Study Hacks

Advice, Advice Everywhere…

The good thing about this season is that back to school advice is available everywhere you turn. The problem, however, is that once you’ve read one article about smart course selection or staying organized, you’ve read them all.

In this post, I want to offer a collection of advice that’s off the beaten path; nuggets of wisdom you won’t find anywhere else. As always, don’t let me have the last word. If there’s an unexpected  tip you’ll be using this year, let us know by leaving a comment.

Five Pieces of Unexpected Back to School Advice

1. Party Hard the First Few Weeks.
   Your social life needs a running start. Once the term progresses and schedules tighten, it becomes harder to fall in with new crowds. Build your social momentum by partying hard now, while you still have the time. This will make it easier to keep the invites and social options rolling in all the way to finals.
2. Quit Most of Your Activities.
   I don’t know you. But I can assume you’re probably doing way too many activities, fueled by some vague belief that this makes you more impressive or is necessary to get into law school. Ugh. Here’s what you should do instead. First, read this article. Second, quit all of your activities except the one or two that you’ve been involved with the longest. Third, work hard during the fall semester to take on a difficult project within the activity, and follow it through to completion. Fourth, in the spring semester, use your newly earned respect to pitch an unusual project that will impress outsiders because it defies easy explanation. Fifth, read this article so you understand what the hell I’m talking about. Sixth, reap the disproportionate reward for replacing a laundry-list with focus and innovation.
3. Buy a Fancy New Planner.
   A moleskin is nice. It makes you feel like a young Picasso. My new productivity crush, however, is the beautiful muji chronotebook (which will be released any day now). Whatever you choose, there’s a simple justification for upgrading: the excitement of buying a planner that’s cool and fancy will make you more productive. It shouldn’t. But it does. So treat yourself.
4. Drop One of Your Courses.
   Once again, I don’t know you. But I will assume that your course load is tougher than necessary. You think this makes you look talented and smart. Here’s the reality: no one cares. So drop one of the tougher courses and spend your free time obsessing over your new planner.
5. Apply for Something.
   Go to the building that houses your major department. Find a bulletin board. Read the attached flyers for fellowships, scholarships, and special programs. Choose one. Apply to it. The cooler sounding the better. Do it now, before things gets too busy. Great things comes to those who actually do things. Not just recognition, but also experience and connections and unexpected random future opportunities. So place yourself in the top 1% of your class by actually taking the time to try.

(Photo by dyobmit)

Manila-Flavored Advice

I recently did an interview with the Manila Bulletin, in which I discussed the basic ideas underpinning the Straight-A Method (the framework for all of my studying advice). I thought it might be a good idea to reproduce some of the article here as a way to bring my newer readers up to speed on the type of good old fashioned study tips found in my books.

(The full article can be found here.)

STUDENTS AND CAMPUSES BULLETIN (SCB): What are some of the common causes of “underachievement” in school?

Cal Newport (CN): Student culture. It’s seen as uncool to be working hard. Also, there is often a fear that if you admit to working hard then do poorly then this somehow proves that you’re not smart. A lot of talented students develop terrible habits as a way of avoiding this fear. My advice to overcome this culture is “keep it yourself.” Study how much you need to study and don’t make it a topic of conversation.

SCB: How important is motivating yourself to study?

CN: The worse your study habits, the worse your urge to procrastinate – your mind tries to avoid activities that seem painful for no good reason. If you’re on top of your work, follow a reasonable schedule, and use efficient habits, it’s a lot easier to stay motivated.

SCB: What strategies can a student use in each stage of his school life?

CN: In grade school, get used to the habit of setting aside a little block of time each day – maybe right after school – during which you complete your homework.

In high school, overcome the cram habit by keeping a detailed deadline calendar and devising a study plan for papers and major tests; i.e., how you are going to study, for how long, and on what days. This is also a good time to expand your grade school habit and maintain set times, each day, in which the bulk of your work gets done. Finally, and I can’t stress this enough: never, ever do school work on a computer that is connected to the Internet. This is a complete waste of time. Finish the paper early, then you can dedicate your entire night – if you so wish – to facebook.

