By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed.
I must begin this article with something important: Studying is supposed to be hard. Learning something new and building the neural networks in our brain to store that information is a challenging process that is supposed to make us feel uncomfortable.
This may be an odd way to start an article about how to make studying easier, but if you don’t have the basic understanding that studying is supposed to be hard, then you may be disappointed by the strategies I share below.
The problem is that many students make studying harder than it needs to be. Again, it’s hard to begin with, but most students approach studying in a way that makes it even worse. And then when their approach doesn’t work, they think the test wasn’t fair, studying doesn’t work, they’re dumb, or the teacher is mean. They think of literally any excuse other than asking themselves, “Am I making this harder than it needs to be?”
Now that you understand studying is supposed to be hard, even for really smart students, there are many strategies to make the process easier. Not easy, but easier.
In this blog post, I teach you five study rules every student should know. Essentially, I’m going to teach you how to make studying easier, even though it will still be a little hard.
How to Make Studying Easier: 5 Rules Every Student Should Know
The following five study rules are principles to make studying easier. They’re not fake study hacks that promise to help you instantly memorize complicated material but that ultimately waste your time. I’m not about that nonsense.
Instead, I’m sharing five legitimate approaches to studying that one hundred percent make studying easier.
But here’s the thing: You actually have to do them. Reading about them is not enough. Do them.
1. Learn as You Go (Not the Night Before)
School works like this: You’re taught something and then you’re tested on it. You’re taught something else and then you’re tested on it. Repeat. And then sometimes you’ll have a bigger test where you’re tested on all those things combined.
You can’t be surprised that you’re going to be tested on something you’re learning in class. Therefore, it makes no sense to wait until your teacher announces a test before you start studying for it.
In fact, a guaranteed way to make school harder than it needs to be is to act surprised every time you have a test. Say it with me now: you’re going to be tested on the stuff you’re covering in class.
Therefore, the study rule that makes studying easier is to learn the material as you go.
We cannot learn something overnight just because we procrastinated and are now telling ourselves we must learn it now. The neural networks in our brains do not care that we procrastinated. The neural networks in our brains need time to build themselves. And that’s why learning your material gradually each day leading up to a test is the most effective and least stressful way to study. It’s also the only way that aligns with how our brain actually works.
So how do we do this?
Each day that you get new material (from your teacher, through your readings, or by taking notes in class), assume you’re going to be tested on it.
Each day, spend 15 minutes reviewing the material that you learned in class.
Reviewing could look like any of the following:
- rewriting your notes
- turning your notes into flashcards
- turning your notes into a mind map
- summarizing your notes
- doing some practice problem sets
- teaching someone else what you’re learning
Most students do the exact opposite. Most students don’t ever return to the material they’re taught in class until they sit down to study it the day before the test. But, at that point, so much time has passed that many students don’t even remember the material at all. And this is what makes studying harder than it needs to be.
But if you spend just 15 minutes a day making flashcards from your new material or using any of the strategies from the list above, you’ll learn the material as you go, which means you can study it less when the test comes.
If you’re the kind of student who says you don’t have time for this strategy, then you’re the kind of student who needs it the most.
Remember, you’re not learning new material in every class every day, so even if you’re taking seven classes, you may only learn new material in three of them on any particular day, which means you’ll only need to find three 15-minute pockets that day to make flashcards from the material.
Do this on the bus. Do it when you’re waiting for class to start. Do it when you’re waiting for practice to start. Do it instead of going on your phone. (Let’s be real: if you checked your phone stats, you’d see how much time you waste on your phone.)
2. Don’t Try to Study What You Don’t Understand
Trying to memorize something you don’t understand is a waste of your time. You have to first make sense of what’s in front of you before your brain can store it as knowledge.
Let me repeat that: if your brain doesn’t understand something, it can’t store it. Another way to say that is, we can’t learn what we don’t understand.
Therefore, it’s critical to understand the concepts you’re trying to learn before you attempt to commit them to memory.
For example, if you’re studying a list of vocabulary words, but you don’t even understand what the definitions mean, then you’re never going to convert those words into knowledge. You’re never going to be able to use them on a test. You’re never going to be able to use them in conversation. You can’t learn what you don’t understand.
Another example: if you’re trying to memorize a physics formula, but you don’t understand how the formula works conceptually, then your brain will be unable to store this formula for long. In fact, you’ll probably forget it before the test. Or, maybe you’ll be able to memorize it, but won’t understand how or when to use it, and on which test questions.
So what do we do?
If you’re implementing strategy number one, which is to learn the material gradually as you go, you’ll be on the lookout for any information you don’t understand, and you can fix it.
For example, maybe you copied something off the board during class, and then later that day, you realize what you wrote doesn’t make sense. Okay, now go do something to make it make sense. Google it. Ask ChatGPT to explain it to you. Check your textbook. Ask your friend if they get it. Check the class portal to see if your teacher has posted any slides or readings that might help you understand it.
But the one thing you should NOT do is the one thing most students do: ignore the fact that your notes don’t make sense and then try to memorize what you don’t understand the night before the test.
Here’s what the process should look like:
- Capture information from class or from your readings. Try to put this information in your own words as you take notes on it, but if you can’t, that’s where the next step comes in.
- Later that day, as you review your notes, make sure everything you wrote down makes sense to you. If it doesn’t, figure it out.
- Once you understand the concepts and the material, study that.
3. Keep Your Materials Organized for the Purpose of Studying
Being an organized student is about way more than having neat folders and color-coded notes. Being an organized student is directly related to your grades. Don’t believe me? Here are all the ways being disorganized messes you up.
