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.

Study One Page A Semester

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why It Works

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some Important Tricks

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

Information Capsules:

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

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

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

Single Sheet Is Variable:

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

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

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

Teacher’s Emphasis:

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

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

The Results Of My Experiment

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

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

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

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

Maximize Your Grades With Focus Rotation

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

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

The answer includes two different things.  

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

The next part of the solution is...

Focus Rotation

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

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

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

The Basics

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Hardest (And Easiest) Part

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rebalancing

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

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

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

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