In college, always attend class. Spread out your assignments over the week (don’t leave them until the night before; this isn’t high school, the work load can’t be crammed into a few hours of intense effort). Study during pockets of free time in the morning and afternoon; definitely don’t leave everything until after dinner. Ignore how your friends study – they’re probably idiots when it comes to these skills – and, instead, run your own experiments to discover what techniques seem to be the most efficient for you. Top students often have crazy tool boxes of custom-built study systems that help them get work done fast.

In graduate school, the culture is more dangerous then the work load. Ignore how much you are “supposed” to be working and focus, during the early years, on getting the work done well. Later, when faced with a dissertation, avoid the “woe is me” attitude, and just get started early, and work consistently over time, with plenty of feedback, to develop something good.

SCB: How can a student be motivated to get good grades even though a boring subject or a teacher gets in the way of an exciting learning situation?

CN: Studying is like a game. You are faced with a source of information, you have to do some sort of processing, at the other end you take a test or write a paper and get a grade for it.

The challenge is to make that middle part – the processing – as efficient and effective as possible. Even if you don’t love the subject, there is always something fulfilling about watching your custom-built note-taking and review system suck in the info, process it, review it, and spit out top-scoring results on the other end.

SCB: What are the top five skills students must learn in order to get high grades in class?

CN: Pay attention in class. Capture big ideas in your notes, not a transcript of every word the teacher uttered.

Energy and focus is more important than time when it comes to studying. Work in focused chunks in the morning and the afternoon – not in long stretches after dinner.

Always have a plan. There is nothing worse than heading off to the library with vague ambitions to “study.” Always be specific about what actual work you are planning on doing and how long it should take.

Avoid rote review. Silently reading and re-reading over notes is a slow way to learn. Instead, try to recall big ideas, out loud, as if lecturing to a class.

Start working much earlier than your classmates. Work in smaller chunks spread out over more time. The results are better and the pain much less.

SCB: What can you advise students who are currently having a hard time in school?

CN: Last fall I wrote a blog article called “The Vital 5” which listed the following five steps for turning around poor academic performance:

1. Attend every class. Take notes on a laptop.

2. Set aside a fixed two-hour study block for every weekday and Sunday. Use this time to study, in a remote corner of the library, without exception, every week of the term.

3. Make a study plan for every test in every class at the beginning of the term. Decide what you are going to do and when.

4. Replace rote review with quiz and recall.

5. Attend office hours every single week to discuss the most challenging material from lecture, or the hardest problems from the problem set. Inform the professor that you are making a real effort this term to turn around your performance.

(photo by permanently scatterbrained)

Restarting is Hard to Do

Something that surprised me last fall, when I began to work more closely with individual students on productivity issues, was the difficulty of transitioning from chaos to control. It’s one thing to learn the type of systems used by the most efficient students, it’s quite another thing, however, to put these systems into practice. More often than not, my experience has been: the more productivity habits you start at the same time the higher the probability that you’ll abandon them all. It just becomes too overwhelming.

In this post, I want to talk about getting started from scratch. How to ease into that transition from a chaotic student lifestyle to relaxed efficiency; making changes that will stick…

Getting Started on the Road to Efficiency

Below I have described five small habits. If you’re new to student productivity, I would recommend that you stick to these five, and only these five, until at least midterms of the first semester in which you deploy them. If all goes fine, then you can consider adding some of the more advanced techniques discussed on this blog and elsewhere. (For a good example, read this article, which describes the collection of systems and habits I use regularly as a student).

