Do you want to know some ways to make studying fun and less boring while knowing how to study effectively?
Read on to know.
Think of Something Entertaining While You Study
This is a mental trick I used when I was studying in college and it worked wonders for me.
Here’s how it works:
While you are studying the material, instead of focusing solely on the material, go into the back of your head and say “What is something really amusing that’s somewhat related or not related to the content?”
Then instead of the subject matter, think about the thing you pulled up and tie it into the concept you are learning.
Let me give you an example to show you what I mean.
I once took Calculus II, which is one of the hardest college classes on record according to most students.
While I took the class, I went down to the Florida Keys a lot and I associated it as a place to unwind and take it easy after a long month of studying.
When I learned the material for the class, I would always tie the Florida Keys into the concepts so I can unwind while I was studying and not think about the complexities of the content.
Let’s say I was learning about integrating partial fractions (a type of integral you integrate). Instead of focusing on the look of it, I would think of myself driving on the Overseas Highway while doing the problem.
When I did that, it made learning the material a lot easier.
With the exception of the first test (which happened on a crazy week where I couldn’t adequately prepare for the test), I aced every single test in the class all thanks to this association and many others for different concepts.
I’ll give you another example.
I took Dynamics (an engineering class) and for every one of the problems, I would either associate a song, a movie or a combination of songs and movies in order to learn the concepts.
For two of the topics in the class, I would associate a song by Billy Idol called “Rebel Yell” because I associated “Rebel Yell” with moving objects, particularly those going really fast like cars and airplanes in turbulent conditions.
The result was that I created a musical composition in my mind out of the concepts that helped me solve the problems and improve my understanding of the material.
Hence, I set it up to a scenario where I would win and I had fun as a result.
Later in the class, I associated another professor I had to another concept because he explained the concept in another class that made so much sense. Instantly, I was able to catch onto to what I was learning quick and I did well on that concept to.
In another concept, I mixed up a song by Toto called “Hold the Line,” working on construction sites building big stuff and baseball players since a lot of what was being presented related to construction sites and I associated baseball players with highways since the highways were near where the Florida Marlins (now the Miami Marlins) played.
“Hold the Line” made everything move in my head and this made me understand the concept really quickly.
In the very last concept of the class, I associated flying in space with a song called “Pjanoo” by Eric Prydz to the concept because the concept had something to do with satellites flying in orbit and the song put me in a place where I was flying a rocket in space and we were going really fast.
As a result, I got the question involving this concept correct on the final.
It is weird when you first see it because you might be thinking “Oh my, associating Star Wars and music with the concepts; how is that even possible?”
Lateral thinking.
This is the process of thinking outside of the box and using this to approach learning and problem solving from various angles to get the correct answers.
Many of the world’s best minds use this process for creating their greatest inventions. A video of how this process works can be seen right here.
I encourage you to employ this strategy when the answers aren’t so clear cut. Comment below with how it worked out for you. It’d be great to know.
Now here’s something that’s obvious, but not so obvious.
Read the Book
For most classes, I think it’s safe to say the answers you need are in the place where you know you should look, but just don’t for some reason.
Maybe you want YouTube to save you (for a lot of classes, yes this is the correct move especially if your professor and/or your book is bad).
Or you want your professor to save the day (this happens occasionally, but don’t bank on it).
But in most cases, all of the information you need comes right from the book.
Think about it.
What source do almost every smart intellectually capable person say they get their information from?
Or what I’d like to call the “real” TV.
So would it be safe to say that almost everything you need to know theoretically comes from the books?
It would be safe to say this.
Believe it or not, most students do not even touch their textbook at all nor study it in-depth, contrary to what you might’ve heard.
But the really smart students who have common sense know where to look.
So I encourage you to do so as well for your own good.
Now here’s one trick you might find useful.
Relate the Material to Something You Do
This is where you see the significance of the material to your own life in some capacity.
Let’s face it, most of the material you will learn in college is really useless in the real world.
However, there is always a way each of this material can be applied to your future career and your current job or internship.
I’ll give you an example to prove my point.
Let’s say you are a computer science student and you are taking a class where you are so bummed out by a C++ class that you are like “Geez, I don’t know why the hell I need to use this. All I want to do is pull out Python so I can make this easier to do. This is b*******.”
But then, you get to your job and the boss says “You can’t run Python in the computer.”
You are like “What? It works fine.”
Your boss says “Try again.”
You open the computer and, oops, you can’t load Python.
The only way you can perform your task is you need to know C++.
The next thing your manager tells you is “Well, what are you going to do? Are you just going to sit there?”
You say “Let me try another language.”
And oops, you can’t use the other languages.
And now, you realize you need to know C++ for your task even though the syntax is a lot more tedious and taxing than the sauna that is Python.
And that is when you see its significance and you conceptualize it better because you need to use it to create a class for the database you are working with.
Because of this, you know to learn C++ because you develop your versatility for different situations and hence, you become more confident in your ability to adapt as a developer to different situations when you can’t use a convenient programming language like Python in an extreme situation like that.
The moral of the story is this:
When you put yourself in a situation where you are forced to use what you are learning to get the job done OR you find it to be extremely powerful to help you achieve what you want, you will conceptualize the material instead of doing memorization and dragging along with it and as a result, you’ll create things out of what you are learning.
That is the root of invention; knowing when to apply your knowledge and the implications of applying your knowledge.
When you master that and you can articulate your value to the world with this applied knowledge, you become unstoppable.
Mark my words on that.
If there is any take away from my post, let it be this:
Make anything that you do the most fun time of your life as possible.
It’ll make everything go by very fast and you will be a happier and more productive person as a result.
And if you can as a bonus, make anything you study something like this:
That’ll put you lightyears ahead of everyone else. Trust me.
Thank you so much for reading this post all the way to the very end and if you enjoyed this post and got a lot out of it, make sure you subscribe below with your email in the action box to receive more of the most awesome posts on the internet from the greatest blog on the planet sent straight to your inbox!
Until next time,
This is Evan signing off.
PS: Comment below with what you got out of the post and what you plan to do as a result. It’d be great to know.
Evan Cruz
Evan Cruz is the founder of Join the Island, the website committed to helping young adults become massively productive and reach their full potential.
He has been featured on Vox, OnlineU, and UpJourney. He has also a cited human relations expert and college expert.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering.
Read more about Evan and Join the Island here.