Growing up, I was always a straight A student at the top of the class always doing the most work I could to make myself proud, my parents proud, and forge more opportunities for the down the road. When I made it to college, luckily, I already had the foundation and tools to study and learn effectively.
But a lot of the people around me I was noticing, didn’t. They knew that should be studying and “wanted to”, but weren’t sure how to. More specifically, how to do it so that the knowledge sticks and you actually do well on the tests.
This post is your guide to studying better in college so that the knowledge sticks. Save this to your pinterest board, share it on Facebook, screenshot it on your phone, keep it in a place where you can come back time and time again to refresh yourself on the best studying practices to ace your exams.
Let’s get into it.
The Pomodoro Technique
One of the best studying tactics out there is the pomodoro technique, and it’s quite simple to employ. The core concept is to work in 25 minutes intervals, with a 5 minute break after each. Then, before started your next interval, write down and recall everything you just went over.
As you study – maybe you re-read your notes, or copy them down, work practice problems, watch YouTube videos, whatever it is – stop at the 25 minute mark, walk around for a bit, write down what you just went over or learned (from your memory, don’t look) and then start the process again.
The reasoning behind the 25 minute intervals is quite intuitive. Basically, our brains tend to lose focus during long hours of intense work or study. What ends up happening is we will remember the things the most that happened at the very beginning or very end of some brain session (some task).
25 minutes turns out to be just the right amount of time where our brains can actively retain a large portion of the information that we focused on. Adding a recap session before your next interval reinforces and strengthens your memory even more so, making it a fool-proof way to learn, and remember what you learned with efficiency and confidence.
The pomodoro technique is by far one of the quickest and most effective ways to study better in college.
Do it F.A.S.T.E.R
The pomodoro technique is great, but what if you don’t know how to study properly? The trick is to be engaged with the content – this will make it more enjoyable, memorable, and help you to work faster. Try the Faster technique, created by Jim Kwik.
F – forget everything
Sometimes when we are learning a topic that we’ve been exposed to numerous times, we think we know everything there is to know about it. But come on, that can’t be the case! There is always something new to be learned, so when you are studying, try to forget everything you know.
Yes, it sounds counter intuitive, but when you adopt a beginner’s mindset, you can approach the information with curiosity and a desire to learn more – almost always leading to better test results and more information retention.
A – act
Be active with your studying. Engage with it. Take notes, highlight the page, write in the margins, try practice problems, ask yourself why this information might be important, and start making connections in your mind. We don’t learn by knowing, we learn by doing.
S – state (where is your mind)
Are you dreaming about asking the girl out who sits in the front row? Are you questioning why you need to study and dreading the very act of it? If your mind is not on your studying, you’re not going to get great results.
Before you study, take a moment and close your eyes, think about the feelings of what it will be like to get that paper back with an A, that exam back with an A. Think about how happy you’ll be, or how you can show off to your friends and really feel the feelings of having already attained your goal. Pump yourself up, get excited, and then start your study session.
T – teach
Start your study session with the intention to teach others. Think about it – if you know you have to present or make sure someone else learns the material just as well as you, you’ll approach your studying with much more intensity and focus. Not only do you have to learn the information for yourself, but you need to learn it well enough to clearly explain it to someone else.
On top of that, you’ll be repeating the information yet another time to someone, further increasing the amount of information that you are going to retain.
E – enter in your calendar
Sometimes, the hardest thing about studying, is just getting started. Let’s be honest, studying is not the funnest thing in the world, but it’s often worth it. The best way to make sure your studying gets done is to schedule it into your calendar in a block of uninterrupted time.
R – relearn
At the end of each study session, take about 5-10 minutes to recap everything that you have just went over. Try to do it all from memory, but if there are important details you can’t remember, go back and look at your notes. When you relearn and recap your study session, your train your brain to pull back that information with ease and mark that information as important – why else would you be recalling it?
It may be a chore at first, but over time you’ll find it easier and easier to recall the information learned in your study sessions. Soon, you’ll be a fountain of knowledge!
Find your motivation
Now that you know how to study, the next piece is getting yourself to actually go and study. The only way that is going to happen is through motivation.
A lot of people think that motivation is something you either have or don’t have, but that is not actually the case. Motivation is something that is created by having the right reasons and the right mindset. Professional athletes don’t wake up motivated everyday, but their reasons are strong enough to get them to the gym at 4 am everyday and work on their craft.
What’s your reason?
Ask yourself why you want your studying to pay off in the first place. Is it to be able to get your dream job? To get your degree and move on? To be able to teach others? You need to find your deepest why. You can look back at some of my previous mindset posts like “How to overcome procrastination” where I talk about a great exercise to get to your deepest why.
The easiest way to do this is write down what you think your why is. Then, ask yourself why? Keep asking why with each response you can come up with until you feel you have reached something that causes great emotion within you. Maybe it’s because you grew up without much attention and love and you want to get your dream job to finally feel that love from others around you. It could be anything. You won’t know until you try.
Use your reason to motivate you
Once you have your reason, use it to your full advantage. Post it on sticky-notes everywhere you might see it; your bathroom, your bedroom, your mirror, the kitchen table. These continual reminders throughout the day will provide the motivation you need to get your studying done. Now you don’t need to wait for motivation to hit. You create it by looking back at your reasons. That’s a powerful tool.
Priming your mind before study
You’ve got your reasons, you’ve got your motivations, you’ve got the tools to study and retain information. Let’s look at one last strategy to soothe the brain open it up to receiving all the information you are about to study.
Meditation
Meditation has hundreds of cited benefits and one of those is better memory and information retention. One meditation session for 2-5 minutes before you begin studying with calm you down, relax your muscles and brain, and help you to focus in on what you are about to learn.
Just close your eyes and focus on your breath. Try to slow it down. 5 seconds in, 5 second hold, 5 seconds out, 5 second hold, repeat. Bring your body to a state of peace and readiness for what is to come.
By doing this on a consistent basis, you’ll begin to notice a much higher information retention and quicker ability to recall past knowledge. It’s quite amazing!
Don’t pass off meditation as something “not for you.” You can do it. If two minutes is too long, start with 30 seconds, then try a minute, and keep working yourself up in small increments. The effort will be well worth the reward.
Take your studying further
Since a young age, we’ve been taught what to learn, not how to learn. Along with that, we’ve heard the myths that knowledge is power, learning is hard, and mistakes mean you are a failure. Here’s the truth. Knowledge isn’t power, knowledge + action = power. Learning isn’t hard, it can be fun and easy with practice and the right strategies. Mistakes don’t mean you are a failure, mistakes mean you are going out of your comfort zone and learning in the process.
If you want to learn more ways to learn faster, remember more, and study effectively, I highly recommend buying the book, Limitless: Upgrade your brain, learn anything faster, and unlock your exceptional life” by Jim Kwik. Kwik is one of the top brain experts out there who teaches people how to transform their lives by learning how to learn, read a book a week, memorize 200 names in one sitting, and so much more. This book has been an absolute game changer for me and I’m able to recall and cite things I’ve learned and read with so much ease. You will not be sorry with this small purchase!
Are you ready to step into your full potential?
Are you going to try these new study strategies?
What strategies for studying have you used in the past?
Let me know in the comments!
