Photo by George Milton
College — what an exciting time. It’s a time where most young adults are living on their own for the first time and have to be responsible for themselves. This means that there’s no parental figure telling the student to go study instead of going out too much, or to sit down and eat a complete meal and exercise, or to go and clean something. This amount of freedom, while exciting, can also be overwhelming, but it’s truly a fantastic time to experiment and figure out how to balance living your life with responsibilities.
So why should you want to build good study habits?
You want to build up good study habits so that you can make college more manageable. It is much easier to study and do well when you don’t have to cram everything the night before because you’ve already established a routine that allows you to break up large tasks into smaller pieces.
If you’re in college and want to build good study habits but you’re not sure where to start, please take a look at these tips to help you get started.
Tips to Build Good Study Habits
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1. Get a Planner and Get Organized
Get a Planner, a Calendar app, whatever works for you — and write down all of your important deadlines. Next, fill in your other important events like your class times, family and friends time, work schedule, club activities, fun events, etc. Now that you’ve done all of this, you know when your free blocks of time are. This will allow you to work when you’re at work and focus when it’s time to study.
Here are some planners that I’ve gathered for you to consider if you do not yet have a planner:
2. Create a Study Schedule
Now that you know where all of your free time blocks are, it’s time to start scheduling in your study time. When you schedule in your study time, make it make sense. Have your schedule work for you, not against you. What I mean is that if you have an hour between your class and your work, don’t schedule in study time then because you need time to commute from your class to your job, or maybe you need time to take a break before you move onto the next obligation you need to get to.
3. Don’t Let Tasks Build Up
Homework assignments, studying, projects — don’t let them add up. I know it’s so tempting to keep putting them off because you’re busy (I know you are!) but when you’re panicking at 2am try to cram everything, it’s really not going to feel good. Try your best to start on assignments and review the lesson on the same day. Break up these tasks so that they’re manageable and be consistent.
4. Create a Study Guide
Use your syllabus as the template for your study guide. Fill out your study guide everytime you review a lesson. This allows you to knock out 2 two tasks at once: reviewing the lesson + adding it to your study guide. Now, when it comes to the week before your final or midterm, you’ve already been reviewing the lessons as you’ve been going AND you have the summary of what to expect for each category in your subject.
5. Go to your Professor’s Office Hours
From my experience, most Professors are really surprised when you show up to their office hours AND show that you actually tried to understand the lesson. Don’t just show up all of the time with nothing prepared. Bring questions that you have, show them you tried to work through it. If they give you a study guide, try to complete it as much as you can. When you come to someone for help, you’re asking them for their time. Try to be respectful of it. This also gives your professor a chance to know who you are. This can go a long way.
6. Find a Study Group
You can get a lot done as an individual, but you maybe be able to get even more done as a group. If you can find a study group, the group can divide and conquer the study plan so that you only have to be responsible for chapters 3,6,9 when you all come together to review for the final. Members of your group may also understand something better than you, so they can be a resource for you. Or, you can understand something better than your group mates and use this teaching opportunity to further reinforce your knowledge while helping out someone else. It’s also just so motivating to study and do work if other people are doing it too. The caveat here is that you should find a good group to work with. If you’re the only one that’s doing the work, it’s probably time to part ways with your study group. Set some boundaries.
7. Get in Some Exercise
It’s easy to let your fitness fall to the bottom of your to-do list, or not even get done at all, but it’s so worth it to take the time to exercise. Studies have shown that exercise improves memory by forming new synapses in your brain that make it easier to absorb information and form long term memories. We’re aiming to remember what we learned so that we can recall it later during finals, right? So get exercising! You can even just start by taking a brisk walk. There’s also just so many other benefits to exercising like lowering stress impact, reduce the risk of disease, improve your ability to do everyday activities
8. Take Breaks and Celebrate Your Accomplishments
It is important to acknowledge all of the great work you’ve been doing. You’ve been studying, you’ve been going to work, you’ve been doing your assignments. It’s time to take a break so that you can recharge and relax! While you are a student and studying should be your priority, you need to enjoy this time as well. Take the night off to snuggle on the couch with a good book and tea, go to that party, treat yourself for doing a good job. And when or if it all gets too overwhelming for you, take a break too. You can’t do everything and nor should you.
9. Make Your Routine Sustainable
If your routine is difficult to stick to then you’re not going to stick to your routine. It’s that simple. Part of your responsibility as an adult is figuring out how to make something work for you. Please don’t lean in too hard with the “well this is how everyone else does it” mentality. Learn that you are an individual with unique needs and constraints and so you will have to learn what your learning style is and how to adjust and make things work for you. This is a valuable skill that will carry you on in life. Take this time to learn it now.
And there you have it! These tips will help you stay organized for college while helping you build good study habits.
College is such a unique time because no one expects that much from you yet. Everyone knows that it’s the time for you to go a little crazy, enjoy yourself, work, and study hard. People are usually more lenient if you don’t have it all together yet because they understand that this is the time for you to learn and figure it out. So please take advantage of it and have fun! But please remember that even though you have to balance school, your life, and work — that you are a student first. So please take the time to build good study habits and figure out a study routine that works for you. You’ve got this!!
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