5 Necessary Study Habits

#1) Stick to a Schedule

Your brain builds pathways and habits over time, and studying is about building those mental muscles and endurance. Getting into a fixed habit of studying will help you improve your concentration and mental stamina over time. And, just like any other training, your ability to study only improves with time and dedicated effort. There are many activities that are good for us, but that we often—for whatever reason—dread doing. Whether this is exercising, doing chores, or studying, it's a good idea to set yourself a schedule and stick to it no matter how you're feeling at the moment. It's easy to put off these activities for a thousand reasons: you're busy doing something else, you're tired, you have a headache, you're not in the mood.…But the more you hold yourself to a set schedule, the more likely you'll do what you need to do without having to make an endless litany of excuses. Aside from doing homework, set aside a dedicated 50 to 75 minutes to study each day and then stick to your schedule. You'll find the study rhythm that works best for you, but do know that you don't necessarily have to sit down and eek out those minutes all at once. You can decide to split the time into smaller segments throughout the day, or, if you work better at completing tasks and moving on, you can choose to get your studying done all at once.

#2) Study in Small Increments (Pomodoro Method)

By committing 50 to 75 minutes to study every day (and sticking to your schedule!), you'll avoid both burning out your mental energy and being stuck cramming for hours and hours at a time the night before a test. This time should not be spent in one sitting but multiple using the Pomodoro Method. The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method for increased focus and concentration, which makes it ideal for tackling studying and homework. The principle behind the technique is to divvy up your focus and break times into set regimes so that your mind remains sharp and attuned to the task at hand, without giving into fatigue or distraction. The method is to divide your focus time ("pomodoros") into 25 minute blocks dedicated to a task. And every time you feel your focus drifting, write down what had you distracted, put it aside, and don't give into the temptation to lose focus. (For instance, if you feel compelled to look at your email or look up what year your favorite movie came out, mark down "check email" or "look up favorite movie" and then return to your original task.) This will allow you to acknowledge the distraction and return to it later without having it derail your study time now. After every 25 minute block of time is complete, give yourself a check mark and allow yourself a 5 minute break. (A good time to check that email!) Once you've reached the fourth check mark (100 minutes of focus and 15 minutes of break), take a 20 minute break. Then begin the cycle again. By balancing up your time and energy between designated periods of focus and rest, you'll be able to tackle studying your topic at hand without mental fatigue and burnout (which can easily occur if you try to marathon your way through a study session) and without losing focus (which can happen if you find yourself taking a break that lasts...indefinitely).

#3) Practice Good Study "Hygiene"

Good study hygiene is about retaining a clear separation between work and rest. This allows you to focus on necessary tasks while minimizing stress and anxiety in the rest of your life.

We’ve already talked about keeping a dedicated study space, but now we have to be sure to keep those areas as “hygienic” as possible. How? By following a few key rules of setting up your study environment:

Make Sure That You DON’T Study In or On Your Bed

Studying in sleeping areas is the very definition of NOT maintaining a clear separation between work and rest, and most often leads to increased levels of stress and insomnia. This, in turn, can decrease your concentration and ability to study in the long term.

By blurring the lines between study-time and free-time, you’ll only create spillover stress for yourself and be stuck in a cyclical effect of non-productivity and anxiety. So keep your study location to a desk, a table, or even a couch, so long as you aren’t anywhere on your bed.

Keep Tantalizing Distractions Far Away

It’s easy to allow ourselves to take “a quick break” to check our phones, get up and go hunting for a snack, or to let ourselves get caught up searching for irrelevant information on Wikipedia. There are untold distractions all around us that try to lure our concentration away from the task at hand, and giving into temptation can be an awful time suck. The best way to avoid distractions like these is to remove temptation altogether.

Make up a snack for yourself before you start studying so that you’re not tempted to get up. Keep your phone far away, and turn off your wifi on your computer if you can. Tell yourself that you can’t get up to check on whatever has you distracted until your allotted study time is up. Whatever has you distracted can wait until your study time is over.

