8 honest and useful Study Tips
1. Just Do It!
Don’t become obsessed with how you study. While it is important, don’t be a perfectionist. The essential thing is that you actually START STUDYING. Don’t delay and think ‘I can do it tomorrow’. Because tomorrow you will have even more homework. If you’re lucky and there isn’t more homework, you will have some free time to meet your friends, read something you find interesting or play video games. Either way you win by starting work now, not later.
2. Pay attention
Homework begins in the classroom. If you don’t listen to the teacher, you will miss important information and might not understand what you have to do for homework. This makes it much harder and it will take a lot longer to finish! If you have trouble concentrating try sitting towards the front of the classroom, ideally at the front where you are right next to the teacher and can hear and ask them questions more easily.
3. Make Neat, Useful Notes
You don’t have to write a lot, only the most important things that will help do your homework and exams. Just make sure it makes sense and is easy to read.
4. Ask for help
If you are finding a topic too hard, you must ask for help. Sitting in front of your books being confused is a waste of time. Ask your teacher to help. If they are not available ask your parents, sibling or friends. You may even be able to find support online.
5. Do ALL of your homework!!
Let’s be truthful. Often we’ll only do the homework that we ‘have’ to do – the work we know we will get in trouble for if we don’t do it. This is short-term thinking. If you take the time to do ALL of your homework you will be surprised at how much you’ll have learned by the end of the year. You’ll also have less revision to do for your exams. Now that’s surely an incentive to do all your homework.
6. Phone, Tablet, TV OFF (or at least on silent)!!
Ping! Ping! Ping! That all too familiar sound of the notification can dominate your day if you’re not careful. Once you know you’ve received a notification, be it from Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp or Facebook it’s very difficult not to look. This distracts from your task. Even if it seems like only a second, over the day this adds up to many hours. A recent study found that the average teenager uses social media for 9 hours a day! Think how much homework or other activities you could have done it that time! When you sit down to study put your mobile on silent so you’re not tempted to check it every few minutes.
7. Take regular breaks
Children aged 4-10 can’t usually concentrate for more than 45 minutes at a time. Even children 11+ should be taking a short 5 minute break every hour to allow their minds to clear, relax and refocus. If you study for hours and hours on end you will lose concentration and not remember the information. Therefore be sure to take short but regular breaks in order to remember the information you are studying!
8. Get a good night’s sleep
Feeling tired all the time is horrible. If you don’t get enough sleep it is very difficult to concentrate on your work at school and at home, let alone complete tasks to the best of your ability. Everyone needs different amounts of sleep with children aged 3-5 needing at least 10 hours, and children aged 6-13 needing at least 9 hours sleep.
Did you Know?
A good diet will help you study. A study at the University of Oxford revealed that students performed worse on tests of attention and thinking speed after being fed a high-fat, low-carb diet for five days, while performance did not decline for students who ate a balanced, nutritious diet.
Was that helpful? What do you do to get your homework done?
This article contains general information regarding health and well-being. This information is not intended as advice, and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on the information on this website as an alternative to advice from medical or educational professionals.
