Holidays are the perfect time to recharge and refocus for the New Year. Some students and parents also see holidays as the perfect opportunity to get a head start on the school curriculum and revise for upcoming exams.
But is it a good idea to study over the holidays? And if so, how can it be done to avoid burning out before the school term begins?
Here are my thoughts on the matter…
Studying over the holiday break has some advantages. If you study effectively, you can get your head around the curriculum. When classes begin, you’ll have a better idea of what the teacher is talking about. You won’t feel completely lost in class.
If you have a basic understanding of a few key ideas, it will also be much easier to remember and retain information you learn in class. Why? Because you’ll have hooks to hang the new information on.
But you should only study over the holidays if you’re going to do it effectively. Otherwise you’ll just be wasting your time.
What do I mean by ‘effective study’?
Perhaps the easiest way to explain what ‘effective study’ is to show you an example of what ineffective holiday study looks like.
Here’s how you don’t want to spend your holidays:
You wake up, sit in your chair and open up your brand new textbook, breathing in that brand new textbook smell. Starting at page one, you read for a couple of hours straight because you think this is what you should be doing. You think this is the right thing to do. You don’t take any notes. “Hopefully something will stick”, you say to yourself.
In between forcing yourself to read, you go on Facebook and Instagram. “What’s everyone else doing?” you think. Unlike your sad ‘Poor-me-I-have-to-study’ self, everyone else looks like their having a blast at the beach and movies. You sigh and think, “Better get back to reading that textbook”.
By the end of the day, you feel exhausted and you can’t remember much of what you read in that textbook. Your eyes hurt and you feel tired and confused. All you want to do is curl up in the fetal position and cry.
You get the idea of ineffective holiday study. Please, do not do this to yourself. There is a better, less painful way to get a head start for the new school year over the holidays. It involves setting aside 5 – 10% of the day for study (approximately 1 – 2 hours) and a lot more fun and relaxation than you realise.
Tips for studying effectively over the holidays
1. Only do a little bit each day (snack study)
Remember, it’s your holidays. What’s the point of holidays? To relax and recharge. So don’t overdo the study. You only want to do a little bit each day. I recommend ‘snack study’ where you study in short, sharp bursts (15 – 20 minutes), followed by a break.
2. Do your snack study first thing
One of the advantages of doing your snack study first thing is you get it out of the way. Once it’s done, it’s done. You don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day. You can go play!
Not only that, you get to feel pretty awesome that you’ve knocked off the toughest thing you had to do first up. This is an excellent practice that will serve you well for the rest of the school year as well as life beyond school.
3. Combine study with something delicious and exciting
Why not combine a bit of science pre-reading with a milkshake at a nice café? Or art history study with a trip to the art gallery?
A good holiday should get you out of your usual routine and expose your mind to new and different ideas and places.
By changing your location and exploring places that are connected in some way to your subject areas, study can feel more like play and less like work.
4. Reframe the way you think about study: You’re playing and having fun with ideas
Language is powerful. The words we use and the way an activity is framed can make a huge difference to our motivation levels.
One study found that re-framing an activity as an opportunity to have fun rather than as work led to increases in self-control and participants feeling more energised. Whereas when the same behavior was framed as work, participants had trouble exerting self-control and struggled to finish the task.
So the question is, how on earth can you have fun with your studies?
Some simple ways include: reading interesting books on the subject (read beyond your school book list); visiting interesting places that relate to your subject (e.g., a museum or art gallery); watching relevant TED talks; listening to podcasts; or attending talks by experts at universities in the subject area.
The key thing is you don’t want your holiday study to feel like hard work. To avoid burning out before school starts, keep it fun.
5. Factor in time for fun every day
You know the saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”? There’s a lot of truth to this statement. It’s your holidays. Go get yourself a life. Do some fun things with friends that don’t relate to your studies!
But what you choose to do for fun matters. Research shows that some activities are more relaxing and rejuvenating than others.
For instance, there’s a big difference between sitting in front of a computer for 7-hours straight playing World of Warcraft and going down to the beach for a swim with friends. In terms of rejuvenation, the beach wins hands down!
Start to notice what activities leave you feeling energised and which activities leave you feeling flat and depleted.
