How To Permanently Improve Your Study Strategies With One Unusual Trick

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“My grades were miserable,” he was telling me. “But that was the time I started playing basketball. The funny thing is that I didn’t really change my studying all that much. I just spent hours and hours a day watching basketball, learning basketball, and even reading books about it. Virtually everything I focused on, for a while at least, was basketball. Somehow though… my grades popped right up.”

This isn’t all that unusual a story. Sure, the specific activities change but it’s actually rather typical. I’m not just talking about sports here though. Sure, study after study has confirmed that students participating in sports tend to get higher grades but it’s more than that. (Also, those studies often just show a strong correlation. Correlations aren’t all that useful alone.) No matter what “growable” activity a student gets themselves caught up into their grades will regularly improve.

What do I mean by growable? I mean they can improve at it. For example, no one person can watch TV better than another person (well, maybe they can but it’s not something people practice and try to get better at.) Basketball, on the other hand, offers tons of options of gaining new skills. That makes it a “growable” activity. Anything that you consciously try to improve at can work.

Once a student finds an activity that they can grow at, they have the chance to learn something about learning that many students never do. Learning is a process that works best at peak levels of focus. Student’s that enjoy learning something can understand that most of all. By getting significant amounts of practice at serious studying and training, every time they study or train anything they end up farther ahead.

Don’t Give A Hoot

Here’s the sad truth. Most students (probably not you because you’re reading this) care only the slightest bit about school. Sure, they’ll show up because they’ll get scolded if they don’t but their minds are consciously focusing on other things in their life. Occasionally their brain drifts back for a while but to call it focus would be exaggerated. They pretty much just show up.

Who can blame them though?

Every person has different interests and skills. It seems impossible for any school to offer enough methods of teaching to stimulate every students interests. Schools these days hardly even try. (Really, so many schools have plenty of duds for teachers that haven’t got fired in over 20 years of poor teaching. It’s one of my major pet peeves.)

Over those years, if a student happens to come in contact with something they actually care about, it’s usually due to dumb luck.   

How To Work This Into Your Life

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For many students, this is a purely lucky coincidence. They never consciously set out to improve themselves by studying something that they care about. It just happens naturally. In some ways that’s a good thing. In other ways it’s much better to consciously focus on it. Using these three steps you can start from zero and end up learning more about studying than you could have ever imagined before.

It’s a slow process, by the way. It could end up taking months to complete every step. It won’t be months of work but it will require a lot of thinking about what you’re doing.

1. Find Something You Love To Study

This can be the most painful part of the process. Or… ideally… it can be the easiest part.

Do you have any activity that you love to do virtually all the time? Next, ask yourself if there is a clear way to get better or worse at it? As offered before, tv is something you might love to do but can never improve all that much at. (If you find a way to improve at it significantly, perhaps it could still work but I won’t be recommending it.) If you can’t improve at the activity then you need to change your approach.

If you find out you don’t have any activity like that, it’s time you invested a significant portion of your time into looking for it. That’s the time to look at things you wish you could do. Look at everything you admire and spend your time on. Then experiment with those things until you find something you love and can improve at. (By love, I don’t mean you want a career for the rest of your life. I mean, you’re genuinely curious enough to waste a few weeks on it.)

One activity that you might not have considered is video games. They often offer a huge amount of improvement potential. Sure, it’s not the most productive hobby in the world but if you enjoy it then perhaps you can spend your time learning the in and outs of a single game. (Heck, look into some video games and you’ll find thousands of pages of strategy and analysis. They’re often more accessible for improvement than sports.)

2. Study It and Keep Track

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Once you find that activity that you can bury yourself in. Bury yourself into it. Start reading books on the subject. Start practicing it. Start listening to podcasts about it. Start trying to plot and scheme your own strategies. All these activities, when focused on improvement, can seriously improve your grades.

Notice the phrase, when focused on improvement. If you just happen to go to the court to shoot hoops with some friends, you can’t say you’re seriously focused on improvement unless your brain is really invested in it. If you’re telling jokes on the court and not thinking about your screw ups then you’re probably not invested in it.

After you start to see yourself get better at the activity you’re doing, you’re likely going to find your learning gravitating towards a single learning activity. Maybe you’ll find yourself reading a ton of books on the subject. Once you find yourself gravitating towards that one activity. Start taking note of all the important factors surrounding that studying.

For example, where do you study? Is there background noise? How long do you need to study before you feel like you got something? How are you studying? This information is preparing you for the third step.

3. Implement What You’ve Learned

Using the strategy you enjoyed learning what you love, start trying to learn school related subjects. So, if you read biographies outside to learn about basketball, perhaps you should read biographies to learn about history? Perhaps not, you will never know unless you try.

