What Is Smart Study? How Do You Do It?

By Janardhan R S

The objective and goal of this article is to help you reduce the unproductive areas of your study and focus on the important ones.

 

Every student/individual has 24 hours in a day & some dedicate couple of hours to study. Yet there is only one winner, a few rank holders and some distinction students, isn't it? Why is that some students study really hard, but aren't the best in their age group or get only average grades? And why is it that there are other students who do not even invest half the amount of time and effort into their studies, but get good or even outstanding results? Answer is quite simple, they study SMART.

To be precise, they emphasise on how to study instead of what to study for the exams. The way you study can make or break your success at school/college. Our suggestion is to study smart, which can help you save a lot of time and be effective when it comes to writing exams with great confidence. So, how to study smart and not hard?

What Is Smart Study? How Do You Do It?

a) Preparing

Prioritise the subjects which you feel are challenging. Neither is it easy nor difficult, it depends on how you accept it. Time management is critical to ensure that challenging subjects are taken care of and plan your studies accordingly. A timetable is important with a defined number of hours for studying every day.

Seeking elder's advice, taking help from seniors and mentors, including teachers, can really help you organise your schedule. Focused mindset is required to align your concentration with the expected results. Now that you are in a position to start with the preparation, begin your studies with a positive note. Yes, sufficient sleep & eating health and on time is crucial to maintain good health.

What Is Smart Study? How Do You Do It?

b) Writing Short Notes

How many of us write down some important notes while reading, not many, isn't it? We have all heard elders say, "Ten times reading is equal to one time writing." Hence we would recommend you write and learn. This is purely a technique that needs to be practised & learnt.

Please ensure that you make some short notes that can be handy and helpful to recall any particular subject. In addition, it's more effective to study multiple subjects each day than to deep-dive into one or two subjects.

For example, if you're preparing for exams in math, history, physics and chemistry, it's better to study a bit of each subject every day. This approach will help you learn faster than when you focus on one subject a day.

Periodic review is essential if you want to move information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. This will help you get better exam grades.

The data is conclusive: Multitasking makes you less productive and more distracted. Studies even show that people who claim to be good at multitasking aren't actually better at it than the average person.

Effective students focus on just one thing at a time. So don't try to study while also intermittently replying to text messages, watching TV and checking your Facebook feed.

c) Understanding The Concept

We see that many students just memorise, which is easy but dangerous. Just in case you forget the beginning, the entire content is gone, so do not memorise, instead put in a little effort to understand the concept/theory.

This needs a logical and practical approach at times. The better you understand the logic, theory becomes easier to understand and the easier the theory, the easier the practicals. Now you see how these steps are interrelated.

The moment you apply these principles of managing simple techniques, your study and the pressure becomes much easier. Please keep in mind that you need to be enjoying the concepts that you read and this is effective only when you understand the content.

Finally, when you integrate these processes, then you are likely to become more and more efficient while writing exams. Remember output depends on the inputs. Better the confidence, the better the results. When you understand theory you can write well with minimal mistakes and free-flow.

Happy studying!

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