What would you like to do tonight, student? Do you really want to study for hours?
Wouldn’t your rather go to a movie or to the rec center? Wouldn’t it be better to keep your nights and weekends study-free so you can do something fun?
What if you could do that and still get the grades you want?
Here’s a little secret that top students know.
While you are on campus (or on your computer for classes), you’re stuck, I mean…
It’s not like you can do the stuff you really want to do (duct tape your roommate’s bed to the ceiling, stare love bullets into the eyes of that special someone, floss your poodle, etc.).
You end up wasting the time between classes. You feed your Instagram addiction. You tweet what you had to eat. You read the back of the cereal box again. And so on.
There’s a simple fix AND you’ll free up your nights and weekends! Here’s how…
Take Inventory
Each day before you begin classes, take inventory. What do you need in order to be able to do your homework and studying while you’re on campus or sitting at your computer? What do you NOT need?
If you’re going to campus, know which books you will need and make sure they’re in your backpack. You should always have all your class notes with you as well.
On the other hand, I know people who–just to be safe–carry every book they own, every day. While this does create rock-hard calves, it also gets your chiropractor as excited as a Shih Tzu in a sausage factory.
It’s not necessary. It’s damaging.
OR, if you’re going to be sitting in front of your computer for hours on end, make sure all your needed notes, books, and supplies, are within easy reach.
You know you. Having that Porcine Physics text book right next to you rather than down the hall in your bedroom can be the difference between you reading chapter 12 and posting yet another Reddit comment no one will recall in a few years anyway.
Having your needed supplies and resources at hand makes time-wasting less likely.
Use Your Prime Time
Take advantage of every spare minute during the day.
Treat it as if this is a job for which you are getting paid ludicrous amounts of money. You are getting paid by the minute, AND the boss is looking over your shoulder all day long with a stop watch in hand. You only get paid if you are studying.
As you walk across campus or as you wait for your next Zoom class, for example, pull out those notes and quiz yourself. Imagine you are teaching a class of rather dim-witted eight-year-olds. Explain and re-explain and expand to try to get the ideas across.
Use your prime time hours. Get some class reading done. Do homework. Practice your problem sets. Process your notes.
It Adds Up
Let’s say you have three hours of class time on a typical college day.
Coming to campus at 8 AM and leaving at 5 PM gives you nine hours on campus, only three of which are actually spent in class. That leaves you six hours a day to study.
Even if you take a five-minute break every thirty minutes or so, spend an hour eating lunch with your sugar-booger, AND take a thirty-minute nap on a library couch, you still have over four hours!
That’s four hours (per day!) you won’t have to spend studying at night or on the weekend.
Bottom Line
Take that wasted time between classes when you hang out at the campus coffee shop or trolling TikTok, and use it for study.
If you do it during the day, then you don’t have to do it in the evening or on the weekend when there are some real possibilities for entertainment.
BONUS: Your friends never see you studying and think you are a genius. Plus, total strangers will offer you wads of cash the size of your head to tutor them.
© Cody Blair, All Rights Reserved.
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