The Pursuit Of Knowledge Versus "Grades"

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Knowledge and good grades are not the same goal. They aren’t completely opposed to one another but they’re definitely skewed a little away from each other. Just because you have a ton of knowledge on a subject, it doesn’t mean you’ll get good grades in a class about it. Just because you get good grades it doesn’t mean you have a ton of knowledge on the subject. You need to keep that in mind with every decision you make in school.

Factors come into play that virtually no one discusses. You can get grades best on showing up to class, dumb luck, concentrated studying, smart memorization tricks, sleeping with the teacher, or cheating. Grades are not knowledge. Grades mean virtually nothing when you don’t factor in the methods used to achieve those grades.

You can’t become knowledgeable by cheating the system. Well… maybe you can. Using cheap memory tricks can help things lock in your brain easier than ever but hacking your brain chemistry isn’t exactly a problem in most cases. Knowledge is the end. Grades are just one slightly related means to achieve that end.

In Pursuit Of Grades

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I recommend focusing on grades for students. Forget about acquiring significant amounts of knowledge. Students are judged based on the grades they get. Not based on the knowledge they have. By making intelligent study decisions, a student can learn everything required for a course in relatively no time at all.

Using prioritization methods a student can focus their energy on the information that really matters and spend very little energy to do it. Energy doesn’t have to be wasted on low value projects.

Teachers are constantly benefiting the students that chose this path through school. Many teachers virtually hand the questions of the tests to their students before the test in test prep material. Virtually every teacher focuses their class time significantly on the testing material. Teachers encourage this focus because it helps them too. (Who cares if you know more than the average student in a subject if you don’t get a good grades on the test? The teachers will look bad in that situation.) The whole system is designed to focus around grades.

Is that a good thing? Who cares!? That’s irrelevant to your success or failure. Using these biases in teachers you can study for minutes every night and get a good grade in virtually any course. Sure, the system may be stupid but at no point do you have the reasonable option to not participate in it (until college but college the system tends to be slightly less stupid too.)

By focusing on grades you get one less obvious advantage over other students.

In Pursuit Of Knowledge

Knowledge is something that requires emotional investment. In school, going after good grades is your emotional investment. Parents and teachers guilt and scare you into getting good grades. “What are you gonna grow up to be a bum?” “I’m so disappointed in you!”

Sure, it works to some extent but as you can imagine, it’s not the most motivational way to go on the pursuit of knowledge. It’s just emotional blackmail. By pursuing good grades without the knowledge goal, it offers you a significant amount of extra time. Suddenly, you won’t have to study for hours a night because you’ll have great grades already. Any extra studying would be the pursuit of knowledge.

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After you free that extra time out you can do virtually anything with your time. You can slack. You can watch a movie. You can talk to friends. All that is an option but there is a problem with those decisions. They’re a bit shallow and boring after a while. If you’re the kind of student that would study hours a night to get good grades, you’re probably going to pull your hair out slacking off. This is the perfect time to spend actually pursuing knowledge.

I know… Why pursue knowledge when you can veg out? That’s your natural thought but once you free this time up for a while, you’re going to feel slightly differently. You’ll likely find yourself curious about certain things. That means you’ll look them up. You might even start to study a few subjects completely unrelated to school.

The great thing about this pursuit is that it’s your curiosity driving you instead of your fear and guilt. You’re looking to learn things that you actually care about. That is how you actually try to learn something effectively. Instead of fighting to force yourself to remember something, you’ll find yourself just not forgetting it.

Making Your Distinction

The dreamer in me says, “never sacrifice knowledge for grades.” I believe that is probably the preferable way to leave. I sometimes wonder if I chose to drop out and focus on my own studies if I’d be better off. The practical part of me says, “You’re F’in nuts. Get good grades and play the game dumbass!”

If you’re the kind of student that focuses on actually learning the information your classes teach you then this can be an awfully strange distinction to make. It can take you a very long time to completely accept it. It can feel like knowledge and grades are linked but it’s a much looser connection than most students even imagine.

