We’re going to skip past what properly really means in this context (since people shouldn’t necessarily study the same way as others do) and focus on what you can do if you don’t feel like you study properly.

If you do not think you are studying properly you need to up your game. This is important to you but you are feeling like you are either not living up to what you could do or living up to what you must do to get the life that you want.

Life coach, Lukas Schwekendiek, had this advice to share:

1. Plan out as much as you can. The best first step is to get busy. We all know the famous saying “Either get busy living or get busy dying” and this holds true for every area of life.

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.

Make your schedule so packed with activity that you do not have time for anything outside of it. DISCLAIMER: That does NOT mean to pack your schedule full with study time or productive activities. You need your rest and relaxation as well, but plan it!

A packed schedule will get you to do what you want, when you want, for whatever reason you want. This is your schedule, your plan, and you are free to make it the way you desire. But having it will remove distractions and stop you from wasting too much time.

2. Use your sleep. Psychologists have discovered that you remember more if you sleep on it. During Rapid Eye Movement Sleep, or REM sleep, our brain transfers information in our short-term memory to our long-term memory.

And studies have shown that if you take a longer nap, or go to sleep right after studying, you will remember more for a longer time. The naps should be at least 90 minutes long to get you through a full sleep cycle.

3. Pull Distracting thoughts out of your mind. Does it ever happen to you that you study and during that time you think about all the other things you have to do? That you still need to buy milk, still need to pick up some money from the bank or pay a bill?

If so, then you know that while these thoughts are circulating in your mind you will not be able to concentrate. You say you will do it later and then, 5 minutes later, your brain goes “Hey… It’s later… Are you gonna buy that milk now?” and you get distracted again…

Start writing down these thoughts and plan a time during which you will do it. I keep a notepad next to me while I work so I can write down anything that I still need to do. I will also think of an exact date and time to do it, so whenever the thought pops back up I just need to look at the notepad, see the task written there and feel as if it were accomplished already.

4. Focus on the Textbook. Textbooks are the bibles of any course. Your professors base their curriculum on one or two textbooks and try to align all the material in the course with it.

If you know what textbook it is, then all you need to do is focus on that book. Worst case scenario, you get a question wrong on the test because you wrote what the book said and not what the professor said, so you reference the book and probably get it fixed.

The best way to think of your course or class is as a summary of the textbook. And the most effective way to study is to read the chapter that is going to be discussed next time in class, then go to class to ask your questions, and then read the chapter again.

This will give you the most benefit and you will remember the most out of any other study habits.

5. When you read, focus on the keywords. Keywords are concepts, or vocabulary that is crucial to understanding the chapter and content. The paragraphs surrounding the keywords plus the paragraph the keyword is in are the ones that are most important.

If you are crunched for time then only read those paragraphs and ignore the rest. You will get 80% of value from just these few paragraphs every time.

If you can understand the keyword fully, and know how it connects to the main topics, you will have grasped most of the chapter.

6. Only focus on 15 minutes of studying at a time. Do not look at the next 8 hours that you want to study. Instead, just look at what you want to achieve in the next 15 minutes.

Do you think you can answer 3 questions in 15 minutes? Read 3 paragraphs? Or maybe summarize the chapter in your own words?

The reason this is so important is that when you think about the next 8 hours you instantly get discouraged. No one wants to work hard for the next 8 hours. That seems like way too much to handle, and it is.

But everyone can do 15 minutes of work. That is incredibly easy. After the 15 minutes focus on the next 15 minutes, and so on and so forth. And when you realize you need a break, then focus on taking a break for these 15 minutes! ;)

This Pomodoro technique has been hailed for a while as one of the best ways to improve your productivity (relatively) easily. The trick to it is you need to really be willing to allow yourself to stop after 15 minutes and not just pretend with yourself that you can stop after that.

When you start seeing short productive spurts it’s a lot easier than you might think to keep them going throughout a longer (and more productive) study session.

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