How I study efficiently

Start revising earlier much earlier

If you take anything from this blog, it should be that starting to revise early is the single simplest method to get better results with little to no stress. This may need you to significantly alter the way you think since when I tell you to start revising, it may seem like a daunting task. I don't mean studying a few days earlier but weeks or even months in advance, there have been a few occasions where if I knew a particularly challenging exam was approaching I would begin preparing months ahead.  Now, I wouldn't do this for every exam, but my point is that I would start revising for an exam weeks before virtually any other student and it has always yielded good results. 

The barrier that most students encounter is that they don't feel any pressure to study because their exams are so far away, so my advice to you is to implement self-imposed time constraints to essentially artificially add that pressure to study

Short review 

Writing a few sentences summarizing the main two or three points of what you just learned in the lesson should only take about 60 seconds or so, but it's a phenomenally effective use of that 60 seconds because you're forcing your brain to recall what you just learned in the lesson. Although it only takes 60 seconds throughout the course of the semester, if you can do this 60-second task after each lesson and make it a habit, it may significantly increase the amount of knowledge you are able to retain from your lessons.

Concentrate on the important tasks

Your focus should be shifted away from activities that do not directly effect your grade, such as background reading from your textbook or finishing homework from a class, and toward activities that do. Set your study to prioritize answering problems from previous exams and organizing and summarizing lecture notes in preparation for your revision.

Create a schedule

 The majority of students will start their semester with relatively few hours of studying, and as the semester goes on and their exams approach, that number of hours will gradually increase. Then, one or two weeks before the exam, their studying will suddenly increase even more as the pressure from the exams motivates them to start cramming in preparation. This approach is stressful and is not efficient  At least, in my opinion, there is a better and smarter way to study for exams. what I would do is set a goal for how many hours I would study each day at the beginning of the semester. This goal could be three hours, eight hours, or ten hours; it's entirely up to you. Just make sure, however, that whatever you decide, you can stick to it for the duration of the semester.

Constantly test yourself

You need to be actively engaged in your studies, so be sure to constantly ask questions, connect new concepts to what you already know, and rewrite your notes rather than simply copying them exactly from the textbook.