Where You Study Matters

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Student after student has been told the same piece of bad advice time and time again. The empirical studies on this subject have shown how stupid this piece of advice is but teachers, parents, and everyone else with a complete lack of creativity seems to spout it out like gospel. If you're looking to improve your grades they tell you to “work harder.”

I know, you probably don't think that sounds stupid at first thought but there have been repeated studies on this. Working harder is absolutely awesome in some aspects of life.  If you're looking to dig a hole in the ground, it helps to work harder. If you're looking to bang your head against a wall until you can use that hole as your own final resting place, working harder helps again. That being said, if you're trying to do something that requires more than a handful of brain cells, working harder is probably just going to screw you over.

A conscience effort to work harder almost always leads to increased stress hormones. Increased stress hormones are useful when you're running from a bear but they're detrimental if you need to think creatively or are trying to remember something. There are much more important factors that need to be considered when looking to improve your grades that don't run that same risk of stalling your study progress completely.

It's much more effective to focus on the mechanics of your studying to improve your grades. After that, you can worry about optimizing your “effort.” One of the  most important of those mechanics you need to worry about is the environment that you're studying in. (If you want to learn more about those other mechanics then be sure to check out this blogs archives.)

Your Personal Study Bubble

The human brain isn't designed to plop itself into isolation from the rest of the world to study. You can't sit down in the middle of Times Square with your textbook and expect to be capable of learning the information you need to learn effectively. Your brain is designed to be easily “distractable.”

Just look at it from an evolutionary perspective. Which brain is more likely to survive and breed, the one that hears a branch break and looks in that direction, or the one that thinks it's studying is more important than a potential predator? Of course, studying means nothing when a tiger can eat you alive. You've, thankfully, inherited that easily distracted brain.

With that, you need to learn to work with it instead of constantly trying to fight it. To help you work around it, I recommend thinking about your need for “your personal study bubble.”

You should only be studying while in your personal study bubble (or possibly in a group personal study bubble, but I've never been able to appreciate the benefits myself. I always felt unnatural studying in groups but if it works for you...)

In the ideal world, your personal study bubble would be a completely safe and quiet room without any distractions from your studying. That means no phone, no people, and virtually no entertainment short of the textbook. If you can make that happen then I highly recommend it. That being said, I've virtually never been able to make it happen for more than a day or two myself. People generally need to work at it.

Working Out The Kinks

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If you're not privileged to complete silence, complete seclusion, or even a safe place, you need to find a way to make the bubble work.

For example, if you don't have a completely silent place to study. A library may be an acceptable alternative. While it's not completely silent, the quiet voices and environment will reduce distractions. Let's say you don't even have a semi-quiet place to study.  Perhaps you can only study in your frat house or something. What do you do then? While leaving would be ideal, you may be able to block out the background noises with music (or white noise on repeat in your headphones.)

Students regularly complain to me that they struggle to study because of interruptions from other people. People say that their friends or parents “won't leave them alone!” This brings two thoughts to my mind.

How could they possibly interrupt you? Seriously, turn off your phone, lock the door, or run away into the forest if you have to. When I'm setting up to study, there is virtually no way someone could possibly interrupt me. That is the ideal scenario. (No... do not play the “emergencies” card. Emergencies don't happen every 10 minutes you've turned off your phone.)

Even when people find a way to interrupt my studying, they don't do it more than once or twice. Why not? If I'm interrupted, I start by politely (but harshly) asking them to value my study time and leave me alone (perhaps with an expletive if we're close.) If I'm interrupted again, I respond coldly and accept that they're not going to help me study so I need to get away from them to study. They're no longer to be trusted. The evidence has officially shown that they disregard requests to be alone to study. Accept the evidence and find a way around it. (Maybe a new place to study will help.)

By consciously changing your environment to be your personal study bubble, you do more than just improve your immediate study environment. You also signal to yourself, and other people, that you're in your study bubble and your damn well taking it seriously. That improves studying in more ways than you can count.

Constant Improvement

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The most important point you can get from this article is not the specific study recommendations. It's realizing the necessity for improving your study environment. Most students give up almost immediately when their study environment gets compromised. Maybe the library they're studying in gets filled with loud people. Instead of getting up and leaving, the student will sit there and stew in their frustration for an hour praying that the loud people will get run over by a truck. That strategy isn't helpful (especially since trucks rarely drive through libraries.)

Students always need to be looking to improve their study environment because the world is constantly changing, and, of course, there is always room for improved study efficiency. While it can seem virtually impossible to change your ability to focus, everyone has some control over their physical environment. Use it.

Do you want to know how to study in less than fifteen minutes a night? Check out the archives of this blog for details. (Also, be sure to check out my ebooks on Amazon. Check them out in the sidebar.)

7 ACTUAL Reasons You Should Be Getting Good Grades (And 1 Reason You Shouldn't!)

Okay. I get it. So you haven't necessarily put in 100% effort into your grades so far. I've spent plenty of years slacking through school myself but eventually the slow kick in the butt the world gave knocked some sense into me. For years, I struggled to care even the slightest bit about my grades.

