This is what sets apart most bright students. You can study for many hours before the exams and still fail to get satisfactory results. If this happens to you, relax!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Take time to arrange your priorities. It will give you the best chance of staying organized and on track for the semester. Below are different ways you can plan your study time smartly.
Set goals for each study session
How often do you find yourself reading without setting goals for that particular session? There are lots of students who wake up early or stay up late at night reading. Without set goals for each study session, you are likely to give some subjects more attention than others. To avoid this, set specific goals for each study session. This could be how many pages or chapters you will cover.
You must strike a balance for every subject. Before doing your assignments, plan and set the number of questions to complete. Each writing assignment must be unique and have great content for the target audience. Use a plagiarism detector by FixGerald to scan your work and detect any plagiarized parts.
Plagiarism is a highly punishable offense at college. If you scan through your work, you will be more confident while studying that your work is unique. This is the best way to learn and excel while utilizing your study time smartly.
Study in short bursts
The moment you start getting uninterested in whatever you are reading, take a break. Your study session should be flexible. Studying while taking small breaks to avoid fatigue and boredom with whatever you read.
This means you should have regular breaks in-between to help you relax and reflect on what you have read. If you study in short bursts, you will reduce the chances of your mind wandering more. After the break, you will get back to your books more focused.
Work on one project at a time
At college, you have to engage in many activities every week. You have to prepare for your workouts, assignments, and reading. Often, students are given assignments for the weekends. Most of these assignments are simple, but you will require time to do them. If you don’t plan smartly, you will spend too much time on the assignments and forget about studying.
The more you forget about studying, the more you fall victim to multitasking. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make you better in any way. In most cases, you rush through your work without researching extensively. Splitting your attention between more than one task isn’t the best way to learn. Plan your study time smartly with each specific task given its own time.
Start early in the day
Plan your study time smartly and fix most of your sessions early in the day. Early in the day, there are very few distractions. That means you will find it easy to understand the concepts you are learning. If you wait to start late in the day, you will have less time to complete your assignments. And you will be forced to rush through your study sessions.
Sometimes you will even lack time to finish your assignments, leading to more stress. Start the day with complex subjects that require too much attention. Then, you can switch to easy subjects later in the day. Planning your study time smartly also involves strategic execution. You have to follow the whole plan. If you miss a study session, fixing it will be very hard.
Be realistic and flexible
It’s a waste of time being over-ambitious!
You will even get stressed and feel like you are not good enough. If you failed in a particular subject last time, it doesn’t mean you should allocate much time to it. You have to think about it. What if you have been using the wrong approach? As stated above, do not spend the whole day indoors reading.
Take time and get involved in outdoor activities to freshen up. As you plan, focus on more than just studies. Think about your health and how it can impact your studies. Getting good grades may take longer than expected.
Planning your study time smartly is not a one-day process. It’s a process that you will need to improve regularly on certain aspects. Sit down and plan as per your strengths and weaknesses. You know the time of the day when you learn the best. So, take advantage of that.
