HOW TO MANAGE YOUR TIME EFFICIENTLY AND STUDY MORE EFFECTIVELY


How effectively do you study? Good study habits make the job of being a student much easier.  Many students, who could succeed in college, fail or drop out because they have never learned to manage their time efficiently.  Even the best students can usually benefit from an in-depth evaluation of their current study habits.  There are many ways to achieve academic success, of course, but your approach may not be the most effective or efficient.  Are you sacrificing your social life or your physical or mental health in order to get A's on your exams?   Good study habits result in better grades and more time for other activities.

EVALUATE YOUR CURRENT STUDY HABITS

To improve your study habits, you must first have an accurate picture of how you currently spend your time.  Begin by putting together a profile of your present living and studying habits.  Answer the following questions by writing yes or no on each line.

1.     Do you usually set a schedule to budget your time for studying, recreation, and other activities?

2.     Do you often put off studying until time pressures force you to cram?

3.     Do other students seem to study less than you do, but get better grades

4.     Do you usually spend hours at a time studying one subject, rather than dividing that time between several subjects?

5.     Do you often have trouble remembering what you have just read in a textbook?

6.     Before reading a chapter in a textbook, do you skim through it and read the section headings?

7.     Do you try to predict exam questions from your lecture notes and reading?

8.     Do you usually attempt to paraphrase or summarize what you have just finished reading?

9.     Do you find it difficult to concentrate very long when you study?

10.     Do you often feel that you studied the wrong material for an exam?

Thousands of students have participated in similar surveys.  Students who are fully realizing their academic potential usually respond as follows: (1) yes, (2) no, (3) no, (4) no, (5) no, (6) yes, (7) yes, (8) yes, (9) no, (10) no.
Compare your responses to those of successful students.  The greater the discrepancy, the more you could benefit from a program to improve your study habits.  The questions are designed to identify areas of weakness.  Once you have identified your weaknesses, you will be able to set specific goals for improvement and implement a program for reaching them.

MANAGE YOUR TIME

Do you often feel frustrated because there isn't enough time to do all the things you must and want to do?  Even the most productive and successful people feel this way at times.  But they establish priorities for their activities and they learn to budget time for each of them. There's much in the saying "If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it."  A busy person knows how to get things done. If you don't now have a system for budgeting your time, develop one. Not only will your academic accomplishments increase, but you will actually find more time in your schedule for other activities.  And you won't have to feel guilty about "taking time off," because all your obligations will be covered.

STEP 1

As a first step in preparing to budget your time, keep a diary for a few days to establish a summary or baseline, of the time you spend in studying, socializing, work, and so on. If you are like many students, much of your "study" time is nonproductive; you may sit at your desk and leaf through a book but the time is actually wasted.  Or you may procrastinate. Procrastination as you move into high school and college and then into the business world will ultimately lead to huge problems and stress as you get older.  You are always getting ready to study, but.
Besides revealing where you waste time, your diary will give you a realistic picture of how much time you need to allot other fixed activities.  In addition, careful records should indicate the times of the day when you are consistently most productive.

Plan Your Time

Having established and evaluated your baseline, you are ready to devise a more efficient schedule. Buy a calendar that covers the entire school term and has ample space for each day.  Using the information provided by your instructors, enter the dates of all exams, term paper deadlines, and other important academic obligations.  If you have any long-range personal plans (concerts, weekend trips, etc.), enter the dates on the calendar as well.  Keep your calendar up to date and refer to it often.  I recommend carrying it with you at all times.

Develop a Weekly Calendar

Now that you have a general picture of the school term, develop a weekly schedule that includes all of your activities.  Aim for a schedule that you can live with for the entire school term.

1.     Enter your class times, work hours, and any other fixed obligations first.  Be thorough. Using information from your time                         management diary, allow plenty of time for social time.

2.     Establish regular study times for each course.  The 4 hours needed to study one subject, for example, are most profitable when                 divided into  shorter periods spaced over several days.  If you cram your studying into one 4-hour block, what you attempt to learn         in the third or fourth hour will interfere with what  you studied in the first 2 hours.  Newly acquired knowledge is like wet cement.         It need some time to "harden" to become memory.  Nightly review over  harder topics, enables the study for the exams to less                 stressful.

