Print PDF
Favorite
Email
Step 9Study Aids
Study Aids
These are tips and techniques that can improve the quality of your studying over the long term.
1) Relax. It's almost impossible to study effectively if you are stressed. Try think only about the process of studying, when you are studying. A quiet area to study is a good thing. Preferably this will be the same place you study every time. You might listen to a little relaxing music for a couple minutes before you start (just getting into a relazed groove), but do not play music in the background as you study. This makes memorizing much harder and slows down your thinking as your brain tries to interpret everything at once. So, do yourself a favor, and relax. Oh, and try to study in a place with a mild (not strong), pleasant smell.
2) Become a Marathoner. Humans are creatures of habit. Habits are what allow us to reuse solutions to problems we've already figured out, saving us valuable time and energy. We can also get stuck in bad habits, that consistently cause us problems. Making studying a habit is a good thing. You want to train your mind and your body to study like a marathoner trains her body to run. If you put forth a little effort to make as many aspects about your study time as consistent as possible, your body will begin to respond better every time you study. When you enter your study nook, you'll start to feel your body relax, the smell of your study room will awaken your brain, and soon you'll be "in the zone." If you can't study at the same time each day (I never could due to work schedules), make everything else the same, the same smell, the same relaxation ritual, the same length of study time.
3) Sleep Well. An essential for peak mental performance is adequate and regular rest. I didn't learn this principle for many years. I've been a nighthawk by nature, definitely NOT a morning person. I stayed up all hours of night and got up whenever. When I finally decided I wanted to get up early in the morning to exercise, I started going to bed at a regular time. After two weeks of that regular sleep, my work was better, I felt much more energetic, I awoke easier; I had become a morning person (imagine my shock)! An added bonus of getting up earlier is that I get an amazing amount of things done in those early quiet hours. A surprising number of millionaires are early risers as well. Maybe there is something to that "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
4) Develop a Photographic Memory. Have you heard of people with memories so great, they can just glance at a phone book page for a second and recall the whole thing in their mind's eye? That's called a photographic memory. Some people seem born with this amazing gift. But I believe you can develop one. My wife once heard that if you memorize a scripture a day (about the length of a short paragraph or poem) for a year, you'll develop a photographic memory. So she started memorizing a scripture a day. She only did it for six months, and she has the most amazing memory for numbers I've ever seen. I don't even look up a phone number if she's around; I just ask her. I am positive that if she'd kept going for a year, she would have developed a photographic memory. There's some pretty fruity stuff on the web if you google "develop photographic memory", but I can only vouch for my wife's experience. I am not really that interested in developing a photographic memory at this point, but if it seems like a great idea to you, try it! If you use all the techniques for memorizing, you won't need a photographic memory, though. You'll be just fine.
These are tips and techniques that can improve the quality of your studying over the long term.
1) Relax. It's almost impossible to study effectively if you are stressed. Try think only about the process of studying, when you are studying. A quiet area to study is a good thing. Preferably this will be the same place you study every time. You might listen to a little relaxing music for a couple minutes before you start (just getting into a relazed groove), but do not play music in the background as you study. This makes memorizing much harder and slows down your thinking as your brain tries to interpret everything at once. So, do yourself a favor, and relax. Oh, and try to study in a place with a mild (not strong), pleasant smell.
2) Become a Marathoner. Humans are creatures of habit. Habits are what allow us to reuse solutions to problems we've already figured out, saving us valuable time and energy. We can also get stuck in bad habits, that consistently cause us problems. Making studying a habit is a good thing. You want to train your mind and your body to study like a marathoner trains her body to run. If you put forth a little effort to make as many aspects about your study time as consistent as possible, your body will begin to respond better every time you study. When you enter your study nook, you'll start to feel your body relax, the smell of your study room will awaken your brain, and soon you'll be "in the zone." If you can't study at the same time each day (I never could due to work schedules), make everything else the same, the same smell, the same relaxation ritual, the same length of study time.
3) Sleep Well. An essential for peak mental performance is adequate and regular rest. I didn't learn this principle for many years. I've been a nighthawk by nature, definitely NOT a morning person. I stayed up all hours of night and got up whenever. When I finally decided I wanted to get up early in the morning to exercise, I started going to bed at a regular time. After two weeks of that regular sleep, my work was better, I felt much more energetic, I awoke easier; I had become a morning person (imagine my shock)! An added bonus of getting up earlier is that I get an amazing amount of things done in those early quiet hours. A surprising number of millionaires are early risers as well. Maybe there is something to that "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
4) Develop a Photographic Memory. Have you heard of people with memories so great, they can just glance at a phone book page for a second and recall the whole thing in their mind's eye? That's called a photographic memory. Some people seem born with this amazing gift. But I believe you can develop one. My wife once heard that if you memorize a scripture a day (about the length of a short paragraph or poem) for a year, you'll develop a photographic memory. So she started memorizing a scripture a day. She only did it for six months, and she has the most amazing memory for numbers I've ever seen. I don't even look up a phone number if she's around; I just ask her. I am positive that if she'd kept going for a year, she would have developed a photographic memory. There's some pretty fruity stuff on the web if you google "develop photographic memory", but I can only vouch for my wife's experience. I am not really that interested in developing a photographic memory at this point, but if it seems like a great idea to you, try it! If you use all the techniques for memorizing, you won't need a photographic memory, though. You'll be just fine.
| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |
 |
Add Comment
|
