We all know the feeling of dread when the thought of studying crosses our minds. Although most students will tell you that they’ve experienced some degree of anxiety before completing assignments and meeting deadlines, studying is essential for students’ academic success, competence, and self-esteem.
Students’ overall success largely depends on their study habits and learning how to plan, prepare and perform is essential, but with so many distractions today, it’s easy to procrastinate and get off track.
However, there’s no need to panic as there are many ways to organize yourself, find your learning style, boost your concentration and stay motivated. Like everything in life, studying effectively requires time and patience, and there are always tricks you can use along the way to simplify your studies.
In this article, we share the top ways to simplify your studies and reach your academic goals.
Study Help
The first step to simplifying your studies is to ask for help on time. Knowing how to balance your studies with other activities is the key to making yourself more productive. You can ask a friend, a classmate, or even your siblings about matters that are harder for you to comprehend. However, if you need help with complex subjects, you should consider online courses as an excellent way for you to grasp difficult concepts. There are plenty of great platforms that provide assistance and help you understand by practicing questions, using video lessons, and study guides.
For instance, Wize is a comprehensive platform that can make learning a lot simpler, customized, and more collaborative. A certified tutor will help you achieve better results, and guide you along the way from high school and university, guaranteeing that you will improve your LSATs score.
Plan and Divide the Work
It’s easy to postpone large assignments, but by setting intermediate goals, no assignment becomes too heavy. Divide the work and create simple routines. You can read up to a certain page that you’ve decided in advance, or solve a certain number of math problems before you take a break and reward yourself with a delicious lunch, or talk to a friend.
Have you perhaps considered studying with a friend who takes the same subjects as you? By discussing the material with your fellow students, you might get new perspectives. Maybe they have the answer to something you don’t know, or might see connections that you perhaps missed during your studying.
Make Studying a Habit
Studying a little every day can become a great and productive habit. By having the discipline and making studying a routine, you can follow the lectures without any stress. Depending on how much you have to do in school, 60 minutes a day may be enough. But during that time, you should make sure to do your best and stay focused.
At certain times during the semester, you might need to increase your study time, but then you can reduce the time for something else instead. It’s important that you simply make it a habit so that everything becomes so much easier for you.
Test Yourself
Be sure to constantly test yourself and your skills. Things that are harder to learn and remember require more self-tests. Understanding something while reading and having the information in front of you is something completely different than being able to produce it yourself and answer a question about it!
The very best thing to simplify your studying is by testing yourself. You can use the active recall method which has benefits on the cognitive, metacognitive, and non-cognitive levels.
Flashcards are also a great way to practice remembering something. Cut out cards from cardboard, write a question on the front and the answer on the back. Then read the front and try to recall the answer on the back page.
Of course, there are digital ways to work with flashcards, but in this case, you would be sitting with your phone or computer and risk other disturbances.
Read Aloud
Reading aloud to yourself means that you not only visualize the text but also hear it. In this way, the brain takes impressions from two different directions.
Many people who have good study techniques usually use several senses to learn. A common tip on study techniques is to find the ways that work best for you – reading, speaking, and perhaps drawing can be a strong additional study technique.
Final Thoughts
Learning how to study efficiently benefits your learning life. Sometimes, it pays off to ask for help, learn how to divide your work, plan accordingly, and implement practices such as reading aloud and testing yourself.
Over time, you’ll feel more confident about your end goals and ready to take your exams.