The Study System That Became the Distraction
I built a study tracker to stay organised, but slowly turned it into something I spent more time maintaining than using. After realising this, I stripped it down to three simple columns. I started doing more practice and learned that organisation is only useful when it when it leads to action.
Where it started
I made a Notion tracker because I kept losing track of what I had actually studied. Nothing dramatic. I was just bad at remembering which chapters were done and which ones I was avoiding. At first it was useful. Subject. Chapter. Status. That was basically it.
Where I got stuck
Then I started “improving” it. Confidence scores. Revision dates. Colour codes. Progress percentages. Different views. At some point I was spending more time organising studying than studying. The moment I properly noticed it was one night when I opened Notion because I wanted to practise maths. About forty minutes later, I had changed some icons, moved subjects around and fixed a formula. I had solved zero questions. And somehow I still felt productive.
What changed
So, I got rid of almost everything. I kept three columns: don't know learning done No percentages. No complicated system. If I couldn't decide where something belonged quickly, I just put it under “learning.”
After that
Honestly, the new version looked worse. But I started using it properly. If trigonometry was sitting there under “learning,” there wasn't much to fiddle with anymore. I had to actually go do trigonometry. I still like organising things. I just don't let myself turn organisation into the main event anymore.
What stayed with me
I learned that procrastination can look very productive. Sometimes the thing helping you avoid the work looks suspiciously like work.
