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I spend a lot of time harping on one
particular factor about studying. There are thousands of different
ways that you can study more effectively. You can take a little
caffeine. You can quit reading and start recalling. You can make
studying a habit. All of these things can improve your studying but
they rely on one fundamental skill.
This single skill can completely turn
your grade upside down. If you lose it completely then your grades
would collapse. If you could master it, you'd score perfect on
virtually everything. It's a skill that can be developed and improved
on. You may not be able to change your natural ability to learn. Some
people are gifted at remembering things and others struggle with it.
This skill is something you can actually do to improve how
effectively you end up using your natural skills.
I'm building this skill up a lot for a
reason. When most people just hear about this skill they zone out.
It's been discussed before but most people casually dismiss it
because it's not always the easiest skill to develop. In fact, it
tends to go against human nature but it's a skill that's worth
improving on. That skill is focus.
Getting focused is not just sitting
down without distractions. It's getting “in the zone.” The
feeling is almost euphoric when you're doing it right. In the moment,
there is nothing that your brain would rather be doing than studying
because it's tunnel focused on the study material. If you're not in
that state absolutely every time that you study then you're not
studying at your peak.
It is possible to study that
effectively every single time but it's difficult.
The Outside Prep
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Most of the study advice I give on this
website is meant to help with this single skill. It is hard to get
yourself into the deepest levels of focus. Some of the easiest ways
to help push yourself in the right direction have nothing to do with
studying.
On this site, I regularly recommend
making studying a habit. Focus is one of the benefits of having a
study habit. When you study at the same time every day, your brain
learns that focus is required during that time. That means, you're
brain starts releasing the required chemicals at the same time daily.
I also recommend eliminating
distractions. Distractions absolutely kill any chance of a person
getting “in the zone.” Whenever the phone vibrates, your brain is
going to leave its peak studying state. This is another one of the
outside focus preparation possibilities.
The best things you can do to improve
your focus involve things that have little or nothing to do with
mental discipline. That's important to understand.
One of the major reasons people don't
respond when they hear about the importance of focus is that they
don't believe they can change it. It's very difficult to change
internal habits like that but they can be pushed in the right
direction by small outside prep.
There are many things you can do
outside of your mind to help improve your focus. Focus on improving
those factors at first.
How To Reach The Inside
You can remove all the distractions in
the world but it doesn't do any good if you're still too busy
thinking about the party you want to go to later while you should be
studying. If you're not careful you could end up priming your brain
to focus effectively on completely unimportant stuff instead of
studying. I'm sure that's not the goal but here's a fun fact...
If you are getting distracted from
studying then your brain thinks that unimportant stuff is more
important than studying.
Really... I know you might consciously
think that you need to study but your brain is way more efficient
than having to think about it. Your brain is trained to focus on what
is important. Just imagine if you were standing in the middle of an
open field during a thunder storm. Do you think you could effectively
study while there was a chance you could get struck by lighting?
Probably not. Even if, statistically, you're probably not going to
get struck and you are statistically going to have the test, your
brain still has it's priority set.
If you're not thinking about studying
while trying to study then studying isn't important enough for you.
(Or something is too important to study while thinking about. Get out
of that field in the lighting storm. Then study.) You need to figure
out why you're not treating studying as important. I'll go over some
general ideas but be sure to read some of my previous articles to
understand them deeper.
Think about how embarrassing it would
be to get a poor grade. It's not the most effective way but it can be
powerful. Think about the teacher making a bunch of big red marks all
over your test while they have a disgusted look on their face.
Imagine how your parents will react. The worst part isn't that they
might punish you, the worst part is thinking about how they might end
up worrying about you being stupid. Think about failure in the most
painful way possible. Your brain will have no choice but to focus on
studying after that.
Another more effective but slightly
more difficult method is to figure out why the information you're
learning is absolutely awesome. Really... no matter what you're
learning, someone in the world is enthusiastic about the subject.
Figure out why they're enthusiastic and think about it. If you're
studying history then think about how amazing it is that these are
real people that can help you learn real lessons about life. If it's
anatomy then think about the muscles you're studying being all over
your body. Whatever you naturally want to focus on, your brain will
lead you to. Make that the focus of your study and you can see
amazing results.
Kill The Monkey Brain
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If you've followed the first two pieces
of advice in this article then you should not be distracted too much.
There should be no external distractions. Internally, you should
naturally be pulling to learn the subject. In most cases, you
shouldn't need to use this final piece of advice. That being said,
every once in a while you may need to use this strategy.
When I've gone a few days with a little
too little sleep, I usually suffer from what I call, “monkey
brain.” No matter how hard I try to focus, my brain keeps bouncing,
swinging around, and throwing feces all over the place (no I don't
know how that metaphor works but I'm sure you can come up with
something.)
There are times when it's fun to have a
monkey bouncing around but not when you're trying to study. I'm sorry
PETA but this is a monkey in my brain that I can't let live. When you
let it live, it carries over to your next study session, even if you
get the sleep you need. Whenever you find that monkey bouncing
around, you need to stop it.
When you catch yourself going off topic
you need to stop thinking completely as fast as possible. Just shut
down. Tell yourself that you are officially being distracted. Accept
that. Take a few breaths if you have to. Tell yourself why you need
to study. After a minute of thinking about it, get back to studying.
If the monkey isn't drowned by your good reason to study yet then
close your eyes and repeat.
DO NOT STUDY WHEN IT'S BOUNCING AROUND.
Fight it until it goes away. When you accept the monkey bouncing
around as a natural part of studying you effectively kill any future
studying you do. Studying requires focus to work effectively.
Anything less is a waste of time.
Focus can make the difference between
an hour of study wasted or an hour of study material mastered in ten
minutes. I'm not exaggerating the slightest bit. The reason some
students have to study for hours is not because studying requires
hours. It's because studying requires intense focus. If you're
studying right then you shouldn't need to study for hours a night. A
few minutes will usually do.
Do not dismiss this. This is something
that you can do something about. The most important part is that your
conscious about how well your focused. Pay attention and you can make
yourself amazing at focusing fast.
Do you want to learn the secrets about
studying fast? Follow this blog and our twitter to get all the advice
you need.
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