6 Things To Ask Yourself Before Going To College

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Too many students underestimate the importance of the decision to go to college. The vast majority of students (particularly the more gifted ones) are poked and prodded from their childhood with the idea of going to college. Considering the statistics, it’s virtually inevitable that an average or above average student is going to end up in college. Hell, some students are even required to apply to colleges to graduate from high school. It’s hardly even considered a choice anymore.

That being said, college is a choice. The question that’s virtually never asked is, “is it the right choice?” Sure, statistics show a correlation between income and education. That correlation, doesn’t necessarily mean much. It could just mean people “destined” to make more money tend to go to college. (By destined, I mean any of a million possible factors. Students that go to college could be smarter than average. That means they’d probably make more money with or without college. Students that go to college could be richer. That means, again, they’d probably make more money with or without college.) Of course, even considering that correlation matters assumes income is a more important goal than happiness. My point is just that it’s more complicated than it looks.

I think college can be one of the best decisions of a persons life. A college education can open a ton of doors. That being said, you need to think about what’s behind those doors and whether or not you really want to open them. (There are plenty of doors you can open without college too. Maybe you’ll like those better.)

Here are some questions to ask yourself before going to college:

1. Do You Want To Go?

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This is a more important question than most students consider it. Your decision to go to college is going to cause you to spend tens of thousands of dollars. That makes it a pretty big risk to be playing around with.

If a year into college, you change your mind about wanting to go, you’re still going to have to pay for that year of college. More importantly, you’re probably going to have to pay for that year of college with a non-college graduates job. Sure, plenty of students end up surviving that mistake but it could easily take years of your life just to start back at zero again.

That dynamic leads many students into graduating just because of the costs they’ve already lost. They’re committed to four years because they can’t afford to switch to doing what they want to do. That, usually, just leads to the college graduate getting a job he or she hates in the field he or she graduated from (and wanted to leave.)

Going to college when you don’t want to go is a terrible mistake in most cases.

2. Is It An Investment?

Virtually every teacher and parent would tell you college is an investment. No, they won’t ask what degree you’re getting first. They’ll just blindly tell you that college is an investment. Mostly because, they have absolutely no idea what an investment is.

An investment is something that you’re putting money into to, ideally, make more money. When you take out loans for college, you need to make a considerable amount of income more than you would have if you didn’t take out those loans. If you don’t have very clear job prospects that can pay off those loans in a reasonable amount of time then you’re not investing.

Many college degrees are not investments. They’re luxuries. Sure, there is nothing wrong with a luxury but don’t go spending money that you don’t have on luxuries. If it’s not an obvious investment, pay for college in cash. That’s the only way to make play it safe. (If you do happen to get a good job from your luxury degree then consider it a bonus. You never have to pay interest from your loans.)

3. Is It Better To Wait?

For many students, it’s actually a smarter financial decision to wait a few years before going to college.

One of the most obvious reasons a student should consider that is loan favorability. If your parents income disqualifies you from federal loans then it may be smarter to wait a few years until your parents are off your forms. That could save you thousands of dollars and a significant amount of private student loan stress.

I remember being told, “If you don’t go to college right after high school then you’ll never go!” I didn’t listen. I ended up going to college years later. I’d argue that time off schooling taught me more than college ever could. I ended up having no student loans and had plenty of fun. Of course, if I graduated high school started sleeping around, binge drinking, and spending every penny I earned, there would be a real chance I wouldn’t end up in college. It’s all about making smart decisions. If you make smart decisions, you can put college off safely. Even after a few mistakes, it’s usually still reasonable with a little extra work.

Some other advantages of waiting: You don’t end up the average new college student that can’t even do their own laundry. You actually care about schooling because you saw the world without it and chose it rationally instead of emotionally. You have time to learn how to deal with money before taking thousands of dollars in loans.

4. Do you need it for your dreams?

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If you’ve dreamed of being a doctor since you were a child then you damn well should be doing to college for it. Many fields are regulated so that a degree is required. If that degree is absolutely required to do what you want to do (even if it’s not the greatest investment) then it’s usually a good decision.

Sure, bad investments aren’t usually a good idea but if this is about chasing a dream then investing has virtually nothing to do with it.

