Many students, especially at times of exams and deliveries, ask themselves how to organize study time better.
Everyone assumes that improving one’s study plan is synonymous with better academic performance, but few manage to apply it in their daily lives.
That is why this article, in addition to helping those students who find it most difficult to pass the exams, serves as an assessment of time and its importance when facing the educational curriculum.
Everyone knows that, ideally, is to organize the day in three strips of 8 hours each: 8 hours to sleep, 8 hours to work/study and 8 hours of leisure. However, this magical rule of three eights is very difficult to follow in practice.
That is why it is vitally important to organize the time we dedicate to our obligations, and in this case, to study, whether for exams or to write a paper that must be delivered.
Although students, unlike workers, have a certain advantage because they have a certain freedom to organize their time, this is sometimes more of a problem than a help. As we grow, the schedules of the study centers are more variable A clear example being the university, with morning and afternoon shifts.
The organization of study time is the responsibility of each person. The problem for many is that, despite having a lot of time for it, they have acquired bad study habits. That is why, and especially in high school and university, The stage of exams and deliveries is experienced in a very distressing way. By not having a good study plan, test results are negatively affected.
How to organize study time?
In order to perform in the best way in the exams and have the best possible score, it is necessary to have a meticulous study plan, properly organizing the time dedicated to each topic of each subject. Below we will see some tips that will help us how to organize study time better.
This advice, which is perhaps the most basic, is vitally important to get an idea of how much time is left before facing the much-feared test or delivery of a job. Having a calendar, whether digital or paper, is the tool that can give the student the most help.
In it you can not only write down exams or deliveries, You can also point out other events and make us aware of them such as extracurricular activities, appointments or other chores.
2. Create study routine
Once you get down to it, it is very important to establish a study routine, preferably daily. Everyone has their own biorhythms and, therefore, there are people who are more productive in the morning while others are more productive in the afternoon or even at night.
Be the time when one is most productive, You should try to study every day from the same time ; This is how the body gets used to getting to work every day.
Like any habit, studying is a matter of doing it until it becomes automated. Once it is done almost instinctively, it will not be so heavy and unmotivating.
3. Prioritize goals and avoid multitasking
There are tasks that have to be completed before others, and therefore they must be given higher priority. This may be because the delivery or exam date is approaching.
It must be understood that, although human beings can carry out more than one task at a time, in study subjects this is not recommended at all.
For example, trying to study mathematics and language at the same time is very complicated, given that both subjects require a high degree of concentration and, if you constantly switch from one to the other, it will not be possible to assimilate the syllabus.
4. Set realistic short- and long-term goals
A main objective may be to pass exams, but, This great objective has to be broken down so that it can be achieved.
A good way to achieve this is to keep in mind how many subjects should be studied, and how many topics constitute them. Once this is seen, more realistic goals can be set, both in the short and long term.
For example, if you have three months to study 40 topics, a good way to approach them is to take charge of learning 4 each week. Thus, each month it will be possible to have about a third of the entire syllabus, meeting the final objective of seeing the entire syllabus.
5. Plan breaks and leisure
Studying is good, but doing it constantly leads to inevitable exhaustion. Everyone needs to rest and disconnect while having fun. However, these breaks can be very risky, making you decide to stop studying and move it to the next day.
That is why, in the same way that the hours in which the book is opened are planned, it must be decided when to take a break, and that it always lasts the same amount of time.
6. Willpower
The attitude with which the study is approached is something fundamental if you want to be successful. Motivation when studying and willpower are aspects that influence our way of learning.
If it is seen as something tedious and boring, it will always be seen as something undesirable and it will not be possible to acquire the study habit properly.
7. Plan ahead
You will only be successful if you are well prepared, which is why it is so important to plan your study session in advance.
Whether studying from home or going to the library, All materials must be prepared well in advance preferably the day before, since this will avoid improvising at the last minute and forgetting any important notes or books.
It is also advisable to write down on paper what you are going to study. You may believe that you have a good memory, but if you write down what you should do, you ensure that you do not forget.
8. Study in the right space
The place where you study can be a source of concentration or, on the other hand, an environment full of distractions.
But The most suitable place will always be the library, preferably alone. If you decide to study with friends, you should make a joint effort and not entertain each other.
If you decide to study at home, We must be careful with interruptions from family members or roommates in addition to making sure to have your cell phone on silent or, better yet, turned off.
Also, if you study with a computer, avoid social networks or pages that may provide some type of entertainment.
If you listen to music, it is best to choose either ambient sound, such as rain and thunder, or melodic music, rather than sung. If it is a song, you may run the risk of paying more attention to what is being sung.
10. Consistency in the distribution of tasks
Not all subjects require the same study time, given their different difficulty and length. It may also be the case that a subject is more difficult for one.
First, the subjects must be classified according to their difficulty and decide to spend more time on the most difficult ones to save the easier ones for the end of the day or week.
The time to dedicate to each subject will depend on the proximity of the exam or delivery dates.
11. Go from more complex to simpler subjects
The brain, just like the muscles, ends up becoming fatigued after performing an activity. That is why it is better to go downhill, from the most exhausting to the least, since doing it the other way around runs a greater risk of not reaching the end.
If you are a person who is productive both in the morning and at night, The best thing to do is leave the difficult things for the beginning of the day and the simplest thing to do before going to sleep.
If this is not the case and you are more productive at certain times of the day, it is best to start with the most complicated agenda to leave the easiest for the end of the session.
12. Review, review, review
And, of course, the final advice of this article is to review what you have studied over and over again.
The review not only serves to establish new knowledge but also makes you more aware of its details and, if there are any, detect possible errors that have been made when preparing the notes.
