Tame the Time: Effective Study Habits
I know you are smart students and have a smart strategy to ace your exams. You are also efficient enough to resolve any problem or issue. But sometimes stress and anxiousness makes us deviate or we can say that we go in a denial state. We tell ourselves everything is ok, even though we get distracted often. Examinations are round the corner and if we are in a state where our effectiveness to learn is low, then the best way to deal with it is to face it using effective study habits. Let us work together to prepare for a happier, less stressed, more successful exam time for you.
Here are some tips for you:
- Take out time and prominently display your exam schedule in your room. Please write in legible handwriting. Arrange all books, notes, tests to be taken, question papers accordingly. In other words, arrange in a sequence as per your exam schedule. This will help you avoid last minute panicking or missing something important to go through. It is a time-consuming activity but believe me it will save lots of time during the exam.
Have you heard of "Prime Time"? It is nothing but your biological clock or the time where you get maximum motivation and energy to learn. You need to ask yourself whether you do your best work in the first half of the morning? Just before lunch? Late afternoon? Late at night? Some students study in the morning and some students go for late night. You need to identify when your energy levels are naturally highest.
Based on your energy level add in regular spaced practice. Decide taking a test and revising the notes or any other material - first thing in the morning or last thing at night. It is ok to study like this, but my suggestion would be, you also need to be active during the hours that you will be writing your exams (actual time scheduled for writing board exam), so plan accordingly.
- The difference between high-performers and everyone else is often very small. The high performers remain consistent. Remember the best way to study effectively is being disciplined about giving your full attention to the task at hand. Every day revise different chapters with different difficulty levels. Assign maximum time to the difficult chapters. If you are assigning five days for a subject, start with the easy topics, but go for the difficult syllabus from day 2. Whenever you feel that you are behind schedule, discipline yourself to stick to your time and avoid distraction. If you are struggling to remember more than half of the topic you are studying, you probably need to reread your notes again or break the topic down into smaller chunks and practice one section at a time.
- Since examinations are commencing soon you need to study continuously for some hours. But there is a tendency in each one of us to waste time to get something and we leave the study place often. To avoid this, keep water, food, books, pen, notebook, etc. on/near your table and firmly tell yourself not to get up till you complete the portion of a subject or the test you have scheduled. It is normal for other thoughts to drift into your head when you sit down to work. Keep a notepad handy, so you can write down your thoughts and get them out of your head as soon as they occur. It is easy to make a distraction list and avoid those. By the way keep your phone in silent mode. Remember, studying is a marathon, not a sprint! Keep 30 minutes on an average to refresh yourself. Go outside for a short walk, do some light exercise stretches, a few push-ups etc.
- Take more tests. Remember testing is learning in itself. If you are getting lots of questions wrong, go back to the topic again, understand the steps, if it is mathematics, learn the formula, if any other subjects learn it.
- Eat fresh fruits and nuts to keep your energy levels high, this will help you to focus. Avoid junk food, too many sweets or too much salty food.
Be confident, take care of yourself, time will take care of you. Believe me, the question paper is designed by the teachers who like you and wish you to do well.
Dr. Itishree Misra
