Study tips that work with your brain
Pick where studying breaks down for you. What comes out is a short plan, not a lecture.
The short version
- Say where studying breaks down for you, you cannot start, cannot remember, cannot focus, leave it too late, or are running on empty. Name the subject if you like. You get back two or three concrete tactics phrased as a plan to copy out.
- If "just sit down and revise" never works for you, the problem is the method, not you. This tool hands you the few tactics built for the exact spot where you get stuck, instead of all of them at once.
- This is not a test and it returns nothing about you. It picks from tactics that tend to help and hands them back with your subject filled in.
Some brains do not respond well to "just sit down and revise." You know you're capable, but something in the process keeps snagging. That snag is rarely in the same place for two people, so a long list of every study tip going is not much use. Name the one place it breaks down, and this hands back only the tactics built for that.
Before you begin
Two questions. Think about the last time you sat down to study and it went badly, and answer for that. Nothing you type is saved.
Questions
Question 1 of 2
Your plan
Copy it somewhere it will survive
Select the text below and copy it into whatever you already use, or stick it where you sit to study. This page keeps nothing.
One thing to remember
None of these are rules. They're options. Pick the one that looks most doable and try only that this week, a single tactic you use beats five you meant to. If the spot where you get stuck moves, come back and run it again for the new one.
Worth knowing. Testing yourself instead of re-reading, and spacing study across days instead of cramming, are two of the most reliable findings in the study of learning. In a large review for the U.S. government, Dunlosky and colleagues rated practice testing and distributed practice as the two techniques with the strongest evidence across subjects and ages, and rated re-reading and highlighting as among the weakest (Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2013). That is why the plans here lean on active recall and spreading it out rather than another read-through.
Nothing here is saved or sent anywhere. What you type exists only while this page is open.
Written for Thought Club as general guidance, not medical advice. Free to read, print, and share.