In fact, just look at some of the syllabuses for your class. Look for the section that shows a percentage of your grade for each aspect of the course (for example, 10% homework, 40% tests, etc.) Get a little creative and see if you can find any little tricks for improving your grades without increasing your effort. Or, at the very least, not affect your grade while decreasing your effort.

Think about the example I gave where 10% of your grade is based on homework. In that case, you could skip all your homework assignments and still get an A- in the course (90, depending on grading style.) Is that smart? I don’t know. Does the teacher give hundreds of hours of homework, maybe? That’s a class specific question. Usually the smart decision is a simple balance with most of your energy going towards the valuable factors. (If you’re going to skip anything in that example, homework probably is one of the better things to skip.)

Prioritization like that is one of the most powerful ways you can focus on improving your grades without increasing your knowledge.

Once you learn that skill remember this though. School doesn’t value knowledge. It values grades. Life (past college) doesn’t value grades, it values knowledge. Sure, getting good grades without more studying is a skill in itself but it has limited value outside of fields dealing with the government and contracts. (“Oh look… if we reallocate funds here it will be tax deductible.”) You want to have knowledge.

You don’t have to learn what school is teaching you but be damn sure to learn a little about something.

Do you want to know how to get good grades without the effort? That’s what this blog is about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives to learn more. Also, there are three ebooks in the sidebar that you might be interested in reading.

You Won't Believe How Much Speed Can Improve Your Studying

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The slow and steady approach is the most common approach to studying. People are taught from childhood to sit down with their textbooks and really try to digest the information. To this day, many teachers recommend you study hours a night for all of your classes. This insanity has been disproved time and time again empirically but they still insist it's the best way to study.

First of all, studying for long sessions of time is an instant killer of results. The efficiency of your studying decreases consistently over that period of time. By the end of your hour plus study session, your brain isn't going to be retaining a bit of information.

Second of all, no one wants to study for hours straight. That instantly means that 95% of people won't actually follow through with their studying. Sure, studying hours a night may work okay but it's not going to end up actually being hours a night. It's going to end up hours of studying whenever you can work up the discipline to actually start.

Third of all: Really, even if you sit down to study for hours. Your brain is not going to be thinking about studying 90% of that time. You'll spend a minute studying before getting distracted with stupid pointless thoughts like, “Ughhh I've gotta' be here another hour...” Actually, that's best case scenario. Worst case scenario you're going to end up daydreaming the study session away thinking about the person with the dreamy eyes in math class. You'll barely even read a page for hours.

Fourth of all: Phew... Maybe I should just move onto the better alternative.

How To Do Something “Impossible”

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There is a basic concept that's not true but I give it a whole lot of respect. It's the idea that you can't control your emotions. For the most part, it's true. You can, however, easily steer your emotions in the direction you want them to go. Your brain is a complex organ with more going on than you could possibly control. That's where focus and attention comes in. You may not control your focus completely but you can steer it in the right direction.

Just about every student struggles with focus at some point in their studying. Not being able to focus on studying is just as bad as not being able to discipline yourself to start studying. Hell, what's the point of pretending to study with a textbook in front of you (learning nothing) when you could be having fun (still learning nothing).

Focus is fundamentally based on emotions.

Your brain focuses on what is most important to it. Usually emotions define what is most important to the brain. Like I said before, for the most part, you can't control your emotions. You can only steer them.

When it comes to focus on studying, how can you steer your brain in that direction?

Speed Demon

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Have you ever watched the Winter Olympic sport called Skeleton?

It's pretty much a death wish where athletes ride head first down a iced path at over 80 mph. Imagine you're an athlete about to do the skeleton. (Or if you have a fast paced sport you love, imagine that.) In this situation, you don't have to come up with tricks to force yourself into focusing. You're going to focus. If you don't focus then there will be some serious consequences. Your brain isn't stupid. You're not going to be thinking about wanting a bagel or something while about to descend down the hill. You're going to put all of your attention on what you need to do.

Studying should be done kind of like that.

No, you don't need to go sledding with your textbook. My point is, you've got to change the way you think about studying. It is not a long and boring session. It is a quick and powerful moment. How do you do that?