If you want to be a writer or something, you don’t need a college degree. You can pursue that field and become successful without ever graduating from college. In fact, instead of getting the college required liberal arts education you could spend 9-5 everyday learning how to write. You’ll end up miles ahead of the average student.

5. Do you have a solid career plan?

If your career plan consists of only, get a job, then you’re making a bad mistake. There is so much information that you should consider first.

First of all, what jobs does your degree qualify you for?

Next, which of those jobs pay enough to pay off your debt (unless it’s your dream job?)

Next, how many of those jobs are available?

How many students are going to be graduating and competing for those jobs?

“I’ll become a college professor on the subject!” NO NO NO! Really… that is usually a horrible mistake. In fields where your best job options include teaching the subject you’re getting your degree in, you’re limiting your options significantly. Look at the data. Are there really that many jobs available when considering how many people are graduating? Usually they’re not.

6. Why Are You Going?

This is one of the most important questions to ask yourself.

What is motivating you to go to college? If it’s your dream job then awesome. That’s a good motivation to have.

The sad truth is that most students pretend that it’s for the job. They lie to themselves and say that when the truth is something a bit more embarrassing.

Are you just trying to get away from your parents? Are you trying to get people off your back? Are you scared that you’ll fail outside of college? Do you just want to drink and party (you can do that a lot cheaper outside of college)?

These are all motivations that you need to question the value of. Is it really worth the price it’s going to cost? Are there cheaper alternative ways to do them. Of course, if you have a few million dollars in the bank, perhaps they’re cheap enough to pay for willy nilly but if you’re the average person, you need to seriously worry about that price.

The ideal motivation to go to college is the joy of learning. Of course, if it’s the joy of learning that’s pushing you then you’re stupid to take out student loans for it.

The second best motivation is an investment.

Don’t end up at 25 living in your parents house with a crappy job trying to pay down your student loans. By paying attention to the consequences, and risks, of every option you can make a smarter decision.

Do you want to know how to study faster than ever? That’s what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives if you’d like to learn more. Also, there are some ebooks in the sidebar that you might want to take a look at. 

Does Your College Major Suck?

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It’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life. Yes… not only in college. Picking a bad college major can end up costing you for the rest of your life. While it may look like you only have to invest 4 years in a bad major, many students end up having to spend decades of their life trying to pay off the debt of that major mistake.

Do you remember those advisers telling you to “do what you love?” I’m sorry to have to be the one to inform you of this but they’re full of crap. Now, if what you love happens to be engineering or medicine then maybe they’re right. If you’re like most people, those advisers can end up costing you a good portion of your life.

How do you know if the college major you picked sucks?

The Market

That philosophy degree is probably a bad idea.

The first thing you need to look at when considering a college major is the jobs available after graduating. There is an exception to this rule though. If you happen to have the money to pay for college in cash and don’t expect to get a job after graduation then you can consider a major without looking at the market. Unless you happen to be rich, money matters.

College can end up costing over $30,000 a year. We’re talking about over $100,000 in debt. It doesn’t matter how good a college degree you get, that’s going to take a damn long time to pay off. College can be an investment or it can be a luxury.

If you don’t look at how marketable your skills are after graduation then it’s sure as hell not an investment.

There are two major pieces of information you need to gather. What do the jobs you can practically get out of college pay? What are the odds that you can actually get one of these jobs?

Many people look at salary websites alone to research their job options. “Oh, a philosophy teacher gig pays $xx,xxx a year. That’s plenty!” It’s absolutely essential that you take that information and consider it in the terms of competition. How many jobs are opening in the field every year? (How many people are going to be graduating the same year as you? Sometimes those numbers can be disturbingly close when you consider all the colleges in the country.)

If college is a luxury then sure, skip this step. If it’s an investment then it’s the most important step.

The Competition

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Do you want to get into law school or medical school? Maybe you shouldn’t…

You’ll notice that most of the issues this article deals with can be kind of painful. That’s the point, plenty of people will tell you what you want to hear. You don’t need to read an article on that stuff. The important stuff is the stuff people don’t want to tell you.

You need to look at how skilled in school you are before going into certain fields. A small minority of students make this mistake but it can be a very costly one in the long run. You need to go into a major that you can practically compete with the other students in. If you’re a mediocre student, don’t go to college expecting to compete well in the hardest fields.

