【推荐1】How to charge an electric vehicle (EV) is one of the biggest concerns people have when working out whether going electric is right for them.

It is true that sometimes gaining access to reliable charging can seem a bit tricky.     1    

First, download an app with a comprehensive map of the public charging points showing their locations, how powerful they are, and whether they’re working. All this is vital information because, even if you have public charging points nearby, you will need alternatives in case they’re in use.    2    

A growing number of property owners are renting out their charging points and drive ways to other local EV drivers when they’re not using them.    3     Thus, your car gets charged, the owners make money, and emissions are reduced.

    4       For example, when your car is running out of juice, you’d just pull up to a battery-change station from your car brand and sit in the car while a fully charged unit is changed in. The Chinese EV brand Nio does this, but isn’t available in the UK as yet.

For now, if charging access remains difficult for you, it’s still possible to go electric-in part.    5     Many hybrid (混合) cars are now good for 50 miles of electric running before you need to use the engine. So, if most of your driving is local, you might only need to find a charger once or twice a week, while you have the backup of a fuel engine for long journeys.

【推荐2】We have all been guilty of being over optimistic when predicting how long a task will take because of the planning fallacy. First identified in 1977, the planning fallacy was defined as: “the tendency to underestimate the amount of time needed to complete a future task, due in part to the reliance on overly optimistic performance scenarios (预测).”

It is extremely common.    1    For instance, a study conducted with psychology students found that only 30% of them managed to complete their senior papers in the amount of time they predicted.

What’s more, the planning fallacy is an incredibly stubborn problem.    2    While we are able to recognise past predictions where we have been over-optimistic, we often keep on insisting that our current predictions are realistic.

The planning fallacy is such a deep-rooted behavior. However, there are a few systematic strategies you can use to start building the habit of double-checking your time estimates. For instance, you can take the outside view.    3    Make sure to consult experts and people who have attempted to complete similar projects in the past. If you’re a student, talk to senior students; if you’re writing a book, join a network of writers.

    4    You need to differentiate between tasks that are urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, neither urgent nor important.

Once you have an objective estimate of the time it will take to complete a project, you need to make sure you have the time and resources to carry out your plan.    5    Breakdown big tasks into smaller, manageable chunks. Don’t wait until the last minute to let people know you may need their help in the near future.

Recently, I carried out an investigation to discover what it was that prevented people from journalling.     1     So, today, I want to introduce a very simple tool—The MicroMOVEment Wheel. It will help you pick up your journal even at times when you really don’t feel like it.

    2     She describes creating this method so she could use it as a creative planning tool for her writing projects and goals. While it was originally aimed at writers, you can use this technique to help you complete any project in a fun and creative way.

    3     Here’s how it works. Take a blank sheet of paper and: draw a large circle, and then another smaller circle in the middle. In the centre circle, write down what you are inspired to achieve. Remember, journalling does not need to feel like a chore in your day. So come up with descriptions for your journalling that are inspiring and energising.     4     These are what SARK refers to as the MicroMOVEments. Each MicroMOVEment is five minutes in length. So, in the case of journalling, that would represent a minimum of up to five minutes of journalling in one sitting, on any given day.

Let’s say you’ re new to journalling. By setting aside five minutes out of your day, you could write one word in your notebook that sums up a feeling or an experience.     5     The idea of the MicroMOVEment is to create easy steps to get your journal writing or writing projects moving. When you keep the steps small, it will become doable and achievable.

【推荐2】Habit is behavior you do regularly or routinely. As a professor who studies how to help students become better readers and writers, I can tell that research shows habits have a circle: cue, routine and reward.

Let’s say you have a habit of eating a snack after school. When school is about to end, you start to feel hungry. Dismissal is the cue to get your snack. Eating the snack is the routine. The reward is that it tastes good and your hunger goes away, which reinforces the habit-and makes you want to repeat the circle again the next day.     1    .

Studying at the same time every day is one cue, but you may need something more concrete when first forming your habit.     2    . This can be a card with the word “study” printed on the front.

To help yourself study, you need a place set up for work and not for doing other things. Do not study on your bed that’s for sleeping, or in front of the television, or anywhere it’s difficult to hold and use the materials you need.     3    . Your study place should limit distractions.

That said, after you finish studying, you can give yourself a little gaming or social media time as your reward.     5    . Improving your knowledge and skills will give you a sense of achievement and make you more confident and happier at school. But while forming your study habit, a really fun reward will help you stick with it.

【推荐3】For those of us in school who are trying to figure out the most effective way to study, science is here on hand to help.

First of all, an unlikely helper is exercise.     1     Well, exercise releases an important blend of mood altering hormones. This neural cocktail (化合物) greatly enhances brain performance required for study and information memory. So in between study sessions, we should seriously consider hitting the gym, swimming some laps, kicking a ball around, or even dancing a few steps because any kind of exercise greatly improves brain power.

You must also vary your study program.     2     Although this may seem like the easiest way, it is totally working the opposite. A study from Washington University compared the effectiveness of repeated testing over repeated studying and found that testing is far more effective than simply rereading.     3    

Finally, get as much sleep as you can. When awake for the first few hours in the day, our alpha brain waves which are beneficial to acquisition of information and knowledge are most active.

A nap in the daytime will give you two bursts of alpha brain waves for one day’s study.     4     When you acquire information, brain cells grow new connections. Slee p helps these cells grow and connect.

    5     Our ability to process information is hindered (妨碍) by our restlessness, and the information overloaded is simply overbearing. We should take breaks every hour and not work straight through.