From my experience, these changes are easy enough — and have a big enough positive impact — that they shouldn’t overwhelm your self-discipline. Once you get used to having some control you’ll be able to start moving toward mastery. Remember: start small. Keep improving…

1. Setup a Google Calendar.
   Keep your appointments, classes, office hours, meetings, and deadlines on Google calendar. The advantage of a web-based calendar, of course, is that you can check it from any computer on campus. The specific advantage of Google’s offering is the quick add feature, which lets you quickly type in new appointments in natural language (i.e., “midterm next Thursday” or “econ group meeting Friday from 1 to 3″). This is easy enough that you’ll actually probably keep the calendar up to speed. Especially if you use the browser plug-in version of the feature; keeping calendar updates just a few keystrokes away.
2. Choose your courses carefully.
   For your first term as a new and improved student, you need to avoid a killer schedule. Mix class types. Don’t have too many science courses or too many writing-heavy courses scheduled all at once. Don’t be afraid to schedule in a course that seems interesting but may have a reputation as being, well, not too hard. You need to practice having control over your workload, and this means starting with a load that’s easier to control.
3. Take an activity vacation.
   This piece of advice, first spelled out in this article, is tough for some to stomach. But I recommend it highly. Take a break from your extracurriculars. As I mentioned in the original article, this is college, not the Olympics, no one is going to fault you if you say “I need to take a semester break to refocus on my grades.” Your various club memberships and volunteer gigs will be waiting for you when you return. As with the last piece of advice, you need breathing room to start getting comfortable with being an efficient, organized student. Killing your activities — for just a semester — gives you the space needed to get comfortable with being in control.
4. Insist on a study plan for every problem set, test, and paper.
   When you’re first starting your student overhaul, it’s overwhelming to deploy too many complicated study rules; especially if they all demand stringent behavior controls. You need some flexibility in the earlier stages; some time to help you get used to having a plan and discovering what type of things work best for you. To accommodate this reality, follow this simple advice: have some plan for everything major assignment. For now, I don’t care what the plan says. Just have something, decided in advanced. that spells out, roughly, how you are going to complete the assignment (i.e., what specific actions…you’re not allowed to used ambiguous terms like “study”), and how you’re going to break up the work.
5. Establish a Sunday Ritual.
   I covered this advice in both a previous post and in How to Win at College. There’s a reason it keeps coming up: it’s simple yet yields tremendous results. The basic idea of the ritual is to transition from the debauchery of Friday and Saturday into the new workweek. I recommend it consists of the following: (1) eat a big breakfast, read something interesting, drink (lots) of coffee, and clear your head; (2) get your calendar and task lists up to speed, integrate in the loose stuff that gathered in the week; (3) go to the most deserted library on campus, and spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon working; and (4) conclude by setting up a schedule for Monday. You can vary this as you see fit, so long as you retain the basic structure of clearing your head, fleeing civilization, and getting stuff done.

Baby Steps

These initial changes omit most of the super-detailed strategy we love to dissect here on Study Hacks. Notice, there is no complicated time management system or advanced scheduling tactics or complicated note-taking formats. These are all tools that will eventually enter your student arsenal. But if you’re new to efficiency, resist their allure for now. Get used to having a basic plan, and knowing your schedule, and clearing your head on weekends. Do this during a semester with a light course load and no activities. Experience the rush of being in control of your obligations. Once you’ve scored that high, you’ll never want to lose it again.

Then you can move on to the fun stuff…

(Photo courtesy of the contented)

How I Stay Organized

I post a lot of articles on student productivity. As followers of the Straight-A Method understand, I don’t mean to suggest that you adopt all of this advice. I view it more as an armory. Before heading onto the battleground of the college semester, you must arm yourself with a sampling of these strategies — every student has their own unique mix of tips and systems that works best; their very own productivity special sauce, if you will.

In this post I will briefly describe the motley collection of strategies that are keeping me organized during this semester. (Emphasis on “this” semester, as I change up these habits throughout the year to best meet my needs.)

I hope revealing my particular brand of productivity secret sauce will help you figure out the best combination of strategies that will keep you in fighting shape.

How I Wrangle My Tasks and Schedule

Getting Things Done for College Students
I employ the GTDCS system for staying on top of my daily demands. Like classic GTD, this approach is based around capturing all action items and processing them efficiently. Unlike the original system, however, it has some added magic to help deal with the tight-deadline school work that dominates student life.

