Tips for How to Study Better: Effectively and Efficiently

Studying is a boring, but required, task that almost everyone must endure at some point in their life. Despite its difficulty, learning to study well can greatly improve your life by getting you good grades and giving an education that can last a life time. There are tricks to studying effectively. What works varies from person to person, and the best way to figure out what works for you is to try all of them and see what clicks.

Listen to music or watch TV. Putting on something distracting while studying might seem counterproductive, but sometimes putting on music or a TV rerun can be the difference between a half an hour spent glazed over, staring at your textbook before you quit, and three hours spent reading it at least lightly. Try different kinds of music and television to see what works. If you find yourself spending far more time singing to the songs than studying, then maybe you should try instrumentals, or just less interesting music. The same goes for the TV. Try things that would be too boring to watch or listen to on their own.

Be social. Often shared misery is far more bearable than lonely misery. Try to get into study groups for your class, or just convince your friends to study with you, even if they aren't studying the same thing. You can still break up the long sessions with intermittent chatter that can really help give you endurance. Plus, study groups are a great way to make friends.

Focus. Oppositely, sometimes the things around you are distracting you and just getting away from them allows you to focus and work intently until you're done. Try this if making it less boring isn't working for you: try to work in a very quiet, isolated area and get it over with. If you would rather spend one hour studying intently and be done with it than spend three hours doing it while watching boring television, then go with it. Go to the library, hide in your bedroom, do what you must to be able to focus and get done.

Find what you're studying interesting. This can be very hard to do, but very effective for retention. If you find something interesting, you are far more likely to remember it. Also, reading something you like is far easier to do than reading something you hate. The trick is learning to find anything interesting. Try to connect it to something you do like. If you're reading history and you like to read fiction or watch movies, then try to imagine what kind of books or movies could be made with what you're reading. Think of the plot twists and character development. If you're reading English and you like sports, think of how learning the rules of grammar are like learning the rules of a sport, and the complexity of using these rules to your advantage. If you connect with what you're studying, then you're far more likely to remember it and finish studying it more rapidly.

Try all these tips to see what works with you, and try combinations. Talk about what you're studying with your study group. Maybe someone will say something that makes it interesting for you. Study in complete isolation, except for your iPod playing your favorite tunes. Eventually you'll find what works for you.