differed by the end of their first term and diverged increasingly over the next 2 years students with a growth mindset showed continuous Improvement those with the fixed mindset did not tip number two is to declutter everything and this one's actually pretty fun going into the new school year you're going to declutter in two stages first you're going to declutter your digital workspace and then you're going to declutter your physical workspace so to declutter your digital workspace I want you to head to Google Drive select that mess of files that's just sitting there and move everything into a folder called archive boom there we go everything probably looks way cleaner now but we're not done just yet now I want you to create three folders called classes extracurriculars and other in the classes folder you're going to create a folder for each of your classes and you're going to color code them according to this guide look this is the only correct way to do it if you disagree you can argue in the comments in the extracurriculars folder you're going to create a folder for each of your clubs and activities and then in the other folder is where you you'll keep everything else and of course you can also add other folders like personal finance and health but these are the four base folders that I think every student needs oh and by the way if you have any important documents in that archive folder just pull it out and move it where you need it to be oh and also clean out your email inbox because I know you have thousands of unread emails unsubscribe from newsletters you don't care about subscribe to my newsletter which is linked in the description and then also delete any messages that you don't really need anymore now decluttering your physical workspace on the other hand is a bit more straightforward get rid of all the garbage that's in your backpack get rid of all the garbage that's on your desk and also get a desk organizer to store all your stationery this way if you're ever at your desk and your backpack's far away you don't have to trudge across your room or the entire house to get what you need tip number three is to reduce the noise you have to eliminate any distractions that can hold you back this school year I want you to grab your phone and delete any apps that are wasting your time and don't do this Based On A vibe check look at your screen time and look at the apps that you are using the most every single week now I either want you to delete these apps or set up time limits but make sure your time limits aren't too aggressive like don't set a time limit for 5 or 10 minutes because chances are whenever that notification pops up you're just going to dismiss it instead look at your average usage and set your time limit accordingly for example if you're using YouTube for an hour a day preferably to watch my videos start off by setting your time limit to 45 minutes a day then the following week you can set it to 30 minutes a day but jumping straight from an hour to 30 minutes or even 15 minutes might feel a bit too aggressive now if you want to go even one step further I recommend that you use Focus mode which will block out notifications from people and apps for a certain amount of time iOS already comes with the work Focus that you can use whenever you need to lock in but even then let's say you still get distracted and cannot focus for the life of you I have a quote or I guess a question that I want you to think about how do I want to wake up tomorrow I heard this from Dr K who is a phenomenal YouTuber who I actually met recently and it felt like a huge wakeup call for me like just think to yourself if you don't do your work right now how will you feel the next morning and that thought alone should be enough to motivate you all right tip number four is to lean in and this really isn't a tip this is more of a request whatever you're interested in whether it's programming biology chemistry music movies I want you to go all in not only will this be fulfilling for you but colleges love to see students who are passionate and committed to something for example let's say you're interested in sustainability and want to start an organization to clean up litter in your community I want you to think of a name find people to join you create an action plan and build a website to spread the word but building a website can be kind of tough which is where the sponsor of this video comes in Fiverr Fiverr is the best place to find worldclass Freelancers to help you with digital work think graphic design video editing web development pretty much all the skills you would need to start up a passion project let's head over to Fiverr and use their new AI tool Neo to find the perfect freelancer to build the web page for our organization we're going to share information about what we're working on which in this case is a landing page for a sustainability organization and quickly Neo will provide us with a list of freelancer options now I know what you're thinking you probably don't have a huge budget for your organization which is fine you can adjust the filters to find Freelancers who are in your price range and it's also super easy to vet the quality of these Freelancers by looking at their ratings or their portfolios their ratings are based on previous projects they have worked on and their portfolios will give you a sense of the quality to expect a few days ago I reached out to a freelancer on Fiverr to build the landing page for this organization I reached out to savior who clearly knows what they're doing in terms of design we had a little back and forth about the project details and within a couple days they came back to me with a fully functional website now you can use Fiverr for a lot more than just web development you can also use it for video editing you can also use it for graphic design the point here is to make sure that you are focusing on the parts of the project that matter most and delegate everything else so in the case of this organization you would need to spend most of your time getting people on board and hosting initiatives and it's the Freelancers on Fiverr that can help with everything else so you can bring your vision to life head over to fiber. c/g goart to check out the services available to you and use code goart for 10% off and now let's get back to the video tip number five is to create an organization system before the year starts you need a place where you can keep track of all your academic and all your extracurricular responsibilities however not all organization systems are created equal I find that students use organization systems that