Studying can be hard. No, scratch that; studying can be downright impossible, especially if you’re trying to balance your life with other essential things like work, social gatherings, sleeping, eating, breathing — just to name a few. School gets in the way of a lot of things, but that doesn’t make it a bad time. Studying is supposed to be a wonderful tool to keep grades and spirits high, but oftentimes it’s seen as grueling, a nuisance, and just plain unenjoyable. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that way! Here are four fun ways to study:
#1. Rewards!
One of the biggest tricks while studying is to keep a reward system in place; once you reach a specific goal that you’ve set.for yourself, the reward is all yours! You can use a piece of candy for every x-amount of pages read, playtime with your pet, a moment to work on your art — the options are limitless! The only thing you need to be wary of is the amount of time you spend on these rewards; allocate yourself no more than ten minutes to avoid never going back to your studying ever again.
#2. Association!
If you’re having a hard time remembering things, try to associate whatever you’re learning about. For example: say you’re trying to remember what exactly photosynthesis is, and you automatically associate it with that one Spongebob episode. That’s okay! Your brain will connect the two and you’ll know exactly what you need to when you read the word. Or maybe you need to remember when the Vietnam War ended (1975), you can think of the song “A Change of Heart” by The 1975.
#3. Be colorful!
Change things up and use colored pencils, markers, stickers, fancy colored paper — whatever draws your attention to the important parts. Your brain is hardwired to recall changes in color like that, and you’ll mentally file it away for later use. Why do you think highlighters are so vibrant?
#4. Learn everything!
Utilize every single resource you have for a certain topic. Read the notes and the textbook, Google articles or blog posts, watch videos, look in forums; get as much knowledge as you can and it’ll be the easiest study session you’ve ever had!
There are so many different ways to study, and these might seem fun to you, or they might not; everyone is different. What would you add?