Sometimes, implementing a study strategy that school doesn’t approve of will lead you into studying slightly different material than you’d study for school. In most cases, you shouldn’t worry too much about that. (If you’re an A+ student fighting to get into a top university in the country then worry about that. If you’re happy hitting A’s then I wouldn’t be too concerned.) It’s often better to study slightly off track in a way that you enjoy than to study right on track with something you don’t enjoy. (Because you’re more likely to study off track enjoying yourself longer.) Naturally though, it’s ideal to study school materials directly.

Some of these study strategies will easily fit into your study routine. Others won’t really work. The key is to try them and see what clicks. You’ll never know until you try.

More importantly than all that conscious effort. Your brain is going to be learning how to focus more effectively. That extra focus will offer improvements to your studying whether you use a strategy you learned from this exercise or not. That’s the real secret.

Do you want to study faster than ever? That’s what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives to keep up. Also, check out the ebooks in the sidebar.

Students Guide To Time Management

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“That’s when I take 15 minutes to eat lunch before I get back to studying Spanish until 1:30 when I head to class…” At this point I realized my little task of trying to help him study better was becoming something a whole lot bigger. It was something that I’ve seen a number of students doing and it makes it blatantly obvious the problem isn’t the student’s studying at all.

Some students get this time management bug. It causes them to schedule every minute of their day as closely as possible. While this can cause some short term gains in grades, and efficiency it’s usually a long term mistake. The students that end up creating these impossible to follow schedules usually end up driving themselves crazy until they give up on their schedule.

Schedules are okay. A loose schedule that says, “I’ll do this, then this around this time, and then this if I have time,” is reasonable. A schedule that requires you to stop and start tasks on a particular minute (or even with a 5 minute window,) is ridiculous. Sure, they help manage your time. The problem is that they completely limit your ability to manage your own life.

The Problems With Schedules

You probably already know that “time management” is a popular subject in adult non-fiction. Thousands of books are written on the subject every year. Each one of those books has hundreds of interesting ideas to improve a person’s ability to manage their time. I’ve spent way too many hours reading books on that subject. Despite all the time I invested, I never could feel comfortable on a schedule.

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Schedules are impossible to follow while keeping life in order. If you only have 15 minutes to work on something that requires 20 minutes then you’re given a choice, to keep your schedule and not complete it or to complete it and ignore your schedule. If you ignore your schedule, what’s the point of having the schedule? If you don’t complete what you need to complete then you’re going to have to pay the consequences for keeping your schedule. It’s a painful decision that virtually every major scheduling system requires you to make.

To some extent, it is possible to “kind of” follow your schedule. By nudging and adjusting your schedule daily, you can keep everything in order while adjusting your schedule to fit. That being said, a good portion of your day becomes a process of Frankenstein monstering your schedule from the dead. (“Oh I chopped 15 minutes here so I better plop 15 minutes here later in the day.”)

After a few weeks of following a schedule in that way, most people are driven completely nuts. It’s a mechanical, boring, and painful experience after a few weeks. Humans are not machines. We can’t continuously do the same thing over and over again without some major consequences on our mind. We need variety. We need spontaneity.

When it comes to time management, schedules are not the way to go.

Do You Even Need Time Management?

This is a question I consider fundamental. Time management is useful when you have a whole lot of important things going on in your life. It is significantly less valuable (and possibly harmful) when you only have a few things in your life because instead of letting spontaneity spark productivity, you end up forcing productivity into little time slots.

More often than not, a person looking for time management advice doesn’t need time management advice, he or she needs elimination advice. If you’re worked to the point that you’re unable to manage your time automatically and without stress then you’d do better just giving up doing the things you really don’t care about. Before proceeding with time management, make a list of the big things you need to manage. If you could eliminate one or two of them then time management is not the best solution.

Also, time management is usually a short term solution. Sure, you can learn lessons that can be used throughout your life but strong time management can usually only be held in cycles of high productivity. This comes back to the schedule problem, the longer you keep the schedule, the more difficult it becomes to follow it.

Ensure that any time management you use is temporary to keep yourself motivated. For example, manage your time closely until you get your grades back up to B’s, or manage your time just for the month of finals. These are practical time management goals.

How To Manage Your Time?

Schedule.

Yes. After all that hatred of scheduling I discussed, it’s still the most powerful way to manage your time. That being said, by the previous discussion on time management, I’m hoping you’ll realize you don’t even need time management. You just need what the next section in this article is about. Until then, for all those of you that really need time management:

Set up a schedule and eliminate the unproductive activities in your day or limit them to a small period of time in your day. Considering this schedule is temporary, don’t try and make it practical to follow long term. Instead make it at least a little bit uncomfortable sounding to follow. Cut out as much pleasure time as possible. (Trust me, pleasure time sucks when it’s scheduled anyway.) The less time you spend enjoying yourself, the less time you need to keep the schedule.

