The 5 worst study habits that are ruining your productivity

For those of you who already study regularly, it may seem as though you’ve got everything figured out. However, everyone can learn something, and even the most experienced students may find out that their studying methods aren’t effective. Some study habits are better than others, and everyone should try and avoid these detrimental study habits.

Multitasking

Although multitasking may make you feel very productive, it’s actually one of the worst things you could do when studying! When you multitask, you start to lose concentration and as a result, are less likely to be able to accurately recall important information. By focusing on one thing at a time, you’ll learn more than trying to juggle a couple of things all at once.

Procrastinating

Everyone knows procrastinating is terrible, but no-one wants to stop. Indeed, procrastinating might be the worst study habit because you aren’t actually studying! Remember that by putting things off, the only person you’re hurting is you. However, there are some easy ways to stop procrastinating.

Not having a schedule

One very important thing to do is to have a schedule so you can make sure that you know what to study is to have a schedule. By having a schedule, you’ll know ahead of time what you need to study, meaning that you don’t lose time checking what to revise. As well as this, a study schedule can both decrease procrastination and help get you into the mindset to study.

Using passive recall

Passive recall is when you just try and take in information by reading, while active recall requires you to try to remember information and relate it to a concept, Because passive recall doesn’t incorporate elements of actually recalling new information, it’s incredibly ineffective and doesn’t help you retain new information.

Cramming

Cramming is terrible for many different reasons. First, if you try cram, you’ll likely go to sleep late, meaning you’ll perform worse on your exam. As well as this, cramming is often accompanied by passive recall, leading to only a surface level understanding of your topic. If you really want to do well on a test, start revising a week or two before so that you can really get to know the material!