span four different levels now the level that's the best fit for you depends on the kind of person you are and the amount of stuff that you have to do person personally I use a level four system today so level one is using a pen and a notebook which I believe is highly underrated many people assume that a pen and a notebook isn't enough but in reality at the heart of any good productivity system is having a place where you can write down what you have to do and then track what you have done a to-do list in your notebook helps you do just that level two is using a digital to-do list usually with an app like to-do list or even the reminders app on your iPhone by the way the reminders app has some pretty cool secrets that a lot of people don't know about for example on a reminder you can set a location so that it pops up whenever you're in a specific place so if you set the location as your house the reminder will pop up whenever you come home from school which can be pretty useful you can also toggle something called when messaging which will show you the reminder whenever you're texting someone in particular so for example if you're working with someone on a group project this would be a pretty useful toggle to activate level three is using a calendar app like Google calendar and calendar apps are beneficial because you can track what you have to do and then also when you're going to do them I highly recommend using a calendar app if you're an upper classman because I imagine that you are juggling a ton of different things create blocks in your calendar for classes extracurriculars study sessions workouts and everything else this method of creating blocks in your calendar is known as time blocking which I believe is extremely useful if you're a student because students drastically overestimate the amount of time they have only when you time block your responsibilities do you get a sense of how quickly you have to work and when you have to work now level four is using a productivity app like notion to create an operating system for your life some people also call this a second brain this is a digital system that allows you to track your assignments your exams your extracurriculars your workout routine your finances your college applications and so so much more later this fall I'm actually going to release my own oce template which I believe is the ultimate system for students who want to stay organized and get ahead in every aspect of their life if you want to be notified when it comes out fill out the interest form in the description of this video tip number six study when you don't have to I can already imagine what you're thinking this is illogical this doesn't make sense go hard what are you talking about but this is the ultimate life hack if you only study when you have to there are going to be some weeks when you barely have to study and some weeks when you are studying a ton and this constant fluctuation can get pretty stressful as a student but if you instead study the same amount every single week even when you don't really have anything to study you will feel so much calmer as a student for example if you don't have a lot of stuff to study one week just read ahead so that by the time you do have to study a lot you don't have to panic because you've already read ahead so while your friends and classmates might be going through this stressful cycle of ups and downs you are maintaining this calm consistency and doing just as well if not better tip number seven don't do it solo the reason I did so well in high school is because my best friend challenged me we were on the exact same wavelength we had the exact same goals we had the exact same vision and having that person in my life helped me stay motivated why because I had someone holding me to higher standards someone who was cheering me on and someone who could support me in times that I was feeling super stressed for example while I was going through the college application process my friend and I helped each other stay on top of everything because we both were applying to the exact same schools we were able to keep each other in check and keep each other motivated if you can find someone in your life whether it's an adult a friend a family member a parent to be that source of inspiration or support you are going to excel this school year now if you don't have someone in your life who can hold you to these goals don't worry because you have this community drop a comment with what your goals are for this year and try to make it detailed don't just say I want better grades okay and if you're watching this video days weeks or even months after I published it I want you to go into the comments and check in on the people who left the comment see how their goals are going and see if they're staying consistent and tip number eight is to get on your teachers good side it is critical to do this as early as possible and here's how you're going to do it without looking like a teacher's pet within the classroom try to answer a question most classes don't try to answer every single question because then you'll just look like a tryhard your goal is to show that you care about the class and show that you're engaged and then of course you also want to ask questions but make them thoughtful for example don't ask your teacher to define a term or repeat what they've already said instead ask them a question that they might have to think about for a second and these tend to be the questions that start with the why or a how if you want to go even further you can email them a question after class though I feel most teachers are kind of split about this some might be impressed by the email and appreciate your thoughtfulness others might think that you're just being lazy and should look up the stuff yourself and finally getting on your teacher's good side isn't just about getting good grades and being smart it's also about getting your teacher to like you as a person so be friendly with them chat with them before and after class and Don't Force It just try to be a genuinely kind thoughtful and interested person and I guarantee you that your teachers will like you and with that we have wrapped up today's video if you haven't already join my Discord server where we have over 170,000 students from around the world helping each other with homework college applications and so much more join my newsletter the studio student which is linked in the description of this video and then thanks again to Fiverr for sponsoring this video head to fiverr.com goart to check out the services available to you and use code goart to get 10% off