For studying, make sure you don’t invest more than a half hour during each study session. The efficiency of learning decreases the longer you’re studying. It’s better to do 2 half hour sessions than 1 full hour session. If you’re studying by the recommendations in this blog regularly, an hour of studying is usually excessive in any number of sessions. That being said, it can be useful if you haven’t been keeping up with a class.

Better Than Time Management

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I hope you choose not to manage your time. It can work short term but it’s kind of like a drug. Eventually, you’re going to hit rock bottom and hate everything about your life. That can easily lead to significantly worse problems than not following a schedule in the first place. There is a much better alternative to most time management problems: Passion management.

Passion management is focusing your life on the things that really matter to you. Instead of trying to make time for everything. Make time for the things that are most important to you. Then let as much of the other stuff as possible go. Instead of trying to get perfect grades in every class, fight to get great grades in the classes you love and okay grades in everything else.

That idea can scare a good percentage of the students thinking about college. It’s usually an irrational fear though. If you’re competing to get into Harvard or MIT then you’re probably right to be concerned. The difference between a top notch, big name college and an average college is a big deal. If you’re worried about not getting into a particular smaller named college then it’s probably a waste of your time. (Most employers don’t know the difference between average universities.)

Anyways, grades are an almost impossible to compete with standard. Points often come down to impossible subjective standards and teacher quirks. Sure, it’s good to get good grades but great and top notch grades require an absurd and usually excessive amount of time investment for the return.

Instead of managing your time. Manage the things you care about. Whenever you realize you don’t really care about something (and you don’t have an objective reason to worry about it,) slide it down on your priorities and spend less time worrying about it. That leaves you with more time to think about the things that matter.

Doing this, you can virtually live your whole life without “managing your time.”

Do you want to know how to study in 15 minutes or less a night? That’s what this blog is about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives. Also, be sure to check out the ebooks for a crash course.

Study One Page A Semester

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What if you never needed to study more than a single page for your classes? How much easier do you think studying would be. It could save you hours and hours every single week. It would leave a ton of free time after studying. That is why I originally used this method in college. I was hoping it would have a dramatic impact on my final grade. Surprisingly, it did something much more interesting than that. I’ll get to that later.

If you’ve read this blog at all then you’re probably familiar with the tons of experiments I’ve done around studying. I’ve studied in more methods than I could name and with each one I did semi-controlled experiments to find to the absolute most effective ones. When I heard someone describing this method I’m discussing here, I got a little excited. It seemed to coincide with some of the most important study factors I was finding. It sounded like a super powerful method. After the experimentation, I found out it was but not how I expected.

So, without further ado, here is the study method:

Throughout each course, keep on extra sheet on lined paper. After each class, or chapter in your textbook, write down the absolute most important things on that single extra sheet of paper. Here’s the important part though: by the end of the semester, you cannot get a second sheet of paper to continue writing this. Just continue to add to this single sheet of paper.

You can get creative to try and write more and more information on that single sheet of paper. That’s actually part of the fun. By the end of the semester, you’re going to have the most important points for the class written on a single sheet of paper. I, personally, was able to study exclusively off of that single sheet of paper without it causing any negative effect on my expected grade.

This might sound a little crazy. I’ll get more into the details later but first, I think it’s worth going over why this method is awesome.

Why It Works

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This study method is a false restriction on the amount of information you need to study. In the average textbook there are hundreds of thousands of potential facts to memorize but in reality, the class probably only requires you to know a handful of them.

When you pick up the textbook to study, or your full class notes, you’re making the task of studying significantly more difficult than it has to be. You not only have to study the information but you’re forced to try and find the most important information to actually learn.

When that most important information is already decided, you don’t have to go through a list of unrequired facts again. That means your studying goes much easier. That does something even more important though.

When you reduce the information that you have to learn, you completely change the way you think about studying. When I was studying for that course, I never once felt overwhelmed having to learn the information on the page. That meant getting myself to study in the first place was unbelievably easy.

This method involves false restrictions on the amount of information you have to learn. That makes it much easier to learn the important stuff. It also does one more super important thing.

It ensure that you actually think about the class outside of class. You’re required to spend at least a few minutes after class narrowing down any important information that you received. That process involves a bit of studying in itself. It’s no surprise this method works because it actually requires you to put in a little bit of studying regularly.

Some Important Tricks

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This method of studying works very well. It can cause a very deep level of learning. While most of the study methods I recommend are quick fixes that don’t offer you “permanent stick-forever” learning. This is one of the methods that can really make information stick. Since you’re going over that same information regularly, it’s natural to remember it. Here is what you need to know and do to make the best of it.

Information Capsules:

At the earliest chance you get, create boxes on that single sheet of paper. Create the number of boxes based on the number of times you plan on updating that single page. If you plan on updating it once a class then make one box per class. (In high school, you may need to focus on one box per week or something.) Make those boxes as big as you can while still fitting them all on the page.