I know. You may be able to succeed in the harder courses. That’s very possible. It’s much more likely that you’ll suck. At the very least, you’re going to be struggling to keep your head up. Just because a school lets you into a major, it doesn’t mean you should want to go there.

Ideally, you want to be in a college major that you can do amazing in. At the very least, you should be looking at college majors that you can comfortably compete in.

Sure, it doesn’t matter the grades you get in school after you get your degree (in most fields,) but getting the degree shouldn’t be a surprise to yourself or anyone else. That’s just risking years of work and tens of thousands more dollars. Constant failure and struggle is the cause of many high debt drop outs.

Your Preference

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You should not be getting a college major in a field that you don’t love without a damn good plan. Yes, I used the word love. If you’re thinking, I kind of like math, I guess I’ll go into math, then you’re not listening.

This can seem like a pretty high bar to have to jump over because it absolutely is.

The majority of high school students aren’t ready for college. Most students going to college right out of high school might as well be jumping out of their plane before they grab their parachute. You should love any field you want to get a college degree in unless of course, you planned it that way.

What’s that plan I’m talking about? Let’s face it. Some people are never going to find a college major they love. Colleges don’t cater to everyone’s preferences. That being said, college can be an investment if treated like an investment. You don’t need to always love your investment, you just need to be willing to pay the price. I would argue, unless you’re talking about a 6 month or smaller time investment, is usually not worth paying, personally. If you’re thinking about a 4 year degree at a nice university as your investment then you’re being downright crazy.

What if you like a certain field but aren’t sure if you love it?

That’s one of the best places to be short of finding a subject you love. If you have any doubt about how much you’d enjoy a particular field then get a job in it before college. If you’re thinking about becoming a nurse, become a CNA. Sure, it’s not exactly the same but you’ll get to watch nurses work. If you want to be a math professor, become a math tutor for a while. If you want to run a business then heck, why not run one before you go off to college too.

You don’t need a college degree to get started in most fields. As long as you don’t make any foolish decisions, you will be able to go to college in the future.

I know it can be scary to head out in the real world when everyone is telling you college is the only smart option but just imagine how much more scary it’s going to be after college. Imagine spending another 4 years in school and building up tens of thousands of dollars in debt that you have to worry about. (You can’t afford to work minimum wage then. You better hope you made the right decisions in college.)

College can be an amazing investment but it can also be a costly mistake if you’re not careful. Don’t let other people push you into something that you’re not completely comfortable with. You know that “peer pressure” your parents talked about? It’s real and it’s exactly what everyone is trying to get you to succumb to. If you go to a bad college major then you might as well be walking off that bridge the old cliche talks about.

Do you want to know how to study fast? Check out the archives for all the secrets your teachers won’t tell you. Also, check out the sidebar for all the details in three convenient ebooks. 

How To Actually Learn A Subject

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Learning gets a really bad name. Just imagine you’re trying to convince everyone that you’re completely awesome, and then having public schools representing you for a decade of their life. Sadly, most people are forced to “learn” from public schools for the vast majority of their formative years. Of course, most people are going to hate learning. They’re forced to sit through boring classes for over a decade and they’re told that’s learning.

Phew… I got the rant out of my system.

My point is that learning is actually a pretty awesome thing. I know… you may not completely appreciate it because of the experiences you’ve had with what most people consider learning but give it a real chance and you’ll fall in love.

What I’m going to be going over in this article is not “how to get good grades in any subject.” That’s what the vast majority of this blog is used for. Go look through the archives for that. This article is for the people that actually care about learning a subject. Yes… there is a major difference.

Becoming thoroughly proficient in any subject is one of the most fulfilling things you can do with your time. That being said, in my experience, there is one very useful thing you can do to help to learn any subject.

Get It Out Of School

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School is one of the most inefficient ways that anyone can learn anything. If you want to learn a subject, you shouldn’t count on getting educated in school. Sure, there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to make the best of the school you have to go through but do not expect that to teach you well. The first thing you should do to actually learn a subject is leave the traditional schooling environment.

At first, learning outside of a school environment can feel a little crazy. You never know exactly which direction to research in. You could research forever in books, on the internet, and from millions of other sources. In most subjects, it’s a complete overload of information.

