10 tips to study better and efficiently
The habit of studying from images and texts, beyond being a way to grow intellectually, has obvious negative aspects .
The clearest of these is that many times it is done by obligation, which means that in addition to the work involved in learning content, you have to manage the time and anxiety that this psychological burden produces. There are also other drawbacks, such as the risk of seeing your own health deteriorate by spending too much time sitting or forcing your eyes too hard, and even having difficulty sleeping.
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The conclusion of this is that studying is fine, yes, but it is better to do it efficiently . Saving avoidable efforts and dispensing with customs and study strategies that only lead to fatigue and frustration. In addition, the habit of studying can take up many hours a week, a month or even throughout life, and that is why it is worth asking ... Am I studying in the best possible way?
Just to help you assess your study methods, Here you can read a series of tips to study efficiently to optimize the time and effort you dedicate to your learning .
Of course: when it comes to following these tips to study you must assume the principle that studying better is not doing it for longer. That is why some of these keys are not directed so much to the fact of studying itself as to how to distribute time better.
Tips to study better in your day to day
Let's get to know a few simple tips and techniques to improve our ability to study. If you apply them to your routine during the course, it is highly likely that your academic grades rise markedly .
1. Cut the study time into pieces
Investigations on attentional processes and study performance show that it is better to control the times we dedicate to the study by putting a rather low time limit for each session . The ideal is to make the study periods do not exceed 30 minutes, since we show much easier to assimilate information that comes to us in short and repeated bursts than in a single one that is long and tedious.
What it is about is to keep the brain 100% at all times (by the way, keeping sleep at bay is sacred, and for that, nothing like sleeping well).
2. Create a study routine
Propose a study schedule and follow it does not only serve to offer an image of maturity and neatness, since it has remarkable effects on the performance of study . Addressing learning in a disorganized way is a way to end up studying late at night, when sleep and fatigue take a toll on our ability to concentrate. In addition, getting used to a schedule will make it easier for us not to skip study time and allow us to dedicate the time they deserve.
In that sense, the same one that works for gym exercises also works to memorize and assimilate information. Do not leave everything for tomorrow!
3. Create summary notes on individual sheets
Do not rely too much on the technique of underlining texts. The fact of underlining does not help to memorize the text if it is not reviewed several times, and anyway sticking to the memorization of the sentences that have a line below keeps us anchored to the way in which the information is distributed in the original text .
Instead, making outlines and small summaries on pieces of paper obliges us to reformulate the information we have read and, in addition, it makes easier to create combinations of notes that are different from those of the text but that help us to understand better what we read, since we can gather or separate the pieces of paper of the way that we want to assimilate the information in the order wanted.
4. Keep distractions away
It may seem obvious, but It never hurts to remember it because these distractions can take the most unexpected forms and it is good to identify them . On your blacklist should be Facebook, mobile phone and television, but you can include other elements typical of your day to day and do your best to isolate yourself from all of them during the study periods (remember they are short, so .. It's not much to ask!).
Doing this before going to study will help you not to fall into temptation once you have started.
5. Prepare your study material before anything else
Having prepared everything you need will not get up to go looking for things and, therefore, distract you. Further, associating this set of objects to the study will make you, every time you see it, enter the dynamics of studying with ease ...Although you will not know how to explain exactly why it happens to you!
Therefore, pay attention to the organization of the books and tools that you need before you sit down with your elbows. If you have everything perfectly organized, it will be easier for you to have all the resources at hand and be able to be more efficient during your study hours.
6. Propose (at least) one unit of study for each session
Set a theme to study and study it. Organizing information related to each other by staying on a topic or category of any kind is much easier than studying scattered and disordered pieces of information. For that It is good that you read the lesson once to create a mental map of the location of the topics in the text and then you focus on each of them .
7. Flee from literal memorization
Make yours the information contained in the texts. Link it to episodes of your life, reformulate it with your own words and use examples you know . In this way you will achieve the significant learning you need, much more resistant to the passage of time than the one based on the memorization of data that you do not find too meaningful.
8. Flee from linear memorization
Think, above all, in similarities and differences between concepts , pieces of information that in the texts that you have studied do not appear very connected but that could be in certain exam questions, for example.
9. Practice constantly
If you have the possibility, evaluate yourself with exams or questionnaires about the subject you are studying . This may seem like a waste of time if you think that well spent time can only be dedicated to "soak up" the information to study, but it is not at all, as it will help you detect failures and will also help you measure your progress and, therefore, to keep motivation high, which will also have a positive impact on your performance.
10. Explain the lesson to another person
This is literal. The fact of explaining in your own words what you have learned is possibly the most valuable advice to study, since it will bring you two great benefits. On the one hand, rephrasing the lesson is a way to mentally review what you have studied , so the time you dedicate to this will serve to better assimilate what you had studied before.
On the other hand, it will help you to self-evaluate, detect points that you thought you learned but at key moments give you problems, and offer you a fairly faithful image of your progress.
