How To Guide: Study.
As of writing this I’ve just completed my 3rd year of university moving into my 4th and final year and touch wood I have gotten a first in every unit I have taken so far. I like to think I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the task of studying and my results seem to say so. I hope in sharing how I study if you’re a degree apprentice or a classic university student this will help you achieve your academic goals!
The Key to Good Grades
To achieve the grades you want the magic key is routine, routine, routine! You need to know when, where, and what you will be studying and the repetition of this results in high grades. You’ve heard the term ‘practice makes perfect’ well whoever said that wasn’t wrong and that’s exactly what you need to do, practice, well… study. Right now, studying may feel like such a chore, you don’t want to do it, you don’t know when you will do it, and if you ever find the time when you sit there you ask yourself ‘now what?’ By building routines around your studying, you all these issues simply slip away. We want studying to be something we do effortlessly like brushing your teeth before bed. You never feel stressed about brushing your teeth this is something you mindlessly do every evening because this is a habit and that’s exactly what we want studying to be, a habit! And when building good habits there are some key things which I will share with you in this post!
When?
One of those key things to building good habits is knowing when. I know you thought this post was about studying not habits, stay with me it certainly is. Knowing when you will do something trains your brain to associate a time of day with an activity. Just like your brain knows that between the hours of 9am and 5pm is work it switches to work mode.
Now everyone’s situation is different, and some people have more time than others. I am a degree apprentice, so I have a 9-5 job meaning my study time must be outside of this timeframe. If you have kids that’s even less time, good luck to you! But when picking a time choose to look for a slot where you are free at the same time every day for at least 45 minutes to an hour. Again, this is relevant to circumstances but try to keep this time frame reasonable. What I mean by that is I know I am free every day at 2am but that’s when I’m sleeping and studying then will have a negative affect and won’t be very efficient as I struggle to read with my eyes closing every 10 seconds. I recommend straight after work and before you curse at the screen here me out. Your brain is already in work mode just coming from your job, yes, you have done 8 hours already and would like to rest however you can capitalise on your mind being in this state. Grab a quick snack and go straight to your place of study, this will make jumping in and the transition much easier.
I also recommend if you’re like myself try to study before eating. After I have eaten even if it’s a light meal my body goes into rest mode while it tries to burn through what I have just eaten my brain becomes sluggish. My routine looks like this:
Evening Routine
16:30 - End Work
16:45 - Snack
17:00 - Study
19:00 - Tea
19:30 - Relax.
22:00 - Bed
Where?
We have the when now the where? When choosing where to study apply two rules. The first is limit the number of distractions to as few as possible. Some examples are people interrupting you, TV, mobile phone, musical instrument, or anything else you can think of. The less things around you the easier it is to focus on your studies, this is why I think coffee shops are great because other than drink coffee what else can you do but focus on the materials that you have?
The second rule is to be consistent with the place, our brains associate spaces with actives like the bedroom with sleep, the dining room with food, or the living room with relaxing. Being consistent with where you study will benefit you in two ways, first, your brain will associate this space with work meaning you will be in work mode and make turning work mode on so much easier. Second, is making this a habit that you no longer need to think about its just something you do. When building good habits location is super important and being consistent will help you turn studying from a chore that requires a lot of effort to something you do mindlessly and effortlessly.
Now What?
Cool, we now know that we’ll be studying every evening from 5pm to 7pm every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday at the local coffee shop. We sit down, open the laptop ready to get a huge chunk of work done and now what? Well, here are some tips to make the session successful.
1. Define Sessions Theme
To make the session successful first define what the session will focus on. Are you going to be reviewing lectures, working on an assignment, or studying for an upcoming exam? This will help lead you onto what you will complete in the session. For example, if you’re studying for a test, you may review notes you made in class or course materials. Essentially this is just good time management, you know you have a deadline of some sort, and this is defining when you will work on that.
2. Line Up Tasks for Session
When you have the theme of what you’re working online up what you need to do. Knowing what you want to complete in the session gets rid of that what now feeling. Warning it is very easy to overload a session here especially when you feel motivated to work. I have often had a list if my arm lined up for a two-hour session and instead of being productive, I spend that time chopping and changing what I work on rather than focusing on the work. Load 3-5 tasks MAX you can always add more but this way you start with a clear set of things to complete, and you can smoothly move from one to the next. Core takeaway here, do not overload yourself! Its quality not quantity.
3. Pomodoro Method
Attention spans are thinning its true and it’s so much easier to scroll social media than to study, introduce the pomodoro method. This method takes your two hours and conventionally chops it up into 25-minute stints with 5-minute breaks. It’s much easier to focus for 25 minutes than 120 and that’s what you do. Take each twenty-five minutes at a time and in no time the session has passed!
This method is great when you’re starting your routine and, but I found the more solidified my routine was, and my brain was trained to work on studies the less and less I needed this. I hit a stage where the break every 25 minutes became a hinderance as I could focus for much longer than this and wanted to continue to work. The good news is there no hard rule with method, change the duration of work the better you become at focussing. I moved to 50 minutes with ten-minute breaks and then to 60 minutes with 5-minute breaks and now I can sit down for a couple of hours at a time without needing to break up my time. However! Take breaks! It’s good for you and you may have eureka moments with something you’re stuck on if you give your mind time to rest and work on this in your sub conscious.
4. Help It Stick!
Anki is the best app on my phone, this is a flashcard app with space repetition in built. From your course materials and notes made in lectures build flash cards for that class. In each study session dedicate a small amount of time to answer some flash cards on that subject. This will help you commit studies to your long-term memory and increase your understanding of the subject. The best thing about Anki is the inbuilt space repetition, if you’re not familiar it works like this. Anki will show you a flash card and you answer and depending on how difficult you felt the card was it will either increase or decrease the time interval until it shows you this card again. If you felt the card was difficult or you didn’t get it right it will show you sooner, if you felt it was easy it will increase the time.