13 Ways to Improve Your Study Routine, and What Research Says

The fastest way to improve how you study is to test yourself instead of rereading, spread your sessions out over days and weeks, and protect your focus from your phone. Those three habits have the strongest research behind them. The other ideas below, from where you sit to when you tackle the hardest subject, support them by making it easier to start, concentrate and keep going.

Here are thirteen practical ways to upgrade a study routine, grouped by what they help with, along with what the evidence says about each.

What learning research agrees on

Psychologists have compared study techniques for more than a century, and two findings stand out.

Retrieval practice, also called the testing effect, means pulling information out of memory: answering practice questions, using flashcards or writing down everything you remember about a topic before checking your notes. Studies such as Roediger and Karpicke's 2006 experiments found that students who reread material scored slightly better on an immediate test, but students who tested themselves remembered far more days later.

Spaced practice means reviewing the same material in several shorter sessions over time rather than one long cram. The idea goes back to Hermann Ebbinghaus's memory experiments in the 1880s and has been confirmed many times since.

By contrast, popular habits such as rereading and highlighting feel productive because the material looks familiar, but familiarity is not the same as being able to recall it in an exam. Keep that in mind as you read the tips below.

Set up a space that helps you focus

1. Choose music carefully, or skip it

If you are easily distracted, music with lyrics competes with the words you are trying to read and is usually a bad idea. Instrumental music at a low volume suits some people, especially for repetitive tasks. Be wary of the claim that classical music makes you smarter: the famous "Mozart effect" came from a small 1993 study showing a brief boost in spatial reasoning, and later reviews found the effect tiny or explained by mood and arousal. Silence or quiet background noise works just as well for most people.

2. Put the phone away

Log out of social media, silence notifications and, ideally, put the phone in another room. Every check breaks concentration, and getting back into deep focus takes time. Website blockers and app timers help if willpower alone is not enough.

3. Sit comfortably, but not too comfortably

A supportive chair, a desk at the right height and good light reduce fatigue and aches during long sessions. Studying in bed tends to blur the line between rest and work. Claims that posture directly changes how much you learn are weak, but discomfort is a real distraction, so it is worth getting right.

Get more from class and homework

4. Take notes in your own words

Writing down the key points during class gives you something to review and forces you to process what you hear. A well-known 2014 study by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer suggested that handwritten notes beat laptop notes because typists copy word for word, but later replication attempts found the difference much smaller or absent. What matters most is summarising rather than transcribing, whichever tool you use.

5. Do the homework, and treat it as a test

Homework is retrieval practice in disguise. Try each question before looking anything up, then mark what you could not do. Those gaps are your study list for the week.

Understand before you memorise

6. Aim for real understanding

Material you understand is far easier to remember than material you simply repeat. Read difficult passages slowly, then close the book and explain the idea in your own words. If you cannot, read again with a specific question in mind.

7. Start with the big ideas

Identify the handful of core concepts in a topic first, then hang the details on them. This gives your memory a structure and keeps you from drowning in facts that only make sense in context.

8. Teach it to someone else

Explaining a topic aloud to a friend, a family member or an empty room quickly reveals what you do not yet understand. It combines retrieval with organising ideas, which is why study groups work well when members take turns explaining.

Make it stick

9. Replace copying with recall

Repetition helps, but the kind of repetition matters. Rewriting notes several times is slow and mostly passive. Instead, cover your notes and write out what you remember, or turn each heading into a question and answer it. Then check and correct.

10. Review on a schedule

Go back over each subject a day after the lesson, again a week later and again before the end of the month. Short, regular reviews across the term beat a long cram before the exam, and they leave you calmer when the exam arrives.

Manage time and energy

11. Plan fixed study times

Studying at the same times each day turns it into a habit, so starting takes less willpower. Many students also find that short blocks with planned breaks, for example 25 to 50 minutes of focus followed by five to ten minutes off, keep attention fresher than marathon sessions.

12. Tackle the hardest subject first

Your concentration is usually best at the start of a session, so spend it on the subject you find toughest. Leaving it for last makes it easy to run out of time or motivation. This is practical advice rather than a law of learning, so adjust if your energy peaks later.

13. Look after your body: breathing, exercise and sleep

A few slow, deep breaths before a session or an exam can ease tension and help you settle. Regular physical activity supports mood, attention and general brain health. Sleep matters most of all, because the brain consolidates new memories during sleep, and an all-nighter usually costs more than it gains. If stress or anxiety is seriously affecting your studies, talk to a doctor or your school's support service.

Study myths worth dropping

"I learn best in my learning style." Matching lessons to visual, auditory or kinaesthetic "styles" has not been shown to improve results.
"Highlighting means I have studied." Highlighting is fine for marking what to review, but on its own it does little for memory.
"Longer sessions are better." Several spaced sessions usually beat one long one, even when the total time is the same.
"If it feels easy, I have learned it." Effortful recall feels harder but produces stronger long-term memory.

Pick two or three changes to start with, such as self-testing and a weekly review, and build from there. A routine you can keep for a whole term is worth more than a perfect plan you abandon after a week.

Sources: Wikipedia: Testing effect; Roediger and Karpicke (2006), "Test-Enhanced Learning", Psychological Science; Dunlosky et al. (2013), "Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques", Psychological Science in the Public Interest; original list idea from I Heart Intelligence.

Related:

Header$type=social_icons