10 tips to study better and efficiently

The habit of studying from images and texts, beyond being a way to grow intellectually, has obvious negatives.

The clearest of these is that on many occasions it is done out of obligation, which means that in addition to the work involved in learning a content, you have to manage time and the anxiety that this psychological burden produces. There are also other drawbacks, such as the risk of seeing your own health deteriorate from sitting too long or straining your eyes, and even having difficulty sleeping.

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To study well, it is better to know some psychological tricks

The bottom line of this is that studying is fine, yes, but it is better to do it efficiently. Saving avoidable efforts and dispensing with study habits and strategies that only lead to fatigue and frustration. In addition, the habit of studying can take up many hours a week, a month or even throughout life, and that is why it is worth asking... Am I studying in the best possible way?

Just to help you assess your study methods, Here you can read a series of tips to study efficiently to optimize the time and effort you dedicate to your learning.

Of course: when following these tips to study you must assume the principle that studying better is not doing it for longer. That is why some of these keys are not directed so much to the fact of studying itself as to the way to better distribute the time.

Tips to study better in your day to day

We are going to learn a few tips and simple techniques to improve our study skills. If you apply them to your routine during the course, your academic grades are highly likely to rise significantly.

1. Cut your study time into small pieces

Research on attentional processes and study performance show that it is better to control the time we dedicate to studying by setting a rather low time limit for each session. The ideal is to make the study times not exceed 30 minutes, since we show much more ease to assimilate information that comes to us in short and repeated bursts than in a single one that is long and tedious.

It is about keeping the brain 100% at all times (by the way, keeping sleep at bay is sacred, and for that nothing like sleep well).

2. Create a study routine

Propose A study schedule and following it does not serve only to offer an image of maturity and neatness, as it has remarkable effects on study performance. Approaching learning in a disorganized way is a way to end up studying late at night, when sleep and fatigue take a toll on our ability to concentrate. In addition, getting used to a schedule will make it easier for us not to skip study time and will allow us to dedicate the time they deserve.

In that sense, the same that works for gym exercises also works to memorize and assimilate information. Don't leave it all for tomorrow!

3. Create summary notes on individual sheets

Do not rely too much on the technique of underlining texts. The fact of underlining does not help to memorize the text if it is not reviewed several times, and in any case stick to memorizing the sentences that have a line below keep us anchored to the way in which the information is distributed in the text original.

Instead, making diagrams and small summaries on pieces of paper forces us to reformulate the information we have read and, in addition, it makes it easier to create combinations of notes that are different from those of the text but that help us to better understand what that we read, since we can join or separate the pieces of paper in any way we want to assimilate the information in the order wanted.

4. Keep distractions away

It may seem obvious, but It never hurts to remember because these distractions can take the most unexpected forms and it is good to identify them. On your blacklist must be Facebook, mobile phone and television, but you can include other elements of your day-to-day life and do your best to isolate yourself from all of them during study periods (remember that they are short, so... Not too much to ask!).

Doing this before you start studying will help you avoid being tempted once you have started.

5. Prepare your study material before anything else

Having everything you need ready will prevent you from getting up to look for things and, therefore, getting distracted. What's more, Associating this set of objects to the study will make it easy for you to enter the dynamics of studying each time you see it.... Although you will not be able to explain exactly why it happens to you!

Therefore, pay attention to the organization of the books and tools you need before you sit down to kneel your elbows. If you have everything perfectly organized, it will be easier for you to have all the resources at hand and you can be more efficient during your study hours.

6. Propose (at least) one unit of study for each session

Set a topic to study and study it. Organizing related information by sticking to one topic or category of any kind is much easier than studying scattered and cluttered pieces of information. For that it is good that you read the lesson once to create a mind map of the location of the topics in the text and then focus on each of them.

7. Flee from literal memorization

Make the information contained in the texts yours. Relate it to episodes in your life, reformulate it in your own words and use examples you know. That way you will achieve the significant learning you need, much more resistant to the passage of time than the one that is based on memorizing data that does not make much sense.

8. Run away from linear memorization

Think, above all, in similarities and differences between concepts, pieces of information that in the texts that you have studied do not appear very connected but that could be in certain exam questions, for example.

9. Practice constantly

If you have the possibility, evaluate yourself with exams or questionnaires about the subject you study. This may seem like a waste of time if you think that the time well spent can only be dedicated to "soaking up" the information to study, but it is not at all, since which will help you detect failures and also help you measure your progress and, therefore, keep motivation high, which will also have a positive impact on your performance.

10. Explain the lesson to someone else

This is literal. Explaining what you have learned in your own words is possibly the most valuable study advice, as it will bring you two great benefits. On the one hand, Rephrasing the lesson is a way of mentally reviewing what you have studied, so the time you dedicate to this will help you better assimilate what you had studied before.

On the other hand, it will help you to self-evaluate, detect points that you thought you had learned but that at key moments give you problems, and offer you a fairly faithful image of your progress.