Hello, Today I want to talk about seven habits of successful students, the habits I'm going to share today are quite simple. However, if you do them regularly, they are also sort of life changing because personally, they make me more productive, more organized and just overall, a much more efficient student. I thought it was the perfect time to post, since I'm sure a lot of you want to improve their grades in the Upcoming Year, or build some good study habits.


1- Don’t Leave things till the last minute. This is a habit I've developed in the last year. Before that, I used to procrastinate everything to the last minute and that made my life so much more stressful. The funny thing is that I would even justify it by saying that I work better under pressure and procrastinating is the right thing to do because in the end it's going to improve my efficiency. And if you tell the same thing to yourself, then let me be the one to tell you that this is just an excuse to procrastinate and nothing more. So the habit is basically to start your work as soon as you can. This is gonna take a lot of stress out of your life. You're going to be more focused and efficient when doing work & just overall, this will improve your productivity. At first, you're going to struggle with getting started. So I'd recommend setting deadlines for yourself to give you a bit of a push to get started on your schoolwork. I'd like to set a timer on my phone and challenge myself to finish the studying or whatever else I have to do before the timer rings & that's all the motivation. I need to sit down and get that work done.


2- Study every day. When I say this, I don't necessarily mean that you have to study every day. What I mean instead is that you should space out your studying over several days instead of cramming everything into one study session. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that you can only be focused for a short period of time every day, so because of that, when you try to do all your work in one day, you're going to be less efficient & It's just going to take you longer. Not only that, but also it's much easier to stay motivated when you have to do an hour or two of studying every day.

 


3- Ask questions and get help if you need it. If you have a question or something that you don't understand, don't ever be afraid or shy to raise your hand and ask that question. Teachers are there to help you and guide you through their process of studying. So use your opportunity and ask as many questions as you have, as many as you need until you understand everything clearly. This may be just me, but whenever I don't raise my hand and ask a question, that exact same question always comes up on a test or a quiz or even worse, an exam, and I just end up losing points, so don't be like me. Raise your hand and ask any questions you may have.



4- Write Down Anything. You don't understand Something well Written on a sticky note, so if that question isn't addressed during class, you can raise your hand and ask that question and then write down the answer on that sticky note. Some of the chapters can be particularly difficult and complex than others & in that cases, I like to take a few notes on that chapter. Nothing too crazy, but just a few bullet points to summarize the entire thing. It just really helps me out. Again, this is something that doesn't have to take up a lot of your time. Just make it a part of your everyday study routine and you'll be good to go.



5- Be as organized as much as possible in school. A little bit of organization can make a huge difference in terms of how stressed you are in school, because if you're organized, you'll be able to manage your work better, your time better & everything is just much easier when you're well organized. Being organized can mean multiple things. One of the most important ones is that you have an academic calendar where you can keep track of all the assignments, projects, all the deadlines, exams, quiz, and also test dates so you can prepare for them beforehand. Another part of organization is organizing all your notes and study materials so you can find whatever you need super easily and quickly instead of having to look through all the papers you have for hours and hours. Being organized as a student can also mean managing your time and having a schedule, A to do list or a specific planner that helps you stay productive on the daily basis.



6- Use active study methods instead of passive ones. In case you don't know the difference, I'm going to bring a few examples to help you understand. Rereading your notes or trying to highlight them would be a passive technique since you're not actively recalling anything, whereas doing flashcards is a very active study method because you actively try to recall the material and then test and see if you're right or not. Another example of a passive study method is rewriting notes from lectures or textbooks again and again. However, the active version of that would be to summarize the material in your own words. A few other active study techniques include creating mind maps, charts, flow diagrams or any other summaries. Another one is using self testing. Doing sample test questions or pass papers to ensure that you really know the material. Starting to use active study methods instead of passive ones will really help you to study smarter, not harder.



7- Study if you ever miss a concept. Unfortunately, sometimes you get sick or certain personal matters come up and you have to miss school days & if this ever happens, It's important to study the chapters that you missed as hard as you can. Maybe your teacher talked about something during the class that you missed could come up on a quiz or a test, so you should study well everything you miss.