I did have one reason that I kept trying to use to force myself to study with but it never worked. Since I've started working with students on how to improve their grades, I've learned that it's actually one of the most common mistakes students make.

Do not get good grades to make someone else happy.

Despite all the whining of your parents or teachers, you cannot give in. Any attempt to study to make someone else happy is an almost completely wasted effort. You have only one life to live. Right now it might not seem like a big deal but you will regret the time you waste studying for this reason. Studying to make other people happy is a completely inefficient and painful way to spend your time. If you're going to find a reason to get good grades then take the time to find a good one. That will speed up your studying and make sure you can actually enjoy the process.

What are the reasons you should be getting good grades.

1. The Pursuit Of Knowledge

Yes. This is the noble and blatantly obvious first answer. Of course, 99% of you will glance over this like a crack in a sidewalk but this crack happens to be wide enough to break your ankle if you're not looking out.

Your grades can be thought of as a sign of the knowledge you're gaining. While it's never as simple as that cliché, it holds some truth. If you're looking to gain knowledge that they teach in school, focus on getting good grades as proof that you're actually learning it.

That being said, this should not apply for most students. Don't feel bad if you really don't care about the subjects taught in school.

2. Personal Training

I may have never enjoyed many subjects in school but after I started focusing on scoring high, this was one of my fundamental reasons.

You only have so much time in your day. If you want to be a better person, you need to use that time to improve. Considering you spend hours of your day cramped up into a dim classroom, you might as well use it as a way to improve yourself.

Your grades improving is usually a sign that you're improving your ability to learn information in school. These improvements will be helpful well past your school years.

3. To Get People Off Your Back (Yea. It's different.)

I know what you're thinking. Isn't this the same as making other people happy? Not exactly.

You should not be getting good grades to satisfy someone else but, for most students, getting poor grades would be absolutely miserable. Not because there is some major life consequence (well... probably) but mostly because parents and teachers would be poking you with annoying comments all day about your lack of effort.

If you're in a non-voluntary school situation like high school or earlier, satisfying people to the point that they shut up is a reasonable motivation to get good grades. If you're getting C's and your parents are complaining that you should be getting A's, try only getting B's and see if they stop whining. If they do, maybe it's worth sticking with the B effort. If they still keep complaining then either get the grades they want solely to shut them up (and don't put in an extra ounce of effort over that,) or forget trying to please them.

The difference between this and to make other people happy is this. Do the minimum to get people to let you live your own life. (Sometimes no amount will do this. If not, this reason is not for you. Deal with the people in your life. Not your grades.)

4. Prepare For A Career

So, you've decided you want to be a doctor (or maybe a professional basket weaver?) Getting good grades now, particularly in related subjects can be a great way to start prepping for a job. Notice the word start. It's definitely a small step for most careers but some career fields this is particularly useful.

If you want to be a math teacher (or engineer or card counter etc.) then focus on getting good grades in math. These lessons will definitely help you in your future career. Your history grade might be a complete waste of time though.

5. Create A Buffer

Okay. Maybe you're not so motivated by any of these other reasons. Despite that, you might still want to pass the class (how odd of you, right?)

Good grades can be created as a buffer for more slacking in the future. With some courses, the early lessons are significantly easier than the later lessons. For those courses (and certain other situations) you may want to get great grades early on so you can slack off a little later in the year without worrying about your grades failing.

Imagine how great it will feel having a final coming up that you could completely fail and still get a good grade in the course. Yea. Studying isn't all that hard in those cases.

6. Top School Or A Scholarship

Notice the word top school. I did not use the word good school. Good colleges do very little to help your career in the future versus the average college. They generally charge more to give you a slightly better education. That better education, usually doesn't pay off with a better career.

Imagine you're an employer reading an application that shows a person went to Joanasburg University? That may be the greatest college in the country educationally but if your potential employer hasn't heard of it, it means nothing. Top schools include MIT, Harvard, and other recognizably named colleges. On top of that, they can usually get you significantly better connections for your future.

If you're close to qualifying for one of those top colleges then you should consider keeping those grades up to make sure you have the chance to get in. At the very least, you may be able to get an academic scholarship. That can also be a great reason to keep fighting for great grades.

7. Cause You Wanna

Don't let me tell you not to score high if you have some personal reason you want to get good grades. Maybe you want to impress the girl sitting next to you in class? Maybe you're hot for teacher? Maybe you're a time traveler planning to learn information to take back to your society where you'll use it to defeat the evil ninja monkeys on mars? Whatever really floats your boat it a good motivation. As long as it really gets you excited, it can be a good reason to get a good grade.

Just please... don't do it to try and make other people happy. If they need your grades to be happy then they have bigger problems they should be worrying about.

Do you want to know how to get better grades than ever without putting more time than ever into studying? Be sure to follow this blog and our twitter to get all the updates.