A week from tomorrow, I have three exams. Yes, three. Honestly, it was bound to happen to me at some point throughout college, even though I’ve only had a maximum of two exams in one days until now. In instances like these, I have to pull out some of my most unhinged ways of studying.
The first thing I do whenever I need to seriously study is completely clear off my desk of everything except my computer monitor and study materials. I get distracted super easily, and I mean super easily. The other day, I was doing my homework, saw my Lego set I keep on my desk was missing a piece, and spent an hour looking around my room for the missing piece. I ended up finding it, but at what cost? I now had one hour less to do the assignment that’s deadline was rapidly approaching at 11:59. Moral of the story, nothing can get in my way, therefore, I need to clear everything unessential off of my space.
This brings me to my next hack: I power off my phone and put it in a completely different room. Recently, my go-to spot has been the cabinet under my bathroom sink, since my roommate and I who share a bathroom each have our own sinks. It’s still in my own space, but not directly so that I feel the need to go on it. However, sometimes this doesn’t work, and I, being the undisciplined, chronically online person that I am, will go get it. In cases like this where I absolutely feel the need to doomscroll instead of do my work, I will use my phone to take a timelapse of myself with the back camera so that I don’t get distracted by the screen or notifications.
Whenever I study, I always put on some sort of media for background noise. My brain does not work in silence, so I need to have something on to keep me going. I prefer to put on a show that I’ve already watched before so I don’t feel the need to pay too much attention to it. Some of my go to’s are Heated Rivalry, The Office, or Friends. Having some background noise of shows I enjoy, but don’t need to pay too much attention to, makes studying a bit more fun and a bit less painful.
Another thing I like to do is write down all of the key concepts outlined by my professor and explain them out loud as if I am teaching it to someone. Even better, if I am studying with a friend, I will ask them to let me teach them what I am studying. I’ve found that if you can explain it well enough that another person understands it, you know the concept pretty well. Sometimes, I’ll even call my family members and force them to let me explain things to them.
I work on campus for 16 hours of my week, meaning I spend a lot of my time either studying at my job or in my bedroom late at night. However, when my exams start to get hectic, I’ll typically take off work and try to study somewhere new. Better yet, I’ll try to study at a coffee shop. Not only do all the other people around make me motivated to keep on studying, I get to reward myself with a little treat for working hard!
Finally, the most unhinged (and chronically online) thing I do to study is read my notes out loud while watching a gameplay of Subway Surfers. I don’t know why I pay attention to things when Subway Surfers is on in the background, but I just do. It really helps! I hope some of these hacks helped you, happy studying!