Time Blocking
I hate to-do lists. I always try to work with a schedule that assigns specific work to specific times. I’ve been doing this long enough to realize how long work really takes me, so I tend to start things pretty early.

The Autopilot Schedule
Without an autopilot schedule I think I would drown in the sea of small but time-consuming tasks generated by my classes. Fixing regular work to regular days and times is absolutely crucial to my sanity.

How I Handle My Classes

The Morse-Code Note Taking System
The raw speed of this note-taking system has been a huge help in handling the large amount of reading that I need to be familar with — but not necessarily master — each week for my art history seminar.

Paper Research Database
As I ramp up on another major research paper for class, my excel-based quote database method is soon to make another star appearance.

The ESS Method
I am constitutionally incapable of working on school assignments in long, uninterrupted stretches. I swear by the ESS method, which breaks everything up into small chunks spread over time. For a recent two-page paper, for example, I the work was accomplished in well over a dozen different sittings (none more than two hours, many much less.)

How I Manage the Big Picture

The Einstein Principle
I am constantly trying to narrow down my focus so that in both my academic and writer life, I am putting in enough hard effort on one thing that I can actually get somewhere worth getting.

The Steve Martin Method
As a corollary to Dr. Einstein, I have become obsessed, recently, with Steve Martin’s idea that the key to “success” is “being so good they can’t ignore you.” A big result from this mindset: I spend less time looking for my “big break.” Instead, I try to fix myself in a venue where skill will be rewarded, and then keep producing until my skill level gets to that point. (More on this later…)

The Art of the Finish
Once you deem something important (and this, according to the Einstein principle, should be a high bar to leap) you have to become obsessed about finishing it. I try as hard as possible to build these obsessions. By forcing myself to finish a small number of active projects before beginning any that are new, I’m slow instilling this discipline.

How I Stay Happy

Fixed-Schedule Productivity
I’m a big believer in working backwards when it comes to stress and work habits: Fix the lifestyle you want, then start making the changes you need to get there (be it better life hacks or drastic simplification to your obligations). Fixed-schedule productivity is how I integrate this philosophy into my daily work schedule.

Proactive Happiness
Happiness takes work. I didn’t realize this in college. But I’ve come to appreciate it more and more as I get older. I now go out of my way to forcefully integrate many of these principles into my daily routine. My thought: life will never be perfect, so stop focusing on what you wish you had, and starting getting the most out of what you do.

Golden Oldies

I get lots of student e-mail. I enjoy this. It keeps me connected to the real world scholastic struggles that you guys face. One thing I’ve noticed, however, is that there are a small number of older Study Hacks articles, usually from the summer or early fall, before my readership really grew, that I find myself recommending again and again as a potential answer. This leads me to believe: (1) these articles answer unusually common problems; (2) not many people have seen them.

With this in mind, I slogged back through the archives to pull out the five most important articles from the golden age of Study Hacks. Are you currently struggling with something in your student life? There’s a good chance you might find an answer lurking below.

(Did I miss a classic that you love? Let me know…)

Use Focused Question Clusters to Study for Multiple Choice Tests
One of the most glaring omissions in Straight-A is that I didn’t address fact-based technical courses — life sciences, anatomy, intro psych — the type of subjects that have you learn a lot of technical details, but feature few big ideas or sample problems. This article extends the classic quiz and recall method to efficiently handle notes that contain a large number of facts, systems, and details.

The key concept: Clustering rapid fire questions into one large question that fits into the q-and-r framework.

The Straight-A Gospels: Pseudo-Work Doesn’t Equal Work
I often preach that not all work is made equal. A focused hour in the morning is not the same as hour 12 of an all-night study marathon held in-between pong games in a dank corner of your frat basement. (In case you were wondering.) But what exactly is the difference? And which hours are better than others? This article lays out the key philosophy that informs all of my rants about structuring your study time.

