Creating a Study Schedule that Works for You
One of the most important aspects of success in your education is how you structure your time. With each year, your class’s difficulties and their subsequent workload will increase. All too quickly, students can get bogged down in all of the work required to succeed in their courses, and this can create an emotional and mental strain on the student. At the beginning of each semester, receiving a syllabus and looking at the semester’s worth of work, the work itself can seem insurmountable. But if you slow it down, plan ahead, and take each piece of the work one week or day at a time, you will be successful. We at NSHSS have outlined a few simple tips and tricks on ways to maximize your study time. Our goal is to help you excel in your classes in no time!
Break It Down
There is an old saying, “how do you eat an elephant? The answer is one bite at a time.” To explain this another way, sometimes we can only see a massive task on an insurmountable scale. But in order to accomplish any big task, it is vital to break the large task down into more manageable, “bite-sized” pieces. This can be accomplished in a number of ways. If you have a laundry list of homework assignments, take each assignment and break down how long it will take you, what is required of it, and which one to start with based on the timing of your syllabus. If you have several end-of-year exams, all happening in the same short period, then break down which exams require the most studying necessary, as well as which ones come first. Finding ways to break apart the long list of to-do’s can be essential in completing each task with the same amount of hard work and commitment.
Review. Review. Review!
For most people, the end of class means shutting your books and forgetting about what you just learned as you rush out to the hall for your lunch or the bus. However, several studies have proved that the sooner you review the material you just learned, the more likely you will be to remember it when the test comes. The sooner you review your notes and the material covered, the better equipped you’ll be to retain all that you’ve learned. If you wait too long, you might be confronted with a host of other distractions, and it will be much harder to recall the information as time passes. There are several ways to review your material. These include: reading over your notes you took during class, rereading the passages from the textbook your teacher or professor referenced during class, and teaching the material you learned to yourself and/or your friends, as if you are the teacher and the expert on the subject, or even (with the instructor’s permission) recording the lecture and listening back to it on the way home. Whatever way you find is best for reviewing your material, just keep in mind: the sooner the better!
Get Comfortable
Everybody has their favorite way to study. This can be in a quiet corner of the library, or at your desk at home, or even spread out on the floor of your bedroom, where you can see everything you need laid out in front of you. Perhaps you prefer white noise when studying, in order to quiet the world around you. Or perhaps you like to study to the tune of old pop songs, or sounds of classical music. Some people have been known to turn on the television at a low volume, although your parents may not agree with this particular method. The point is that by testing out and identifying the most comfortable study atmospheres that work for you, it will make it more inviting day-in-and-day-out. But be practical. Don’t choose to listen to music if it distracts you. You must find a balance between what is the most comfortable versus what is the most conducive.
Don’t Overdo It
Commitment can only be accomplished through patience and understanding. If you have identified the best ways to study, and you have found a routine that works for you, then you are on the right track. But be careful and consider the strain of this routine. An intense routine can exhaust anybody. You must learn when it’s time to take a break. We are not meant to study for hours on end, sacrifice sleep, and ignore other parts of our lives. There must be a balance. It is important to understand that a balance is different for every person. Some people truly can handle three straight hours of homework, others work better with an hour at a time. It is up to you to determine what is too much studying, and what is too much relaxing. By balancing out your work life versus your personal life, and being consistent with that self-attained balance, you can gain a measure of endurance that can last a lifetime.
Be Flexible
We can never predict what our day will turn out to be. No matter how incrementally planned-out your schedule is, there will always be things that come up and must be dealt with. These can be good things or bad things, so you should be flexible in your schedule. Sometimes it is hard to tell what is worth being flexible for and what needs to be sacrificed for the sake of your studying. For example, if you have planned to study for two hours at the library on a Thursday, but then your friend invites you to a free concert simultaneously, you must choose what is more worth that time. This can depend on how late it is in the semester, how well you’re doing in that class, and whether you will have a free two-hour chunk of time the next day or over the weekend. As mentioned before, implementing a balance between your personal and academic life is key, and it requires a great deal of flexibility.
Be Consistent
Finally, we must address what is perhaps the hardest part of this process: consistency. Sometimes the hardest part about a day’s work is the knowledge that you will have to get up and do it all over again the next day. However, this is where true success is measured. By internalizing this knowledge and committing to your schedule everyday, you can master the art of consistency. Developing good study habits and finding a workable schedule is vital, but not if you don’t do it everyday. By staying consistent with your schedule, and rarely breaking from routine, you will see small results begin to compound over time. A schedule is not built for just one day, it is constructed to support you from week-to-week, month-to-month, and even year-to-year. Time can so easily slip away from us. But if you can stay consistent with your tried-and-true routines, you will find that time is on your side.
When faced with the daunting task of developing a study schedule, you might find yourself overwhelmed. We hope that this guide has helped you see the value in why a good study schedule is so integral to your academic success. The main goal of a study schedule is to ease the pressure you feel from your classes, and to learn time-management early on in your career. We believe that by committing to your schedule, the results of your efforts will reveal themselves over time. As it has been said, nothing worth doing well was ever easy. For more information on study habits, time-management skills, or other study tips, check out our NSHSS website.