Here’s what I mean: smart students study as they go (rule one). To do this, you must have organized notes, know where they are, and understand what they mean (rule two).
Smart students name their digital documents in a way that makes information easy to find, so they don’t waste time searching for documents and information when they’re studying.
Smart students save their previous quizzes and practice questions throughout a unit to turn those into study resources.
Smart students know how each of their teachers uses the student portal and where important information is posted. Unfortunately, not all teachers use learning management systems (like Google Classroom) the same, which can make it hard for you to find what you need – but figuring this out is your responsibility.
Smart students organize their study materials throughout a unit by grouping handouts together, creating digital folders with all the materials for a single unit inside of it, and writing the date and title on top of their notes so they know what the notes contain.
If you can’t find your notes, you can’t use them. If you can’t find your materials, you can’t study from them. If you don’t know where your readings are, you can’t do them. Disorganization adds unnecessary friction and chaos to your day and makes studying harder than it needs to be.
4. Manage Your Attention
We can only ever learn what we pay attention to. That one line is so important that I’m going to say it again: we can only learn what we pay attention to.
This means we can’t learn things if we don’t pay attention in class, pay attention while we read, and pay attention during our study sessions.
It’s not enough to show up to class and then zone out when the teacher is talking. Sure, you may end up writing down a few random notes, but if you’re not alive and alert when you’re writing down those notes, they’re essentially pointless.
Note: If you haven’t gotten my $47 Note-Taking Power System program yet, you’re bananas. I teach you exactly how to take fast, smart notes during class so you can get better grades…by, like, Monday.
If you zone out while you’re reading, but technically you still make it to the last page, you’ve wasted your time because you’re not going to retain anything you read.
If you’ve zoned out well using passive study methods like rereading your notes instead of using active recall, then you’re wasting your time because you’re not going to learn anything deeply enough to pass a test on it.
Paying attention for an extended period of time is as close as we get to a superpower these days.
If you have ADHD, sustained attention is more difficult for you. So I am certainly not making the case that you just need to “focus harder,” because that is impossible. But if you do not have ADHD, you have no good reason to be zoning out during classes, readings, or study sessions.
If you do find yourself zoning out and losing attention, then you’ve got to change something about your approach. Telling yourself you just have to “lock in more” is not a strategy.
So here’s what can help you improve your focus when you’re supposed to be focusing:
1. Put your phone away. Not upside down on the table next to you, but literally in another room. If you’re not doing this already, then you have no right to complain about bad grades or school being hard.
2. Set up your environment to support the work you’re doing there. If you’re a chef, you wouldn’t prepare meals in a parking garage. If you’re a professional soccer player, you wouldn’t practice drills inside an airport terminal. These might seem like ridiculous scenarios, but they’re no different than the study conditions I see many of my students put themselves in.
Attempting to study for an exam in the middle of a crowded dorm room with music in your AirPods is just as absurd as trying to run soccer drills in an indoor airport terminal.
So create a study space that supports the work you’re doing and remove absolutely anything unrelated to that work.
3. And for the love of the school gods, stop telling yourself that you can listen to lyrical music when you study. What’s actually happening is that you’re having a funner time studying with music, but is studying supposed to be fun, or is it supposed to work? (I know “funner” isn’t a word, but it works there, so I’m going with it.)
5. Know Exactly What You’re Going to Study (and When and How)
As part of my coaching services, I teach students how to study using real study methods on their real material for real upcoming tests.
Many of these sessions begin with a student telling me they have a test tomorrow, but they don’t know what to study.
Of course this situation is entirely avoidable if you follow rules one through four in this blog post. Because if you learn the material as you go, stay organized with your study materials, make sure you understand the material, and do everything you can to support your focus, then you won’t be scrambling to figure all that out the night before the test.
It’s not enough to tell yourself you’re going to “study unit four.” Like, what information are you going to study from unit four? Do you understand the information or do you have to first figure it out? What study methods are you going to use? Are you going to make quizzes? Flashcards?
You have to know what you’re studying and how you’re going to study it before you can study it.
Think of it this way: It’s like saying “I’m going to exercise more” without having any idea when or how. What kind of exercise? How often? Do you have the right equipment? For how long? What days? So many questions!
Similarly, we have to know what we’re going to study, when, and how, before we get to the “studying” step.
In SchoolHabits University, I teach something called the FOMSO 5-Step Study Framework. It helps you figure out exactly what to study, when, and how, so that the studying part is approximately one bazillion times easier.
Final Thoughts on Making Studying Easier
When you know studying is supposed to take effort and can naturally be an uncomfortable process, you’ll have less emotional response when it gets hard. In other words, when you expect it to hurt a little, you’ll stop screaming “Ouch! It hurts!” every single time you get poked. Strange analogy, but I think it works.
And once you understand that learning new information is a biological and chemical process that we can’t rush, we can design our study routines to support how our brain works best.
This means learning the material as we go instead of demanding that our brains memorize something at our command.
It means taking the time to understand what we’re asking our brains to remember rather than trying to memorize nonsense.
It means organizing our notes and class materials in a way that makes it easy to use our notes and design study materials from our resources.
It also means doing everything possible to stay focused and protect your attention in class, on our readings, and during our study sessions.
And finally, it means having a plan for what you’re going to study, when you’re going to study it (which involves time management), and what active recall study methods you intend to use.
Following these five simple study rules is how to make studying easier. Don’t believe me? Try it.
Or want me to walk you through it? Join SchoolHabits University.
