Organization to study – See our essential tips!

In our everyday lives, we are surrounded by sources of distraction including mobile phones, laptops, and water fountains.

It is tough to study more successfully because of the rising number of topics and the difficulties in arranging oneself to study. As a result of their superior time management skills, they are those that devote the majority of their waking hours to studying. ‘Time management,’ what’s it all about?’

In order to help you remain focused and avoid feeling overwhelmed when studying, I’ve put up a list of study tips. Yes, I’m ready.

 1- Sleep well, regularly and faster – organization to study depends on time

Want a good study routine? Don’t cut down on sleep hours! Try to sleep well, between 6 and 8 hours a night. A sleepy student will be more willing to study better, as well as concentration when reading the most difficult and boring subjects.

Fun fact: contrary to what many people think, the ideal hours of sleep are not necessarily 8h/day! You can do some of the following activities to cut down on hours of sleep a day without getting tired.

How to put it into practice?

The big tip is to sleep faster. A lot of people suffer from sleep difficulties, so try to get rid of distractions – and even studies – to gain one, two more hours in your day. For that, the tips are:

Get rid of computers, cell phones, televisions or any electronic device that provides information an hour before bed. The next day, you can reply to your messages and see new things at the right time.

Get exhausted: exhaustion is not tiredness. When you’re just tired, you tell your mind that you’ve given up. Exhaustion is getting to the point where you can’t really go on. And exhaustion isn’t just reached with books – no! Don’t study tired! You can reach exhaustion with physical exercises (tip 6). Getting exhausted, you fall asleep almost immediately.

Drink lots of water: ok, this one is classic – but it turns out that, among other things, water also helps with sleep. Get used to drinking water! Make it a habit in your day-to-day studies.

 2- Determine your study priorities – organization to study depends on strategy

Organization to study involves a good distribution of study hours. Divide subjects into “easy”, “average” and “difficult” – or even into “disciplines I got it wrong”.

When planning how many hours will be dedicated to each subject, allocate more study hours for the most difficult ones (or that you got wrong) and less hours for those you already have an easy time with. We tend to study the subjects we love the most, but that won’t help you get better grades.

How to put it into practice?

To understand the subjects or subjects that you are most comfortable with, do a SWOT analysis of your studies. The SWOT analysis consists of you identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats:

When you identify them, you can more effectively determine study priorities.

The maxim, here, is to make this identification to:

• S (strengths – or strengths) – focus on your STRENGTHS;
• W (weaknesses – or weaknesses) – RECOGNIZE your weaknesses…
• O (opportunities – or opportunities) – TAKE ADVANTAGE of your opportunities!
• T (threats – or threats) and AWAY your threats. 

3- Attention to the place of study – organization depends on planning

Will you study at home? At the library? In cram school? At work? The place doesn’t matter as long as it’s peaceful, quiet, free of distractions and well lit.

Organization to study also involves a clean and suitable place, in which you can sit comfortably and with good posture. If the place you choose is noisy (and you can’t do it), buy an earplug.

4- Disconnect from distractions – organization depends on attention

To study better, completely disconnect from distractions! Have you ever been on a site about public tenders (like Esquemaria, for example) and suddenly – who knows why! – do you open a new window and type in the Facebook address?

It seems automatic, right?

Forget Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, SMS etc. Leave social media for break time and completely turn your attention to your studies.

The internet can be a great ally for concurseiros, but you have to be smart not to fall into the temptation of social networks and waste your precious study time.

How to put it into practice?

For starters, face a good dose of discipline. Did you realize you entered Face on automatic? Get out of there before you start reading something.

Keep few tabs open in your browser. With too many tabs, you can easily lose focus on what you’re doing! Here at Esquemaria I brought the focused reading button exactly because I know that elements on websites get in the way of productivity.

Use apps so social networks don’t get in your way anymore. Networks can help you study (Facebook groups usually help a lot), but don’t go the wrong way. The Google Chrome app called News Feed Eradicator exchanges useless messages from your news feed for a phrase of inspiration.

Not necessarily for social networks, but for the internet in general: you can save texts that you found interesting for later with another cool plugin – Save to Pocket.

Here’s how it works: you see the cool article and click the “Save to Pocket” button. Then, when it’s time to read the coolest articles, you pop in the plugin and it releases the texts. Mass, huh?

 5- Divide your study time between readings, exercises and reviews – organization to study depends on practice

To be successful in all tests, divide your time between reading the material, doing exercises and reviewing what you have read previously.

That way, you get more organization to study, while you practice with the test simulations and even review what you’ve already learned.

According to Theory 10 – 20 – 70, 10% of what you learn is related to pure theory. 20% is related to what you share with others (the famous learn by teaching, which is why social media can be important for your studies). The other 70% are related to practice.

And do you know the best way to put practice in your studies? Solving issues, of course. Don’t leave them for later. Solve questions every day.