Then, each class, or each time you fill it out, make sure not to require more than the single box.

This ensures that late in the semester you’re not stuck using a tiny section of the paper for a large amount of information.

Single Sheet Is Variable:

If you’re taking an anatomy course or something ridiculously tedious, forget about the one sheet restriction. Some courses, mostly in college but not all college courses, have too much information to fit on a single sheet of paper.

Increase the number of sheets to something a little more reasonable. More reasonable means a couple more sheets, not a whole notebook. Personally, I couldn’t see a course requiring more than 4 sheets for a really good grade (as long as you’re filling in those margins well.)

There is one important note though: Plan the number of sheets in advance and do everything in your power not to increase that amount. The false restriction doesn’t really exist if you don’t actually plan to follow that false restriction. You won’t get half the benefits if you don’t treat your selected page limit seriously.

Teacher’s Emphasis:

In most courses, teachers are virtually giving away the test questions. Teachers have a tendency to lecture for the specific tests. Remember that whenever a teacher spends a significant amount of time on any particular point.

Given the choice of focusing on the textbooks emphasized points and the teacher’s emphasized points, always put the teachers points first.

The Results Of My Experiment

Here is the most interesting thing about this method. It actually taught me the information in the course really really well. While I’m all about using cheap tricks to score high in courses, this study method ended up getting the information to stick really well. That is actually one of the reasons I don’t use this method particularly often…

Here’s the deal: This is a great method for learning new information. That being said, it’s not the most efficient way to score high in a class. That means it doesn’t fit into my 15 minutes a night study strategy.

Are you looking to really understand the material in a course? Then this study method is absolutely great. If you’re looking to score high without investing much energy, this is an okay method. That being said, it requires a relatively large time investment when you add up all the single sheet updates.

Do you want to know how to study in less than 15 minutes a night? That’s what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives for the details. Also, check out the ebooks in the sidebar for a crash course.

Maximize Your Grades With Focus Rotation

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When you're working to study as efficiently as possible, you need to change the way you approach your study time. Theoretically, you could be studying all day. The average high school provides enough textbook pages to make it completely impossible to keep up in all the potential study material. There is no reason you couldn't be studying every free second you have but, of course, that's a complete waste of time when you could  score similar grades studying less than an hour every night.

If you've kept up on this blog then you'll know this by now. Studying longer usually just reduces the efficiency of your studying. By dramatically reducing your study time, you can usually get better results. Doing that introduces a few problems though. First of all, when you're taking 5 or 6 or more classes, how can you possibly study for all of them in a limited study period?

The answer includes two different things.  

From my experience, a portion of the classes you're taking will require almost no studying. (That is, assuming you've kept up with your previous courses and aren't in a particularly challenging program.) That instantly knocks away a portion of your required studying.

The next part of the solution is...

Focus Rotation

Focus rotation is absolutely fundamentally to getting this study routine to work. (Quite frankly, I think it's fundamental to just about anything in life but that's a whole different subject.)

Focus rotation is the strategy you use to decide which courses you're going to be putting your study time and focus into. If you're doing it well then you should be scoring high in virtually every class. If you're doing it poorly then you'll probably be falling behind massively in at least 1 class.

Focus rotation happens naturally in most cases. A student might see a test coming up the next day in one class and decide to study for that test. That being said, naturally (and haphazardly) hopping from study focus to study focus usually just causes more harm than good. Instead focus rotation should be a conscious and planned change between your potential focuses. By doing that, you can learn to actually maximize your results.

The Basics

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Focus rotation isn't all that complicated a subject but it can be tempting to leave it up to chance. You've got set up a focus rotation plan AND actually follow it. The effect this can have on your grade can be dramatic (if you're not naturally good at it.) If you're naturally good at focus rotation then you'll still usually see a small boost.

An example of a focus rotation plan might look like this:

Study for my lowest grade class 3 days a week. Study for my second lowest grade class 2 days a week. Study for my next two lowest grade classes 1 day a week each. Excluding the night before test days when I can study for the class with a test.

Simple. Right? Mostly at least. (I've personally used a study rotation strategy that took up a whole page. These strategies can get pretty complicated.) Notice the focus on lowest grade classes. That is not required but can work well (with a few challenges.) Everyone requires a different strategy. You'll need to play around a little to find yours.

I recommend you come up with your own basic outline for your current classes. Think about it like creating a flow chart for your required studying. Make it so you know which courses you're required to study for every night (or at least most of them.)

There is one important point you need to focus on with your study rotation. Do not make it subjective. If you say something like, “study the course I need to study,” or something up to ridiculous interpretation then you're wasting your time. The key is making only one potential option that leads to the right choice.  Objective factors would include class scores, homework scores, test scores, class difficulty (as rated by anything excluding your gut,) etc. The more objective your rotation, the more you're going to be able to adjust it for perfection.