To get through the jungle of assorted information you need to find a guide. If you’re literally trying to learn a subject for school then use the information from school to get you started. After that, you can use resources that are highly regarded from a large selection of sources. (If 10 places say, this is the go-to-guide then you’re probably on track to finding a good resource. Of course, look for other verifications like author credentials too.)

For example, if you’re researching World War 1, you’ll be able to find thousands of potential resources. For a broad resource, google best books on world war 1. You’ll probably get led to at least a few different opinions on the subject. If you see a book mentioned a number of times. Check out the book’s Amazon page. Is the book well-reviewed?  Repeat until you find some good sources.

BUT THEY’RE NOT ACADEMIC!

Most of the best sources you’ll find on the internet are not academic. That can sound like a disadvantage but in most cases, it’s actually an advantage.

Academic sources are designed to be completely accurate and non-offensive to the status quo. Sure, they’re not perfectly accurate but serious embarrassment can come to an academic that gets a bit too loosey goosey with his or her fact checking. That is good for an accurate source but it’s damn unproductive when you’re trying to be entertaining.

Guess what? Sources that will actually entertain you will use information in a more entertaining and less perfectly accurate way. History books, for example, that aren’t written for academic reasons are actually designed to provide entertainment value while remaining mostly accurate. (If you want to see a major difference. Compare a math non-fiction book to a math textbook. I hate most math stuff but there are some amazing books written on math.)

So what is better for learning, an unread textbook that’s 95% accurate or a read book that’s 90% accurate?

Even if you manage to force your eyes across the words of the average textbook, odds are, you haven’t put a quarter of the thought into it that you would have put into a book for entertainment.

As soon as you start reading, non-academic sources on a subject, the information involved in that subject becomes a natural part of your thinking processes.

Taking Learning Into Your Own Hands

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I realize that most of the readers of this blog aren’t going to spend hours a day reading into their school subjects from non-academic sources. If I thought you’d do that then I probably wouldn’t have mentioned this point in the first place.

It takes a whole lot of time investment to learn any subject. Considering, (assuming you’re in high school) you’re forced to spend 6 plus hours a day sitting in a boring classroom, I wouldn’t expect you to want to spend more to truly learn the subjects in school. That being said, there is always something worth learning.

Just because you don’t want to spend hours studying school subjects after school, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend some time looking into subjects that you care about. Don’t let the way school pretends to teach you interrupt your ability to truly learn. I know the word learning may give chills down your spine but spend a few days studying something you love and that chill will be gone.

Find somethings that you want to learn and dedicate some time to learning it.

The information I teach on this blog is meant to help you get school out of the way so you can actually learn what you care about. I teach tricks that mean you don’t need to invest much time in your classes. That leaves you with two options. Option 1, waste your life watching TV and searching the net. Option 2, become a better person.

I write this blog with the hope you’ll choose option 2.

Do you want to know how to study in less than 15 minutes a night? Check out the archives of this blog. Also, check out my books in the sidebar to get the whole shabang.

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.)

The Quickie Flashcard Strategy: Never Sit Down To Study

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Throughout my hardest years in college I developed a strategy that improved my grades dramatically while reducing the actual time invested in studying. While I'd tried tons of crazy strategies in the past, I started to realize that my most consistent results were coming from the more traditional approaches to studying. Flash cards were consistently showing good results while some of my other methods were more spotty. That drove me nuts.

I'd always hated flash cards in the past. Using flash cards always seemed like a really boring game to play with yourself. I'd read one side of the card. I'd say what was on the other side. I'd check it. Within 10 minutes of using flash cards I'd want to drive a railroad spike in my eye. I always found it miserably boring.

When I realized how effective flash cards were, something started to click for me. I was already into researching study strategies like crazy at that time and I knew that enjoyment made all the difference in studying. I knew that people that enjoy studying study more effectively than people that dread studying. If I studied with flashcards and dreaded it while still getting good results, how good would my results be if I actually was able to enjoy using flashcards?

Now I'm not one to try and force the enjoyment of something but this thought got me looking into flashcards much deeper.

The Magic Of Flash Cards (And The Problems)

Flash cards are one of the most commonly recommended study strategies for a reason. They are one of the simplest methods of testing the effectiveness of your studying. When you're looking at one side of a flash card, you either know the other side's information or you don't. This can be stressful but it's using your brain the same way as a test would.

