How To Study Better | By a Study Tryhard
James Clear said, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” This quote also applies to studying. To study better, what you really need to do is improve the system you use to study. The important components of a good study system (in my opinion) are planning, the actual study process, and reflection. The rest of this article is gonna be your guide on mastering the 3 components of your study system.
Planning
To plan better, it is very important to schedule your entire study plan the day before. If not, there is too much room for error. It is important to decide what you need to study, for how long you are going to study, and when you are going to study. For example a vague plan would be something like
“I am going to do work on my Computer Science class tomorrow.”
A better plan would look more like this
“I am going to work on my Computer Science class’s Homework-5 tomorrow from 9:00am to 10:30am”
By planning based on these 3 factors, you remove the friction of deciding what you need to study the next day. This makes it much easier to work the next day as you already know what you have to be doing at a specified time.
The Study Process
When it comes to studying, we need to understand that the “Work Done = Time Spent * Quality Of Focus” (Cal Newport, Deep Work). Unfortunately, time is limited, so if you want to get more work done, it’s important to improve your Quality Of Focus. That said, most of the adjustments I will advice you to make to your Study Process help increase your Quality Of Focus.
Tip 1: Try The Pomodoro Method
The Pomodoro Method is a study technique where you study for 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break, and repeat. Once your done with 4 cycles, you usually take a longer break of 15–20 minutes. If you’ve never tried the Pomodoro Method, I would highly advice trying it. It doesn’t work for everyone, but for some people it’s a very effective method. If 25 minutes of work sounds too short for you, try doing 50 or 60 minutes of work and taking a 10 minute break (this is what I do).
Tip 2: Music
When it comes to music, it’s important to use only instrumental music while you study. Lyrical music is proven to be distracting while studying. If you study in silence or with instrumental music, your focus is likely to drastically improve. A lot of people may argue that listening to lyrical music makes the study process a lot more enjoyable, which it does, but if your goal is to get the most amount of work done in a short period of time, lyrical music can be very distracting.
Tip 3: Make Studying A Habit
A very important factor of a study system is how consistent you are with studying. When you turn studying into a habit, you are much more likely to do it. To make a study habit, it’s important to define, when, where and for how long your are going to study everyday. For instance, you may say
“I will study at the desk in the living room everyday at 10:00am for 2 hours”
By creating a plan for your “study habit”, it will make you more consistent with your studying.
Reflection
Once you’re done studying, it’s important to reflect on your study system so you can work with greater focus. This will help you get more work done in a shorter period of time. After the end of every study session, rate your study session out of 10 based on the amount of work you got done and how focused you were. Then write a 2–3 line reflection on how you can improve your score the next time you sit down to study. This simple practice can help you identify possible problem points with your study system and ways to improve it.
By constantly working on and improving the 3 components of your study system, you can get more work done in lesser time and learn to study better. It’s important to realize that mastering your study system never ends. It’s important to continuously reflect to make further improvements to your study system.