6. Work with your unit outline
While it can be fun to freely explore different ideas, you want to be a little strategic with your holiday study.
Get your hands on your unit guides for the year ahead and base your study around these. Wondering where you can find each of your subjects’ unit outlines? You should be able to find these online (e.g., if you live in Western Australia, jump onto the SCSA website to download them).
7. Have at least one day where you don’t pick up a book
Give yourself a mental break at least one day a week. Over the holiday period, you need one or two days a week where you don’t think about school.
Go do fun stuff with your friends. For some students this may feel like you’re wasting precious time, but trust me, you’re not. You need to recharge your mind so it’s fresh to absorb new information. A little distance from a subject can give you a fresh perspective.
To sum up
A little study over the holiday break is a good move. But just as long as you study effectively and don’t overdo it. Think of the school year as being like a marathon, not a fast sprint. You don’t want to run out of steam in the first 200 meters.
You can think of the holidays as your pre-training period for the big marathon. Here is your chance to get the basics in place. To establish the habit of snack study, to get familiar with each course, to develop good eating and sleep patterns, to find some places you enjoy studying, to develop an interest in some aspect of each subject area, etc.
By the time the marathon starts, your mind will be sharp and you’ll find it easier to learn.
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• Highlight or underline your books?
• Test yourself with flash cards?
• Create notes?
• Make an outline of the key topics?
• Reread your books and/or notes?
These are all popular study strategies and exam revision techniques. But how effective are they? And could you do them better?
In their paper, cognitive psychology researchers Miyatsu et al (2018) examined how students can optimise the use of the following five study strategies:
1. Note-taking
2. Rereading
3. Marking (Underlining or highlighting)
4. Outlining
5. Flash cards
Do you have a tendency to write down word for word what the teacher says?
It’s best to summarise or paraphrase the information. Put it in your own words.
Do you prefer to take notes with pen and paper or on a laptop?
Taking notes by hand is best.
Why? Because you can’t write as fast as the teacher speaks, so you’re more likely to capture the information in your own words.
But when students take notes on a laptop they usually can type as fast as the teacher speaks. So what happens is you get a word for word script of what the teacher said. The problem is you don’t remember as much of the information when you take notes this way.
But regardless of whether you take notes by hand or on a laptop …
Don’t let your notes just sit there. Work with them. Transform them into pictures and flash cards. Scribble questions and other ideas all over them.
If I need to commit information to memory, I always do one or more of the following:
• Mind map out my linear style notes
• Put key points onto flash cards
• Transform them into practice tests
Miyatsu et al (2018) state:
“Reviewing is crucial in reaping the full benefits of note-taking.”
Remember, your notes are pretty much useless unless you review them.
I’m not a fan of reading passively.
If I’m reading complex information, I block out distractions (e.g. turn off music and put my phone in another room) and I draw pictures as I read. When I read this way, there’s usually no need to reread.
But if you reread passively (e.g. no drawing), try doing the following to make the ideas stick:
Space out the first and second reading by a few days. Research shows this produces more durable learning.
Before rereading, try doing retrieval practice. Retrieval practice is when you force yourself to bring information to mind (without looking at your books and notes).
Retrieval practice has been identified it as the number one study strategy. Use retrieval practice and you’ll dominate your subject areas.
1. Use a blank piece or paper or a whiteboard to write down all the things you can remember on the topic.
2. Try explaining to a friend, the wall or a pet what you can remember on the topic.
3. Use flash cards to test yourself.
Tip: It’s okay to retrieve the wrong information, just as long as you correct yourself.
So make sure you check to see that you are retrieving the correct information. It’s critical!
This isn’t a good study strategy to use. It gives you a false sense of confidence. You think the information has transferred from the page into your brain, but usually it hasn’t.
But if you really must highlight, you need to exercise some serious restraint with yours pens.
Read a section of the text first to get a sense of the important ideas (no pens allowed). Only after you have read the section are you allowed to underline the key ideas.
Personally, I think it’s more effective to draw pictures in the margins or on a blank sheet of paper as you read.
Please don’t make highlighting or underlining your only study strategy. As the Miyatsu et al (2018) state:
“Marking should not be students’ only preparation method for higher-order assessments.”
You know how your books have a contents page? Outlining is where you create a contents page for a subject.
