Focusing Attention: Study Hacking

A week of drawing is over, but I didn’t draw that much. It was a little bit of a fail from my part.

But the past is the past and this week I’m going to be study focused. Not that I need to study, but I really need to rework my study technique. I’ve been going on like a classical student, in the bad sense, by skipping class and getting super stressed when the tests and deadlines are over me. Somehow you manage with some last-minute studying and all is well.

Well not really. I already have a bad stomach and stress makes it a lot worse. Even if I didn’t have this problem stress is never good, especially not when you need to take this test or finish this assignment for tomorrow. It screws with my health, my study results and it intrudes on my free time far too much I’d say.

This is when I dusted an old bookmark I found a long time ago: Study Hacks. It’s some guy who writes about studying and study technique and he’s got some pretty good ideas. This is what I’ll focus on this week: to change my routines and take control over my studies and don’t let them control me.

Here’s a little rundown of the main principles from Study Hacks as I understand them;

Do fewer things

Sure it makes sense. When I signed up for an extra course last year I felt pretty damn stressed and I couldn’t really focus on my other courses knowing I had this extra class I missed to catch up with. It was even on my mind when I tried to do other things and when I got my stumach problems I decided to drop it. That was seriously a pretty damn good decision: I felt a lot better with it gone.

Do them better

Also what are good grades? They should show your skill but if they’re good they should also impress. And what are you most impressed by? Someone with straight-A or someone who’s read 40 points more but with slightly worse grades? I think we’re more impressed by deep knowledge in a smaller area (better grades in fewer courses) than by someone who’s a know-it-all but specialist-in-nothing. Maybe it’s a good idea to focus on getting really good grades instead of trying to do too much at once and risk to spread out too much?

Know why you’re doing them

Lastly it makes sense why you should know why your study technique works (or doesn’t). So we can change and adapt. After all what is the definition of Insanity?

Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results