None of us are born knowing how to study: it takes time to develop the skills that make us good students. The hardest part can be getting started, and the next hardest part is keeping it going.
How to get started
It’s so easy to self-distract by assembling collections of highlighter pens, post-it notes and novelty pencil sharpeners that it’s possible to miss the window for study altogether. We recommend that you set your oven timer/ mobile phone alarm for fifteen minutes and decide to focus completely on your study project for that time.
When the fifteen minutes is up, decide whether you are going to set the alarm for another fifteen minutes. After this second mini-session, the chances are you will be engrossed and will carry on for longer, but if not at least you will have done SOME study, which is better than NO study.
Why is it so hard?
The enormity of the task puts us off studying: if you think you have to read a 400-page textbook in one sitting, you are very likely to put it off as long as possible. If, on the other hand, you tell yourself you will spend fifteen minutes reading the first ten pages and taking notes, you have given yourself an achievable task, which is very motivating.
How to keep it going
We all know the old chestnuts such as studying where there are no distractions (disable your broadband NOW!), but do you know how to use music to focus your mind and aid concentration? A much-vaunted study several years ago found that Kylie Minogue’s 60 bpm tracks were an ideal background study, but you may be glad to know that Mozart has the same effect, without the distraction of Kylie’s bagful-of-drowning-kittens voice. Try Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or Vivaldi’s Quattro Stagioni very quietly in the background and you may be surprised at the difference it makes to your concentration levels.
A final trick of the trade
Savvy teachers know that one solution to high spirits on a Friday afternoon is a drop of frankincense oil on the radiator. Frankincense has been used for millenia in places of worship because it calms the mind and puts it in the mood for contemplation. Science is pretty scathing about the beneficial effects of aromatherapy: one major study in recent years dismissed it as being beneficial only as a placebo. In other words, it will only work if you think it will work. Speaking anecdotally, we think frankincense oil does aid concentration and that a placebo effect is nevertheless an effect, so it doesn’t really matter why it works, it just matters that it does.
Finally, study skills don’t come easily to most of us: tackle your study project little and often and you find it comes naturally after a while.
Image: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