When students study using their textbook, they can read for hours without doing a single test on whether or not the knowledge stuck. (If they're not actually learning it then they're going to be preparing for an unpleasant surprise on test day.) With flashcards, it is almost impossible not to know if you’re screwing up.

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After going through a set of flashcards, you can empirically determine which information is in your brain and which information isn't.

This comes with some problems though.

First of all: Constantly testing information is relatively stressful. After a few minutes of using flash cards you can completely wear out your brain. That ultimately means it's really hard to enjoy doing for a long time. While you can derive some “running a marathon” pleasure out of it, the actual process is just painful.

Second: Flash cards are a major time investment. It can easily take 20 minutes or more to prepare a set of flashcards for a difficult course. In some cases, that means you're investing more time in preparing for the studying than you need to spend actually studying.

Finally: You need to actually use them. Yes. Despite the stresses of setting this whole system up, eventually you need to buckle down and find time to use them.

Making The Most Of Flashcards

Flash cards may be stressful to use but it is possible to enjoy things that are stressful. Anyone that's had a good workout in their life knows that. Stress, to a certain extent can be pleasurable. That's exactly how you need to think about flashcards.

Flashcards are stressful but only using a few flash cards at a time can actually be pretty fun. That's the change I needed to make to instantly rewire all of my previous thoughts about studying because everything finally came together.

Studying in short bursts with flash cards aligns with some of the most verified study experiments around. Studying is most effective in short bursts with long rest periods in between.

The problem with short bursts of studying is usually convenience. Who wants to carry a textbook with them to study a few minutes every few hours? That's where flashcards come in handy.

Picture this: You're waiting in line at a store. You pull the flash cards out of your pocket. You go through a couple. You put them back into your pocket.

This is the ideal way to study with flashcards. The effectiveness of each time you pull out the cards is off the charts. Flashcards are absolutely perfect to use in short bursts randomly throughout the day. Within that one minute you would have used to stare at a celebrity on a magazine cover, you were able to learn as much as you could have learned spending 2 or 3 minutes reading out of your textbook.

Not only that, but you'll often even find the random flash card test kind of enjoyable.

Making The Flash Cards

One of the hardest parts about designing your study strategy around flashcards is creating the flash cards in the first place. It can take a little bit of a time investment but it's well worth it if you make a large number of flash cards at a time. It also helps to create a system you regularly use to decide what deserves a flash card and what doesn't.

For example, here is a strategy I used:

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At the end of most textbook chapters, they have a summary of everything in the chapter. Use that summary and develop at least one flashcard per key point in the chapter. Those flash cards are the bulk of the information required. Oftentimes, they produce 85%-90% of what you need to know and they can be turned into flash cards within 5-10 minutes.

After memorizing those points over a few days, go through the chapter completely. (Fortunately, going through the chapter after you already know all the key points is much easier.) If there is anything else that seems important than make a flash card for that information.

The funniest part about this strategy is that you never have to sit down to study. You just need to sit down for 10-15 minutes a week to make the flash cards and randomly sneak a few flash cards out of your pocket a few times a day.

This is all you need to do:

1. Invest a few minutes in making flash cards.

2. Carry those flash cards wherever you go.

3. Pull them out randomly 3-6 times a day and go through them.

4. Never force yourself to study more than a few minutes at a time.

Total Time investment: Less than 10 minutes a day.

Do you want to know more ways to study faster and easier than you ever have in the past? Be sure to check out the archives for the secrets you need to know.

Screw Your Plan! You Don't Need It

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I had the perfect schedule all laid out. I was in college and I was set to go own my A+ rampage. I was getting good grades at the time but I wanted to crush them. My schedule started at 6 am. I'd get up. I'd workout. I'd eat. I'd shower. I'd study. Then class. Then more studying. Then another class. Then... more studying. I'm sure you get the point.

I was reading a book on time management and it inspired me to try and become a better student through being more organized with my time. It didn't take long before I realized how stupid my plan actually was. Within a week I wanted to quit school and join the circus.

That's what a schedule can do to you. (Everything except possibly the circus part. I'm weird.) A schedule seems like a wonderful thing in theory but it takes a special kind of person to actually put it into action consistently. I've talked with tons of students that had similar experiences to me. When you make an exact plan for what you need to do, you're just setting yourself up to fail.

