How to Study and Organise

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Lots of people argue the fact that you have to be born studious to be able to get good grades or be able to be successful in life.

I firmly believe that in life you do not need to be born studious but you can work hard and build a successful mentality. An age old question is how do you study, how do you organise, how do you learn faster, better?

There is only one way that you could deal with that, you can google as much as you want and read this blog, I will try my best to try and represent the best study methods, but the one thing that I can tell you is that the best method is YOUR OWN METHOD.

There are many methods out there that claim to be better than its predecessor; however, the best thing that I can say, is experiment. Try out different methods that may work with you based on your likes and dislikes, even if you find one that works partly or more than others, you can always rely on your own ways to be able to learn the fastest and the quickest.

You need to find the way that you learn best through trial and error.

Study Methods

Is there a way to know how to study perfectly so that you learn everything effectively?

• Utilise Practice Tests: These are amazing to quiz yourself, and often using past-papers from previous exams or that teachers have prepared in the past can help a lot with your ability to retain information.
• Flashcards: These are fantastic! I personally use Anki to make some spaced repetition flash cards that are extremely helpful in practising questions, visualising images and practicing retrieval techniques. Flashcards are great but you need time to review them. I would start making flashcards at the beginning of the year and review them as I go along; although, you can’t just read one side and immediately flip it over, you have to think about the answer (maybe even writing it down first) and then flip it over to CHECK your answer.
• Spaced Repetition Learning:
  • Day 1: Learn the material in class
  • Day 2: Revisit and Review
  • Day 3: Revisit and Review
  • After one week: Revisit and Review
  • After two weeks: Revisit and Review

• Blurting: This method is extremely useful when you are trying to learn about larger, more broad topics.

Organising Study Habits

Personally, for me I use a study tracker to keep up with my subjects and revising them. This is also known as a Pass Tracker, a lot of university students use this to manage their time as well as their memory of the topics.

My study tracker looks like this, and I have one for the sciences and one for maths, along with one for my university topic (I am in year 12 but undertaking a uni topic as one of my subjects) this allows me to really keep on track with assignments, and studying of the topics.

I have a column for the date, week in the term, what class it is (topic highlighted), class notes, Anki study cards, study notes, passes (how many times I look over the notes), the difficulty of the topic notes, what I should look over pre-class, and post-class, as well as challenges and when the final review of the topic is (usually at the end of the term).

As I go through the term I use this to plan my studying and keep on track with everything. It is really helpful in the long and short-term.

I know that there are many other ways to organise your studying habits, for example in a timetable or diary of some sort.

The only thing I can say is that you should attempt as many ones as you can, find one that even partially works, or one that you really like; then adapt it to suit you. No study organisation method will be perfect as it is for everyone, you need to adapt it to suit you, adapt it to suit your studying habits so that you can be as productive as possible.

Thank you for reading this, I hope it helped in some way. If you have any other comments please don’t hesitate to contact me via the contact page or comments. I am always willing to improve and would love to write about what you want me to.

Hope you have a wonderful day, good luck and happy studying.