This isn’t the first time I’ve posted about study habits which people make but I rant because I care. Learning what stop doing is just as important as learning how to improve your study habits.

Remember the goal here is better results with less effort. So let’s stop doing things holding us back.

First up I wanted to share these two from some interesting studies on academic performance:

1- Not getting 7–9 hours of high quality uninterrupted sleep most nights (that includes not going to sleep and waking up the same time most days and failing to drastically reduce your exposure to artificial light in the 1–2 hours before bed time).

For example:

A recent study of 61 Harvard College students found that the students who kept a regular sleep schedule had significantly higher GPA scores.

The students, who journaled their daily sleep habits, formed two basic groups:

“Regular Sleepers ” who would go to sleep and wake up at around the same time each day; and:

” who would go to sleep and wake up at around the same time each day; and: “Irregular Sleepers” — or those who had more of an erratic sleep pattern.

The students’ sleep habits were scored on a scale of 0 to 100.

Students with the highest levels of irregular sleep were assigned lower numbers while students with regular sleep habits could earn up to 100 on the scale.

For every jump in the scale of 10 points up the index of their sleep regularity, students would experience a corresponding increase of 0.10 in their grade point average or GPA!

So why such a drastic difference in academic performance based on keeping a regular daily sleep schedule?

Well, according to:

Andrew Phillips, lead author of the study and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the findings show that irregular sleepers have a delayed release of the sleep hormone melatonin. “Our body contains a circadian clock, which helps to keep time for many biological functions,” he said. “One of the key markers of the circadian clock is melatonin. Usually, at nighttime, our circadian clock sends a signal that tells us to release melatonin overnight.” Source: Study links college students’ grades to sleep schedules

And not only that but new study found psychology students who slept on average 8.5 hours compared to those who slept 7.9 or less during final exam week got better grades:

“If you statistically correct for whether a student was an A, B, C, or D student before their final exam, sleeping 8 hours was associated with a four-point grade boost…” Source to learn more: https://neurosciencenews.com/8-hour-sleep-students-120197

While it doesn’t (necessarily) focus on sleep if you really want to see an improvement in your studying take a look at the Self Improvment studying pack. The free audio-book Unlimited Memory by a chess grandmaster and a printable planner to plot out your overall course and individual study sessions. You can download it free here.

2 — Failing to Repeatedly — Precision Exercise Their “Recall-Muscle”!

Too many students spend too much time reading and re-reading their exam or test preparation materials.

This is a critical error, and so many so-called science-based learning and memory tips fail to clearly point this out or explain it.

For example:

According to a recent worldwide study, only 11% of students actually take “practice tests” as a core learning strategy.

Researchers discovered that frequently taking practices tests is one of the top factors that separate high-performance learners from mediocre learners.

What makes practice testing so valuable?

Well, when it comes to learning for tests and exams, the most critical thing you want to develop is your ability to recall the information you’ve studied — quickly and accurately.

Think of it as exercising your “recall muscle” for exam day. It’s not just really learning and understanding a concept, formula or model but it’s the ability to quickly and effectively pull it out of your memory when you need the information most — during a test.

It’s not just really learning and understanding a concept, formula or model but it’s — during a test. The best way to build a strong, chiseled, high-performance recall muscle is to frequently exercises it.

Get into the habit of creating new questions that force you to think about and process the information you’re learning from a new angle.

Teaching a friend or family member (even yourself in front of a mirror) what you’ve learned that day is another great strategy for strengthening your recall for the material.

Once you’ve taken notes (handwriting causes deeper processing than typing) in class or from studying your assigned texts, take the key, most important points and write them out as questions.

Flashcards are a great high-performance learning tool precisely because they directly exercise your recall muscle. And you can quickly separate the cards that you have the most difficulty remembering the answer for, to really laser focus your learning.

And here’s a powerful bonus tip:

Quiz yourself on your most difficult or challenging review questions about 120 to 90 minutes before bed (then when you do go to bed — listen to this audio-book).

Why?

Because it can cut the time you spend learning by 50% or more not to mention:

Radically improve your memory recall and long term retention rates for that new information — being able to easily recall it weeks and even months later.

More specifically, according to a surprising recent study you might want to try:

Learning intensely in the late afternoon into the evening.

Then enjoy a great night’s sleep of 7–9 hours.

Next — study the same material the very next morning shortly after you wake up.

Here’s the actual procedure that the researchers used:

During two sessions occurring 12 hr apart, 40 participants practiced foreign vocabulary until they reached a perfect level of performance. Half of them learned in the morning and relearned in the evening of a single day. The other half learned in the evening of one day, slept, and then relearned in the morning of the next day. Their retention was assessed 1 week later and 6 months later. We found that interleaving sleep between learning sessions not only reduced the amount of practice needed by half but also ensured much better long-term retention. Sleeping after learning is definitely a good strategy, but sleeping between two learning sessions is a better strategy.

The biggest bad study habit I constantly see people making is not planning. That means not planning their overall year and not planning individual study sessions which is arguably more important.

I mean there’s also leaving things until the last minute but (let’s be honest) we’re not going to be changing that one anytime soon.