Study fast. Read the words on the page faster than you're comfortable. Test yourself faster than you're comfortable. Answer questions so fast that you do it on instinct more than thinking. Set the goal of learning more information than you think you're capable of learning in a single short session.

Instantly, you can finagle your brain into a state of near complete focus on what you need to do. That is, as long as you don't blatantly cheat this system.

After you finish studying fast, you can't let yourself have a do over. Let's say you set a fifteen minute study session. If, after that fifteen minutes of high speed studying , you feel like you didn't get it all, DO NOT TRY TO STUDY MORE that night. It's over.

That's what makes this study strategy so powerful. At first, this is going to be painful because you're intentionally going to be failing to learn information but it's going to train your brain to focus better and better over time because, like in skeleton, you have only one chance to succeed or fail. Your brain will learn how to succeed after a while.

The Other Advantages

Speed's number one advantage in studying is focus. It's an effect that can improve your grades dramatically. That being said, speed has a whole slew of other advantages for studying.

First of all, you suddenly have much fewer excuses not to study. Since you're studying faster, you can study for less time. I often recommend less than 15 minutes a night. That means it's easier to start studying in the first place. You can tell yourself, “It's only 15 minutes.” It also means you're less likely to skip is based on other obligations. That means a more consistent and effective study session.

Since you'll no longer dread studying quite as much, it's also a more enjoyable experience.

The best part of all is that you'll have more time to do the things you enjoy. You'll spend less time worrying about getting good grades in your classes. That extra time can be used to improve your grades more or maybe just to slack off and enjoy your life a little.

Do you want to know how to study in less than 15 minutes a night? That's what this blog is all about. Check out the archives for a ton of tricks to help you out. Also, be sure to check out the books if you own a kindle.

The Problem With 100% Dedication To School

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I write this as someone lucky enough only to have suffered a little with this problem. That being said, I’ve repeatedly watched close friends of mine drag themselves through the mud trying to solve some of these problems.

Some students obsess over school. They make sure that school is, by far, the number one focus in their life. They get disappointed at anything lower than an A+. They spend hours and hours studying every night. If asked, they’ll probably tell you they study “for fun,” but that’s usually just their rationalization for focusing so much on one aspect of their life. Sound familiar? Maybe even someone you’re close to?

Well… in many ways, this can be a really good thing. This kind of an obsession will certainly get you farther than an obsession with partying or building popsicle stick bridges. That being said, many students that have this “dedication” to school end up suffering from a number of problems.

If you ever find yourself obsessing over school then think about these problems and try to decide if it’s really worth it.

Life Isn’t Like School

Many students with this dedication end up graduating from college fine. Their problems don’t start until after they’ve developed their tens of thousands of dollars worth of student loan debt. Dedication to school is cool but as soon as you’re released into the real world you’re going to have to understand that most of what you used to survive won’t apply anymore.

In life, you are not graded on your performance. Sure, you might get a performance evaluation every few months at work but they’re usually useless. Most of your life, you’re going to have to assess your success and failure on your own. You can’t use any external scale to make that judgement because no external scale will fit. (Sure, the traditional good paying job, finding a spouse, and settling down works for some people but will it work that easy for you?)

It’s easy to try and grade yourself based on the evaluation of others (just like at school.) You can keep a close eye on how much your boss or lover or someone else appreciates you and try to grade yourself on that but you’re just going to run yourself in circles until you realize that their motivations aren’t necessarily your motivations. (There are some people that it would be good practice to not be liked by. If someone is lazy and only likes when you don’t outshine them then making them happy may make your life worse.)

Perfection is impossible.

You can’t get an A+ in life. You can only balance your priorities and hope that you end up getting what you’re going for. There is no right or wrong answer (most of the time.) It’s mostly subjective preferences.

Some students just can’t transition well into the real world. One particularly hard transition point comes around failure. In school, failure is something to be ashamed of. In life, if you’re doing anything really meaningful, you can expect failure virtually every time you try. It’s a process of failing your way forward. That can lead to many good students settling for a mediocre life. (Which is a particularly big shame because through school they showed just how exceptional they’re capable of being.)

