It’s often expected that students know how to organise their time to study effectively. However, study skills such as this are usually not taught at school! Students who are perhaps naturally less organised often struggle in comparison to their friends who love planners.
Let’s look at some of the best ways you can organise your study to get the most out of it.
- Stick to a routine. Finding a healthy day-to-day routine is a great way to gently incorporate study into your everyday habits, removing some of the difficulty you may have in getting yourself to sit at your desk.
- Work out a study timeline. Plan backwards from major assessments or exams, and work out where you want to be in the weeks leading up to these tasks. Then you can plan how much work you’re going to put in over a longer period of time, which will definitely enhance your learning process. Attach specific goals to each study session to give yourself a sense of progression and focus: perhaps in the first week, you would like to learn your definitions well, but by the third week, you would like to be able to apply your knowledge in an essay form.
- Study at the time when you have the most energy. You’ll often read or hear advice to study at particular times. But everyone functions differently, so spend some time testing out different study times to see when it is you work best. Once you work this out, try and make it a routine to study at this time most days.
- Write everything down and prioritise important tasks. No, this doesn’t mean you need a planner to write in every day (although planners work very well for many people!). You could consider keeping a calendar and a list of tasks to do on a whiteboard over your desk, or keep virtual sticky-notes on your laptop of things which are coming up. Find a method that works well for you, and stick to it!
- Keep a clean study space. It’s easy to let extraneous stuff pile up around you at a desk, but a clean study space is conducive to effective study where you are not distracted. A clean desk is quick to achieve (hopefully) and you will notice a difference in the quality of your study.
- If you don’t feel like studying, study in small blocks of time with a timer. Anyone can sit down and study for ten minutes at a time. How about twenty? And then thirty minutes? Try setting a timer and negotiate with yourself this way: once I finish thirty minutes of study, I can go and do that thing I wanted to do earlier.
If you loved this article, you will LOVE all of our other articles, such as: Top 10 Study Tips for High School Students, How to Motivate Yourself to Study at Home and The Benefits and Importance of Learning About Grammar.
About Learnmate
Learnmate is a trusted Australian community platform that connects students who want 1:1 or small group study support, with tutors who are looking to share their knowledge and earn an income. From primary school to high school subjects — from science and maths to niche subjects like visual communication — Learnmate can help you improve academic performance or boost confidence, at your pace with the tutor that you choose.
We pride ourselves in offering a reliable and positive experience for both our students and tutors. Every tutor that joins the platform is vetted to meet a level of academic excellence, teaching qualification or relevant experience. All tutors are provided the opportunity to complete professional training.
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