Do you have a syllabus or unit outline for each of your subjects? If you do, check the unit content section. Boom! That’s your outline.
Don’t have an outline? Create one for a subject/topic. This will give you a sense of the key ideas and how they are structured.
Here’s another way you can do retrieval practice using an outline …
Use your outline to test yourself.
Go through each topic and see how much you can remember (“What do I know about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?”).
Get easily overwhelmed by a long list of topics? No problem!
Simply use a blank piece of paper to cover up the topics. Then proceed through the topics, one by one, shifting the paper down the page as you successfully bring to mind information on each point.
If you use flash cards correctly, this is a great way to do retrieval practice.
Use your flash cards to test yourself.
But here’s the thing: don’t just read the question and then flip and read the answer straight away. Try bringing the information to mind before you flip the card over.
It’s tempting to want to drop a card when you get the answer correct (“I know that!”). But hold onto that card. Keep it in your pile of flash cards. Only drop a card after you have successfully retrieved the correct information at least three times. Remember, the aim is to strengthen the information in your mind so you can easily recall it later on.
While you’re at it, space out your practice. Go through a pile of flash cards and then take a break before practicing them again (my recommendation is to wait at least 24 hours).
Continuously drilling your flash cards is not an effective way to study.
After completing a set of flash cards, go outside and get some fresh air, make yourself a smoothie, etc. Do something good for yourself. Your brain deserves a break.
Note: For learning more complex information, flash cards may not be the best strategy to use. I prefer drawing the information out first and then creating flash cards for key concepts on the mind map.
So there you have it! Various ways to optimise five popular study strategies.
Just remember, if you want to save time and elevate your studies, you are better off using strategies that have been found to be highly effective (click here to read more about highly effective study strategies).
But if you’re in the habit of using the popular strategies mentioned above, that’s okay! Why not make some small tweaks and try adding some more effective strategies into your study routine?
While they may not feel as good and easy as highlighting, they will certainly fast track your studies and boost your performance.
If you want to achieve solid marks at school, you need to be strategic. Ditch your highlighter pens. Stop re-reading your books and notes. These are incredibly boring and passive ways to study. You need new study strategies.
Dual coding is when you use both words and pictures to learn information. This gives you two ways to learn the information (via the words and the pictures).
Here are some different ways you can dual code when you study:
Is the picture conveying something that the text isn’t?
Think this strategy is only for visual learners and artistic types? Think again. Dual coding has nothing to do with learning styles and being a visual learner, which some people argue is an educational myth. Dual coding is for everyone.
Without looking at your books and notes, try to recall the information. Ask yourself, What did I study in human biology yesterday? Force yourself to get the information out of your brain.
The simple act of bringing information to mind helps to reinforce it in your brain.
You see, it takes effort to transfer information into your long-term memory. You don’t just hear information once in class and … BOOM! That information stays in your brain forever. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.
We are incredibly forgetful so we need to revisit the information to help cement it in our brains. Retrieval practice is the best way to do this.
Let me make one thing clear: Retrieval practice is not the same thing as repetition.
Repetition is easy (you just read the information over and over again). But retrieval (forcing yourself to bring specific information to mind) is hard. It strains your brain. But it’s a good kind of muscular strain.
Just like it’s good to push your body at the gym, retrieval practice is the ultimate workout for your brain. It will help shift information into your long-term memory so you can access it when you need it.
Here are some different ways you can practice retrieval:
When you get to the point where you can’t recall anything else, that’s when it’s okay to take out your books and your notes. Check for any mistakes and gaps in your knowledge.
As Dr Barbara Oakley says:
“Getting clear on what you don’t understand is 80% of the battle.”
It’s also important to know that you’re retrieving the correct information (otherwise, you’ll be reinforcing the wrong stuff!).
If you’re consistent with your retrieval practice and incorporate it into your study sessions, you’ll see dramatic improvements over time.
Rather than doing 5 hours of study right before your exam (i.e. cramming), it’s much more effective to space out those 5 hours of study over 2 weeks. You learn more by spacing out your study.
Now if you’re used to the cramming approach, spreading out your study over 2 weeks will probably feel strange at first. It will require a little planning. But the more you do this, the easier it gets. Before you know it, it will become a habit.
