4 Biggest study time wasters

So you’ve just put in a huge 9-5 day chained to a desk at your local library. You’re feeling pretty chuffed with yourself, 8 hours of solid study should mean that you’re on track for a 99.95, right?

That is, unless you’re like me and are a massive culprit of wasting time with ineffective study habits. And before you jump the gun and tell me that you’re the model studier who spends every waking moment doing stuff that’s ‘scientifically effective’, the majority of these time wasting study habits are things that everyone is guilty of.

So to help you out we’re going to name and shame the 4 biggest time-wasting study habits.

Guilty suspect #1: Textbook skimming

Picture this, after scrolling the newsfeed one too many times the guilt starts to set in and you accept that you really should be doing some study. So, you take out your textbook and begin to cover 99% of the page in fluorescent yellow. About 5 pages later you suddenly realise that everything you’ve highlighted has gone right over your head.

Studies show that simply reading a block of text is pretty redundant in absorbing information. And that’s because simply reading over content doesn’t trigger the part of your brain that’s useful for retaining knowledge. Instead, you need to be doing this thing called ‘active learning’ where you’re actually engaging your brain on another level. You should be doing things like annotating the information you’re reading or synthesising it with another source like our HSC Hub videos.

But good news is that you don’t have to completely ditch the textbook as a method of study. Just change the way you go about it. Instead of sitting there with a highlighter, try using the textbook as a starting point to condense your summary notes or practice writing out the content in a simpler more condensed version. Actually thinking about and interacting with the content turns passive study into active study.

Guilty suspect #2: Socialising disguised as group study

On paper, group study is amazing. Sharing ideas with peers highlights how other people are approaching the content and fills in bits of information you might have missed.

We all know this is what group study should be like, but what it actually looks like goes something like this: you sit down and get stuck into writing a killer brainstorm and then someone cracks a joke and before you know it you’re knee deep in banter that’s so far off topic you wonder how you even ended up there in the first place.

So, to give you guys more of a win-win solution there’s a few things you can do to keep your group study exactly that: group ‘study.’

• Option 1: One option is to study with the smart people in your year that aren’t necessarily your best mates, that way you’re less likely to drift off topic.
• Option 2: You can allocate one person the task of making sure everyone keeps on track.
• Option 3: Go to places where you can’t strike up conversation easily, e.g. a really quiet library like the State Library.
• Option 4: Set a timer for 30 minutes of solid work then give yourself 5 minutes of chat time.
  Group study can be effective if you socialise less and study more.

Guilty suspect #3: Feel good study

Admit it. Nothing feels better than finishing a practice question and knowing for a fact you’ve smashed out a full mark response. It feels so good that you do it again, and again and again.

But the thing is, you’re not really getting much out of this because you’re testing yourself on the content you already know. A similar problem happens when you find yourself studying for subjects and content that’s ‘interesting’ irrespective of how significant it is as a syllabus point. Notice how Maths students always tend to study Maths and English students always write essays.

It might seem really productive that you’re doing all this study, but if you’re not spending time on the right things then you’re going to get a rude shock when your assessments come around.

The tip here is to focus more on your weak spots than reinforcing your strengths. That’s when you’re going to get the most productive study and the best results. The trick is to make the content you dislike seem interesting and simple. To shamelessly self promote, our HSC Hub videos are great for doing this. They allow you to quickly and easily cover the content you dislike so you stop getting hung up on those topics in the exam.

Guilty suspect #4: Multitasking

Our generation has nailed the art of Facebook messaging, Instagramming, texting, watching TV, and eating dinner all at the same time, so you may sometimes mistakenly think that you can add homework to the mix. But by dividing your attention amongst so many different tasks, either the quality of your work or your efficiency is bound to suffer.

So instead of spending two hours writing one sentence of your essay because you keep stopping to check the latest message in the group chat, turn off the distractions around you and focus solely on your work. Use an app like Self Control to set a 30 minute timer with 5 minute breaks and cut a deal with yourself that you’ll finish all your work before rewarding yourself with some chill time.

Basically, we’re all more likely to fall back into old habits when they seem like a cruisey alternative to good old fashioned hard work. And you can’t blame us when skim-reading a textbook requires little to no attention span whilst doing essay plans is a huge struggle. But this leaves us with one piece of cold hard truth: if a study habit seems too good to be true, chances are, it probably is.

The good news is that the more effective study you do, the less hours you have to spend doing it.

We all know when you’re working hard, in the long run, you get to play harder.