“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle
The importance of study habits has come to my attention. I’ve recently been guilty of blindly following my own routine, without analysing how I can make studying a better and more productive experience.
So today I’m starting a mini series, to help you, and to help me. This series is a compilation of the best tips I know: an attempt to articulate the many different techniques I’ve learnt over the years, and better still, to use them.
Please let me know your thoughts, and add any of your own suggestions.
Short-term Goals: goals to be completed within the space of 1 - 21 days.
Step 1: Identify what you need to work on.
Typically, this is either a task to be completed (ie. an assignment, or studying for a test), OR a behaviour that you wish to change (ie. getting 8 hours of sleep each night – something I need to work on).
To make this effective, you need to quantify your goal. “Getting enough sleep” or “being more productive” is not specific enough to be an achievable goal. Better would be to stipulate, for instance, “get 8 hours’ sleep on weeknights” or “do homework before allowing myself to use social media”, respectively.
Try to make it as realistic as possible!
Step 2: Set a time limit.
Work out how long you need to realistically complete your task/form your habit.
If it is an assignment with a due date, for instance, your goal might be to finish it by the day of your assignment, or a few days before. If it is a habit, Jeremy Dean, in his book “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” suggests that a habit can form by doing something repeatedly for 21 days - something to keep in mind.
Step 3: Work out what you need to do to reach this goal.
Write down a list of notes that you need to be aware of when accomplishing this goal. ie. if you wanted to get 8 hours of sleep each night, you need to make sure you have an alarm and plan ahead for what time you need to go to sleep. If you’re working on an assignment, you might want to divide it up into chunks, and give yourself mini due dates in the interim, so that you can get the entire task done by your own deadline.
Note the example at the bottom of this post for the goal I have actually set myself. :)
Step 4: Do it, and record how you go.
When completing a short term goal, I like to tick off that I’m on track each day. It helps too to sometimes write down how I’m feeling over the days, or to reflect on how I’m going.
Step 5: Remind yourself to keep on it!
Make sure that you remind yourself to work on your goal each day; it can be easy to forget!! I would suggest:
- making yourself accountable to someone, ie. a friend, the Studyblr community, a guardian or relative, so they can keep you on track, or:
- making yourself some Post-it notes to stick around your room/ in a planner or notebook to remind you about your goal.
Step 6: Set yourself a reward.
Nothing motivates me better than setting myself a reward for if I’m on track or have completed a goal. Since the one I put down below is only a 5 day goal, I’ll wait until I’ve completed it to reward myself, but more frequent rewards is a great idea too, it’s all up to you!
Good luck! See my example below for how I set short term goals, and share your own with me too! xxx
Example: (this is an actual goal that I am setting and plan to accomplish!)
Goal: Practise Handel’s Air and Doubles on piano for 45 minutes each day minimum
Time Limit: Until August 15th (performance day) – 5 days from now!
What I need to do: Set aside 45 minutes each day to practise; focus on two section of the piece each day in detail, playing hands separately and together and correcting mistakes by repeating troublesome sections carefully; make sure to play through the entire piece with metronome before removing the metronome; circle any parts of the music where mistakes occurred, and go back and fix them, playing each part slowly; record myself once each practice session, before listening to it, watching out for musicality
Reward: Watch 2 episodes of Suits after 15th August, if I follow my plan (you can never go wrong with Suits ahaha)
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