How to study effectively all day

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We have all been there: you have left something far too late and need to keep going to get everything done. Or perhaps you do so many things alongside your studies that you generally want to use your time more productively.

This post offers a way to study that helps you achieve the most with the smallest time investment.

The goal

If you intend to spend whole days studying, sometimes as much as ten hours a day, first keep a few goals in mind.

Many students forget that the aim should not be to spend as much time studying as possible, but to use the time you do spend as effectively as possible.

It is a shame to study productively for five hours, then achieve less in the following five than in the first hour. Or remember none of it. You might as well have gone for those drinks, headed to the gym or done sports you enjoy!

Remember: the goal is to achieve as many meaningful results as possible with as little stress, effort and mental resistance as possible. It is not to spend as much time as possible studying or working.

Begin with the end in mind

When you have a huge amount to do, it is tempting to just start and tackle the small, easy things first. This can make you feel productive, because you can cross everything off your list, without really contributing to the final result.

The 80/20 rule applies here too: 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort. Try to identify that 20%:

  1. Look at past exams and recognize patterns. This saved me in half the exams I have taken. Look online for questions and the course, and ask students in later years whether they remember what matters or still have the exam.
  2. Read the course description. It often lists the techniques you need to know and apply.
  3. Notice what the lecturer emphasizes. Every lecturer values different things. Look at what they emphasize in lectures and tutorials to find out.
  4. What is one thing that, once you understand it, makes everything else easier? Often everything stems from a particular perspective, theorem or formula. Do not skip the basics: give them extra attention.

Make a game plan

To study effectively all day, be honest with yourself. What works, and what does not? It may be too late to think about it now, but keep it in mind for your next study session. Take coffee, for example. I felt it effectively increased my productivity. But too much meant I could not sit still or concentrate, followed by a crash a few hours later. The same cycle kept repeating.

Make an overview of your plans and use it. A game plan might look like this:

  1. I go to bed at 23:00 and make sure everything I need to start tomorrow morning is already on my desk.
  2. I get up at 08:00, shower and have breakfast. Then I start my work laptop. Whatever happens, I do not open YouTube or Facebook before lunch, because I will get stuck there. My phone stays in airplane mode before and after lunch.
  3. I follow the broad schedule I made last night, but am not afraid to depart from it.

I use this approach:

  1. I work in 30-minute pomodoro intervals followed by five-minute breaks. After four sessions, I take a longer break.
  2. During pomodoro breaks, I walk, drink water, stretch or tidy the house. Whatever I do, I am physically active.
  3. Before starting the next pomodoro, I briefly review what I learned earlier.

Study effectively

As described above, having a game plan matters. The example already includes several elements that are important for effective studying.

Awareness

Knowing what works for you and what does not matters most. The first step toward changing something is recognizing it. Which factors prevent you from studying all day?

  • Lack of concentration?
  • Tiredness, hunger and so on?
  • Back, neck or shoulder pain?
  • Emotional exhaustion?

Find the cause and address it.

Learn to start without burning yourself out

Often, the hardest part of studying or working on an essay is starting. We often spend longer on this than on the work itself. If this applies to you, learn to trick your brain into starting.

What helps me is adjusting the goal. Instead of aiming to finish what you need to do, and finish it well, aim to begin. I compare it to a marathon. If you constantly tell yourself you have to run that whole bloody distance, you will never start. But trust the process and focus on the next step, and the only possible outcome is getting there.

Learn to trust that following the process will lead you to the result. That trust makes it easy to start.

Here are some thoughts I choose when I notice I am procrastinating:

  1. You will not feel like it tomorrow either. Do it now and it will be done. Then we can enjoy going to the gym.
  2. It does not matter! Just open Word and type one bad paragraph. It does not matter whether we use it; we can always edit it later.

Once moving, you keep moving. Experiment with this. Putting too much pressure on yourself only worsens your performance and makes starting harder. Once working, most of your doubts fade naturally.

Many people also use not knowing how to start as an excuse. It is an excuse! Google it if needed, but use only one information source or you will keep searching and still do nothing. Then simply begin. It does not matter whether it is good: doing gives you much more feedback than thinking alone.

Concentration

Once you start, keep your concentration. After getting a heavy cart moving, the last thing you want is to let it stop. Then you have to start again.