You are not a study machine. You can't just insert a schedule of hole punched cards in your mouth and program your actions. (If you understand that joke then you win some geek cred.) You can't program yourself into doing things you want to do. Even if you could, it probably wouldn't be better than the alternative. What's the alternative?

Passion Is The Plan

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This may be something you can't understand right now. If you've never experienced it then it can seem a bit unbelievable but after a few years of practice, it comes together. There are times in the day that I'm  dying to get studying. I'm serious. My brain is pumping with every focus hormone in the world and I'm thinking, stimulate me! (No that's not a sexual reference. No matter how much it sounds like it. I use that kind of a reference because it's eerily similar.)

Your brain knows what it wants better than you do. Despite what you may be told, you're brain isn't naturally lazy. It takes years of training to make your brain that way. When you work to stimulate your brain, it can break free of that natural stagnation. Eventually, when you break off some of the brain rust, you can get it running naturally again. What's your brain running naturally?

Your brain wants to think. It's designed for it. It wants to soak up all the information required for it's survival. Once you start getting that survival instinct kicking, you may even start to want to study. (It will likely start with studying subjects completely unrelated to school. It's an urge you want to cultivate from there.)

Your brain won't always want to study but eventually your brain will tell you that it's time to start thinking. When your brain tells you it's time to study, hours of scheduled studying would mean nothing compared to 10 minutes of passionate studying.

Sure, scheduled studying may sometimes be a necessity but so much more is possible when you get passionate.

Schedule Of Passion

As much as anyone would love it to, passion doesn't happen to come on a schedule. It's impossible to predict the dates and times that you're going to feel passionate about studying. That means, you cannot count on scheduling to set up the best study periods of your life. They need to come naturally.

I believe a study time scheduled daily is helpful for studying in school for two reasons.

First of all, it takes time to break the bad study habits that hamper most students. Most students have effectively trained themselves to hate studying. (Who can blame them with the way the school tries to educate them?) That means the method of getting a student to study efficiently has to change. The first thing that needs to be changed is that hatred for studying. That can't changed without consistent and non-miserable study sessions (short, regularly scheduled, and not too stressful.) To get into my specific prescription, check out the archives of this blog.

Second, you can't count on passion when you have class tomorrow morning. You sometimes need to take it into your own hands. Eventually, with practice the schedule gains the same advantages as I'm about to discuss. It just takes time to work out the skill.

As you begin to hate studying less and less, you'll get more and more moments that you actually want to study. At first you may only feel the urge to study once a month. Over time though, you'll find that urge can come as often as daily.

Breaking The Plan...

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One of the worst things you can do for the efficiency of your studying is making a ridiculous plan. Sure, it can make sense to plan a half hour a day but you need to be unbelievably careful every time you do.

Plans don't work because your brain doesn't work that way. The things that you’re passionate about get your attention whether you want them to or not. There is no magic button you can press to get into the zone studying. It's much better to just be ready whenever you find the inspiration.

The worst part about these ridiculous plans is that they interrupt your ability to study in the future. One week of excessive or boring studying can completely change the way your brain works while studying. The brain needs to be focused to work well. When you force it through miserable study sessions, you won't be able to focus. When you don't focus, you make your brain think it's acceptable to not focus while studying. It all just stacks itself up into the impossible wall of studying that most students never break through.

Do you want to know how to let your brain do the studying without the stress? That's what this blog is all about. Be sure to follow and check out the archives for all the details. Oh... And if you have a kindle, make sure you give the ebooks a look too.

Cheating In School...

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Since I say so many controversial things on this blog, I kind of feel the need to go off the deep end and say to go cheat away on everything... but I won't. It's usually just a recipe for trouble. I personally have some experience on the supplier end of cheating. (I never cheated on my own work but I've helped others with getting their work done before.) There are a few reasons I learned that cheating is usually a really bad idea. It's not even a bad idea for the reasons you might think.

You'll Get Caught!?

The most common objection people use against cheating is that you're risking consequences if you cheat. If you get caught cheating, you can get a mark on your permanent record that will haunt you forever. That mark can cost you tons of options in the future. If you're in college then you're also putting yourself at serious risk of getting kicked out.

There are some risks involved with cheating but statistically speaking, you won't get caught.