The Hardest (And Easiest) Part

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The hardest part about setting up a study focus rotation is being honest with yourself.

In designing this plan, you have some incentive to lie to yourself about which classes you need to study for most. That's because, usually, when you don't do well in a class, you also don't really enjoy studying for it. While you're designing this plan, you may want to undercut the required time you'll need to study for the class.

The opposite incentive also exists. If you score well in a course then you probably enjoy studying it a little more. That means you might want to give yourself extra time studying it that you don't actually need.

These incentives can be difficult to ignore completely. People have a tendency to either fall for these incentives or, instead, study the hard classes excessively to make up for those incentives. Do you want to know the secret to dealing with that and balancing the classes study time? Yea... Me too. That's just about figuring out your tendencies.

The great part about that challenge is that when you figure out the solution, you never have to worry about it again.

Most students occasionally have hiccups in their unplanned focus rotations. They might not know which class they should study for. That can lead to five minutes of the student metaphorically (or physically) banging their head on their table trying to figure it out. When you have a focus rotation set in place, you don't need to waste time trying to balance your course load because the equation is already set.

Rebalancing

Oftentimes, this study rotation routine will suddenly not work. Sometimes, courses can introduce piles of extra required studying. To make up for that, you may have to adjust your study focus rotation. That being said, try to update the rotation to include a clause to help you deal with that extra required studying (so you, hopefully, don't have to change your plan again in the future.)

Over a few semesters, your study rotation should almost be set in stone.

Using your objective focus rotation you can maximize your grades in each and every class without wasting a significant among of your time studying things that you don't absolutely have to.

Do you want to know how to study for less than 15 minutes a night while scoring in the top of your class? That is what this blog is all about.  Be sure to follow it and check out the archives to get all the secrets. Also, check out the ebooks for some crash courses in the subject.

Why Hopping On One Leg While Studying Works (And Other Insane Methods Work)

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I spent years experimenting with different study strategies. I would spend hours and hours experimenting with different study strategies and then test the results. Some of those experiments were practical. For example, I spent over a week experimenting with listening to music while studying. (In case you're curious, it didn't work well.) Other of those experiments would seem downright stupid.

For example, I spent a couple days experimenting with hopping on one leg while attempting to study.

While it's a bit of a tangent from my point, I feel I need to explain why I'd experiment with something so ridiculous. I was including that experiment in a larger concept I was working on. I wanted to know how the activation of different muscles changed the effectiveness of studying. (It helps but that's a story for another day.)

That's not the only crazy experiment I've tried before though. (It's not even close to the only one.) I even spent a day trying to study for my history class in a language I barely understood. Again, this was part of a larger series of experiments that I was working on.

While I did tons of crazy experiments that seem completely unrelated to each other, there was one strange fact that most of these had in common. The crazier the experiment seemed, the better it's results seemed to be.

Interruption-Proof

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It can seem odd that doing things that seem completely stupid can increase your ability to study but I have a theory on it based on some solid science.

Imagine a person talking loudly in the background while you're trying to study. You're just trying to get ready for a test but some jerk feels the need to virtually yell everything he or she says. This is the kind of noise that can drive you nuts while you're trying to study. This is the kind of interruption that I'm always hounding on getting rid of in this blog. It can completely ruin every ounce of focus you invest.

Most of my crazy study experiments can seem similar this person talking loudly. Hopping on one leg is an interruption for your brain. Every time you go up into the air your brain has to focus all of your stabilization muscles for the impact. With my studying in another language, it would seem that having to translate words from the language I barely knew, into the language I knew would be another interruption. They are interruptions but they're just a different kind.

Imagine listening to an air conditioner while you're trying to study. In fact, imagine listening to a super loud air conditioner. How much of a disruption from studying is that? I could see you thinking either way on this one but the experiments suggest a clear answer. White noise, like the kind you'll hear from an air conditioner doesn't hurt your ability to study. (In some cases, it's been shown to help because it blocks out non-white noise.)

Your brain is designed to be distracted by anything unusual. It's not designed to be distracted by something repetitive and boring. The repetitive and odd can actually help you focus even better.

Interruptions That Improve Focus

When you're studying, the hardest part is getting your brain into your most efficient level of focus. The brain is a fickle device when you're not utilizing it properly. To truly understand this, you need to train yourself for year just to achieve your highest levels of focus. That's where some of my odd experiments come in.

Hopping on one leg while you're trying to study forces your whole brain and body into the studying. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't get distracted from studying. To maintain the pace I used, I needed to keep my brain completely invested in studying and not falling over. I couldn't suddenly think about the show I watched last night or I'd fall on my... Moving on...

The language translation studying forced my whole brain into the studying.

Of course, each of these individual study methods had other mechanisms at work but fundamentally, they could have helped just because they forced me to invest more of my excess energy into the study time.