When you sit down to do spaced practice, keep in mind you only need to do 15-20 minutes of study before taking a break (not hours and hours of study).
The spaced practice approach usually means you’ll:
Why? Because you won’t need to stay up late or pull an all-nighter to study for your test or exam.
Have you ever spent time with a 4-year-old child? If so, you’ll notice they ask Why? a lot. It’s this natural curiosity that makes 4-year-olds like sponges, soaking up information from absolutely everywhere.
When you sit down to read your textbook, you want to ask Why? and How?
Ask questions such as:
Asking questions will help you to stay engaged with the material.
For some subjects (e.g. economics and psychology) you’ll need to learn lots of definitions of abstract ideas and concepts. If you’re like most students, you probably memorise these definitions by repeating them over and over again.
But if you do this, two things are likely to happen:
1) You’ll probably feel like a robot; and
2) You won’t fully understand the concept, which will make it hard to remember.
We can get ideas on how to learn definitions more effectively by looking at how professional actors learn their lines. Professional actors don’t learn their lines word for word. Instead they try to understand the character’s motivations and needs. Gaining a deeper understanding of these factors helps the actor to learn their lines more efficiently.
Similarly, gaining a deeper understanding of an abstract concept will help you to learn and memorise it. So the question is, what is going to help you to deeply understand the abstract concept?
Good examples. And lots of them.
Whenever you have to memorise an abstract concept, collect as many different examples as possible. Get examples from your teachers, from your textbooks, etc. Plaster those examples over your wall and in key locations in your house (e.g. on the mirror and fridge).
a) Ideas
If you were going to a barbeque, you wouldn’t bring along veggie kebabs that only contained zucchini on the skewer. That would look cheap and nasty! One of the joys of kebabs is the variety of vegetables (e.g. tomato, onion, zucchini, capsicum). So you’d want to mix things up to make the kebabs appetising.
The same thing applies with your studies. Don’t just study one concept for a long period of time. Mix things up. Study one idea and then jump to another concept in the same subject.
For extra bonus points, you could pretend to be 4-years-old and ask yourself, How are these two ideas similar? and How are they different?
b) Location
Don’t always study in the same place. Sometimes study in a quiet café, a library or at the kitchen table. Research has found that changing your surrounding environment slows down forgetting and enriches learning.
7. Take notes by hand
Want to remember more information? Ditch your laptop and work with pen and paper.
A study called The pen is mightier than the keyboard found that students retained more information when they took notes by hand than when they took typed notes on their laptops.
When you take notes on your laptop, you tend to write word for word what the teacher is saying. This is because you can type at the same speed the teacher is speaking at.
But when you take notes by hand, you can’t write as fast as the teacher speaks. This forces you to put the information in your own words. This makes it easier for you to understand the information, which explains why you tend to remember more of it.
Why is it that some people with dementia can’t remember the names of their friends and family, but they can remember the lyrics to hundreds of songs?
It’s because music touches many different regions and lobes of the brain, which helps to cement the lyrics into our brains.
This makes music an incredibly powerful learning tool. Certain types of music can motivate you to study and complete tasks that you typically perceive painful and would prefer to avoid doing.
But more importantly, music can also help you to learn important concepts.
Jump on YouTube and you’ll find a range of educational songs (check out the circulatory song Pump it up! and this quadratic formula song. You can even learn how to make a lasagna with music.
Here are some ideas on how you can use music to help you study:
Have some fun and use humour wherever possible.
Working on a difficult problem? Feeling stuck? Then take a break. Allow your brain to go into what Dr Barbara Oakley calls the ‘diffuse mode’ of thinking.
In the diffuse mode, you relax your attention and allow your mind to wander. Let your subconscious mind do the work for you.
You often hear stories of famous scholars coming up with groundbreaking theories while relaxing under an apple tree, going for a walk or having a shower. In these diffuse mode states, their brains are still working away on the problem, which ultimately leads to these ‘Eureka!’ moments.
Some activities that will help you to enter the diffuse mode of thinking are:
It may seem like you’re wasting time in the diffuse mode but you’re not. Your brain is still working quietly in the background on the problem, even though you’re not actively focusing on it.