Keep Yourself Comfortable, Hydrated, and Fed

Taking care of your body’s basic needs will not only help to improve your mood and concentration while you study, but it will also help make sure you avoid needing to get up (and thereby lose your focus) during your study time.

So make sure you take water, a jacket, a snack, coffee, or whatever else you need to your study space so that you can be comfortable, focused, and ready to learn.

#4) Vary Your Study Methods

Rewrite or Rephrase the Material in Your Own Words

It can be easy to get lost in a textbook and look back over a page, only to realize you don’t remember what you just read. But luckily, that can be remedied.

For classes that require you to read large bodies of text, such as history, English, or psychology, make sure to stop periodically as you read. Pause at the end of a paragraph or a section and—without looking!—think about what the text just stated. Re-summarize it in your own words. Now glance back over the material to make sure you summarized the information accurately and remembered the relevant details. Make a mental note of whatever you missed and then move on to the next section.

You may also want to make a bulleted list of the pertinent information instead of just rephrasing it mentally or aloud. Without looking back down at the textbook, jot down the essentials of the material you just read. Then look over the book to make sure you haven’t left out any necessary information.

Whether you choose to simply summarize aloud or whether you write your information down, re-wording the text is an invaluable study tool. By rephrasing the text in your own words, you can be sure you’re actually remembering the information and absorbing its meaning, rather than just rote copying the info without truly understanding or retaining it.

Teach the Material to Someone Else

Teaching someone else is a great way to distill your thoughts and summarize the information you’ve been studying. And, almost always, teaching someone else shows you that you’ve learned more about the material than you think!

Find a study-buddy, or a patient friend or relative, or even just a figurine or stuffed animal and explain the material to them as if they’re hearing about it for the first time. Whether the person you’re teaching is real or not, the act of teaching material aloud to another human being requires you to re-frame the information in new ways and think more carefully about how all the elements fit together.

And the act of running through your material this way—especially if you do it aloud—helps you more easily lock it in your mind.

Quiz Yourself With Flashcards

Making flashcards is an oft-used study tool and for very good reason! Making your own flash cards can not only help you retain information just through the sheer act of writing it down, but will also help you connect pertinent pieces of information together. So for any subjects in which you must remember the connections between terms and information, such as formulas, vocabulary, equations, or historical dates, flashcards are the way to go.

To make the best use of your flashcards, use the Leitner Method, so that you don’t waste your time studying what you already know.

To employ this method, quiz yourself with your flashcards and separate the cards into two different piles. In Pile 1, place the cards you knew and answered correctly, in Pile 2, place the cards you didn’t know the answers to.

Now go back through the cards again, but only studying the cards from Pile 2 (the “didn’t know” pile). Separate these again as you go through them into Pile 1 (know) and Pile 2 (don’t know). Repeat the process of only studying to “don’t know” cards until more and more cards can be added to the “know” pile.

Once all the cards are in the “know” pile, go through the whole pile once again to make sure you’ve retained the information on all the cards.

#5) Reward Yourself

To make studying a little more fun, give yourself a small reward whenever you hit a study milestone. For instance, let yourself eat a piece of candy for every 25 flash cards you test yourself on or for every three paragraphs you read (and re-word) in your textbook. Or perhaps give yourself one extra minute of video game or television-watching time for every page you study from your book (to be redeemed only after your study time is over, of course). Whatever your particular incentive is, let yourself have that small reward-boost to help see you through the days when studying seems particularly taxing.

Bonus Tip: Get Enough Sleep

The absolute, number one, most important way you can prepare yourself for a test is to sleep the night before. Getting a good night's sleep before a test (and preferably every night) is absolutely paramount. Sleep increases focus and concentration. The effects of not sleeping are much like being under the influence of alcohol. No matter how well you know the material, taking a test sleep deprived will do you no favors. A regular sleep schedule is preferable and will do wonders for your overall health, happiness, concentration, and memory. But even if you can't sleep, just closing your eyes and relaxing will help. So if you find yourself grappling with insomnia, let yourself relax in the dark and in your bed instead of whittling away the hours some other way.

Written by Guest Person