The same applies to working on a task or studying. It might feel strange, but make sure nobody distracts you. Nobody! Research shows that regaining concentration after an interruption can take up to 15 minutes. So make sure:

  1. Nobody interrupts you with silly questions that can wait.
  2. All your notifications are off. If it is really important, they will call! It is also about training those around you, consciously and unconsciously. Reply quickly and people expect quick replies. Reply later and they accept that. If you do not respect your own time and respond immediately, how can you expect others to respect it?
  3. Everything you need is within reach. Working toward lunchtime? Keep some food nearby. Water, tea or coffee should always be on your desk too. Especially water!

Music

Music is a great tool for staying focused for long periods and getting into a particular state of mind. Some playlists work very well. Again, experiment.

Some types of music to try:

One song on repeat: strange as it sounds, this works very well for some tasks. It works well for me when running, for example.

  • Trance, techno or instrumentals: music without vocals can work very well.
  • Classical music: I do not enjoy working to it, but many people find it inspiring and keep going comfortably. Worth trying. Avoid intense compositions and choose softer melodies, flute or piano. Search Google, YouTube or Spotify for “Soft Classical Music”.
  • White noise: rainforest sounds, animals or nature in the background create a relaxed atmosphere and a lower heart rate. This can be useful for tasks involving a lot of learning.
  • Low-frequency sounds: these often help you feel more relaxed too.

Whatever you do, avoid constantly changing the music. You would be surprised how much time you can lose on this in a day.

To prevent it, you can:

  1. Use Spotify playlists.
  2. Use a genre playlist through ListenOnRepeat. You can repeat individual songs there too.
  3. Use ten-hour music mixes on YouTube.

Nutrition

Healthy nutrition is very important for an effective study session lasting all day. Drink too much coffee or Red Bull, for example, and you crash too quickly or cannot sit still. The same goes for too many carbohydrates, or the wrong kinds, such as pizza.

Supplements can also help with concentration and feeling physically healthy. For that reason, I use these supplements:

  1. Magnesium citrate: I take 250 mg tablets twice daily. Really, everyone should use this because modern food contains almost no magnesium due to farming techniques. Magnesium is also called the relaxation mineral.
  2. B12: I take 1,000 mg once or twice daily. This improves concentration and supports neurological processes in the body.
  3. Vitamin D3: 6,000–9,000 IUI. We spend little time outdoors nowadays, so this also makes a world of difference. It takes time to build up, so you should take it daily too.

I can hear students thinking, “I have no money for supplements.” Nonsense! This supplement routine costs €0.61 per day, and gives you so much more energy and health in return. Take it out of your beer budget.

Physical factors

Your body is the home you always live in. There is a reason philosophers in ancient Rome and Greece only admitted people who exercised to their schools! A healthy mind needs a healthy body.

Modern science agrees too. It is difficult to concentrate when constant aches demand your attention. Frequent neck pain and headaches, for example, probably mean you lean forward too much at the computer.

For optimal productivity, you MUST address these factors and stay ahead of them in future.

Things such as headaches, back pain and hip pain are usually easy to prevent.

To improve your physical factors, learn:

  • How to sit properly: the Alexander Technique is a good method, as is Kathleen Porter’s book Natural Pain-Free Posture. It describes the basics of sitting, sleeping, lying, standing and walking well.
  • To move between sessions: humans were made to hunt mammoths, rather than sit in chairs constantly occupied with thoughts. During breaks, move and stretch your body. This addresses the point above too.

Learning patterns and techniques

How do you learn best? By hearing things, writing them down or explaining them to others? Also try connecting what you learn to existing knowledge through metaphors, similarities and differences.

Although this seems to take more study time, it does not! You remember better and avoid having to go through it a second time.

The right tasks at the right time

When do you think best: morning, evening or afternoon after eating? Block those times in your calendar and reserve them for the hardest things.

Alongside the circadian day-and-night rhythm, humans have a natural energy rhythm, provided you do not disrupt it with stimulants such as coffee and Red Bull. Work with your body rather than against it.

For example, when thinking about an essay’s structure, I write the points in a Word document. I often save the mindless typing for the evening.

Recover along the way

A common problem is starting the day enthusiastically with several hours of uninterrupted studying, then running out of steam around midday. Think of working or studying all day as a marathon. Sprint from the start and you will not finish, or you will cross the line half dead.

Recover along the way with frequent short walking breaks, and alternate physical and mental tasks. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

Use everything you KNOW works.

Knowing something and actually applying it are different things. Everyone knows what to do to lose weight, for example, but many find it difficult. Start using the tips in this post and actually try applying them.

Choose one tip and try it for a week. Do not judge yourself when things go wrong; evaluate how and why something does or does not work. Let us know in the comments which tip works best for you, and whether you have another tip or insight that makes a world of difference!

Productivity