Sure... If you're stupid enough to copy and paste an essay then you have a good chance of getting caught. If you take the time to thoroughly think out your cheating methods then you have virtually no chance of getting caught. Even if someone does suspect something, there are ways that you can be almost completely safe from getting proven guilty.

College professors deal with hundreds of students. For the most part, you aren't going to even get noticed. (Of course, in certain class sizes this is much less true.) Most essays don't go through the automated plagiarism tests. Even if they do, with 10 minutes of intelligent editing, you can ensure the essay won't even trigger it. Even on tests, most teachers don't have the resources to stop every attempt at cheating. With a little creativity, the odds of a student getting caught are one in a million.

Despite that, you still shouldn't be cheating.

Spark Of Genius?

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I used to sell essays to students that wanted to cheat. (Of course, as a safety precaution, I told them I didn't allow them to use essays for class submission but everyone knew the business...) One thing always drove me nuts about the students that would purchase essays.

Most of these students were below average to average students. I was known for writing extraordinary essays. (Yes... no one knows what hole that writing skill slithered off into...) These teachers got to read okay essay after okay essay from these students, until one day, they submit a really good one. Teacher's that actually read their students essays are not too dumb to realize this change.

A teacher will probably never take note of a C student getting a B or a B student getting an A but most students cheating aren't in that situation. Most students that end up cheating go from D's to A's overnight.

A good percentage of the time, the teacher knows something is wrong. They may be completely unable to prove anything. They may not even have enough to feel comfortable asking the student questions but in any average class size, the teacher can notice massive changes in a single student.

When you cheat once, you're setting yourself up to need to cheat more in the future. Even assuming the teacher never realizes that you cheated, that teacher is going to hold you to a higher standard when you show that you're capable of doing better. To keep up with those new standards, you're going to need to continue the lie even longer.

The whole problem just stacks on itself over time.

Digging The Hole Deeper

Students usually cheat for one of two reasons.

The first reason is that they lack confidence in their ability to learn or produce. When you're not confident about your ability to remember information, you're going to make it significantly harder to actually learn. This can be an unbelievably destructive mindset to get stuck in because it affects every area of your life.

The second reason people cheat is because they failed to prepare. Despite knowing the value of getting that good grade, they made poor decisions that left them with the option of failing or the option of cheating.

Both reasons are miserable excuses to cheat.

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When you're not confident in your ability to take a test and you cheat. You're admitting that you were right not to be confident. It's like betting against yourself. This just trains your brain to think it was right to stick with cheating. Your mind won't change and you'll just have to do it again next time to appease your lack of confidence.

When you failed to prepare for a test, cheating just encourages you not to prepare for tests in the future. Failing a test isn't the end of the world. No, you probably won't get kicked out of school. No, you won't be dying on the streets. You'll just have to suffer a little bit of embarrassment. As long as you use that embarrassment to prevent making the same mistake in the future, you'll be much better off just failing.

When you cheat, you're giving yourself an attractive out. That attractive out often just ends up being more of a trap. Sure, it wouldn't be so bad if you cheated one time in your life but it's probably not going to end up being one time because you're just giving yourself permission to do it in the future more.

The more you cheat, the more your gut repulsion to cheating will go away. That won't help at all.

You Don't Need It

You don't need to cheat.

There are ways that you can get very high scores on essays, tests, and just about anything else without investing hours and hours of your time. With less than a half hour of work a night, you can be one of the most successful students in your class. (Easily top 10% in most non-elite high schools and colleges.) Quite frankly, cheating is probably more work than it's worth.

In the same amount of time it takes you to write a good and thorough cheat sheet, you can learn everything you need to learn to pass the test. You just need to be using the right strategies. Once you learn these strategies, the idea of cheating almost sounds like a hard worker's approach to getting good grades. Why work hard when you can work smart? Learn these strategies and you'll be set.

Do you want to learn how to study in less than 15 minutes a night? Follow this blog and be sure to check out our kindle books listed in the side bar.

15 LAZY Ways To Improve Your Grades

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The vast majority of study advice around for the last 100 years are based around “hard work.” They say that if you set your mind to it and invest all kinds a' time, someday, you, might, see some results. I've always found this advice to be a bit of a cop out.

First of all, most students that struggle with their grades put in a ton of time. On top of that, not all students that kick-ass at school invest much energy into studying. To say hard work is how you improve your grades is to overlook 90% of the discrepancies that take place.