The key concept: A simple formula, work accomplished = time spent x intensity of focus. Everything else I’ve said on this subject all starts with this one idea…

Getting Things Done for College Students
This article has been a hit with the web’s thriving community of productivity junkies. But it was posted way too early to have made much of an impact for my student readers who need it most. The article is the culmination of a month long series of posts on the e-mail newsletter that preceded this blog. It starts with David Allen’s wildly successfully Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity system and identifies where it breaks when applied to the college lifestyle. It then fills in these gaps with some more undergrad-focused goodness. The result is an advanced system for the student looking for some real fine-tuned control over an advanced schedule.

The key concept: Class assignments cannot be handled within the standard GTD next action framework.

Part 2 in 60 Seconds or Less
Fans of Straight-A know that Part 2 covers quizzes and tests. Much of the advice from this section has made it onto this blog (quiz and recall, question/evidence/conclusion, mega problem sets…) The information, however, can be overwhelming. In response to this concern, I wrote this article, which breaks out the main ideas motivating those crucial chapters.

The key concept: Think of studying as an industrial process. Input comes in, something happens, outputs comes out. How do we minimize the costs on that second step?

Follow a Sunday Ritual
Of all the advice I’ve posted on this blog, this gem, from early September, generates the most fan mail. I’ve lived by this habit since my sophomore year at college and now couldn’t imagine life without it. Actually, I could. It would be really stressful.

The key concept: Develop a Sunday ritual for catching up, getting organized, and preparing for the upcoming week.

Advice, Advice, Everywhere…

Students often ask me how they should sift through all the advice on this blog in order to implement a simple system that will work for them. Here’s the truth: Almost all of the strategies I present here, and in my books, are motivated by a simple yet powerful underlying framework I call the Straight-A Method. This framework is based on four central pillars: knowledge, control, strategy, and balance. Each describes a high-level goal you should strive to maintain as a student. If you can satisfy these four goals — regardless of what specific strategies or systems you use — then you’re all set. Your college experience will be outstanding.

In this post I describe the four pillars of the Straight-A Method. As you read, ask yourself what strategies or habits, if any, do you have in place for satisfying each goal.

Pillar #1: Knowledge

You must collect and regularly review all of your obligations as a student. This includes both the academic (e.g., test dates and assignment schedules) and the administrative (e.g., application deadlines and demands from extracurricular involvements). Taking stock of everything that is on your plate can be forbidding, but it is also crucial for maintaining control over your life.

Some past posts relevant to this pillar:

• Getting Things Done for College Students: The Full System
  
• Follow a Sunday Ritual

Pillar #2: Control

Control the hours in your day. Do not let them control you. Plan out, in advance, when you are going to work and what you are going to accomplish. Doing so builds an accurate understanding of your time — how much you have and how long things really take. This awareness is the foundation of low-stress, efficient scheduling.

Some past posts relevant to this pillar:

• How to Use Time Arbitrage to Maximize Your Productivity Profit
• Don’t Use a Daily To-Do List

Pillar #3: Strategy

Never “study.” The word is ambiguous and it’s tied up with too many emotional connotations about what school work should feel like (tiring, boring, painful). Instead, think in terms of specific actions. Seek out and squash inefficiencies. Ruthlessly evaluate and tweak your techniques after the fact. Always be improving.

Some past posts relevant to this pillar:

• How to Use a Flat Outline to Write Outstanding Papers, Fast
• How to Solve Hard Problem Sets Without Staying Up All Night
• The Art of Stealth Studying: How to Earn a 4.0 with Only 1.0 Hours of Work

Pillar #4: Balance

Above all else: stay happy. Otherwise, what’s this all for? This means, among other things: Aggressively socialize. When in doubt about whether or not to attend an event: go. Don’t be satisfied with a few good buddies, put in a serious effort to build a cadre of life-long friends. Engage your mind. Crave inspiration. Take on a grand project. Remember: College is a playground for your mind and spirit. Play hard.

Some past posts relevant to this pillar:

• Disruptive Thinkers: Ben Casnocha Wants You to Stop Making So Many Damn Plans
• How to Make 2008 Significantly More Exciting than 2007

Late summer is the season of back to school advice. Nowhere is this more true than in the blogging community. Post after post slops full with helpful tips. Some irritating (“treat yourself with a reward, like a nice t-shirt or an ice cream every time you follow your schedule!”); most just boring (“get enough sleep!”)

