0:01 there are two kinds of students in the
0:03 world here we have student a who has
0:05 been studying for 6 hours is on their
0:07 third coffee cup and has been
0:08 highlighting their notes rereading the
0:11 textbook and doing flashcards all night
0:14 long and here we have student B student
0:16 B has a very calm 2hour study session
0:18 they know exactly what to review how to
0:20 review it and barely waste any time
0:22 highlighting their notes or rereading
0:24 the textbook come exam day I think you
0:26 know who gets the better grade if you
0:28 couldn't tell it's me by the way wait
0:30 how I studied four times longer than you
0:31 in this video I'm going to teach you how
0:35 to study less and get higher grades so I
0:36 graduated as the valid dictorian of my
0:38 high school and I went on to double
0:40 major at MIT and I'm not saying that to
0:42 flex instead I want to provide some
0:44 context so back in high school I took 11
0:47 AP classes peing at five my junior year
0:49 and then at MIT I decided to double
0:51 major pretty late which required me to
0:53 stack up on a bunch of classes all at
0:56 once so as you can imagine I had to be
0:57 very efficient with my studying and the
1:00 entire time I had to keep my GR grades
1:02 up so my first tip is to disconnect
1:03 yourself from the number of hours that
1:06 you study as a student it's very easy to
1:07 get fixated on the amount of time you
1:09 spend studying instead of how you
1:11 actually study and I get it right
1:13 because it's very hard to measure the
1:14 effectiveness of a study session but
1:16 something like the amount of time you
1:18 spend is a very concrete measure though
1:21 it usually masks the true nature of the
1:23 study session for example let's say I
1:25 study for 5 hours now did I spend those
1:26 5 hours rereading my notes and
1:28 highlighting everything I possibly could
1:30 or did I quiz myself pretend to teach
1:32 others and Tackle my weakest Concepts
1:35 first those two behaviors would yield
1:36 drastically different results all right
1:38 so now that you're in the right mindset
1:40 let's move on to tip number two read
1:42 backwards this sounds really weird I
1:45 know but bear with me this is a very
1:46 valuable tip especially if you're
1:48 cramming for an exam at the last minute
1:50 so the night before an exam you're
1:51 probably tempted to pull out your
1:53 textbook and read the chapter the test
1:55 is on but there's a problem the chapter
1:57 is probably very long and you don't have
1:59 enough time so what you're instead going
2:02 to do to start at the end of the chapter
2:03 you're going to start by looking at the
2:05 chapter summaries and the key points and
2:07 then work your way to the beginning and
2:08 now that you're back at the start you're
2:10 still not going to read the chapter
2:11 normally you're going to do what I like
2:13 to call a first pass you're going to
2:15 look at all the headings all the charts
2:17 all the bulit terms all the colorful
2:19 boxes to get a high level understanding
2:21 of what the chapter is about but of
2:22 course you're still missing some of the
2:24 key details so now you're going to do a
2:26 second pass and no you're still not
2:28 going to read the chapter normally
2:29 instead you're going to go Section by
2:31 section and read the first paragraph
2:33 skim the body paragraphs and read the
2:36 last paragraph So now after the second
2:37 pass you should have a decent
2:38 understanding of what the chapter is
2:41 about but if you still have time to
2:43 study now you can go back and read every
2:45 single word individually all right and
2:47 with that let's move on to tip number
2:50 three batch your tasks so a huge problem
2:52 that a lot of students deal with and
2:54 maybe even you is something called
2:56 context switching so for example the
2:57 mindset that you have while reading
2:59 something is different from the mindset
3:00 you have while writing something which
3:02 is different from the mindset you have
3:04 while solving math problems switching
3:06 from one form of thinking to another
3:08 takes time something I like to call the
3:10 transition cost for example let's say
3:12 you spend an hour answering some brutal
3:14 calculus problems and then you have to
3:16 write an essay for your English class
3:18 both of those tasks require very
3:20 different forms of thinking it's
3:22 probably going to take you a good 10 to
3:23 15 minutes just to get into the groove
3:26 of the essay writing process so to save
3:28 time while studying you have to minimize
3:30 the number of transitions through a
3:32 technique called batching and the
3:34 premise of batching is very simple
3:35 you're going to group together similar
3:38 tasks and Tackle them together so for
3:39 example instead of doing some math
3:41 problems then an English essay then some
3:43 science problems and then a history
3:44 essay you're instead first going to do
3:46 the math and science problems first
3:48 together and then you're going to do the
3:51 two essays this way you only have one
3:53 mental transition instead of three now I
