Whether you’re a student in high school, college, or already settled on a career path, it’s never too late — or too early — to improve your study skills. Learning to learn efficiently and effectively can make a huge difference in self-confidence, satisfaction, and success; and it’s not just for “smart” people.
Most students manage to get by with inefficient study habits, without realizing that there are better options. Passive reading, copious note-taking, and cramming are incredibly common, yet ineffective, study strategies. If a course on study skills were offered in school, we might all get a lot more out of our education.
There are dozens of strategies that can help us make the most out of our study time, but they can be loosely packaged into four categories: focus, time management, comprehension and retention. If you’re adept at one or two, but floundering with the others, your study skills could use a tune-up.
Focus
When it comes time to study, you need to set your mind to it. For many of us, that’s easier said than done. Visual distractions, digital distractions, stress, discomfort and lack of interest can all be major pitfalls in attending to the task at hand.
Environment:
Set the stage with a tidy work space. Put away unrelated material and remove all possible distractions — especially your phone! Select an environment that is not-too-comfortable, and wear real clothes. Believe it or not, sitting on a sofa in sweats is more conducive to sleep than study. Instead, choose a clutter-free desk or table, and sit up straight in a chair.
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Oftentimes, escaping to the library or a quiet cafe can help eliminate many common household distractions.
Mental preparation:
Our best studying happens when we are fresh and alert. If you are over-tired, get some rest. If you are just feeling groggy, refresh with some light exercise. If you are hungry, have a healthy snack. It’s important to take care of yourself first, so that you don’t have excuses to slip away from your studies.
In the long run, you’ll want to develop regular sleep habits and healthy eating patterns to keep your brain ready and willing to learn. Give yourself regular breaks and rewards to keep up your stamina.
Lack of interest
There’s nothing more tedious than trudging through a topic that bores you to tears. The trick is to find some way to make it interesting to you.
If the topic is simply over your head, you may need to go back to the basics. Gain a general understanding, and the more complex material will be easier to digest. If a subject seems pointless to you, invest some effort to find an application that will make it worth your while.
Doodling through a boring lecture helps keep a restless mind focused — enough to boost retention by 29 percent, according to a 2009 study! Add some scribbles to your notes and see if they don’t suddenly become fascinating.
Time management
So many of us struggle with procrastination — to the point that we feel helpless against our inner escape artist; yet there are tried-and-true tools to help even the worst of us overcome procrastination.
Pomodoro technique
Sometimes a little pressure is the very thing we need to motivate us. The Pomodoro timer provides just that — short spurts of intense study that are both easy to engage in, and easy to complete. Developed in the 1980s, this technique is named after the tomato (pomodoro)-shaped timer that Italian university student Francesco Cirillo used to regulate manageable chunks of focused study time.
Today, this proven study method is so popular that one can find timers (both physical and virtual) that provide soothing ambient sounds during the study period, along with a built-in break. Increments of 25 minutes are typical for the study time, with a five minute break before it’s back to the books. After two hours, a longer break is recommended.
Spaced repetition
When it comes to preparing for important exams, it pays to be far-sighted. Study scientists have discovered that reviewing material multiple times over an extended period is much more effective than cramming the night before, plus it saves time!
Studying for an hour at a time, with increasingly long intervals in between, (i.e. two days, four days, a week) strengthens neural pathways and significantly boosts retention.
Comprehension
Being able to spit things out for an exam does not necessarily mean you understand it; and if you don’t understand the material, then it will not serve you in the future. Unfortunately, many common study methods do not stress comprehension. Passive reading, for instance, is now considered one of the least efficient ways to study. Even note-taking can be useless if it is not combined with active learning.
Comprehension requires more effort, but the product is infinitely more useful.
Feynman technique:
One of the best ways to develop a thorough understanding of a subject is to study with the aim of teaching, or passing on a simplified version of what you’ve learned. This requires learning the meaning of unfamiliar terms, breaking down a complex topic into simpler concepts, and making useful connections.
When you think you’ve got it, generate a simple, straight-forward explanation, and test it out on a friend. If you can enable someone with no prior knowledge of the subject to understand it, you’re good. If not, go back and see where you can improve.
Mind mapping:
Mind mapping is a visual branching technique for organizing information. By providing a full picture with key points, supporting ideas, highlights and important connections, mind mapping helps you understand things in depth.
Reading comprehension:
Reading for comprehension requires active thinking. You can look at every single word, but if your mind is wandering, you still won’t get much out of the reading. Approach large texts in a strategic manner to ensure you’re taking in all the key points. PQ4R and SQ3R are the acronyms for two systems that enhance comprehension.
Before you even begin reading, preview (P), or survey (S) the material by skimming headings and highlighted words. This should be sufficient to generate some questions (Q) and potential connections.
Then, keeping your questions in mind, read (R) one section. Reflect (R) on how the passage informed you. Did it generate further questions? Review (R) to enhance your understanding, then move on to the next section.
For your notes, generate a brief summary of your understanding after (not during) your reading. Actively recalling the information from memory requires thinking and understanding. Review the points you’ve forgotten, and with practice you can train your brain to retain more.
Retention
Time and again, research has shown that reading and reviewing notes is an inefficient and ineffective study method — it takes a long time, and not much of the material stays in your brain. So why do we do it? It’s easy, and it feels productive (since it is time consuming). Actually learning something well enough to retain it is more work — it requires exercising the brain through active recall.
Active recall:
Rather than passively absorbing information, active recall forces you to retrieve it. It can work with any subject, and the idea is to come up with ways to test yourself.
- Concise questions are an excellent challenge. These can come from past exams or be inspired by your own thirst for knowledge. Paired with spaced repetition, this can cement your understanding of any topic. Highlighting the questions you got wrong in red will help you remember which areas need more work.
- Blurting is a fun activity where you quickly jot down everything you remember about a topic. Don’t worry about the sequence or accuracy; just put everything you can think of on paper, then check it against your notes. Focus the rest of your study on whatever information that was missing or incorrect. If you prefer a more staid approach, call it a summary and record all the key points from memory.
- Flashcards are a time-honored tradition in active recall. First introduced in 1746 by Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, flash cards have reinforced learning for generations of students. Today, online apps like Anki, Brainscape, and Tinycards save you the work of creating the flashcards yourself (although this can be a valuable part of learning) and incorporate other techniques such as spaced repetition to cement your knowledge
Remember, learning doesn’t stop once you leave the classroom. Start using a variety of these techniques to hone your study skills today, and you will have an asset that shapes a positive future for the rest of your life.
