Year 12
Year 11
Year 12
Work smarter, not harder, is a popular sentiment, one which applies to academics as well. You shouldn't study 15 hours a day to get high grades—what matters is putting in quality instead of quantity. Optimising your study habits is one way of ensuring that you get more studying done in less time.
It can be challenging to focus on maths drills, your assignments from physics tutoring sessions, or any schoolwork when you haven't done enough to prepare for your study sessions. Here are some tips to help you create a comfortable working environment that would maintain your productivity levels throughout the academic year.
Decluttering and minimising the items on your desk will help you focus on what you need to do. It is stressful working in a chaotic environment, and a messy study area will lead to you taking more brain breaks than you need. Get your thoughts in order by maintaining an uncluttered desk.
Constant text messages, notifications, and alerts are a part of daily life. However, you don't need to deal with any of that while studying. Keep your phone in a locked drawer or another room when you are in a study session—the more uninterrupted time you spend studying, the sooner you'll finish your work. This goes for TV shows as well; don't watch a sitcom or put a movie on in the background while you read.
Have dedicated blocks of time for studying. For instance, you can have one hour of study before school, one more hour after you get back, and another two to three hours in the evening. You can include things like biology tutorial sessions, elective classes, or other similar after-school activities—however, you should have a separate time for reading and reviewing your lessons from school.
Nothing kills momentum like taking on more work than you can handle. Break your tasks into manageable chunks, so you earn a sense of accomplishment after every study session. It can get demoralising if you think of the entire project you must complete, or face a whole unit of your textbook at once. You'll finish faster if you take things in small doses.
Sleep deprivation causes issues in retaining information and transferring it into long-term memory. When you sleep at least eight hours a day, you give your brain enough rest to repair itself for the next day's functions.
Like sleep, regular exercise also contributes to the health of your brain. It releases endorphins, which are known as 'happy hormones,' and it helps you stay alert and focused. As little as 20 minutes a day is enough to get the blood circulating through the body's major organs.
Build habits when studying. Start and end your sessions at the same time every day, and stay in the same area. When you have a routine, the choice to study becomes almost automatic; there is less psychological friction because you're doing things that come naturally to you.
Productivity is easy to achieve if you're intentional about it. Consistency is also a key factor—when you perform the same steps and set good habits, you will be on your way to putting in higher quality hours of study.
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