Often, life can be tricky, complicated, and hectic all at once – but just because you are very busy doesn’t mean that you may not also have to study, whether for a degree or a job-specific certification.
When you’re tired, and struggling with how best to manage your time, it can be difficult to even figure out when to study – never mind to actually study successfully so that the time you spend trying to absorb information doesn’t end up feeling wasted.
Here are just a few tips for successfully studying when you also have a busy life.
Try to make studying a daily habit, rather than something that you just do in large sprints
Just because you might not have three hours a day to dedicate to intensive, undisturbed study sessions, doesn’t mean that it won’t be beneficial to spend any time studying at all until weekends or free evenings roll around.
While big “sprint” study sessions can certainly be useful – especially just before an exam – the stuff that really helps information to stick is consistent revision, even if that means just a relatively short period of time spent going over things each day.
In any case, you should try to make studying a daily habit to the best of your ability. Not only will this have a powerful cumulative effect, but the more habitual an action becomes, the less willpower it will take to initiate, and the less stressful it will tend to be.
A good practice might be to choose a certain time and decide that this is “study time” for each day of the week, regardless of what else is going on.
Get your sleep and nutrition right – you will remember a lot more, and will have a lot more energy
A lot of people totally sabotage their efforts at studying, by being in a state of chronic sleep deprivation, and eating nutritionally poor diets.
According to sleep researchers including Matthew Walker, author of the highly acclaimed book “Why We Sleep,” sleep is fundamentally important for helping to make short-term memories “stick,” in addition to consolidating the experiences we have had during the day.
People who are sleep deprived will remember much less of what they study, and will be less mentally sharp as well, when it comes to applying the results of their studying in essays or exams.
A nutritionally balanced diet, much like good sleep, can contribute to consistent energy levels, mental sharpness, and improved memory.
Keep your study materials well organized and ready to go, with as little resistance to getting started as possible.
Whether your study materials are CISSP study materials, or are a series of lecture notes relating to a subject like economics, one of the best ways of squeezing effective studying in when you are busy, is to begin by keeping your study materials well organized and ready to go.
The busier you are, the less time you will have to mess around figuring things out before actually getting started.
What’s more, the more “resistance” you feel to actually making a start on your studying, the higher the likelihood that you will procrastinate dramatically and be significantly less productive as a result.
