How to study less and score more

January 6, 2023

How is it even possible to study less and score more? well, there are techniques that you can implement to attain better results in your education.

Studying hard is very important to get your desired results, but it is also very important to study smart. You could be working hard all day and not applying the proper techniques and strategies, while someone else studies half as much as you but gets the same results by studying smart, strategizing and using the right methods to do the work. You must put some thought into finding out the most efficient way to do your task so that you get the maximum results with the minimum effort required.

This is A fellow students’ guide. Use these study tips to study less and score more.

“Work hard, and you will earn good rewards. Work smart, and you will earn great rewards.”
~Matshona Dhliwayo

1. Stay Focused and Avoid Distractions

In order to study less and score more keep your full focus on what you are doing and filter out all the distractions and irrelevant thoughts from your mind. When you are focused, you get to learn more in less time. Work on slowly and gradually increasing your attention span so that you don’t get as easily distracted and can study for longer durations with your full focus.

In order to study less and score more use color pens
while you take a look at your notes use a highlighter to highlight the parts you need to study again in more depth.

Meditate for 5 minutes before starting your work, it helps you clear your head and helps you get started on a positive note by clearing your mind of all the alien & negative thoughts and emotions. This reduces anxiety levels, which leads to significantly improved concentration and your ability to focus on what needs to be accomplished in the study session.

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“If you work hard you may end up only working for the rest of your life.”

You should also clear your workspace of any physical distractions before you start working. Put your phone on mute if possible and only use it if and when you need it for something important. If there are noisy distractions around deal with them before you start studying.

2. Go To Class and Pay Attention to Your Teacher

If you want to study less and score more then you must listen to your teachers attentively in class, you save a lot of time as you don’t have to learn and understand the concepts again, by yourself at home. If you understand the concepts already, all you need to do at home is revised. Think of how much time it can save you! Also, concept understanding is a lot better when given by a teacher as they have an already devised, tried, and tested way of teaching a topic, you cannot self-teach as efficiently as they can. This is a very basic aspect of studying smarter, not harder.

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Moreover, visual learning is always more effective, when it comes to recalling information during exams. You may have experienced that while writing your exam, you remember small details like the page number the answer is on or how your teacher drew a particular diagram on the board.

3. Find Out the Study Methods That Work for You

People can give you endless tips and tricks to study efficiently, not that you should ignore them, but you need to try all these, analyze the results, and see what works for YOU. You may be working very hard, burning the midnight oil, and still not getting the results you desire, the problem is not what you’re doing but how you are doing it.

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Let me explain this for you with an example, you may have seen that what works wonders for your friend, does not always work for you, it is natural to get confused when this happens but it is very important to understand that everyone is built different, everyone has their own style of doing things.

In order to study less and score more study actively
find creative ways to keep your mind active. Quiz yourself, ask yourself questions while reading.

Cramming may work for some but there may be others who only learn a topic when they understand the concept. So, the first step to working smart is to figure out what your style is, and what your strengths are, and use them in doing your work.

4. Learn How to Take Effective Notes

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Note-making is an art. There is a difference between good notes and notes that are made just for the sake of it. Well-made notes are very helpful, they can save you a lot of time and also facilitate better learning. Anyone can make notes, but you only benefit from them when they are made properly with a focus on being

Concise
To the point
Well numbered
Optimized
Divided into sections

and having

Headings and subheadings
Keywords
Underlined, Highlighted, and Capitalized parts wherever required

When you have good notes you can learn every answer in points and learn only what is necessary. Having notes saves you from the hassle of going through those unnecessary lines in textbooks, it saves the time you waste filtering unimportant content in books. Learning in points is more efficient and better recalled than long paragraphs. Investing time in making notes once and saving time each time you study, is smart work.

5. Write Brief Summaries of Your Notes

The key benefit of taking down notes summaries is that it helps you retain the information better. The more you process the same information about a topic, the better you are at remembering it. A good notes summary must be able to tell the reader exactly what the chapter is about and what is important. It must be comprehensive; you should isolate all the important topics from the notes and list them down as a paragraph.

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To study less and score more find the right place to study
create a study environment that will avoid distractions. Control noise level and study under good lightning.

Note summaries come in handy before your exam when you have to go through a lot of chapters and you try to recall what a particular chapter is all about, what are its important topics and key features so that you can revise the important stuff and see how much you remember and what all you need to do again or revise. This trick is very effective and will definitely help you to study less and score more.

6. Create Mind Maps from Your Notes

So as to study less and score more goal you should create mind maps or spider diagrams which can help you compile the whole chapter in one place. These mind maps are integral elements in the studying pattern of students who believe in studying smart, not hard. Try it once and see the difference for yourself, see how much time it saves you, how easy those tough chapters look when you have mind maps, and how you remember it much better. As I have mentioned multiple times in this blog, visual learning is way more effective than any other form of learning. Mind maps are one of the main techniques using visual learning to simplify a topic.

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To study less and score more study with Books
people who read enhanced e-books or study on computers remembered fewer details than those whor read print books.

Mind maps help you see connections between different topics and provide an overview of the key points. This is especially helpful in history, to see what came first, the dates, and how everything is related. It is understandably confusing to remember the dates and sequence of events. Mind maps can do wonders in solving this problem and make a very tough topic seem very easy. So, make sure to make mind maps and study smarter, not harder!

7. Organize Your Study Material So You Can Find Everything

In an attempt to study less and score more, you should organize in a way that it’s easy to find everything and you don’t waste time looking for things and losing focus. It creates a quiet and peaceful environment to study. Then your workspace is clean and aesthetically pleasing, and it motivates you to spend more time there. Moreover, when you have everything you need around you, you have no excuses to give yourself to roam around and procrastinate. It is very common to resonate with yourself that you can’t study, as you cannot find a particular book.

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So to study less and score more you can benefit from these tips, I would suggest that you understand and implement these things in your day-to-day study sessions and see the benefits for yourself. A person who studies hard but not smartly then you is bound to feel stressed and exhausted and have that constant feeling of where you are going wrong, thinking why others are getting the same results when they are not even studying as much as you. Why should you work hard and invest unnecessary time when you can work smart and still complete everything, with the added benefit of not feeling exhausted and stressed after studying?

These are great tips for educational benefits, But we all know that there is no replacement for hard work. Similar to this article we have another good read which might interest you. How to revise your complete syllabus in one day. Thank you for your time.