As with almost everything in life, quality is better than quantity. Do you spend many hours preparing for exams but do not see the results of this effort? Maybe you are using the wrong method. Therefore, we tell you some tricks to study that will help you achieve the results you desire.

How to study well – the importance of study habits

The first thing you should be clear about is the importance of good study methods in your daily life. Did you know that 40% of your routines are repeated every day, whether they are good or bad? One of the best techniques to achieve this is to apply the Pomodoro method .

Therefore, it is likely that you are insisting on ineffective practices that do not have the expected effect on your grades, which is frustrating and may lead you to want to abandon your studies. In fact, according to the Ministry of Education, the dropout rate of students between 18 and 24 years old after Secondary School stood at 16% in 2020. So more and more people are wondering what to do after ESO.

Change the chip! Albert Einstein already said it, if you are looking for different results, don’t always repeat the same thing. 

5 tips to achieve maximum performance, we invite you to incorporate these study tricks into your current methodology.

Face your studies with optimism

Attitude is essential in any aspect of life. As Joe Dispenza, author of Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, points out, “the moment you feel the way you’re thinking, you’ll start thinking the way you’re feeling, producing more brain-affirming chemicals.” said emotion.” 

Hence, if you have never gotten good grades in History, you will have a harder time tackling this subject than another in which you do get high grades, turning this positive or negative experience into a kind of vicious circle. Therefore, you must be aware of this phenomenon and manage to overcome your memory, without being influenced by past negative events or habits.

Organize study hours

Think of your brain like a plant: just pouring a lot of water on it won’t make it bloom more; On the contrary, it may even end up rotting. The same thing happens with the study. The best thing to prepare for an exam, whether to study for a multiple choice or development exam, is to do it little by little, in advance, and without carrying out strenuous sessions. 

Keep in mind that, according to Pareto’s Law, any task will be extended to occupy the entire available time, that is, the more time you allocate a priori to learning a topic, the more you will dedicate to this objective. Hence, another trick for studying is you organize the syllabus into small blocks that you can take on in a single session and you assign a specific preparation time, trying to stick to it, so you must become aware and think about how to stop to procrastinate. 

At what time of day? It will depend, logically, on your schedules and habits, although research suggests that it is more effective to study in the morning, after a good rest, than at night, when the body is more tired. And if you do a little sport right before, much better, since exercise allows the brain to activate and allows you to learn more quickly, according to a study carried out by Douglas B. Mckeag, from Indiana University. 

Review the contents

According to German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve theory,  after one hour, you will forget half of what you have memorized. One day later, you will only remember 30% of the information, and after a month, the stored data will be limited to 10%.

Therefore, you must include in your planning spaces to review the contents already studied. Only in this way will you be able to retain 100% of the material.

Study meaningfully

What does this mean? Students associate studying with literal memorization of subjects. However, the key to knowing how to study well is understanding what you are reading. 

To do this, we recommend that you try to find a real application in daily life to what you are studying or that you develop connections between concepts. In this sense, several study tricks that will be helpful include making diagrams and infographics about the syllabus, asking questions while you advance through the content, or explaining to a third person what you have just memorized, but explaining it in your own words. 

Take advantage of new technologies

Social networks, email, calls, and messages are a great enemy of efficiency when studying, to the point that in those microbreaks you take to look at the screen they steal an average of an hour a day, according to the study. II Study of Work Behavior of Spanish Workers. In addition, research shows that studying directly from an iPad screen will delay up to 6.2% more than if you do it from a printed book or handwritten notebook. 

Now, once you have blocked all these interferences, the Internet can at the same time be a great ally to consolidate knowledge. Watching videos on a topic you are learning, reading a blog linked to a subject, or listening to a podcast on a related subject while riding the bus are tools that will allow you to go deeper and better understand what you are studying.