Studying can sometimes be the most painful thing to do, especially when the topic is somewhat out of your league, but you still got to study that topic. There are a few things you can do to make it easier for your mind to grasp onto those difficult to understand topics.

In this article we have compiled a list of 15 important things which you may incorporate in your studying process which will answer the age old question of how to study smart, whenever you find yourself at a learning halt. All of these points have been proven to enhance your learning and retention capabilities.

1. Get Comfortable: You can’t expect the mind to learn if you’re not comfortable with your sitting space or your surroundings. Find yourself a quite well-lit area, and get to studying, try to avoid studying on your bed, because we all know that it’s going to end up making you drowsy and you will learn nothing.

2. Make a schedule and stick to it: In order to study smart you have to take some time out of your day and dedicated to studying. Make a schedule which involves at least a couple of hours which are solely dedicated to studying. Procrastination will do you no good here so stick to the schedule.

3. Take Notes: It has been well researched that making notes while you study helps with the rate of retention. Always keep a notebook handy while studying and keep noting down the point which you find important, or the points and questions that you find troublesome so that it is easier to come back to it while revising.

4. Use a pen: While making notes, be it in class or studying smart for the exam, it is always better to write with your own hands using a pen opposed to on a laptop. Writing with a pen, conditions the mind to emphasise on the words written and as a result, you understand the topic or subject a lot better. Plus there’s a lesser chance of losing your notes.

5. Look for illustrations: Illustration, pictorial representation, tables and diagrams always allows us to maintain a vivid image in our head and recall it later. Look for topics which seem important or difficult to understand and try to find its pictorial representation in order to understand it better, you can do this by looking through an alternate book or searching the term in the internet.

6. Highlight what’s important: Always keep a highlighting pen or any normal pen with you while you study, and highlight the words and term which are key to the topic or subject in study. This allow your brain to linking those words to the highlighted colour and help you in recollecting it a lot faster later while undertaking the exam.

7. Focus on one thing at a time: Multitasking while studying is a myth that is because no matter how good you may think your skills of handling multiple tasks at once are, it is always more productive to finish one task efficiently than doing several of them in a disorganised manner. In order to study smart, try to get rid of all distractions and put your total focus on the subject you are studying. Concentration improves learning abilities also enhances the degree to which you are able to understand the topic.

8. Set realistic goals: It is important that you set goals about how many topics you are hoping to cover in one sitting. That being said, your goals must always be realistic so as to not put a lot of stress on your mind, do go after studying through the whole syllabus in one night. Try to set goals and select the topics which need your utmost attention and perfect them. Set goals with respect to topics in study or in terms of your learning ability, and not as per the time. Concentrate on one particular subject, perfect it and then move to the next. You can always come back to the ones which you have doubts on.

9. Try to make a connection with the topic: Always try to visualize the topic and try to understand the meaning behind it and how it may be of help in your life. This allows for a better understanding. Make a link with a topic such that is stays in your mind and you can easily recollect it at any particular instance. For instance: If you are studying algebra, try to visualise the equations by substituting the variables with something else, or a real life problem.

10. Take breaks where necessary: It is important to not tire yourself while studying as the more stressed you get the less knowledge you retain. Take breaks in between while studying when you feel tired, so as to keep your energy levels high. It is also important to eat right while studying as it is well researched that right nutrition help in better learning.

11. Test your Skills: Undertake mock tests to check how well you can apply your learning abilities. Try to complete the test in a set amount of time to get used to the pressure of time that you go through while actually going through the exam. It allows you to identify your shortcomings and the areas which need your focus, so that you can improve on them.

12. Study with others: Studying with others is a smart study approach, as it will increase your comprehensive abilities, as while studying with other people, there is a sense of competitiveness, which enhances your learning capabilities and focus. It also helps if you teach a topic to a friend, as it clears your own doubts and enables you to see a topic from an examiners point of view, which helps in increasing the quality of the content to score maximum marks.

13. Sleep on it: It very crucial that your include adequate rest time in your studying schedule, since the mind can only comprehend so much in one go. It is equally important to give the mind proper rest by sleeping for at least 6 hours, so that the brain has ample time absorb all of the knowledge. This improves your understanding of the topic and allows your better recollect it at a later stage.

14. Mugging Up will do you no good!: Don’t mug up the whole syllabus at once, instead give each topic proper time as per its difficulty level and the prerequisite knowledge that you may already have about it. Cramming long answers always reduces the level of understanding and makes it very hard to recollect it later on as the mind has not fully comprehended the topic. Every examiner looks for relevancy in your answers and how well you have displayed your critical thinking skills. Therefore, learning the topic by giving it sufficient time is better as, when you go through a topic multiple times it starts to make sense without you even realising it.

15. When in doubt, revise!: Lastly, revise! This is no big revelation as you may have been told a million times in school to always revise the syllabus before go through with the exam. Revising means going through the topics which you have learnt and remembering the key points about every topic or question so as to better answer them in your exam. Even if you don’t know much about a certain topic, you can always get better at the topics you do know and make them your strong points, this increases your confidence level before the exam or test.

The points mentioned in the above list will always help with you and enable you in understanding how to study smart.

The points mentioned in the above list will always help with you and enable you in understanding how to study smart. In case you are still worried about studying for your exam or if you can’t take out the time to study with all the classes and strict deadlines for your assignments, we can take care of that for you. We can assist you with your assignments and essays through our academic writing services, which can ensure that you get adequate time to study for your exam, and give you peace of mind. We have 5000+ subject matter experts, each specialising in their own field of academics, so they can handle any specific requirement of the university, as most of them have been doing this for more than a decade. For more information do checkout the samples available on our website, on every field of academics you can possibly think of.

Hope this article helped you in learning about how to study smart and the ways to enhance your retention capabilities and increase your learning efficiency.