Everybody hates studying. Even if you actually enjoy a learning and going to school, odds are that you would rather listen to an instructor lecture to you about the subject matter rather than reading it over and over silently in your head. The fact of the matter is, that no matter how it is you learn, studying is an absolute necessity to getting good grades. When I first entered postsecondary education I had no idea how to study and as a result my test scores suffered. I made it my first order of business to learn this incredibly helpful skill and it is still the best decision I made while attending college. Now, I've begun my education online for the first time and I'm finding that the pressures of completing something on my own is a rather large responsibility.  I am going to divulge 10 of the best strategies I found worked best for studying. I know everybody studies differently, but I think that these 10 methods should aid you in some way because they certainly helped me quite a bit.

Study in Short Bursts.

I have found that studying in short frequent sessions produces the best results and also prevents me from getting bored with the subject material. People tend to retain more information when it is studied frequently instead of being studied once for a very long period of time. Concentrating on a single subject matter for short periods of time has repeatedly been proven to be more effective in numerous tests. I found that even just 10-minute studying sessions would pay off. I would often be writing tests and remember specifically studying something during one of my 10-minute sessions. You can literally cram in a studying session almost anywhere, on the bus, on the toilet, or even on a smoke break. I found what works best was studying for 10 minutes and taking a 10-minute break and then studying for another 10 minutes. This is known as “distributed learning” and is highly efficient because it makes use of the way the brain works. Protein synthesis requires recovery time, a sort of recharging of the battery if you will. During the rest, your brain will make sense of the information and store it more efficiently than if you hadn’t taken a break. In my opinion it is the most powerful tool in studying and it is rarely take advantage of. Sitting and studying for hours on end is not only boring but almost impossible and much less efficient at getting data is stored in your brain. It is also a great way to induce stress, fatigue and a real great way to get yourself distracted. Learning quite simply does not happen under these circumstances.

Take a Day of Rest.

If you have alotted your time correctly and are working on a strict but efficient schedule, you should be able to work in a guilt free day of rest. Resting your brain from data entry works in much the same way as the method above but on a much longer scale. After a day off, you will probably feel much more rested and refreshed, ready to take on the next studying challenge. However, if you are to feel guilty about taking this time off from studying, all the rest seems to be flushed down the toilet and accounts for nothing. An accumulation of stress completely wipes out all the rest you should have been getting. If you’re planning on taking a day off from studying, make sure that you have something planned so that you can take your mind off of studying. If you start to think about studying and all the other stresses in your life, you won’t really be enjoying yourself and the rest will be in vain.

Be in the Right State of Mind.

Make sure that you study in a healthy emotional state. If you are tired, angry or disappointed then these states of mind are not conducive to proper studying techniques. Ideally, you want your brain to be in a very relaxed state because that is when information retention is at its peak. If you are distressed emotionally and attempt to intake information, your brain will not retain any of it. Think of the brain as a hand: a relaxed brain is like an open hand, willing to take new information. Similarly, a stressed brain is like a fist and it will repel any information you try to force upon it. You can waste a lot of time if you force yourself to study when your brain isn’t ready for it.

Review Shortly After the Information is Initially Presented.

Reviewing what you learned shortly after you have learned it is a sure fire way to make sure that the information stays in your brain. If, on the other hand, you decide to wait a few days, the material will seem much less familiar and it will be to your brain as if you are learning much of it for the first time. A quick review a few hours after the information had been initially entered into your brain will really go a long way to making sure that the information is retained. Obviously, a third and fourth review session is highly recommended because at this point almost all of the information presented will be remembered.

Work From the Bottom Up.

Believe it or not, there is a natural learning sequence. If you remember back to when you were in preschool, the tasks you are assigned were very basic and helped you learn how to use your body. It started with building block houses, escalated to drawing circles and other shapes, and finally you were able to create letters and numbers with some degree of accuracy. All information is best learned using methods not unlike the ones detailed in the previous example. This is the way our brain naturally learns. We must go from small to large, from simple to complex, to truly understand how something works. The same methods can be applied to anything we want to learn now that we are older. For example if when you study you try and see the final product and then figure out where it came from, the odds that the information you retain will be valuable is very low. However, if you work your way up to the final conclusion, taking little steps all the way, you’ll find that the information rests in your brain much easier and can be recalled without great thought.

Over Emphasize Important Points.

Over do it a little. I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage “it’s like running with 10 pound weights on”. If you prepared to lift 120 pounds and you only have to lift 90 pounds it should be quite easy. The same ideas can be applied to studying and really pay off. Exaggeration during practice makes the actual execution of the task much easier. This concept can be applied to almost anything in life be it mental or physical. To use a very simple example, pretend that you are studying how to spell. Exaggerating the sound that each letter makes will help you remember it. Granted, this exaggerated pronunciation of the word will not sound proper in speech but it will go a long way to make sure that you understand how the word is spelled. You can literally apply this to any subject you are studying.

Make a Tool Checklist.

Studying is just like any other job; you are going to need certain tools to get the work done. Make sure that if you need a certain tool to study, like a lamp, music, silence, privacy, whatever… If you need it make sure it’s there. You will have to take note on what works best for you and see in which environments you produce the best results. Once you have done that stick to it.

Review Multiple Times.

The brain has a natural tendency to forget things. Although this happens to everybody at different rates, it happens to everybody. Any information that the brain doesn’t think is integral, it will put on the back shelf somewhere and be very difficult to reclaim when you need it. Don’t get frustrated by this, simply learn how to work around it. It works best if you can visualize your brain as if it were depositing layers of knowledge on top of each other. As more and more information gets piled on, the information at the bottom seems to become older and less relevant if it is not revisited constantly. Reviewing comes in very handy here again. Because we know this is going to happen, we can take the information at the bottom of the stack and continually move it to the top to make sure that our brain doesn’t forget it. Reviewing old material every two or three study sessions will make sure that it remains in your brain for years to come. Don’t over do it though, often a quick review is plenty.

Make a Study Schedule.

If you study by routine, you generally have much less problems retaining the information. Your brain is very good at creating its own timetables and will anticipate predetermined study times as times that it will be taking in information. Although squeezing in short study sessions isn’t a bad idea, you will find that it is much more effective if you study at the same times each day or week. Treat it as if it is your favorite television show and you don’t have a tivo and you should begin to see the benefits of regular scheduled studying.

Don’t Drive Yourself Crazy.

A person with an over active nervous system can technically learn faster than somebody with a slower nervous system. However, a problem arises when they start criticizing themselves because they also do that much faster. The two occurrences often cancel each other out and as a result somebody with a slower nervous system may get information into their head more efficiently. The less intense person who tends to learn more slowly doesn’t waste energy getting upset with themselves, in turn blocking information entering their brain. These people tend to store information more uniformly and consistently and as a result they will study more efficiently. If you find yourself being critical of your studying habits, life, stress, or whatever else is on your mind, it might be best to take a break and come back. Information will be much better stored using this technique.

At first, the challenge of an online education was overwhelming but using these techniques I can really manage to keep on top of the work.  I think I may actually get my online business degree almost entirely thanks to my newly adopted and tested studying techniques.