3:55 use batching all the time in fact I'm
3:57 using it right now once I finish filming
3:59 this video I'm going to go ahead and
4:00 film another one because I already have
4:02 the light set up I have the camera set
4:03 up I have the background set up if I
4:05 were to film these videos at separate
4:06 times I would just waste time taking
4:08 everything down and then putting it back
4:10 up oh and I have another quick tip for
4:12 batching tasks once you batch your tasks
4:14 you might notice that within a batch
4:15 different tasks have different degrees
4:17 of difficulty I always recommend that
4:19 you tackle the easiest task first within
4:21 any given batch this way it's much
4:23 easier for you to transition into that
4:24 new mental state that you might need to
4:26 be in so for example if you bash
4:28 together a bunch of writing tasks like
4:30 write an essay work on a presentation
4:32 and write a discussion post you should
4:34 probably do the discussion post first
4:35 because that'll take the least amount of
4:37 effort and then you can follow this up
4:40 with the outline and then the essay tip
4:41 number four is to give yourself
4:43 constraints now one of the easiest ways
4:45 to spend less time studying is to give
4:48 yourself less time to study and no I'm
4:50 not being factious I'm 100% serious so
4:52 there's an old adage called Parkinson's
4:55 law that goes as follows work expands so
4:57 as to fill the time available for its
4:59 completion now this idea sounds fancy
5:01 but it's simple however much time you
5:03 give yourself to do a task is however
5:05 much time you're going to take for
5:07 example if you give yourself 3 days to
5:08 work on an essay you're going to take up
5:11 the full 3 days but if you give yourself
5:13 only 3 hours you might be surprised to
5:15 see how fast you can actually finish
5:17 that essay so now while it's nice to
5:18 space out your deadlines you don't want
5:20 to give yourself too much time to work
5:22 on an assignment because then you're
5:23 just going to have the mental comfort of
5:26 telling yourself oh I have hours or days
5:28 or even weeks to complete this task and
5:30 then you'll just work at a slower Pace
5:32 now the easiest way to take advantage of
5:34 Parkinson's law is to set a timer before
5:36 you start an assignment first ask
5:37 yourself how long is this assignment
5:39 going to take then reduce that number by
5:42 10 to 20% and set your timer accordingly
5:44 again you might be surprised by how fast
5:46 you can actually finish that work so
5:48 this technique is something that my apsy
5:50 teacher actually used at the start of
5:51 the school year he only gave us 30
5:53 minutes for each exam towards the middle
5:55 of the school year he only gave us 25
5:57 minutes and then towards the end of the
5:59 school year he only gave us 20 minutes
6:01 minutes now Believe It or Not by the end
6:03 of the school year most students were
6:05 able to finish the exams even when only
6:08 given 20 minutes I remember at the start
6:09 of the school year he told us he was
6:10 going to do this and we all thought that
6:12 it was nuts but turns out he was on to
6:14 something DeMarco if you're watching
6:15 this shout out to you you helped me
6:17 learn how to take test effectively all
6:20 right and my next tip is to leverage AI
6:21 now one of my favorite ways to cut down
6:23 on study time is to use AI tools like
6:25 grammarly who's the sponsor of this
6:27 video so many of you know grammarly as a
6:29 spelling and grammar tool but do you
6:31 know that does way more than that let's
6:32 say you have to write an essay you're
6:34 staring at the prompt but have no idea
6:36 what to write about this is where
6:37 grammarly can help just open up
6:39 grammarly and ask it to help you to
6:41 brainstorm topics then tell grammarly
6:42 what your essay is about and almost
6:44 instantly it'll give you a handful of
6:47 topic ideas oh and it doesn't stop there
6:48 once you have your topic grammarly can
6:50 also help you draft a research plan and
6:52 even give you an outline now once you
6:54 have the outline you start writing your
6:55 essay and along the way grammarly
6:57 ensures that your writing is clear and
7:00 concise it'll check for common mistakes
7:01 like passive voice subject verb
7:03 disagreement and misplaced modifiers but
7:05 it'll also analyze your piece as a whole
7:07 and provide suggestions for cohesion
7:10 flow and tone in fact with grammarly Pro
7:11 you can indicate the exact tone you'd
7:14 like to go for whether it's personable
7:16 confident empathetic engaging witty or
7:17 direct oh and once you're done writing
7:19 you can also use grammarly's plagiarism
7:21 detector to ensure that you can submit
7:23 your essays with confidence grammarly is
7:25 a must have for all students sign up and
7:28 upgrade to grammarly Pro for 20% off
7:30 using my link and now now back to the
7:32 video so tip number six is don't idle
7:34 and this again comes from an AP psych
7:35 teacher so while you're working through
7:37 an exam or doing some homework problems