I want to buck that trend. College is grittier than the world of freshman mixers and study breaks that writers like to focus on when offering up advice. As any student will tell you, it’s also a world of booting and popularity woes. Where social circles are vital and the party scene can be equal parts exhilarating and brutal. With this in mind, I want to present three pieces of gritty back to school study advice that are crucial, but that you probably won’t hear anywhere else:

Back to School Advice You Won’t Find in Your Freshman Handbook

1. Party twice as hard for the first few weeks
   The beginning of the semester sets the pace for your social life. For your first few weeks on campus, before the workload becomes intense, go out more nights and stay out longer than you are used to. This is where many serious friendships will be forged. It will also rapidly acclimatize you to the social scene, and help ensure a steady stream of reliable, easy social options once your schedule begins to fill-up later in the term. If people had memorable experiences with you early on, they will keep you integrated in their social planning as the semester continues.
2. Learn how to drink
   If you’re going to drink at college (around 50 to 70% students make this decision, depending on the source), you need to learn how to do it right. This means: learn your tolerance level. Figure out what pace you can sustain without losing control. Too many freshman go overboard in their first semester and end up embarrassing themselves. No one is impressed that you got completely smashed. In fact, while you might find yourself hilarious, most will find you awkward, and wish that you would just shut the hell up. If you shadow a senior around for a Friday night out, you will note that, after three years of experience, he or she will have learned how to have a good time without: (a) losing control; or (b) making themselves sick the next morning. Experiment with your intake to figure out how to get to this point as quickly as possible. Take this seriously. Like an athlete. You must learn how to maximize the capability of your body.
3. If you don’t drink, don’t try to explain
   If you’re not a drinker, people will often ask you why. Don’t try to explain. Just say: “I have my reasons.” If they persist, get harsh: “What the fuck is it to you?” This ends the conversation, and lets you move on with the night. Pretty soon, people will stop bothering you about this. From what I’ve seen, trying to offer up an explanation will instigate a conversation that won’t go well. First of all, it always ends up making you seem like a bit of wuss, like you feel obligated to explain yourself to this jack ass. Secondly, the asker probably doesn’t care. They just like to talk about their own drinking.
4. Start off as an activity slacker
   During the first week or two as a freshman, join one club that you are willing to apply serious energy towards. As I’ve talked about before, being the best at something is exponentially more rewarding than merely being involved. Also, this club will provide structure and a ready-made social group to help jumpstart your college career. Don’t, however, sign up for anything else. At least, not at first. The excitement of your first few weeks makes everything seem impossibly exciting. When the first exam period rolls around, however, you will regret having joined 18 different clubs. So be a slacker at first. Evaluate but don’t commit. Wait until your workload has hit its peak before you start to make smarter decisions about additional extracurriculars.

About once or twice a month, I will get an e-mail from a college student who is in real need of some advice to turn around poor academic performance. Sometimes a scholarship is on the line. Often, it’s the wrath of watchful, tuition-paying parents that’s driving the desperation. Whatever the case, in responding to these e-mails, I’ve learned to extract from the large corpus of tips surronding my study philsopophy, a core set of advice that can effect a rapid change of academic fortunes.

Here are the vital five, as I sometimes call them: tips for creating a drastic change, quickly, to a poor academic record. These changes aren’t easy. But if you need results, and are willing to follow through, they’ll get the job done:

1. Attend every class. Take notes on a laptop.
2. Set aside a fixed two-hour study block for every weekday and Sunday. Use this time to study, in a remote corner of the library, without exception, every week of the term.
3. Make a study plan for every test in every class at the beginning of the term. Decide what you are going to do and when.
4. Replace rote review with quiz and recall.
5. Attend office hours every single week to discuss the most challenging material from lecture, or the hardest problems from the problem set. Inform the professor that you are making a real effort this term to turn around your performance.