Improving Study Habits


Improving Study Habits. College study habits, effective study habits and how to improve study habits.

College Study Habits

Invest your time

Instead of spending your time, think of each minute you spend as an investment. Make sure each task you commit yourself to fulfills one of your goals in some way, be it in building better relationships, preparing for your career, getting better grades, etc.

Structure the way you spend your time carefully, and as far as possible, set a fixed amount of time for which you will work 150% on each task. Develop effective college study habits by changing the way you view productivity: productive work is always work accomplished within a known amount of time. Never allow tasks to drag on indefinitely!

Effective Study Habits

Beware of Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law states that tasks assigned will inevitably stretch themselves out to fill the time allocated. If you give yourself one hour, you will accomplish most of the task satisfactorily in one hour. If you give yourself one day, you will accomplish the task in one day – with only marginally better results. If you give yourself an indefinite amount of time, you will procrastinate to the extent that your task seems to take forever to complete.

Improve Study Habits

Blow the curve once a term

I first picked this up from Cal Newport. It is an excellent strategy to improve study habits that will make your professors remember you well. The secret is to be strategic about which project or assignment to go the extra mile on. Trying to hand in the best work on every single assignment would without doubt be tiring.

Instead, just choose the one class and assignment you find really interesting, and put all your energy into making what you hand in exceptional. Sometimes, that may mean doubling the time you spend studying for that Math final and aiming for an almost perfect score; the rewards would be well worth it!


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