Do These Two Things to Get the Most Out of Your Study Sessions

School is a lot of work and is frequently mixed in with many other responsibilities such as family, church commitments, work responsibilities, and other things that come up throughout the week. With all of that going on, it can limit the amount of time you have available to complete your schoolwork. 

Time is limited. We can’t make more time. Each one of us is limited to 168 hours each week. When that hour slips away, you can’t gain it back. It is gone. I’m sure you have had the experience of sitting down to “study” only to realize that three hours have passed and you did not really accomplish anything. Frustrated, you have to sacrifice even more sleep, family time, or other important activities in your week. 

In this post, I want to highlight two ways to get the most out of your time when you sit down to “study.”

Throw Out the Word “Study”

This idea was first presented to me from Cal Newport and has been extremely helpful in my own approach to studying. Study is a vague term with squishy constraints, unguided direction, and infinite possibilities. What does it really mean to “study”? Are you sitting down to watch a lecture, prepare for a quiz, make progress on a paper, read a book(s), interact with other students in a discussion forum, review notes for an exam, or complete another project for class? When you sit down to “study” and don’t have a plan or set specific goals you would like to accomplish, you will waste time preparing, thinking through, and starting whatever activity you deem most important. As I stated above, time is fleeting, so that 20, 30, 45, or more minutes will be gone and may not even be the best use of your time.

Instead, have specific activities and goals set for each study session. If possible, plan out your ideal week with specific times blocked off to complete your schoolwork for the week. If you’re not already doing this, I encourage you to look at the idea of time blocking or hyper scheduling. While these methods primarily talk about the workday, this type of focus will be equally helpful in your schoolwork.

So instead of being vague about your goals, get specific and say, “I’m going to read two chapters of this book.” Alternatively, decide, “I will complete the outline for my paper,” or, “I will select and summarize 2–3 resources for this section of my paper.” Whatever it is, be specific and have a definitive end goal for your session.

Focus

Staying focused is one of those ideas that seems obvious and straightforward but, in reality, is profound and difficult. James Clear once said, “Before you throw more time at the problem, throw more focused action at the problem. You don’t need more time, you need fewer distractions.”

Distractions kill productivity. The statistics on how long it takes us to switch from task to task are absolutely absurd. Focus, deep focus, does not come naturally, even more so in an age when distractions are so ubiquitous. Focusing without distraction is a skill that has to be learned. Personally, sitting down for more than 30 minutes intensely focused on one task is difficult. As soon as I hit a lull in what I’m doing, my immediate reaction is to do something else. Our natural tendency is always to want to do the more straightforward thing, and often, this easier thing is on our phones.

Did anyone text me? What’s Twitter saying right now? I could answer that email that is sitting in my inbox right now… Is it going to rain tomorrow? What’s the score of the Cardinals game?

These types of thoughts always come up when we lose focus. I used to think that it just took more discipline, which is partly true. But focus is a skill that we have to learn. We have to push through each day to actively say no to the distraction sitting there, begging for our immediate attention.

Distractions are destructive because they are the easy way out for the hard work of focus and creativity.

Focus takes hard work. Couple deep and focused work with commitments for each of your study sessions. You’ll quickly realize you are spending less time and accomplishing more.

Here are some suggestions for staying focused.

• Set a timer for undistracted time. Start small and gradually build up. During this time, do not look at anything else. If you catch yourself becoming distracted, just sit there. Don’t open your email, unlock your phone, organize your desk, etc.

• Continually remind yourself that you are building a strong immune system to distraction during each session of deep focus. So remember that this skill you are building will have massive results in the long run. As a master craftsman only gets better at his craft the more he does it, your focus will get better and stronger the more you practice it.

• Turn off notifications on your phone and computer. Just seeing a message pop up on your phone distracts your mind from the task. Even better, put your phone in a drawer, backpack, or somewhere else away from you. Just the presence of your phone can be a source of curiosity for your wandering mind. Personally, I find that even having my phone in my pocket causes me to think about it more than if I put it in my bag.

• Set a timer for distracted time. After your undistracted time, give yourself 5 minutes for distractions, then get back to work.

• I often find that writing things out by hand helps me stay focused for more extended periods of time.

There are many other tips and hacks that you can do to get the most out of your study sessions. Still, I firmly believe that if you genuinely implement these two ideas, they will have exponential returns on your time. They’re easy to describe and understand but challenging to implement each week. I often have to reset these practices when I’ve drifted from implementing them in my own life.

Make the most out of your study sessions and open up more time for what matters most.