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During my first few years of secondary school, I struggled to keep up. I studied everything I needed to, understood all the concepts and participated in class. Yet, I still couldn’t seem to achieve the grades I so desperately wanted. 

I created a schedule I could barely keep up with but still tried to anyways, pulled several all-nighters and annotated every textbook with a range of different highlighters until I couldn’t recognise which pieces of information were actually important.

Why? Simply because I modelled other people’s study methods in the hopes that they would be just as effective for me. 

The end result? My mental health started deteriorating, I was severely sleep deprived, the information I tried so hard to reinforce failed to do so and my social life was barely existent. Burnout was inevitable.

Now, several years later, after experimenting with numerous study methods and figuring out which ones produced good results and which ones wouldn’t work for me, I’ve learned quite a few things:

annotating doesn’t really help me reinforce the information effectively, I’d probably forget the information not long after that session

all nighters are a huge no-no and I work best when I start early in the morning

study groups rarely work for me since my friends and I almost always steer off course

and so much more!

This didn’t come very easily and I personally didn’t enjoy the time-consuming process of going through all those study methods, but it was definitely worth it. It saved me a lot of time during preparation for my IGCSE examinations and reduced a bit of the overall stress. Further to this, since I had actually tested and tried out these methods, I was confident which helped ease my anxiety.

Overall, I highly recommend experimenting with different study methods. Everyone has different abilities, so it is important to determine what works for you and what doesn’t. You might actually be more productive when working in a group or waking up early may not be your thing. That’s completely fine. Studying methods should be tailored to each student. There is no set method when learning how to effectively study. Please remember that!!! :))

sending love and wishing you all a wonderful day!