Is there a winning formula to study effectively? - Part 2

Most students think that spending hours studying will help them achieve higher marks. If you go out and investigate this, you will find that numerous students do this and do not necessarily achieve the desired results. Part of this problem with a lot of the students is that even when they say they are “studying” most are not. They most probably are studying whilst talking to friends or watching a movie, to name some examples. So that leaves you questioning whether they are spending that much time studying. 

You can spend hours on end studying, but if you are not 100% focused on studying, you are missing the point. It is extremely difficult to switch your focus between different tasks. Some might say that they do achieve results by listening to music and studying, but how do you get your focus back after having discussions with a friend. You need to understand that your brain will choose what it wants more. One can mention multiple examples, but at the end of the day, it is all about focus. In other words, you need to study where and when you do not have any other distractions.

To enable yourself to focus try the following steps.  

1. You need to be consistent and develop a habit of studying at the same time every day. In other words, you need to train your brain to get focused at the same time every day. It might take some time to get used to it and it will help you from the start of an academic year. It might take you up to three weeks to develop this habit. The best is to study even if you do not have any upcoming tests. Naturally, you need to revise the work you have learnt that day at school in the afternoon.
2. You need to study and learn to work faster with more accuracy. You need to keep your brain interested in what you are doing. You can for example make flashcards and try to get through them as fast and as accurately as possible. It will also help if you work on studying from the first day of school. By doing this you break the work down into more manageable pieces to study. By the time you write exams or a test you will be fully prepared for all your subjects and it will take less time to revise your work.
3. It is important to study somewhere where there aren’t any distractions. Your bedroom isn’t always the best place to study since you might have a few things that might distract you. If you have a study in your house this might be an ideal place to study. Most people do not have this luxury and it might work if you remove anything in your bedroom that might distract you. It is also important to switch off every distraction, for example, your computer or cellphone.
4. The last important thing is to study with questions. This all depends on the subject you are studying. An effective way is to set yourself a hard to answer questions and answer them. It will be ideal if it is a broad question that covers a variety of aspects.

By making the above mention guidelines an everyday habit, you should be able to improve your results. Getting focused and prepared for studying is important but it must not be something that you should stress about.