Missing Out

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When you focus your time and energy on school, you’re missing out on some of the more important lessons you can learn in life. Sure, you might just happen to get them but you won’t have the time or energy to immerse yourself into them completely.

The first, and probably, most important aspect that many students miss out on is social interaction. No, I’m not just referring to study buddies. They’re not the kind of social interactions that help most. The most important social interactions that you have in life will probably not come from business transactions, they’ll come from times when people are having fun.

One of the most powerful tools you can have in life is a good network of people. Good networks don’t come from you being a good study buddy. They come from you being a charismatic and interesting person. If you happen to be a natural then great. If not, then this is a skill that you have to invest significant amounts of time into. If you’re at home studying, you can’t be at that social gathering making new friends.

Sure, you network at school can be good but it’s completely inbred and weak for that reason. At your school, the other students you meet will be more like you than different. It’s better to make friends in many different positions in life. Particularly important are friends of different ages. When you graduate college, it’s your older friends that can be hiring managers (or at least influential.)

There is more that good students end up missing out on though.

Being 100% dedicated to school means you’re not going to have time and energy to master any trade or hobby. Learning a trade or hobby is important for a number of different reasons. First of all, learning something outside of school is great for understanding the learning process better. It’s also attractive to colleges that are sick of seeing good students without a single damn skill outside school. Another point worth mentioning is that many great networks are developed from shared skills and interests outside of school.

The Most Important Risk

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The most dangerous risk for 100% dedicated students is one that I’ll use a rather broad term for: burnout. You’ll hear that term in a number of different contexts. It can come in many different ways but it’s all fundamentally the same thing. It’s the loss of motivation.

After years of a student being unbelievably motivated, something happens, and that motivation disappears.

One of the most important skills you can learn in life is to strategically take your foot off the accelerator. You can’t always be going faster and faster in life. You’re not a machine. Heck, even machines can’t always go faster and faster. Eventually you need to slow down for a while.

If you’re 100% dedicated to school then you’re at a high risk of burning out. Burn outs aren’t always deadly but they can instantly ruin months of hard work. Really, what’s the point of fighting hours a night to get 99’s and 100’s just to get a 65 on a test later when you’re depressed? It would have been better just to get consistent 90’s. Burnouts can cost major points.

It’s better to slow down consciously to avoid ever burning out in the first place.

Some students end up burning out right after college graduation. They fight for decades to get good grades then they’re stuck asking, “What was the point?” That can lead to tons of poor decision making in the future. Suddenly they’re required to get a boring job to pay piles of debt. Good luck getting the motivation to excel at work in that situation.

Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking school is the most important part of your life by a landslide. It’s not. Sure, it may be significantly important (if you choose to make it that way,) but ultimately there are other areas of your life that you can be focusing on.

Does that mean screw grades, quit school, and join the circus? Probably not but seriously reassess if the difference between scoring a 95 and a 100 really matter to you. Your life is definitely worth more than 5 points. So, slow down on that stressing out and have a little fun.

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

Mastering An Overloaded College Schedule

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It's a story I'm not completely sure I went over in any detail on this blog so far. I was a couple semesters into college. I had studying down to a fine art by that time. I was able to get most of my studying done in less than 20 minutes a day. (I hadn't made it quite into the perfect habit I would have liked. I took some days off completely.) Suddenly, I had plenty of extra time in my day.

At that time, I had a part time job for a little under 20 hours a week. I had a full load of classes in college too. To make it a little tougher, I had to bike or walk 5 miles in each direction to get to class and work. (I also ate crappy. It's amazing how resilient the body is to complete collapse.) After getting my studying down to less than 20 minutes a day, I realized that I still had a good 2 or 3 hours free everyday. I, being the maniac I am, decided that would be the perfect time to double my course load.

Yes, I ended up taking another class or two every single day in a relatively pointless effort to finish college a semester or two early. That, obviously, introduced a few new challenges that I got to learn from.

After a question from a reader. I thought it would be a good opportunity to share what I learned from that experience.

The Teacher Lottery

One of the most important factors in surviving, thriving, or failing in any class is the teacher.

