Here's five simple tips to study smart.
Tip 1: Listening to music
So this is something that I will do before
any study session.
And several studies have found that listening
to music while studying improves focus,
concentration, and mood. And that baroque and classical music
are quite effective.
I know that some people prefer to study while in silence,
but if you do study while listening to music,
there's some ways to get the most out of it
and that's to ensure that the music
is something that you enjoy, something that puts you
in a good mood to ensure that the music
is not too loud or too fast paced.
Music at 40-60bpm have been shown
to have a calming effect while studying
to ensure that the music has few lyrics
or no lyrics at all.
Lyrics have been shown to be quite distracting,
especially when you're trying to learn new concepts.
And to make sure that the music
is already in a playlist so you are not getting distracted
by choosing the next song.
Tip number 2: Create your hyperbolic time chamber
So this is probably unfamiliar to a lot of you,
but as a kid, my brother and I would watch a lot
of Dragon Ball Z.
And in this show, there was this place
called the hyperbolic time chamber.
It was a dimension separate to that
from Earth and it had no sense of night and day.
And it was a place that the characters
like Goku and Vegeta would go to with a train
to get stronger, to get faster,
and more powerful.
It was free from any distractions
or external circumstances.
And why it's important for us is that
we want to create a workspace
that also has those elements,
a place where we can get deep work accomplished.
And instead of training our muscles,
we're training our mind.
And ways that you can create this workspace
is to, firstly, eliminate all distractions.
So that's putting your phone away in a different room,
putting it on "Do not Disturb", telling your housemates
that you need a few hours for undisturbed
study time.
To create a workspace that's comfortable.
Ensure good lighting, ensure good airflow,
open a window, use a diffuser.
And to keep important resources like textbooks,
stationary, or notebooks handy, so you're not trying
to look for them and reduce the friction
from getting started.
The reason why I like the analogy is that one year
in the time chamber is equivalent
to one day back on Earth.
So the characters would go there,
they train for two to three years,
and they'd come back and it would only had been
two to three days back on Earth that they've come back
stronger and more powerful.
If we can create a workspace or we can really focus
and really achieve deep work, then three hours
of focus, uninterrupted study can be just as effective
as someone who spent 10-12 hours doing
fragmented distracted study over the entire day.
We can be more efficient, we can save more time,
and we can get more done.
Tip number 3: Get moving
So movement is extremely important for the body.
And as humans, we're not designed to be
in one place for a prolonged amount of time.
Having poor posture and being in the same position
for too long reduces concentration.
Let me give you an example. If you are asked
a question by a teacher or you're put on the spot
to explain a concept to a friend,
how would you be positioned? You'd probably be sitting
or standing upright. Your head would be forward,
your eyes would be attentive, you'd be fully engaged
in that task so that you can get that answer correct.
Likewise, when it comes to studying,
you want to have good posture.
You want to be attentive. You don't want to be slouching.
You don't want to be in the same position
for too long.
And how I do this is that every 20-30 minutes,
I'll take a minute to be mindful of how I'm sitting,
to move around and stretch out my arms
and legs to get the blood flowing.
And to take my eyes away from the computer screen
and look outside or look into the distance
so I don't get eye fatigued over time.
Tip number 4: The 10-minute rule.
So choose one task that's been causing you stress.
That could be an assignment, a report, studying for a test
that's coming out. Choose that thing
and spend 10 minutes working on it.
What you'll find is that that 10 minutes
that you are working on it becomes 30 minutes,
becomes one hours because now you're a little bit
more familiar with the task at hand.
The reason why we get stressed about these things
because we look at the task at its whole
the 10 hours that it might take working on the assignment.
But if we just allocate 10 minutes or little short bursts
of working on it, then it doesn't become
a big goal. It becomes maybe 5/10 little goals.
And it's more achievable and it's less stressful.
Tip number 5: Find a study partner and do a teaching exchange
So this has a two-fold benefit.
First of all, it gives you an accountability partner,
someone that can motivate you, they can help you
stay on track, that can give you
a little bit of friendly competition to keep you going.
More than that, by talking through concepts
after a study session, that gives you a second chance
to revise the topic, which is beneficial
not just for you but also for the person
that you're teaching.
I find that studying in this way is a little bit more fun.
And just knowing that you're going
to have to teach someone the concept later on
gives you that little extra push to better understand it
so that you can explain it back to someone
in your own words.
Well, those are just some tips that help me
be more efficient when I'm studying.
If you found them useful, be sure to hit that like button,
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I'm going to head off for a study session right now.
And I hope you guys do too after clicking off this video.
And until next time.
This was Sebastian. Stay sharp.