Come Study With Us - How to Make Studying Work for You

Come Study With Marwa

Typically, I study up to 1-2  hours a day. This may not seem like a long time, but if I study too long, I end up with long breaks in between and this can really throw me off track! 

Finding the time and energy to study can be difficult. When it comes to studying, it is important to consider planning a schedule ahead of time as weeks typically get crowded and hectic. This is especially true if you are involved in sports, extracurricular activities, or have a job! 

After I schedule my study sessions, the next thing I have to consider is how to limit my distractions. Personally for me, the long hours and distractions (i.e. social media) contribute to the end of my studying.  What helps me stay focused is wearing  headphones and listening to background music.  Both help me avoid checking my phone and the time. 

When it comes to writing notes, I use three key colors: 

• Black for the main topic 
• Red for key points
• Blue for additional information that is used to clarify

By using different colors in note taking, I am able to remember only the important information and keep everything organized. Remember, less is more!

If there are more things that are preventing you from studying, it can also be because of your study environment! 

For example, studying at a coffee shop or library may be more beneficial and ideal because  other people are also studying and doing work in this environment. This factor can motivate you and help you create better study habits!

Come Study With Quizzy

Sometimes studying is light work to me: I can focus, spend long hours studying, and can get all my homework completed in one day. On the other hand, I can have bouts of mental block or just pure uninterest in the work ahead of me. Either way, I know one thing doesn’t change, and that’s the fact that the work has a due date, and time is always ticking.

H.E.L.P.

To counter your habit of procrastination and also improve long-term retention remember this acronym: H.E.L.P.

Have a List

My head can get caught up in a series of different tasks that I need to get done and sometimes, all that mess is what causes me to become unmotivated to start at all. To clear my head, I make a list of assignments that I need to complete and then rearrange them again by priority. This way, I can see which ones are the most urgent, and which ones can be pushed to the back burner a little bit. When my list is created, I feel accomplished every time I check something off of it, and can feel at ease seeing each task get marked off.

Employ Strategies

Simply reading your notes over and over again isn’t going to help you…unless you have photographic memory. When we read, our minds can wander off, be disengaged, and may not activate any neuron pathways to create a long-term memory. Instead, find studying strategies that can match your studying style, a couple of mine are:

1. Active Recall
   • This is a process that involves testing yourself repeatedly in order to learn the subject. For this method, I use Quizlet for flashcards as well as the AI question feature so that I can deepen my understanding.
2. Blurting
   • After I read my notes, I would explain to myself each thing I remembered from the unit out loud. If there are things that you forgot, or a detail that you missed, write it down and re-read those sections. It’s helpful to pull up the big ideas or unit goals of each lesson, and explain them based on what you remember.
3. Leave the Room
   • Different environments can inspire different workflows, and it’s different for everyone! As such, experiment with studying in different places. Feeling cooped up in one space usually does not welcome the best results in work and often leads to mind block. Instead, determine what kind of environment you like to work in and what environment you work best in.
   • If you’re someone who can’t think when there’s lots of noise, try:
     • The library
     • Book store
   • Or, if you’re the opposite and enjoy a little bit of white noise, think about studying in:
     • A food court
     • Cafe
     • Outside
4. Plan Breaks
   • Breaks are helpful too! They lessen the chances of overworking, exhaustion, and promote longer retention. There is, however, a line between procrastination and breaks. While procrastination is the act of prolonging an activity to avoid doing work, breaks are momentary pauses after already working on something. 
   • To stop breaks from turning into procrastination use the Pomodoro Technique
     • Every focused 25 minutes of work = 5 minute break
     • Four consecutive 25 minute work periods means you get longer breaks!

Come Study With Us - How to Make Studying Work for You

Blog curated by Quizzy Toca and Marwa Saydee, Annual Content Creation Team | Digital4Good

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