There are some teachers that you can show up to class for and virtually always pass the class. They're so generous with points that the slightest bit of effort will make you a successful student. There are some teachers that require you put hours of studying and working in every night. These are teachers that give highly weighted busy work that makes loading up your schedule almost impossible.

In college, try to learn about teachers for classes before you actually sign up for the class. You can ask friends about the teachers or even look online for some colleges. While you can't always pick the winners, this should increase your odds significantly. One of the best things about college is that you get to try your teachers out for a few days before getting stuck with them for the semester. It's usually blatantly obvious whether a teacher is going to require loads of busy work.

Specifically, just look at the syllabus for a general idea. If the teacher provides the formula used to calculate grades (f/e 10% homework, 80% test, etc.) then look for obvious opportunities. Also, in the first class, you can usually ask the teacher how much homework (excluding studying, add that to clarify, and make it sound like you study. Teachers like that,) is assigned.

If you're planning on adding more than the usual class load or concerned about how difficult your class load will be then this it is absolutely fundamental. If you get a bad teacher or two, to look for better ones and switch classes.

After a few classes, you can even find students in other teachers first classes. Then ask them if you can check out their syllabus. You can quickly rule out some of your options. Pick the right teacher and most of the rest of your problems will solve themselves.

Prioritization Comes First

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For the most part, I was able to keep up with a double course load relatively easily. It was busy but it didn't offer any serious challenges. That being said, I did struggle during finals. Suddenly, every class was offering it's hardest (and often slowest) work at the same time and studying was essential. That meant that I had to make some sacrifices.

When you have a ton of work that needs to get done, you need to accept that some of it might not get done. Instead of staying up all night trying to prevent that, plan in advance to make it as small a problem as possible.

Some classes have work that almost completely doesn't affect your final grade. (If homework is 10% of your grade but you have tons of homework, skipping one day will barely change your final grade.) Use this to your advantage. While it can feel a little weird at first, getting comfortable with skipping work will help all your grades.

Sure, you could probably rush everything you have to get done but all of it will be crappy quality (including the things that really matter for your grade.) That means you may be sacrificing final grade points in exchange for not skipping a paper. It can be a tough choice but make the right one.

I survived finals only because I got comfortable ignoring busy work until I wasn't actually busy.

Effective Studying

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You need to have your study habit in pretty good shape to survive an overloaded schedule. If you don't then you're either going to get it in shape at that point, or you’ll fail miserably.

If you spend an hour a night studying for your classes then you're going to be getting miserable results for your time invested. By learning how to study as outlined in this blog, (or plenty of other resources) you can study in less than 15 minutes a night getting similar results. It's all a matter of perfecting the little things and ensuring your studying becomes a strong habit.

Unless you're particularly gifted or lucky, you're not going to be able to study for finals in extra classes effectively without managing this.

While I can't give you the information outlined throughout the pages of articles on this blog, here are the key concepts to consider in your study routine:

Short study sessions significantly increase your recall percentage.

Focus significantly increases your recall.

Habits can help you keep your study sessions short and increase your focus daily.

Learn these and you'll be able to handle just about any schedule you're stuck with. For more details be sure to read the archives of this blog.

Do you want to study in less than 15 minutes a night (while scoring higher than ever?) That's what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives. Also, there are some ebooks in the sidebar that might help.

How To Pick College Courses

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“How am I supposed to know that?” he told me. His eyebrow was lifted. He was looking at me like I’m an idiot.

Fortunately, I was returning the look at him. “How much are you spending on college every semester?”

“About 10 thousand.”

“And you’re telling me that you’ll pay a teacher 2k or almost 2k to teach you without looking them up first and asking a few questions.... By the way, I totally can teach you...” It took him a minute to get my point.

I tell this story because too many students forget this unbelievably important factor. In college, you could be paying thousands of dollars on every one of your courses. Maybe less, or maybe a whole lot more. You’re being absolutely stupid not to pick your college courses and teachers carefully.

When it comes to courses, many students end up spending an extra 10 grand on classes they’ll never enjoy or use. (This is particularly true for liberal arts students. Unless you’ve got that kind of money lying around, that’s sure as hell not an investment.)

