How to Study Effectively (What I Learned As An Accounting Student)

hi everyone welcome back to the channel if you're new my name's cal and i'm a recent accounting grad but i'm interested in a lot of things like business philosophy and tech so hopefully you're interested in some of those things too today i want to talk about the study skills that got me through school some of them are going to seem obvious but there's also some that i found to be totally game changing for me first things first i think we can all agree that we want to spend the least amount of time studying for the best possible grade i think that's universal now there is going to be a point of diminishing returns where the effort level required is only going to see a marginal improvement in the grade of course this is going to be different for every person some people are going to want straight a's some people are going to want some a's and b's some people are completely fine with b's and c's it's really up to you that decision is personal but ultimately the faster we can retain the knowledge so that we can apply it in class the faster we can be on with our lives for me studying seemed like a mystery for way too long and it was so hard to focus for extended periods of time come on pencil make words before i became aware that people actually studied how to study and that knowledge retention was an entire field unto itself i would spend hours reading and rereading and highlighting and re-highlighting over and over and over again and it kind of felt like i was punching in the dark and despite the numerous years i've spent in school never once did i take a class that actually taught me how to study this is absolutely insane like i'm sure they exist but they must be few and far between and if we're actually interested in improving academics across the country we should be invested in teaching people how to study better if you take a look at this pew research study that was put out a few years back it's very obvious that we're in the middle of the pack as far as academics go when compared globally ultimately studying is just like a muscle if you feed it and you work it out it will grow and become an excellent tool for you okay let's get down to these tips tip number one is sleep one thing i do notice when i'm not getting enough sleep is that it's a lot harder for me to focus and we know that studying requires focus so if you need a reason why you should prioritize your sleep it's going to help you focus on your studies in the way that you need to tip number two drink some water i'm telling you if you drink just a couple glasses of water a day you're going to feel the difference water helps keep us feel fresh and recovered and it's also a little bit satiating so it keeps the need to snack down and when i'm snacking i often get a little bit tired a little bit sleepy and so i kind of want to take that nap instead of continuing to study so i find that when i'm drinking enough water my mind is staying sharp and i'm able to focus for longer periods of time now guys here is a pro tip if you do not have a water bottle in 2021 you are doing something wrong like elon is about to put people on mars and you don't have a water bottle yet i am telling you it's like a superpower if you get a water bottle you bring it around with you you're automatically going to be drinking more water than you are right now there are tons of water bottles out there to choose from just pick one and use it personally i like the hydro flask it's working great for me but i've had 10 water bottles over the years and as long as it holds water it's going to get the job done second pro tip get a water bottle with a straw and thank me later okay the third and the final tip i have for you is a little more technical i want to talk to you about active recall let's go back to what i was saying earlier when i used to just read my textbook and then reread it and then highlight and re-highlight that method was really ineffective i never knew if i was actually retaining the information or not well would you believe there actually was a study done there have now been multiple studies done and people have found that active recall or essentially testing yourself is the most effective way to retain knowledge now what do i mean when i say active recall i really just mean writing a question and then reading that question and then forcing your mind to recall the answer actively recall the answer to the question that you wrote down here's a small example let's say you write down the question is land depreciable then later after you're done maybe writing down all of your questions for a chapter you come back to that question and you look at it and you see oh is land appreciable and you find yourself thinking you think for a few moments and then in this case i'd say no land is not appreciable and then you could take a look at the question and then perhaps you have the answer over on the other side of the piece of paper that you've covered up and you can take a look and you can confirm if you actually had the right answer or not now this might seem simple to you but i'm telling you if you're not already using these techniques it will completely reshape the way that you go about study these days instead of just reading a chapter all the way through top to bottom probably at most i just skimmed the chapter to give myself an idea of what the framework is like and then i get right to my question writing process so that i can start the active recall as soon as possible now how exactly are you going to do this you could do this in google docs you could do this in microsoft word you could even do this physically on a piece of paper but for myself i love the app notion they have this incredible toggle feature that seems nearly custom made for active recall so you can write the question and then underneath you can write the answer but you can't see the answer until you actually toggle the question itself so it seems perfectly fit just for this application it's honestly amazing if you haven't used notion definitely check it out and specifically check out this toggle feature if you're a student it's incredible let me give you a real life example on how this would work for myself so i had an exam on contracts and so there was all this information related to contracts that i kind of broke out into a way that made sense for me and then for each sort of line item i made it either a question or perhaps a statement if that was more applicable and underneath i would add the answer and you could kind of have it cascading too so if like there's more nitty gritty detail that goes down and down and down on a single topic it works really well to be able to kind of pop open one toggle and then move down to the next toggle and then as you move more in depth on the subject the toggles kind of get deeper and deeper and more and more meta first i wrote the questions and then when i come back later to review i'd read the questions and then try to answer them usually out loud or sometimes in my head this all may seem simple but for me it really did have an impact on my academic success using these methods making sure that i got enough sleep and that i was drinking my water and then using active recall totally reframed really my entire academic career i think so much of school is about managing your stress and managing the workload as a whole and so having these tools in place to kind of help balance the load a little bit is super super helpful if you can streamline your study process you're gonna have more time for all the other areas of your life thanks for watching today guys those are my top three tips for studying and improving your academic performance if you have any thoughts or questions drop a comment down below and otherwise i will see you in the next one you

Channel: Cal Mills

Views: 69,266

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Id: TxK9F_zUrLo

Length: 7min 8sec (428 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 04 2021