How to Improve Self-Study Skills

Create a calm attitude. Be calm and patient with yourself. No one can learn everything at once.

Get enough sleep. Staying up late to study is not a good idea. Lack of sleep makes it difficult to concentrate and reduces your ability to remember what you have learned. ^[1] .

Make a timetable. Every student must schedule classes, assignments, and other important dates. In it, you have to set aside time for studying and doing projects. That way, you won’t find yourself struggling to finish a project at the last minute or cram in the night before an exam.

• You also need to make time for extracurricular activities like playing sports. In fact, the more detailed your schedule, the more efficiently you will complete your assignments.

Take notes during class. You can even take notes while studying. Taking notes is easier when you abbreviate common words, choose to record important information (and/or keywords), use clear headings to organize information, and show it with pictures/diagrams. Highlight or underline the main ideas in your study material.

School groups. This way you can check each other’s work and learn from other members.

Take frequent breaks. Take a walk, bike ride or play with the family. When you take regular breaks, you won’t be stressed out during your homework and feel excited to go back to it later. Listen to music to help relax your mind.

Let’s start with the most difficult exercise. For example, if you have to do chemistry, math, English, and Spanish homework, start with chemistry and end with English. Doing difficult subjects first will help clear your mind.

Develop effective memorization skills . You can make lists to write down things that need to be remembered, such as formulas. The use of information cards is great for memorizing large amounts of information of the same type.

Develop critical thinking skills. In higher education, you will be given longer and more complex reading assignments. Poor reading skills or failure to filter out important information will make you feel like a burden and affect the whole study.

• You need to read deliberately to get important information. If you have limited reading skills, you need to find ways to improve; otherwise the results of the subjects will be affected.

Focus on the areas that need the most attention. Spend a lot of time on difficult problems.

Improve your test-taking strategy. Poor test results don’t always mean you don’t understand the lesson or have a lack of knowledge. Maybe you understand the lesson but do not do well.

• An effective test-taking strategy includes: learning to prioritize which material during exam study; prepare several days before the exam instead of just one night; deal with stress during exams; and allocate time so that all sections of the test are completed.

Ask yourself questions. Ask questions that emphasize the lesson content such as who, what, why, how, when, and where. Ask yourself questions while reading or studying. Answering these questions will help you understand the material thoroughly, aid in remembering the lesson because the process will make an impression on you. What makes an impression is more meaningful and therefore easier to remember.