What’s even crazier in my mind is just hoping you’re picking good teachers. A good teacher makes or breaks any course that you take. Most students have experienced this plenty throughout high school. Some teachers require you to invest hundreds of hours out of class just to pass the course. Other teachers require you to show up and occasionally do something to get an A+. Why wouldn’t you aim to pick that teacher? (I can think of a couple situations but those are rare circumstances.)

How do you pick the right course and teacher lineup?

Picking The Specific Courses

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Is the course required to get a specific technical degree that you’re trying to obtain? If yes, the answer should be obvious. If no, then it should be obvious but sometimes isn’t.

Don’t waste your money taking unrequired courses unless you have some VERY specific plan with it. You should virtually never consider it as an investment because any financial reward from it is tricky to predict. A degree has a clear financial reward. Extra classes, do not.

If you’re crazy enough to take an unrequired course then treat it as the luxury it is. Earn the money to pay for it and don’t pay for it with student loans. Student loans are a good when they’re an investment, they’re just another credit card debt for unrequired courses.

Picking The Time

Rarely pick a course in the time of day that you won’t enjoy.

If you’re not a morning person then don’t sign up for early morning classes. There is no reason to try and fight the person you are right now. Maybe, with a little work, you could be a morning person but when you’re in college is absolutely not the time to try and find out.

If you like to hang out with friends in the evening, you might want to avoid nighttime classes. You can usually get all of your classes in a time of day that you won’t feel as tempted to skip.

Of course, you can only be so picky and still get the courses you need. If required you can compromise a little on this point. How much you can compromise is essentially a balance you’re going to need to find yourself but with sleeping times in particular, many students overestimate their ability. (Sure, at 10pm you think getting up at 6am will be easy but at 6am you’re going to be thinking, nooooo way. Alarm off.)

Picking The Teachers

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This is one of the most important parts of selecting a course (for the strategies I teach.) If you want to spend very little time working outside of class then you’re going to need to pick a teacher that is very accommodating for that. Let’s face it, many teachers give boring slow busy work that no one can finish quickly.

If you want an A+ then you also better check out your teachers. Many teachers intentionally avoid giving really high grades. (Remember grading is subjective. One teacher’s B+ is another teacher’s A+. Find the one that will get you the A+.)

This information is usually readily available around campus if you’re willing to look.

First of all, check online professor review sites. They’re not great but they’re a good way to rule out some of the really bad teachers.

The best resource you have is the students around you. If you’re looking for an easy course then ask someone who has taken that teacher’s course about it. Ask them if they found the teacher easy. Then ask more details about how well they did, how enjoyable the class was, and things like that.

There will be some teachers that you can’t find out about. Sometimes you’ll have to sign up for their courses. This is okay because you always have your final option.

Final Corrections

After college classes start, you will often find out how wrong your estimated guesses actually were. Sure, you’ll have some really good courses but at least one or two of your classes are going to suck. The time to deal with sucky classes is early in the year. Switch out of them.

Really… it can seem like a pain but do whatever it takes to switch because this is a huge decision. You’re going to invest tons of hours into your classes. You might as well not hate every second of them.

The good thing about signing up for classes after the semester starts is that you can usually ask other students to look at other another teacher’s syllabus. When you can peek at a teacher’s syllabus, you get a great view of your time investment in the future.

For example, if the teacher explains that 90% of your final grade comes from a couple tests, you can feel pretty confident you won’t spend much time doing homework. (It sounds scary but these are the kinds of courses that you can spend almost no time on if you’re confident with your study routine. If you’re not confident about your study routine then make sure to check this blog out for help.)

Do not settle when it comes to picking classes. By spending a few hours researching, you can save yourself hundreds of hours over the semester. Take the time to look into your classes before you take them. Pick required classes at good times with good teachers.

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 more details. Also, get one of the ebooks for a crash course.

When Is It Alright To Skip A Study Session

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On this blog I'm always tooting the horns of consistency. A good study routine is one that is as close to habitual as possible. At the same time, I've left a few comments in the mix that led to a little confusion among my readers. It's probably been a mistake not to have cleared this up earlier. Thanks to everyone asking the question about it.