Second, hard work can be defined as anything. I could build my home out of toothpicks. That's hard work. That doesn't mean it's not smarter to build it out of 2x4's. Hard work is not a virtue in itself. Without the right knowledge, hard work is just a major waste of time.

This is a list of ways you can take the hard work out of your study routine and see better results for it:

1. Sleep More

What's more lazy then sleeping more? The human brain needs a significant amount of sleep too work at it's peak. When your brain is not working at it's peak, there is virtually no way to objectively know. That means you have to be particularly careful you get enough sleep every night.

2. Mellow Out Through Class

Nooo... don't do illegal substances. Just relax through your classes. If you're writing notes like a mad man then you're not remembering the information as well as you could. Try to get relaxed during your classes to ensure you make the best of the class time.

3. Read The Syllabus

You know that paper that all your teachers hand you explaining how they do things in their course? Read it. After reading it you can focus the work you do on the things your teacher finds important. Sometimes you'll notice that there is virtually no reason to worry about homework, or tests, or some other specific aspect of the course because they're worth so little.

4. Study Less

Most students spend hours studying with absolutely no focus. It's much more effective to study a shorter period of time with complete focus. The fresher your mind is, the more information that it can remember.

5. Habitually Study

No... you don't need discipline to study. Just get in the habit of studying for a few minutes at the same time every day. When it's a habit, you'll find yourself studying and wonder how you got there. By that time, you've already got into the study material a bit.

6. Skip Studying The Last Night

There is no need to study the night before a test if you prepared right. If you know the information you need to know then don't you dare pick up that textbook. Instead of studying that class, be confident that you know all the material you need to know.

7. Forget About The Top 3 Points

It's easier to go from a 98 to a 99 than a 99 to a 100. The difference isn't linear because with the first one you only need to know 1 of 2 things and the second you need to know 1 of 1 thing. Is that last point worth an extra hour or two of studying? Probably not. Know that those last points are, by far, the most costly.

8. Find Pleasure

Do you like baseball but hate math? Instead of focusing on math, focus on how the math can be used with statistics. You can do similar things with any subject you have to learn but don't enjoy. Focus on the pleasurable parts of the information and you'll learn more faster.

9. Kill Procrastination

Procrastination is not lazy. It's just stupid. Every time you think “I'll study in 20 minutes,” you're adding to the time you have to think about the studying by a few seconds and interrupting the things you'd prefer to do. That's stressful and time consuming. Do the unpleasant stuff now.

10. Fun

You can be lazy and still invest a ton of energy into something. It's generally just something you want to do. Try to have some fun with the more painful work you have to do. The more fun you have, the less it's going to feel like work.

11. Study Less Information

Don't treat your whole textbook like it's a gospel of required information. Most teachers only focus on small pieces. If there is a chance you won't need to learn something then don't be afraid not to learn it. The less you need to learn, the better you're going to be able to learn everything else.

12. Make Friends With The Teacher

Don't worry. You're not a teachers pet unless you act like one. Being friendly with your teachers isn't pet like unless you rub up against them and kiss their bums. Try and treat them like an actual friend. If they respond well then keep it up. Being friends with a teacher is a quick way to guarantee a few points extra. (Sorry teachers. I've seen it too many times. Maybe you're the exception.)

13. Simplify Your Life

Forget about trying to use the most complex and effective strategies for school, studying, and memorization. The smartest thing you can do is usually just less. Instead of doing more and more. Eliminate what doesn't work and do less and less.

14. Don't Feel Guilty For Not Getting Perfect Grades

Once you start relaxing and getting really good grades, you may feel some guilt kicking in. Maybe you think you could score that final 5 points if you studied like the average person. It's true. Maybe you could. Ask yourself if you want to invest that extra time. It's okay if you don't. Grades (especially the last few when you're not competing for scholarships,) don't mean all that much.

15. Relax

One of the biggest problems that most students have is stress. Stress shuts down the most important areas in the brain for learning. Learning to relax during the tough times is one of the most effective ways to change your final grade.

You don't have to be a workaholic to get good grades. In fact, I highly recommend you learn early that working too much is downright depressing. It's better to work logically and find the most efficient way for you to get the grades that you're looking for.

Using these 15 lazy study strategies, you can see more results with less time.

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