Should You Hop On One Leg To Study?

No.

There is one fundamental flaw with all of these strange study strategies. Eventually, your brain and body gets used to the unusual factors about studying. At that point, you're brain doesn't need to focus quite as hard at it. That means the focus advantage deteriorates. (Anyway, you look like an idiot hopping on one leg to study.)

To make it even worse, your brain gets used to the excess stimulation while you're using one of these strange study methods. That will ultimately makes it more difficult to study when you're just sitting in a chair trying to learn it. (Your brain wants to be hopping while studying. That distracts you.)

Why Does This Matter?

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I personally gave up playing with silly sounding study strategies. Ultimately, I realized most of them may improve studying but they take a whole lot of management to constantly cycle through. I would have to change my study session nearly every week to keep studying at a high efficiency. And honestly, the 5% boost I was averaging wasn't worth the stress. Instead I figured it would be much better just to focus on improving my brain's focus without the extra tricks.

Through all these personal experiments I learned one important thing.

The human brain is awesome.

I'm serious.

While studying, it can sometimes feel like we've got a brick bonking around in our skull where our brain should be, but we still have the most complex machines around. The human brain is designed to learn information pretty darn well. If you feel like you're not learning something that you need to be learning then trust your brain to tell you what to do.

If you don't feel like you're learning something. You're probably not. If you're not learning with the strategy you're trying then it's time to change strategies. Stand up. Think. And do something new.

You may not understand exactly how the cogs turn in the mill of your noggin but all you need to do is trust that they're spinning in the right direction and let them turn.

Would you like to have the tricks your teachers don't tell you about how to study faster? That's what this blog is all about. Be sure to check out the archives. (And the books if you're in a hurry to learn it all.)

11 Secrets To Making Your Essays Unbelievably Awesome

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Any class that requires essay writing can be a massive time investment for the average student. Considering this blog is all about reducing time investment while increasing grades, this is a subject that's essential to understand. With many classes, essay writing is pretty much the only form of studying required. (Yes. I'd argue essay writing is just another form of studying.)

Early in my high school years I struggled at essay writing. I struggled, not because I was a bad writer, in fact, I got great grades (not that I think that should be the only criteria,) I struggled because a single page essay could take me a whole night to write. I had to invest a ridiculous amount of time to produce a quality essay.

Eventually it hit me. Of all that time it took to write a good essay, less than a quarter of it was actually used for writing the essay content. Most of that time was me staring at the page thinking about how hopeless this essay was. I could barely think of the next word I had to write. A simple full-page would end up draining me of all the energy I had.

After a short period of giving up on trying hard for essays, eventually I started to learn some of the basic formulas to creating a great essay without all the writers block and preparation.

Using these 11 strategies will change the way you write. If you're following them closely enough they can increase your grades dramatically while you work less than ever.

(While basic mechanics of writing are essential, they're barely mentioned in these tips. If you genuinely don't have the basics down then these tips will help but only as much as you can follow the basic mechanics of writing. )

1. Unforgettable

Don't try to look for a great idea to write about.

Instead look for something unforgettable to write about. It doesn't matter if it seems a little like a stupid idea. (The better a writer you are, the more stupid an idea you can get away with while still scoring high. )

Unforgettable is key. The average teacher does not want to give a great score to a student with a boring essay. They're human beings too. If they find themselves thinking deeply about your essay then you're winning. You've just made your essay stand out above 90% of the essays in the class.

2. Enjoy Writing. (Enjoy Reading It.)

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I know. This title alone sounds a little irritating but stick with me for a moment.

Is there anything you actually enjoy writing? If not, is there anything you actually enjoy reading? If you deliver a strong no to both these statements then this tip won't help but for the rest of you, it can blow your mind.

Forget about writing what the teacher wants you to write. That is a never ending road to writers block. Instead write it in a way that you enjoy writing or reading. You can always adjust it to fit the teachers needs later (or screw the teacher's desires and enjoy your good essay.)

If you enjoy writing something or you enjoy reading it, you've written something worth writing.

The average student gets caught up writing something they hate. Then, of course, when they review what they wrote, they still hate it. That kills their ability to write in the first place. Just write what you love from the start and you'll have a much better paper to work with in the future.

3. Start With A Hook In Mind

While I recommend having a general outline before you start writing, I've regularly started without one and created good papers. There is one thing that you absolutely should not start writing without: a hook. (Don't be too picky about how good it is.)

A hook is something that makes the reader feel the compulsive need to read on. It's kind of like a cliffhanger at the end of a television show. Even if you hate the television show with the cliffhanger, you still end up curious of what's going to happen. Of course, in your essays you're not going to want to leave the ending out (unless you planned some interesting metaphor or something.)

