Apr 6, 2021
Embrace One Good Study Habit to Make All the Difference
(plus three smaller study habits)
The best study habit you can pick up, by far, is cooperating with others in the study process.
Most teachers aren’t so receptive to this groundbreaking idea, and they have too many students to tackle anyway. No problem. I don’t mean nagging your teacher. I mean cooperating with your peers.
We are social animals. We do everything better in the pack, including learning. Uneducated kids can learn biochemistry on their own within a few months -if they learn together. By the way, they didn’t even know English and all the materials were in this language.
So, invite your mates and learn. Do mock tests together. Role-play a teacher in the question-answer session. Create together the learning materials. Research together. Cross-check your homework.
Learn in the group, not alone. It will be a game-changer for you.
For your information, two people also make a group. Find one learning partner and the social magic will kick in.
Cooperating gives 80% of the results. The other habits will provide an additional 20% boost.
Focus
Eliminate distractions. Turn off your mobile. Turn off your Wi-Fi (if possible and applicable, of course). Turn off all the notifications. Clean up your learning environment. A mess is a distraction too, sometimes the worst one because it distracts you on the subconscious level.
Plan
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” — Benjamin Franklin
Planning shaves off 20% of the complicated process. You can save up a month of work just by sitting for a few hours at the beginning of a semester and mapping out your learning activities.
Multiply it by all of your subjects you learn and it sums up the incredible amount of saved time.
Set goals. Schedule learning sessions in your calendar. Break down bigger projects into manageable chunks of work.
Track
Planning will not automatically put knowledge into your head. You need to actually follow through and do the work. You should regularly check on yourself, or even better — have an accountability partner checking on you- if you follow your plan.
Track your grades. Compare them to your efforts and try to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t work. This is the second function of tracking -it gives you data to put into your feedback loop and learn even more effectively.
Originally published at Qoura
