Want to boost your grades by studying smarter? You’re in the right place. In this post, I’ll share tips that can quickly change your study habits and help you do better in College or University.
Early in my university experience, I stumbled across a YouTube video by a professor named Marty Lobdell titled “Study Less, Study Smart.” The tips he gave completely changed how I studied, and within weeks, my grades started to climb. Here’s a breakdown of the best tips that helped me study smarter.
Study in 25-Minute Intervals
Our minds are not made for hours-long study sessions. After about 20–25 minutes, focus and memory start to drop significantly. For example, when studying for 4 hours straight, your brain can only focus and keep information for the first 25 minutes. During the remaining 3 and 1/2 hours of the studying, your attention has largely decreased, and it becomes very difficult to understand and memorize material.
To have a more productive study session, try studying in 25-minute intervals followed by a 5-minute break. Use that short break to stretch, grab a snack, listen to music, or scroll on your phone. You will then return to your study session with a refreshed mind and increased focus.
Set a Goal for When you Finish Studying
Studying feels a lot easier when you know there is something fun waiting at the end of it. Whether it’s watching an episode of your favorite show, baking something sweet, or hanging out with friends, pair your study sessions with a reward. This creates a positive mental connection with studying and helps you stay motivated during your study session.
Create a Dedicated Study Space
The environment you study in matters more than you think. Our mind connect different spaces with different activities. For example, your bed signals “sleep,” your couch signals “relaxation,” and so on. If you’re studying in the same spot where you usually nap or watch Netflix, your brain struggles to switch into “focus mode.”
Find or create a dedicated study area with a study lamp. When you sit down at your study area and turn on your lamp, it will signal to your brain that it is time to focus. When I was in school, my dedicated study area was a desk within a nook in my apartment. I always turned on the lamp on my desk before my study session, which, over time, became my brain’s signal to focus.
I also found it helpful to leave my study area during the 5-minute study break to further reset my mind. For example, I would sit on the couch and listen to music for 5 minutes, then return to my desk for another study session. This environment shift helps refresh your mind between study sessions.
Focus on Recall
One of the biggest mistakes students make is recognition studying. Recognition studying is when you flip through your notes and everything looks familiar, so you assume you’ve remembered all the material. Then, when you sit down for the exam, you realized you don’t remember anything.
So, it is important to test recall and not recognition. After you study a topic, close your notebook and try to explain what you just studied out loud or on paper from memory. This forces your brain to remember the information which improves your memory pathways for exams.
Sleep Improves Studying
Sleep is one of the most important factors in memorizing what you study. The process of your brain storing and strengthening what you’ve learned, happens mostly during sleep. In fact, well-rested students do much better on memory tests then poor-rested students. If you want to study smarter, focus on getting a full night’s rest every night, and even more so the night before an exam.
Memorization Techniques
Multiple memory tips can help with memorization in studying like using acronyms or mnemonics. But what I found most helpful was turning facts into imagination. One of my favorite ways to do this is to imagine cartoon-like “movies” in my head that tell the story of what I’m learning. For example, when memorizing the role of the Golgi apparatus (which modifies, sorts, and packages proteins and lipids), I picture a cartoon mail man sorting tiny protein packages and delivering them around the cell. What I found is that the stranger the image, the better it sticks.
These study strategies completely changed how I study, and they can do the same for you. I hope you find these tips helpful and start noticing improvements in your focus, motivation, and grades. If you would like to be kept in the loop with weekly new posts on how to succeed in College or University, please subscribe.
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