Getting Good Grades Are Not That Hard, Here’s How
If you’re reading this, I know you must have cruised through millions of productivity videos and posts on how to get straight A’s. Although they seem to give really good advice, you cant stop procrastinating. You can’t seem to implement those tips in real life. Why is that?
Attention span
Social media apps are designed to grab your attention, your focus, one of your most precious aspects are being stolen, right in front of your eyes. You see millions of videos about this exact topic, but ironically, you cant seem to get through the whole video. No really, think about it. When was the last time you read a whole entire book (comics don’t count) or watched an entire movie without going on your phone? Social media’s now emerging short form content is to blame for this. Scrolling mindlessly, and endlessly through very short videos, they attack your dopamine receptors and leave you craving for more. They are also designed to feed human nature’s basic properties, ‘uncertainty’. The videos keep you addicted to scrolling, because you’re uncertain about what video is going to pop up next. It could be funny, sad, amusing, surprising… you don’t KNOW. And this is what makes you scroll for hours on end.
How to fix it
Fixing your attention span isn't that hard, it's quite like developing a habit. A hallmark 2009 study on habit creation found that habits developed in a range of 18 to 254 days, so the ’21 day habit rule’ is most probably a myth. Everyday, make sure you cultivate small habits, like not going on your phone once you wake up, and watching a movie instead of going on your phone. Remember to slowly change it everyday, change watching a movie to reading a book, change reading a book to meditating and so on. Make sure to take small steps to build your habits. Once you fix your attention span, you’ll learn how much easier it is to concentrate on studying and how it’s actually fun!
Study Methods
Studying is a very personal task. All the videos you watch online, only tell you THEIR study methods. Studying is a saga of trial and error, but you can only ‘trial and error’ once you actually TRY. Like, try studying with music on, it can be LoFi, white noise, beats, or actual songs. If you find it too distracting, study in silence, but if you find that it puts you in a kind of work flow, keep doing it. Finding out what works for you is very important.
Active and passive learning
When you study, do you highlight your notes and read them? Unfortunately thats called passive learning. You aren’t actually getting any information in your brain, you aren’t actually STUDYING the material.
Instead, switch to learning with flashcards (flashcards app or quizlet) Actively recalling all that you learn is super important. If you only rely on reading your material, you’re going to blank out during your test. One method I really like, that isn’t very time consuming, is ‘blurting’. I would read a page and understand it, and close the book. Then, I would say it out loud and try and explain the topic to myself. You can do this in front of the mirror, with your friend or even just film a video. This will show you gaps in your knowledge, where ever you stuttered or forgot the topic, highlight those and learn them thoroughly.
These are my two cents, and I just want you to know, studying is fun once you know how to do it right!
(This is my first ever article, I’m sorry if I’m bad at this)
