Study Habits for Retaining Information in Long Term Memory

Students procrastinate. It's a way of life; it's ineffective. While you may get through high school or even college without actually retaining information, there will be a point in your life where your specialization may require you to actually remember something. Retaining information in your long term memory is something that can be easily achieved by giving yourself a few more days to study. Surprisingly, the early you start studying the less time you will have to spend reviewing. There are just a few stress-free rules to follow in order to store study materials in your long term memory.

Plan! If you start studying with plenty of time, you will be able to cover a reasonable amount of information each day. Covering too much information will make it difficult, or even impossible, for you to retain anything in your long term memory. Split the information you need to memorize into sections. The longer before test day that you start covering these sections, the more manageable your studying will be. Write the information for each section on note cards, or in a notebook; be sure to label it according to the day you first covered it. You can study more than one section at a time, but avoid starting to study more than one new section a day. For example, on day one of your quest for storing information in long term memory, study section one. On day two, review section one and start section two. Depending on how much information you are covering in a section, reviewing more than two sections at a time may be overwhelming and ineffective. Use your judgment when it comes to deciding how much information is too much information and how much time you should spend reviewing said information.

Break up the monotony. Studying the same material every day is not the most effective way to store anything in your long term memory. Give yourself an opportunity to recall the information. If you're seeing something everyday, it's always going to look familiar to you. If it always looks familiar to you, you will never know what you haven't actually memorized. Once you resume reviewing, after your break, you will be able to gauge your progress. While you're taking a break from one section, start another. Not studying anything is not effective use of your time and may lead into you into procrastination.

Be consistent. Study your first section of material for two or three days, depending on how much information you've elected to cover. Cover a new section of the material for the next two to three days, before referring back to the original material. Repeat the process with each new section of material, while slowly phasing out the original section. Be sure to study all material for the same number of days. In other words, if you study section one for two days, study section two for two days. If you take two days off from studying section one, when time comes to take your break for section two or section three, take the same number of days off. Consistency is a crucial part of storing that information where it counts-in your long term memory!

Studying in an organized manner over a span of many days or even weeks, may not be the easiest habit to acquire, but it is definitely more effective than procrastination. By starting to study early, you will ultimately have to spend less time studying. Organization and ample study time also reduces stress; the less stress you're dealing with, the higher your chances of success when it comes to retaining material and performing on test day.