3.     Alternate subjects.  The type of interference just mentioned is greatest between similar topics.  Set up a schedule in which you                 spend time on several  different courses during each study session.  Besides reducing the potential for interference, alternating                 subjects will help to prevent mental fatigue with one topic.

4.     Set weekly goals to determine the amount of study time you need to do well in each course.  This will depend on, among other             things, the difficulty of your courses and the effectiveness of your methods. Many teachers recommend studying at least 20 min. to         1 hour for each hour in class.  If your time diary indicates that you presently study less time than that, do not plan to jump                         immediately to a much higher level. Increase study time from your baseline by seeing weekly goals that will gradually bring you             up to the desired level. As an initial schedule, for example, you might set aside an amount of study time for each course that                     matches class time.  Some classes require nightly work to be successful. Id those classes and build them into your nightly schedule.

5.     Schedule for maximum effectiveness. Tailor your schedule to meet the demands of each course.  For the course that emphasizes             lecture notes, schedule time for a daily review soon after the class.  This will give you a chance to revise your notes and clean up             any hard to-decipher shorthand while the material is still fresh in your mind.  If you are evaluated for class participation (for                     example, in a language course), allow  time for a review just before the  class meets.  Schedule study time for your most difficult             courses during times when you are the most alert and distractions are fewest.

6.     Schedule open study time. Emergencies or additional obligations could throw off your schedule.  And you may simply need some         extra time periodically for a project or for review in one of your courses.  Schedule several hours each week for such purposes.

7.     After you have budgeted time for studying, fill in slots for recreation, hobbies, relaxation, household errands, and the like

8.     Set specific goals.  Before each study session, make a list of specific goals.  The simple note "7-8 I'll study biology" is too broad to         ensure the most effective use of the time. Formulate your daily goals according to what you know you must accomplish during the         term.  If you have course outlines with advance assignments, set systematic daily goals that will allow you to cover the material             before the exam.  Be realistic: can you actually expect to cover a great deal of reading in one session?  Divide large tasks into                 smaller units; stop at the most logical resting points.  When you complete a specific goal, take a 5- or 10-minute break before                 tackling the next goal.

8.     Evaluate how successful or unsuccessful your studying has been on a daily or weekly basis.  Did you reach most of your goals?  If         so,  reward yourself immediately.  You might even make a list of five to ten rewards to choose from. .

9.     Finally, until you have lived with your schedule for several weeks, don't hesitate to revise it. You may need to allow more time for         biology, for  example, and less for some other course. Some classes require nightly work to be successful. Id those classes and                 build them into your   nightly schedule. If you are trying to study regularly for the first time and are feeling burned out, you                     probably have set your initial goals too high. Don't let failure cause you to  despair and abandon the program.  Accept your                     limitations and revise your schedule so that you are studying only 15 to 20 minutes more each evening than you are used to.  The         point is to identify a regular schedule with which you can achieve some success.  Time management, like any skill, must be                     practiced to become effective.

TECHNIQUES FOR EFFECTIVE STUDY

Knowing how to put study time to best use is, of course, as important as finding a place for it in your schedule. Here are some suggestions that should enable you to increase your reading comprehension and improve your note taking. A few study tips are included as well.

Using SQ3R to Increase Reading Comprehension

How do you study from a textbook? If you are like many students, you simple read and reread in a passive manner. Studies have shown, however, that most students who simply read a textbook cannot remember more than half the material ten minutes after they have finished. Often, what is retained is the unessential material rather than the important points upon which exam questions will be based. This Study Guide employs a program know as SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review) to facilitate, and allow you to assess, your comprehension of the important facts and concepts. Research has shown that students using SO3R achieve significantly greater comprehension of textbooks. Once you have learned this program, you can improve your comprehension of any textbook.

Survey

Before reading an assigned section, determine whether the text has an outline or list of objectives.  Read this material and the summary at the end of the chapter. Next, read the assigned reading fairly quickly, paying special attention to the major headings and subheadings. This survey will give you an idea of the readings contents and organization.

Question

You will retain material longer when you have a use for it. Surveying the reading will allow you to generate important questions that the reading will proceed to answer.  These questions correspond to "mental files" into which knowledge will be sorted for easy access.  As you survey, jot down several questions for each section. One simple technique is to generate questions by rephrasing a section heading. For example, "The Spindle" head could be turned into "What is the spindle?" Good questions will allow you to focus on the important points in the text. Examples of good questions are those that begin as follows: "list two examples of . . .? "What is the function of . . . ?" "What is the significance of . . .?" Such questions give a purpose to your reading.

