How to study smarter, not harder as a college student

No, I’m not going to bombard you with the usual stuff- sleep well, eat healthy, make a lot of flashcards…

You already know all that stuff.

I myself have read through a lot of ‘study smart’ articles online, and all of them talked about the best study techniques and routines and so on.

And I bet you have too, and you know all of it.

But what you don’t know sometimes, is how to implement these study practices.

That’s where you fail as a student.

So in this post, I am going to talk about how you can implement all the good study practices in your daily life and study smarter.

A student’s guide to study smart, not hard

1. Find how much is your attention span

Attention span is the time for which you’ll be able to focus on doing one thing.

Mine is around half an hour- that’s the time I usualy take to study one full page of Pathology textbook 🙂

After that I’ll just go blank and not focus anymore.

So set a stopwatch and find out what your attention span is.

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2. Find out your most productive times of the day

By that I mean the times of a whole day then you’ll be actively studying.

I usually wake early in the morning, like around 4.30 am, and I have to go for classes around 8.

Excluding an hour, I get 2.5 hours in the morning and that’s the time when I study actively.

Since it’s very early there are less distractions and I’ll be completely focused.

How to become a morning person in medical college

If you are a night owl, that’s okay too.

Some of my friends study until very late and wake up late.

Follow what works for you.

And find out all the productive chunks of time in your day.

For example, 2 hours in the morning, 3 hours in the evening and 2.5 hours at night- you get the idea.

3. Combine your attention span with your most productive time

Now this is how you are going to study smart.

Dedicate the amount of time equal to your attention span to your most productive times of the day.

Like if 45 minutes is your maximum attention span and evening is your best productive time, break it down to 45-minute chunks and study during that time everyday.

Take a break in between these chunks, or change the subject/topic for every block of time.

Since you are studying during the hours when you feel the most productive and take only your attention span to study one thing, you’ll memorize it more effectively than studying for continuous 5 hours reading one chapter.

And studying will start feeling less like a dreadful chore and more like a simple habit.

Only thing you should bear in mind is this works if only you are consistent.

So make it a point to do this everyday.

4. Use a study method that you are comfortable with

It’s up to you to select a method you are comfortable with.

That way you’ll be able to improve your study skills.

A study technique followed by a visual learner may not work for an auditory learner.

I personally am a visual learner, and like to visualize concepts and write them down in my language as notes for future reference.

5. Track the whole process and the progress

Keeping track of things is actually helpful to know how far you’ve come and how much you achieved.

It will help you keep motivated and focused, so that you will be more productive and never lose interest in studying.

And remember, the results may not improve overight- studying smarter also takes time to show you the results.

Be patient and consistent. The little things that you do always add up.

6. Never try to multitask

Multitasking never works, my friend.

It’s a very common bad study habit.

It just throws you off the track and burn you out real fast.

So, focus on one thing at a time and work on it.

You’ll see that you are getting better over time.

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I have been trying to study 10 hours continuously during my NEET preparation and after that during my MBBS Professional exams.

But sometime later, I found out that I was only going to get exhausted if I did it again this year.

So I re-planned my whole daily schedule including my sleep pattern to fit my comfort, and I’m very glad I did it.

And I thought of sharing what I did with you guys, so if you found my post helpful, let me know because that’ll make me so happy.

And if you’d like to support this blog, please remember to share this post with your friends!