7:38 you are inevitably going to come across
7:40 some problems that stump you and I'm not
7:42 talking about problems that are just a
7:44 little bit challenging I'm talking about
7:46 problems that you legitimately do not
7:48 know how to answer no matter how hard
7:50 you try now the best thing that you can
7:52 do in this scenario is to swallow your
7:54 ego and move on and this was a huge
7:56 issue for me back in school if I had
7:58 spent 20 or 30 minutes trying to solve a
8:00 problem I would feel terrible if I moved
8:03 on without figuring out the answer but
8:04 this ties into a psychological
8:06 phenomenon known as the sunk cost
8:07 fallacy now if you're not familiar with
8:10 the sunos fallacy it is the phenomenon
8:11 whereby a person is reluctant to abandon
8:14 a strategy or course of action because
8:15 they have heavily invested in it even
8:17 when it's clear that abandonment would
8:19 be more beneficial in other words just
8:21 because you put a lot of time and effort
8:23 into solving a problem that's going
8:24 nowhere does not mean that you need to
8:26 waste even more time in most cases
8:28 you're better off tackling other
8:29 problems first and then coming back to
8:31 the ones that stumped you and this
8:32 requires being comfortable answering
8:34 things out of order so if you're doing a
8:36 homework assignment maybe you answer the
8:37 last problems first and the middle ones
8:39 and then make your way to the start and
8:40 if you're working through an exam the
8:43 same principle holds don't ever feel
8:44 compelled to answer all of an exam's
8:46 questions in order unless they build
8:48 upon each other just try to find a
8:50 foothold somewhere work off that and
8:52 then tackle everything else so tip
8:54 number seven is to do mindless work
8:56 first so there are two kinds of tasks
8:58 you have fixed tasks and then you have
8:59 variable tasks fixed Tas tasks are
9:01 usually mindless work like working on
9:03 flashcards or trying to find images for
9:05 a presentation variable tasks usually
9:08 require more mental energy for example
9:10 writing an essay or brainstorming ideas
9:12 for a group project now you should do
9:15 your fixed tasks first and here's why so
9:16 this bar represents the amount of time
9:18 that you have for studying if you drop
9:20 in your variable tasks first they're
9:22 going to follow Parkinson's law in other
9:24 words they're going to inflate and take
9:26 up all of your available time and now
9:28 you won't have time to fit in your fix
9:30 tasks now fixed tasks on the other hand
9:32 don't inflate like variable tasks
9:34 something like create 20 flash cards is
9:36 always going to take the same concrete
9:38 defined amount of time so by doing your
9:41 fixed tasks first you create a
9:43 constraint for your variable tasks so
9:44 when you drop them in yes they're going
9:47 to inflate again but this way you manage
9:49 to fit everything so this is a concept
9:51 that's much easier to understand
9:52 visually and shout out to my editors who
9:54 I know have done an amazing job showing
9:56 you how it works oh and by the way this
9:58 is a concept that I came up with and
9:59 have been following for years let me
10:01 know in the comments how you feel about
10:03 it and if it makes sense because I'm
10:05 down to craft more productivity rules
10:06 but I just want to make sure I don't
10:08 sound like I'm crazy up here okay and
10:10 the eighth and final tip is to tag your
10:12 notes so students waste a ton of time
10:14 rereading notes I have wasted a ton of
10:16 time rereading my notes and this is
10:17 usually because in the days leading up
10:19 to an exam we don't really know what to
10:21 focus on we just tell ourselves oh my
10:23 God there's an exam coming up for unit 3
10:24 time to read everything I have about
10:26 unit 3 but the reality is within any
10:28 given unit there are topics that we know
10:29 like the back of our hand hand and
10:31 others that we're not super familiar
10:33 with so if you want to spend less time
10:35 studying you have to spend less time on
10:37 the topics you're already comfortable
10:38 with and that's why you should tag your
10:40 notes during lecture while your teacher
10:41 is speaking if they say something you're
10:44 not too familiar with just put a star or
10:45 some other symbol next to the bullet
10:47 point this way when it comes time to
10:48 review your notes your eyes are
10:50 automatically drawn to the areas that
10:52 you need to focus on now if you forget
10:53 to tag your notes during lecture don't
10:55 worry you can also do it after class
10:57 just pull out your notes skim them as
10:59 quickly as you can and tag any points
11:00 that you're not super familiar with so
11:02 that wraps up today's video hopefully
11:03 you enjoyed it and by the way comment
11:05 below to let me know how the school year
11:07 is going for you so far are you enjoying
11:09 it is it tough I would actually love to
11:10 hear more from you guys and of course if
11:12 you haven't already be sure to join the
11:13 Discord join my newsletter And subscribe