Read

When you have established "filed" for each section of the readings, review your first question, begin reading, and continue until you have discovered its answer.  If you come to material that seems to answer an important question you don't have a file for, stop and write down the questions. First, preview the section by skimming it, noting headings and boldface items.
Be sure to read everything.  Don t skip photo or art captions, graphs, or footnotes.   In some cases, what may seem vague in reading will be made clear by a simple graph.  Keep in mind that test questions are sometimes drawn from illustrations and charts.

Recite

When you have found the answer to a questions, close your eyes and mentally recite the question and its answer.  Then write the answer next to the question.  It is important that you recite an answer in your own words rather than the authors'.  Don't rely on your short-term memory to repeat the author's words verbatim.
In responding to the objectives, pay close attention to what is called for.  If you are asked to identify or list, do just that.  If asked to compare, contrast, or do both, you should focus on the similarities (compare) and differences (contrast) between the concepts or theories.  Answering the questions carefully will not only help you to focus your attention on the important concepts of the text, but it will also provide excellent practice for essay exams.


Recitation

Recitation is an extremely effective study technique, recommended by many learning experts. In addition to increasing reading comprehension, it is useful for review. Trying to explain something in your own words, clarifies your knowledge, often by revealing aspects of your answer that are vague or incomplete.  If you repeatedly rely upon "I know" in recitation, you really may not know. Recitation has the additional advantage of simulating an exam, especially an essay exam; the same skills are required in both cases.  Too often students study without ever putting the book and notes aside, which makes it easy for them to develop false confidence in their knowledge.  When the material is in front of you, you may be able to recognize an answer, but will you be able to recall it later, when you take an exam that does not provide these retrieval cues?  After you have recited and written your answer, continue with your next question in the same way.

Review

When you have answered the last question on the material you have designated as a study goal, go back and review. Read over each question and your written answer to it or the questions at the end of each chapter or within each chapter. Your review might also include a brief written summary that integrates all of your questions and answers. This review need not take longer than a few minutes, but it is important. It will help you retain the material longer and will greatly facilitate a final review of each chapter before the exam. An excellent way to review your understanding of the chapters of BIOLOGY is to complete the questions at the end of each chapter. You may discover that you don't know the chapter as well as you thought you did!)

Taking Lecture Notes

Are your class notes as useful as they might be? One way to determine their worth is to compare them with those taken by other good students. Are your as thorough? Do they provide you with a comprehensive outline of each lecture? If not, then the following suggestions might increase the effectiveness of your note taking.

1. Keep a separate notebook for each course. Use 8 1/2 X 11-inch pages.

2. Take notes in the format of an outline. Use Roman numerals for major points, letters for supporting materials. You will probably want     to look over your notes and reorganize them if necessary soon after the class.

3. As you take notes in class, leave a wide margin on one side of each page or areas under major topics in your notes with a                         HIGHLIGHTER.  After the lecture, expand or clarify any shorthand notes while the material is fresh in your mind.  Use this time to      write important questions in  the margin next to  notes that answer them.  This will allow later review.

4. If you read and take notes before lectures or after lectures, highlight the points that your instructor has pointed out during the lecture     that  coincide with the text.  This will cut down on rewriting of information and allow you to listen closer to lectures or cut down on     note taking  during reading.  Using a different colored pen will help keep class notes separate from lecture.

5. Create note cards with key words. On the back put definitions and specific examples as to how they fit into the big picture.                     Applications and integration of information is what is valuable latter on.  Memorizing math formulas or biology words without the         framework to apply them  doesn't’t help you be a math  person or a businessman.  Application is what helps, but in order to do that         you must know the words first.

6. With packets, first see if you can do them without just looking up the answer and writing them down, then if you need to search out      the answer  in you available source, you text or class notes.  If you cannot find the or understand the answer, remember to ask the         teacher the next day. Just writing down an answer to fill in the blank doesn’t allow you to learn the information that the question is         looking for.  Answering packets in  this manner doesn’t allow for long term understanding or even long term memory.