7 Ways to Study Smarter, Not Harder

To study smart, you really need to know HOW to study. And ironically, this is something that schools and universities don’t tend to teach. So in this article, I’m going to go through 7 ways in which I study smarter, not harder, to be able to study FEWER hours than the next person, but still achieve the same grades or higher.

I Give Myself Deadlines

Are you someone that completes your assignment one week before the deadline, or the day of the deadline? It’s quite common where – and I’m sure we’ve all been in this situation – where we won’t be motivated to write an assignment until the day of the deadline, and we only become motivated as a direct result of the deadline looming.

What I’ve noticed is, if I have two weeks to write an assignment, it will usually take me two weeks to write it. However, if I have only 24 hours to write that assignment, then I’ll have it written within 24 hours. It’s essentially Parkinson’s law in action that states, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

So I would use this to my advantage. At university, if the due date for an assignment was 30th September, then I’d make my OWN deadline for 1 week before that – so 23rd September. Firstly, I’d have the assignment written with 7 days to spare, but I’d also procrastinate far less and work a lot faster because I knew I had a shorter period of time to write it.

Even to this day, I still have deadlines for pretty much everything that I do. It’s quite an easy way to trick your brain into working with urgency therefore increasing productivity quite significantly.

I Make Fewer Decisions

Now, you might have realized – I wear pretty much the same clothes. Firstly, because the background is quite dark so I like to wear lighter colored clothes so that I don’t blend in with the dark background too much. But secondly, because I don’t have that many clothes.

With the decisions that just aren’t that important, I try to automate those decisions, or even eradicate them altogether.

Barack Obama once told Vanity Fair that he tries to reduce decision making when it comes to what he wears. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

Some decisions are important. Most aren’t. If you want to study smarter, consider eliminating the everyday decisions that really don’t matter that much.

I Cultivate Deep Work

Training myself to be able to enter into a flow state when studying was one of the most powerful things I did at university.

Remember the last time you were so focused with a task that you forgot to take breaks, forgot to eat, and were just so focused and in the zone? But more importantly – it’s this effortless, streamlined kind of productivity. When you’re in a flow state, it feels good, it feels like you can just keep going and going forever.

Now imagine being able to switch ON this level of concentration and focus whenever you study – almost like flicking on a light switch. Suddenly, your studying becomes an enjoyable experience – something that you actually LIKE doing – and studying 10, 11 hours a day is not a big deal anymore.

A book that explains the whole concept of flow state really well is Deep Work by Cal Newport. The concepts in this book actually inspired many of the concentration techniques we teach at Luminous Academy, where we help students master the art of deep focus and productive study sessions.

In our workshops, we show students how to create their own deep work rituals, similar to Newport’s suggestion of setting aside focused morning hours like 8am to 11am. We’ve found that students who implement these techniques consistently see improvements in both their grades and study satisfaction.

I’ll be coaching you personally, but I’ve also gathered a team of experts in education, nutrition, psychology, and neuroscience, to empower you to achieve academic success by improving your overall well-being. We supplement traditional education with a 3-tier holistic approach to help you form sustainable study habits and avoid burnout.

We’re limiting the cohort to just 20 students because we want you to have one-on-one time with each of our experts. You’ll receive personalized plans to power your performance with smart study schedules that help organize workload, tackle procrastination and manage stress. So if you’re interested in joining, click the button at the top of this page and I’ll see you on the inside!

I Choose My Modules Carefully

I was a bit hesitant to write about this one because – it’s about taking shortcuts – and taking shortcuts can be a good thing, and they can be a bad thing – but I can’t really write about studying smarter not harder without suggesting this to you!

At university, you’ll probably be able to choose which modules to pick. Each university course is made up of modules. Some of your university course modules will be mandatory, however some of them – you’ll be able to choose which ones to take.

That’s where you’ve got to be smart about WHICH module to pick, because some will be more difficult than others, some will have a higher pass rate than others, so if you REALLY want to take the easy route, the obvious path would be to choose the modules with the highest pass rate.

Now, there are some caveats to this. If you have a specific career in mind that you want to go into after graduating, that career might require you to take specific modules. But also, it’s still probably worth choosing the modules that you find the most interesting rather than those that are the easiest pass.

In my first year, I started studying Business Management, but it wasn’t very challenging. So after a couple of months, I switched my degree program to Economics and Finance which was far more challenging – it was very maths heavy – and it was absolutely the right decision. Even though I made my life at university HARDER, it’s through these challenges that we grow.

I Aim Higher Than My Goals

One of the biggest problems with goal-setting from the students that I coach is that – they’ll set a goal – and it will be a good, strong, ambitious goal, but then their actions don’t align with it. So they’ll have a goal of achieving a 4.0 GPA, but then they’ll study like a 3.5 GPA student.

This next strategy that I use is more of a psychological trick but it’s still really powerful. I like the idea of setting a goal, but then actually working to SURPASS that goal. For example, if my goal was to achieve 80% in an exam, then I’d put in the studying as if I was aiming for 90%.

That’s what I did throughout university. My goal was to achieve a 4.0 GPA, but I studied HIGHER than that level, so even if I had a bad exam, or something came up in my personal life that distracted me from my studying – it didn’t really matter because there was a big margin for error built in.

I Start Even When I’m Not Motivated

Your motivation will naturally go up and down throughout the week. Sometimes, just getting started is the best way to increase your productivity – whether you’re motivated or not.

You don’t need to tackle everything at once. When you are having trouble getting motivated, it’s often because you are looking at the massive scope of a task like writing a 5000-word assignment. That can be intimidating. It’s hard to get started when faced with quite a big task like that.

But in that situation, often the best way is to just start writing – writing anything. The structure of the assignment is where I usually start. So I’d write out what each paragraph will be about. And right there, I’m breaking down that big task into smaller, bite-sized chunks in the form of headings for each paragraph. Taking action is what leads to motivation, which in turn leads to more action.

I Manage My Energy (Not Just Time)

Time management is a huge part of studying smart. But just as important – and often overlooked – is energy management. Studying smart is about making your studying easier, making it more streamlined, so it’s important to know WHEN throughout the day you’re more focused and alert, and when in the day you normally experience drops in energy.

Normally I’m at my most energized and alert first thing in the morning, so that’s when I get my most focused work done. Often, I get more work done in the first 2 hours of the day than I do the rest of the day – that’s how productive my mornings are.

This is the logic of tackling difficult tasks early in the day — by using your peak hours efficiently, you can get more done in less time before you get tired. Jason Fried, founder and CEO of Basecamp, says that: “While people often say there’s not enough time, remember that you’ll always have less attention than time.”

Studying smarter rather than harder is one of the most popular topics we cover at Luminous Academy. Through our workshops and personalized coaching, we help students implement these exact strategies to achieve better grades with less stress. If you’re ready to transform your study habits and reach your academic goals, check out our upcoming workshops by clicking the button at the top of the page.