Study consistency is ideal and practically 100% required for the first few weeks of your study routine. Many people, that aren't completely committed, take takes off early in their attempted study routine and then end up giving up on the routine completely. So, for the first two or three weeks of any new study routine, buckled down and don't skip a session. Past that, you don't have to be perfectly consistent.

Bumps In Life

In an ideal world a person would be able to study at the same time, everyday, for the same length of time. Naturally, we live pretty far from that ideal world. That's particularly true for the busiest of students. It's a complaint I hear all the time, “I can't predict when I'm going to have time to study consistently.”

Honestly, you just need to be 95% sure you can study at the same time consistently. (Do it when you wake up in the morning if you have to.) It doesn't really matter if you miss one or two study sessions a month. You'll still end up miles ahead of the less consistent studier.

That being said, if you're missing study sessions regularly then you probably need to look deeper at yourself. Why can't you adjust your schedule to a consistent study time? You may unintentionally be trying to force yourself out of studying by putting that study session at a bad time. Then, when you have any excuse to cancel the study session you use the excuse.

This is a serious motivation problem that you need to always be looking out for.

Sickness

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Studying while you're sick can often be a waste of time. If you have the sniffles and aren't feeling that bad, it probably won't hurt to study. That's particularly true if you had already skipped some study sessions. That being said, you're going to be working at a lower efficiency than if you were feeling well.

If you're seriously sick then you don't need to waste your time studying. Sure, you can get some results but for the most part, you are wasting time. It will be easier to spend more time studying when you're not sick to catch up (most of the time.)

If you're seriously sick for more than just a couple days then this changes slightly. One or two days of completely skipping your study routine for sickness won't hurt all that much. Once you skip a week or more you're putting your study routine (and ability to catch up) at risk. That being said, don't ever force yourself too much.

If you're anything like me, you probably don't mind studying as much when you're bedridden and feeling like crap anyway. (Sure, it's not ideal but studying can help you fall asleep.) When you're sick for a long period of time, let yourself study if you feel like you're up for it. Ultimately, you're going to have to have a little discipline but you don't have too many better options.

The Don't-Cares

Ever start a study session and feel like quitting within five minutes?

Probably. That's usually a sign that you're doing something wrong with your study session. If you're completely immersed in your study session you won't start feeling the urge to stop for at least 15 to 20 minutes. That being said, even if you have the kind of study session I recommend in this blog, every once in a while you'll realize your brain is stuck in the off position for the night.

It takes a lot of discipline to do the following but I absolutely stand behind it's effectiveness.

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If you normally don't have an issue studying but for some reason, you just don't feel like it this one day then feel free to quit. That being said, you should only be quitting after attempting to study for at least a third of your regular session.

So, if you study 15 minutes (like I recommend in this blog. Check out the archives for the details,) then  5 minutes into your study session, if you still feel like quitting, you can quit.

After you quit studying, do not rush off to play a video game or do something fun. Instead just relax. This is to help prevent your brain from associating quitting studying with too much enjoyment. If you give it a few minutes before having fun, you'll be in a much better position to study the next day.

Of course, with all of these things I'm recommending, they come with a caution.

!WARNING!

I try to focus on consistency for a reason. Most people are too inconsistent with their studying. Whenever they see a post like this giving good reasons they shouldn't study, they'll use this as an excuse to keep studying inconsistently. (While I said it's okay to miss a couple sessions a month, they'll be missing 50% of their sessions and using this as an excuse.)

That's obviously not most of the regular readers of this blog because, lets face it, people that look up study strategies generally are much better at discipline than the general population.

Here is the way I recommend you keep an eye on yourself. If you ever feel like you're missing too many study sessions (and you miss more than 1 or 2 a month) then you're probably right. Heck, even if you're wrong, a little bit too much consistency wont hurt you all that much. For the most part, not studying because of these three things is for your pleasure. It's not because it would wildly hurt your study session. If you don't take a day off, don't.

Do you want to know how hundreds of readers are studying less than 15 minutes a night and still kicking ass? That's what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives. Also, look at the ebooks to get the crash course.