Royane Real
Improve Your Studying and Learning Ability
By Royane Real
Author of “How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative”
Would you benefit from learning ways to remember better? Improving our learning and memory is particularly important when we are students at college or university. Unfortunately, many students approach learning and studying in the wrong way.
Instead of keeping up with their reading and studying throughout the school term, many students put off their studying until the night before exams. This common technique doesn’t work very well. Most students need to read and review their study material several times in order to understand it and remember it.
Why do so many students put off studying until the last minute?
One reason we often don't start studying until the last possible minute is that we have misjudged how long it will actually take us to absorb and understand the material.
If your mid-term is still six weeks away, you can go for three or four weeks thinking there is still plenty of time left before you need to start to study. Suddenly, the time is almost gone! If you get a late start, you may find that the subject matter is a lot harder to understand than you thought it would be. All of a sudden it’s too late to ask for help.
Another reason many of us put off studying is because we are overwhelmed. Instead of getting started, we somehow convince ourselves that putting off a tough study project can be the best way to deal with it. We live in denial.
If you have been guilty of any bad study habits, it's not too late to learn some other habits that will work better for you.
First, you need to remind yourself why you want to do better in your studies. Maybe you need a good mark to get into a good university. Maybe you want a chance at a career that will pay you well. Always keep your end goal in mind.
If you feel very overwhelmed, you can improve your motivation and your performance by breaking up the project into smaller sections, or "chunks". Focus on completing each small section and refuse to get overwhelmed by the bigger picture.
Each time you accomplish one little bit of your assignment, you can give yourself a meaningful reward. This will help you to stay motivated over a long period.
If you have a deadline looming, decide how much of the project you need to tackle at one time.
Let's say you have six weeks to master the content of a difficult biology text. When you look through the book you realize that if you study one chapter each night, you can get through the book in 28 days. This will leave two weeks for you to review the material again.
Once you know how much of the book you need to read every night, you can pace yourself.
Concentrate on the immediate task at hand. You don't need to feel overwhelmed by the entire book at one time. To motivate yourself, give yourself a series of small rewards each time you master one chapter. Give yourself a larger reward for completing the entire book.
For rewards to work they must be immediate, and they must be personally meaningful to you. Don’t reward yourself with a brand new fishing pole if you don’t like fishing.
Rewards don't need to be material objects if there is something else that would really motivate and inspire you. You can decide your reward will be attending a special concert. Get creative and think of something that will spur you to take action.
It's important that your reward take place very soon after the work has been accomplished. This will give you a feeling of positive reinforcement. If the gap between the activity and the reward is too big, it won’t have the effect of reinforcing the desired activity.
Rewarding yourself with external rewards for studying is not the only way to create good study habits.
An even better method is to consciously increase your love of learning. Tell yourself that you are a good learner. Affirm to yourself frequently that learning is fun and enjoyable for you.
Enjoy the sensation of giving your brain a good intellectual work out. Feel pride in becoming a good learner and a good thinker.
Too many of us have let our minds get flabby and lazy. The truth is, your brain was made for learning. Let your brain have the mental exercise it needs and craves!
This article was written by Royane Real, author of the popular book “How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative” Discover more techniques and ideas that will help you to become a better learner. Download my book today at http://www.lulu.com/real
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