Okay, so this isn’t exactly a specific study strategy but it’s critical to all of the strategies listed above. You see, when you sleep, your brain doesn’t just turn off. The opposite actually occurs. Your brain gets busy doing the following:
This is why going over important information before you take a 90-minute nap or go to sleep at night can be beneficial for learning. Your brain is more likely to rehearse this information and strengthen it while you sleep.
Most importantly, it’s critical that you get a solid 8-10 hours of quality (undisturbed) sleep each night. If you’re sleep deprived, these effective study strategies cease to be effective.
Getting sufficient sleep will ensure that you can concentrate and recall information more easily in your tests and exams. So if it’s approaching midnight and you’re thinking, Maybe I can squeeze in another hour of study … think again. Always prioritise sleep over study. Your brain will thank you for it the next day.
To get maximum benefit from these ten study strategies, you need to be able to focus when you use them. Why? Because distraction is the enemy when it comes to learning information. If you’re trying to study complex information while checking your phone and watching a Netflix series, you’re wasting your time.
So before you sit down to study, deal with any potential distractions. Do this …
Turn your phone off. Place it in another room far, far away. Close your bedroom door so you can’t be disturbed.
The aim of the game is to form effective study habits. This isn’t hard to do and it’s never too late to give it a shot. It just takes practice, perseverance and being willing to try something new.
This is the number one question I get asked by students.
Students want to know the exact numbers (e.g. 1, 2 or 3 hours).
Well, I’ve thought long and hard about this question and I’ve come to the following conclusion:
Focus on the quality of your study (not the quantity of study).
Sure, I know one school advises students to engage in 20 minutes of study per subject every day. Another school recommends 3 hours a night, plus 8 hours over the weekend …
So I could easily just tell you, Study for 3 hours every day! but that doesn’t sit right with me.
When I was in high school, I’d re-read my books and highlight my notes for 3 hours after school. I’d tick the 3 hour study box. Boom! Done! Finally, I can relax!, I’d think.
But after completing 3 hours of study, how much had I actually learnt?
How much of the content did I actually understand?
I didn’t realise at the time but my study strategies were totally ineffective.
So even though I could tick the 3 hour study box, I hadn’t managed to achieve much in that time.
We’re either:
A) not studying effectively;
B) just faffing around (i.e. multitasking); or
C) a combination of A and B.
When you study ineffectively and/or faff around for 3 hours, you’re wasting time you’ll never get back.
Let’s not overlook the fact that thinking you have to do a huge chunk of study can totally throw you off course. It can lead to procrastination and study paralysis.
The thought of three hours of study is simply too overwhelming for a fatigued brain that’s already spent 6-7 hours at school. Consider that after school your frazzled brain is thinking:
You want me to do another 3 hours on top of that? You’re dreaming!
With a fixed 3 hour study rule, you run the risk of falling into the trap of all or nothing thinking.
Last year I was setting up for a school presentation when I overheard a student say:
I’ll either do the 3 hours of study and if I think I can’t then I think ‘Why even bother?’ So I just sit there and look at the wall.
I wanted to say to this student:
Please don’t stare at the wall. Do something. Even just 15-20 minutes.
Sometimes we can forget that doing something is always better than doing nothing.
This is why I recommend you create your own set of study guidelines. These will be guidelines that motivate you to study (and not have you staring at the wall for several hours).
Yes, you still need to study those painful subjects. The reality is studying is the only way you’ll effectively encode information (i.e. move information from your working memory to your long-term memory).
But the focus needs to shift from quantity of study to quality of study.
Not sure what quality study looks like?
Here are some examples:
The great thing about taking the quality study approach is that you learn and understand more in less time. This means more free time for you to do fun stuff.
If you choose to engage in quality study (i.e. you use effective study strategies and eliminate distractions from the outset), you’ll save time, feel less stressed and more in control of your studies.
So if you find yourself thinking Why should I even bother if I can’t do 3 hours of study?, remind yourself that doing some quality study (even just 25 minutes) is better than 3 hours of faffing around. All those small chunks of quality study add up to something really solid.
Take a moment to think of one small action you’ll take today to improve the quality of your study sessions. Feel free to post what you plan to do below!
Dr Jane Genovese delivers interactive sessions on learning to learn, combating procrastination, exam preparation, how to focus in the age of distraction, habit formation and much, much more!
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