When I say conditioning, I’m not talking about switching on the AC unit and waiting for your grades to improve (although there is a good argument for studying in a colder environment).

I’m talking about improving your study habits by training yourself how to study better.

I see a lot of people asking for specific things they can do during a study session or tools they can use to study better — but improving your study habits early will make all your future studies easier.

The best time to focus on this was years ago when you were a kid but most education systems don’t focus enough on this area — so the second-best time is today.

The real value of conditioning for studying was developed back in the early 1900s (I did say it isn’t an area focused on enough, right?) to help improve student study habits. They figured the keys were:

Define a motivating reward Specify a detailed goal Create a reward schedule Follow the schedule Lower the reward frequency upon achieving the goal

Even 100 years ago they realised the key part of improving study results was to manage your time effectively. There’s a lot of different ways to do that of course but the key thing you need to realise first of all is that you should never be judging your study sessions based on time spent at the desk.

Effective study habits can mean mastering a topic in a day or two while wasting time with unproductive sessions can mean spending days at a desk and not really learning anything useful.

So first up — how do top students manage their time? Saliba Faddoul went to Harvard and this is his advice:

When I was at Berkeley, I took about 26 units a semester and graduated in two years. Most of my classes were on the technical side, meaning they weren’t just reading, analyzing, and writing and these were some of the ways I managed my entire course load and found time to do whatever I wanted.

Know the Class Before you Walk-In. A lot of people think that they need to take “X” class, and they have to take it with whatever Professor is offering in that semester they decide they need it. This is wrong because you may not learn best from every style of Professor. Some will ask you to read and listen to a lecture, others may assign homework that will help you learn, and some won’t do either. The best way to do well in the course before you even start is to check out the person teaching the course and learn if they are even a good Professor or not. If the answer is not, usually there are other professors that teach or offer the course that semester or the following semester. Study at the same time daily. Our bodies are creatures of habit and if you decide that you’re going to study at all hours of the day then you are easily going to get distracted by every little thing. The best way to study is to pick a time or block of time that you will study every day. For me, that block of time was after my final class every day at 2 pm. I would spend from 2 pm to 5 pm studying whatever needed to be done. Then I would go to clubs, activities, or be with friends. Over time your brain will have a better attention span if you know that in “blank” time you’ll be off having fun or doing something. FlashCards. I’m not talking about 4th grader flashcards with a picture of a train on the front and the word train on the back. I’m talking about interchangeable flashcards that test your knowledge. These types of cards are designed for you to be able to see either side and understand the main ideas or equations. A traditional flashcard will just cause you to memorize, but a flashcard that is interchangeable will help you to learn and understand the ideas because you’ll never know the side you’ll fall onto.

Not my flashcards, but a good representation of what they looked like.

Before we go any further, I want to remind you that one of the absolute best things you can do for your studying is proper planning. That means planning your overall course and specific study sessions. Sitting down at the desk and deciding to just study is going to waste your time. For better results (with less effort) you can download the free student pack from PrintablePlannrs here. This is the template which got me my degree with less than a 10% attendance rate.

Know where your time goes. This one is one I took a while to understand, but you can never truly manage your time properly and learn properly if you don’t know exactly where your time is going. Keep track of what you are doing and when you are doing it. For exam lecture for one hour, talking with friends 20–30 minutes, lunch 20/40 minutes, walking home/commute 25 minutes. Understanding where you spend your time will help you to better remove the things that don’t matter as much. Study Smart and Not Hard. Lots of people always asked how can you take 6 classes and get through all the material for each one. The trick is to study smart and not hard. Studying smart is knowing big ideas and facts, not the tiny details that don’t matter. It is understanding the application of a concept in real life and it is understanding the principle of when to use something and not just simple memorization, which takes hours and leads to not knowing anything. More of those tips HERE if you’re interested. MP3 your Notes. The best thing I ever did in college was “invent” this trick of taking your notes after each lecture and in your own voice recording the notes. This leads to about 10 minutes of you talking about important ideas and things from the previous lecture. If you do this every lecture, at the end of the year you’ll have about 60 minutes of pure important ideas, formulas, and facts that will help you to easily ace the course. You should also use these notes before each class starts to refresh what you learned in the class before and be prepared to learn even more. Courses in the morning or night. One of the top things that a lot of students do that destroys their times and days, in my opinion, is take courses all over the day. A class at 10 am a class at 2 pm, another discussion at 4 pm. For me, my college experience was identical to that of high school. I took classes from 8/9 am to 1 pm, had lunch at 1:15 pm and studied till 5 pm. I didn’t waste huge blocks of my day and I didn’t wake up super late either. So decide whether you are going to be a morning or a night person, and just roll with that schedule.

A lot of resources out there focus on getting more done with less. In the case of studying, that means knowing what you’re going to study when you’re going to study it but in this case, we also need to worry about memory retention. There’s no point studying something if you’re not going to retain it afterwards. StudyingTV has a free download for the Unlimited Memory audiobook which focuses on exactly this.

Looking back at what they discovered in the 1900s they had the basic ideas right.

You need to define motivating rewards (which mean something to you) and specify your goals. What are you doing this week? This month? In a study session itself, you really should know what your goal is for that hour.

Positive vs Negative Consequences

Conditioning can be achieved by either rewards or punishment. Both of these approaches can be divided into positive and negative.

Positive reinforcement — Receiving a reward for increasing/strengthen a specific behavior

Example: Every time you finish a chapter of the book you need to read you receive 1$ for your piggy bank.

Negative reinforcement — You will keep your desk clean and tidy during your studies to avoid losing time and finishing late hence having less free time.

Example: Every time you finish a chapter of the book you need to read you receive 1$ for your piggy bank.

Positive punishment — Decreasing a specific behavior to avoid negative consequences

Example: The teacher shouts at you because your phone rings during class. You learn to switch off the phone or leave it at home.

Negative punishment — Decreasing a specific behavior to avoid positive things or object being taken away.

Example: Every time you do not finish a chapter of the book you need to read 1$ is taken out of your piggy bank.

B.R. Skinner found that the best working method to support operate conditioning is achieved through positive reinforcements. In light of these findings keep an eye not only on your studies but also on your daily life and how often we use negative reinforcements or punishment to change our or other’s behavior.

Benefits of using conditioning to improve study habits

Students get used to a scheduled learning process

Especially time-based rewarding forces students to take regular breaks which further improves the learning process

Students develop a consistent behavioral pattern — a habit of learning

Learning is associated with the positive experience of receiving a reward which lowers the resistance to get started

The time-based approach with performance measuring pushes students to focus on the important facts to pass the check and receive their rewards

References and Tools: