Choosing a topic when the notes blur together

It was late, and my notes were starting to look like a foreign language. I had a whole unit to review, but my brain kept jumping from one chapter to the next, never settling. I needed a way to focus on just one thing, to make the decision for me so I could stop worrying about what to study next.

The quiet panic of too many choices

My desk was a mess of highlighted pages and flashcards. Every topic felt equally important and equally daunting. I’d read a paragraph about one thing, then immediately feel guilty for not looking at another.It was that familiar, low-grade panic that makes actual learning impossible. I wasn’t absorbing anything; I was just anxiously skimming, trying to cover it all at once.

Letting the wheel decide

I wrote down all the major topics from the unit on little slips of paper. It felt a bit silly, like a game, but also a relief. The act of writing them out made the mountain of material feel like a list of separate, manageable things.I spun the wheel on my screen. Where it landed wasn’t my favorite topic, but it didn’t matter. The decision was made. Suddenly, I had permission to ignore everything else for the next twenty minutes.

A different kind of focus

With the topic chosen, my mind finally quieted down. I wasn’t studying for the whole test anymore; I was just learning about this one specific thing. It felt more like curiosity than cramming.

The classroom felt calmer

Later, when our teacher used a similar method to pick review topics in class, I understood the feeling. There was no arguing, no one trying to steer the conversation to what they’d studied. We all just accepted the result and started talking. It leveled the playing field in a really quiet way.