There are a ton of ways to write a hook. One of the quickest ways to make a hook is to say something that sounds absurd and attempt prove it. Depending on the kind of essay you need to write, you will need to adjust this accordingly.

4. Fast Is Natural

Many students struggle to write because they write too damn slow.

It's a really simple problem that plagues hordes of people. The slower you write, the more time you spend reviewing what you're writing. As you review what you wrote or are planning to write, you're trying to work out the details when you don't even have the basic plan finished. Write first. Review after.

Constant reviewing ends up with most students creating boring articles that have absolutely no natural flow to them.

Write faster. Type as fast as you can possibly type. Accept that you're going to have to change it later. That's going to leave your essay sounding more natural. It's also going to be written in much less time.

One final bonus: it gives you a strong incentive to review your work later (after you know the whole plan of the paper.)

5. Pimp My Essay (Thesaurus)

This is a tip that you've probably heard before but there are a few important notes that are rarely mentioned.

When you're writing your essay on a computer, within seconds you can check a thesaurus for a better word using your word processor. While you're reviewing your essay, use that thesaurus to find better word choices. Every time you find a word that you think can be improved on, use the thesaurus.

That being said, never replace a word in your paper with a word in the thesaurus without being 100% sure it's the better word. If you're not super careful then your essay may end up looking like a verbose quantity of excrement.

6. Check The Grammar (And The Obvious)

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You aren't a good writer until you use good grammar. No, you don't have to be writing perfect grammar (this is particularly true if you get to write a blog,) but you need to make sure your grammar isn't interrupting the average person's ability to read your work.

In most cases, this can best be done getting a third party to review your work before submitting it.

Of course, don't forget spelling. One spelling mistake isn't so bad but it can really ruin the flow of an otherwise perfect piece of writing.

7. Read It!

Seriously! This is obvious but few students actually do it. I know when you finish writing you're usually stressed and couldn't care less. If you followed these strategies then that shouldn't be happening. You should be ready to read your article after you write it. If you don't, you're passing up on some of the easiest points you have.

8. Borderline Bad

Trust where your writing takes you.

If you're writing an essay and you realize you're saying something that can be interpreted badly (or sounds bad,) that doesn't necessarily mean you should stop. If you're staying on topic and writing well, you can write controversial stuff and still get a great grade. That being said, I wouldn't recommend going too far down into the societal hate category but don't be afraid of getting on the border of inappropriate.

Some of your highest grades may come from some of the most controversial stuff you write. (It actually helps in the unforgettable aspect.)

9. Start From Scratch

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With this strategy, occasionally, you're going to write a crappy essay. That's alright.

Don't waste your life polishing a turd. If you think an essay you wrote is hopeless and you have the time to write a new one then write a new one. It's worth it.

This might sound crazy but it's essential to the strategy. Once I started implementing just a few of these strategies into my essay writing, I was able to write better essays in less than a quarter of the time I previously invested. That being said, occasionally, I would write crap and need to spend another quarter of the time to get a new essay.

If you're not willing to trash your crap then you're not utilizing this strategy as efficiently as you could.

Heck, usually your second essay goes much smoother because you're all warmed up.

10. Purpose

No matter what you're writing, always have a purpose.

With most non-fiction essays, it's easy to have a purpose. You propose a thesis and you provide the evidence.

Anecdotal essays are where most students forget to add in a purpose. If you're telling a story then know what point you're trying to emphasize and use the space you have to emphasize it. It can be very difficult in practice.

If you write a story about a family repeatedly screwing over a child in different ways, you can try to prove the point, “family isn't all it's cracked up to be.” (Of course, don't say it that obviously though.) You can emphasize that point by repeatedly having the characters discuss how wonderful family is (all while family is causing one person to suffer.)

Take note of the slightly controversial tone of that story. That helps hit a number of these strategies.

11. Make It Yours

Fundamentally, forget about writing for your teacher. It's just going to drive you nuts.

Write as if this is an essay you want to write for you. The more you focus on pleasing someone else, the more you're going to run in circles trying to figure out how to please them. Guess what? You aren't your teacher. No matter how hard you try, you're not going to be able to please them completely. For all you know, the teacher will wildly disagree with anything you write.

The only choice you have is to write something that you can derive pleasure from. While you should try to fit the basic assignment criteria, don't be afraid to push it closer to something you care about. Perhaps that can lose you a few points but it can improve the writing so significantly that those couple points will mean nothing.

Do you want to know how you can study in less time with better results? Be sure to follow this blog. If you enjoyed this article then please share it to help spread the message.

Don't Be Well Rounded

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The classic concept of a good student is kind of a cliché. I'm sure you can imagine the average “good student's” grades in some pretty clear details. The “good student” is the kind of student that gets above average grades in every subject. I'm sure you've met at least a few of these people in your life but what about you?

Are you a good student? Do you thrive equally in all of your classes?

