Last updated April 10, 2022

Status:: #literature/books/finished Author:: Medium:: { Books MOC Tags:: Links: { 10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less) Application

{ 10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less)

Introduction

Study Time Equation

In my mind, the best way to look at this is to envision the final goal not as the tangible reward - the grade - but rather as the state of being you want to achieve.

• Desired preparedness is the state, and your grade is a quantification of it

Factors:

• Class time (CT)
• Learning quality (LQ)
• Study time (ST)
• Study efficiency (SE)

CT(LQ) + ST(SE) = desired preparedness

• If we isolate ST, then the eqn is (DP - CT(LQ))/SE
• Thus, we need to improve learning quality and study efficiency, since the others are fixed

Paying Better Attention in Class

• Make health priority number 1
  • Nutrition, sleep, exercise
• Always sit at the front
• If asking prof/TA for help, be sure on what you don’t understand, and have your previous work to get there ready
• 15 minute rule
  • When stuck, go at it for 15 more mins
  • Document thought processes and actions
  • Ask for help
• Stay active during learning, don’t just be passive
  • Form study group, habitica, importance of notes

Taking Effective Notes

If you devote too much brainpower to processing syntax - that is, if you’re trying to record everything in the lecture word-for-word - then there’s no brainpower left over for processing meaning. You don’t make any of those connections. At this point, you have basically become an unpaid court stenographer.

• I literally just did this as I copy pasted the quotes
  • I don’t think it’s necessary to quote stuff like this, things like these should be paraphrased
  • Maybe quote then paraphrase?

Getting More Out of Your Textbooks

• No successful student actually uses SQ4R because of how time consuming it is lmao

Reading techniques

• You won’t be tested on background stories, asides, exceptions, and extra details
  • Thus, adjust speeds for each paragraph accordingly
• Read backwards
  • Prime brain for actual reading by seeing vocabulary terms
• Summarizing is a form of teaching

Planning Efficiently

• Sunday review
• High vs low intensity work
  • You can’t fit high intensity work into small 15 minute chunks of free time
• Author uses google calendar and todoist

A lot of productivity experts will tell you that your daily list should have no more than 2–3 tasks on it; otherwise, you’re at risk to overwhelm yourself and end up getting nothing done. If I’m being honest, my daily list usually has 6–10 items on it, and the reason for that is because I am a heartless, soulless robot who works pretty much all the time.

Find how much you underestimate task completion

1. Write down a list of tasks you need to do.
2. Put an “off-the-cuff” time estimate on each one.
3. As you finish tasks, write down the actual amount of time they took.
4. Divide the actual task time by your estimate to get your Fudge Ratio.

Methodicality is important

Building Your Optimal Study Environment

Audio

Music

• Change it up depending on your task
  • Processes can use any music as you’re on autopilot, whatever boosts energy
    • Also purely logical tasks like programming
  • Writing/reading/studying requires 99% instrumental and calm
    • recs
      • 65daysofstatic, jordan tice, pretty lights, balmorhea
• HE RECOMMENDS TOUHOU NO WAY
• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx65qkgCWNJIs3FPaj8JZhduXSpQ_ZfvL

Ambient noise

Coffeetivity - coffee shop din (multiple choices) RainyMood - rain SoundSleeping - lots of different environmental sounds, and you can mix them! Ravenclaw Common Room - this site actually has tons of ambient soundscapes, but I just had to highlight this one. Bonus: Actually go to a place with ambient noise

Flow state is just not being distracted?

Not being swayed by fun events and friends

• Build up a strong tolerance for saying no to fun things
• Make it difficult for them to contact you

Staying Organized

Quick capture

• Creative ideas
  • Drafts on iOS
• Tasks

second brain

• just to record everything

task manager

Sunday reviews

• organize files on pc
• organize 2nd brain and tasks
• tasks
• backback and room

Defeating Procrastination

• Develop grit
• WTF this was in cogs???
• Temporal motivation theory
  • motivation = r x pS / i x d + 1

Routine when procrastinating

• Notice you’re procrastinating. Deliberately state it to yourself, “I am procrastinating right now.”

• Try to guess which part of the equation is causing you trouble. Are you feeling impulsive? Does the reward not motivate you? Are you not feeling up to the task?

• Find a way to fix that problem area.

• Sometimes we claim we aren’t able to partake in fun and fulfilling experiences because of “the amount of homework we have”, but in reality, the bulk of our missing time stems from mindless scrolling, referred to as “low density fun”

  • Solution: commit to high density fun

Studying Smarter

Gather materials

• syllabus
• class handouts
• slides
• own notes
• homework assignments
• textbook

Find out what’s important and build guide

• Professor-given
• mastering material prevents anxiety from blocking our understanding

Study

• Learn to notice your confusion
  • gain the skill to know what part is confusing
• Understand, don’t memorize
  • Understanding reduces the need for memorization
  • Have the “OHHHHHH” moments
• Do. The. Math.

  Sitting back in your chair and watching your teacher do math makes you good at… sitting back in your chair and watching your teacher do math. 

Writing Better Papers

Brain dump

• Everything you know
• Questions you have
• points you might want to cover
• outside sources to research
• quotes

Research

• develop well-defined focus
  • overall direction
• guiding questions you will answer
  • mini-goals

Research practices

• Find sources from wikipedia
• Make personal copies of all sources
• Annotate material
• Decide if you’re done

Write awful first drafts

• Write about your writing too to help keep stream of consciousness going

Edit ideas ruthlessly

• Does my paper have good narrative flow?
• Do I have a clear main idea, and does that idea match up with the assignment?
• Does each section back up the main idea in a meaningful way?
• Is each section filled out with ample research?
• What can be removed or stated in a simpler, better manner?

Technical edits

• Spelling and grammar mistakes
• Badly structured sentences
• Sentences or paragraphs that don’t sound right
• Formatting errors

Last revision

• Main question: “Is this paper ready?”

Making Group Projects Suck Less

First meeting

• Set up the collaboration and communication systems you’ll be using (I’ll go over my recommendations in a later section).
• Have everyone candidly tell the group what their strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, etc. are. 
• Discuss goals for the project and, if you have enough details and time, create some rough project milestones. If you’re suitably Machiavellian, you’ll structure your deadlines ahead of schedule to take advantage of the psychology of urgency. If you’re suitably nerdy, you might even start creating Gantt charts.
• Assign initial tasks to your group members based on their strengths and preferences. Some might be ok with taking on more work if it’s work they prefer, so if that one dude wants to do all the coding and none of the paper, it’s probably a good idea to let him.
• Genuine effort to be acquainted

Merge together

• Try to make it collective rather than individualistic

Tools

• Trello
• Slack

Finale

• 1-2 areas for improvement, write goal and create action plan

Created:: 2022-03-15 16:03