Sure, there are a few good students reading this article but the vast majority of people reading this aren't that easy to define as good students. If you're like most people, you're a great student in some subjects but there are other areas that you struggle to get through. This is natural.

In typical schooling children are taught that it's wrong to be deficient in some areas and strong in other areas. No matter how strong a student is in English, they'll never graduate high school if they don't figure out math. This just trains people to stop training the areas they're experts in and focus on training what they're bad at.

Most schools focus on trying to make all students into these typical “good students.”

While you can learn to work in that framework, be sure to understand the problems that come with it.

Exceptional Gets Appreciated

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People who are equally good at everything are in a really tough spot in life. Schools are trained to make students like this. That means, the competition is quite fierce. If you're going to go into any academically strong college around the world, you're going to find tons of people that were above average at every subject. They're not special.

The only people who get jobs from exceptionally well-rounded grades are those students that can get better grades than 95% of their competition. Those are the students that get recruited to big positions in life. Every other well-rounded student is still stuck trying to compete for normal jobs. There is a major problem with that though.

Being equally good in multiple fields of study means you need to sacrifice expertise in specific fields of study. Students that don't get those exceptional opportunities for being one of the best suddenly have to compete with students that are exceptionally good at specific fields of study. If you're a company recruiting for an important job, you don't necessarily care if the person you're hiring is good at some unrelated subject. You certainly care that the person hired is great at one particular subject.

While the best opportunities go to the people that are great at everything, the competition is ridiculous. The next best (and sometimes better) opportunities tend to go to people exceptionally good at specific things. The competition is also much less intense. The students that fail to become exceptional because they tried too hard to be well-rounded end up losing out.

Unless you're exceptionally gifted, do not try and compete in exceptional well-roundedness.

This is life advice. It's not necessarily for all school opportunities...

School Loves Average

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While all this is great for everyday life. School isn't so simple.

School is not a natural environment.

No matter how good you get at one particular subject, you'll never be allowed to move forward in schooling without propelling in the other subjects. This can make it challenging because no two people have the same strengths.

Not only does school encourage a lack of focus for your education. It downright requires it. That means, unfortunately, you must find the appropriate compromise for yourself to continue to move forward in school.

You may love writing more than anything else in the world but you must be willing to leave that behind to keep learning other subjects. To understand the true horror of this situation, consider the fact that most students are so dominant in one particular subject that they virtually can't spend any of their time on that one subject they actually care about because they're so occupied by keeping up in other subjects. (That's a long sentence but it's making an important point.)

In the writing example, that would mean you can't spend any more than the minimum time writing because you need to spend all of your free time worrying about other subject you don't really care about.

Is this bad? Yes. Definitely. That being said, don't live in the negatives. By acknowledging the problem you are in the perfect position to find the solution.

Focus On Exceptional

In school, you're forced to maintain some minimal grade in every subject. You are not required to excel in them. (That being said, most people can be above average academically with just a little time and a few good decisions that's what this site is all about. Fundamentally though, remember that you're making your decisions. You're the one in control.)

There is a loophole with school's educational plan that you need to be aware of though. You don't actually have to be good at a subject to get a good grade in that subject. And, no, I'm not referring to cheating. I'm referring to learning a few key, subject independent strategies that can increase your grades dramatically without needing more time invested. That being said, many of these strategies don't really increase your competency in the subject.

I have hundreds of examples of this throughout my old blog posts but to get you started, here are a few ideas:

By properly understanding and adjusting to your syllabus in a course, you can easily focus your energy on only the areas that provide a major impact on your grades. For example, if homework is 85% of your grade then be sure to do it. If tests are 85% of your grade then homework might be worth skipping.

By using last minute short-term memory study strategies, you can remember large amounts of information for a test while investing less than 20 minutes into studying. That can instantly prop up your grade while studying less.

Most school require certain amounts of attendance to class. One easy way to not invest more time is to actually use the time in class to pay attention. I know it's hard. You don't have to if you don't want to but you can certainly save yourself time outside of class if you pay attention.

You can even learn to read faster. Most people can consciously increase their reading speeds by huge amounts with hardly any practice. This increased reading speed can even help comprehension because you're a whole lot less bored while reading.

Strategies like these ones allow you to become an exceptional student. You're not exceptional because you learn what they want you to learn well. You're exceptional because you know how to play the game they're forcing you into.

Once you learn to use strategies like these, you'll have plenty of time to focus on doing the things that really make you happy. These are the subjects that you can become exceptional at.

When you become exceptional at something, the world will treat you well. Sure, you may not know enough to master any other subject but the truth is, you'll never have to.

While in school, it can help to look like a good student but in life, don't be a good student. Be damn good at something.

If you want to know the secrets to learning faster than ever, be sure to check out some of the old articles on this blog. Also follow this blog because there are some massive tips coming soon that you won't want to miss.