Study skills

How to Study Effectively

Rereading and highlighting feel productive and mostly are not. Two techniques do the heavy lifting: active recall and spaced repetition.

Active recall

Close the book and produce the answer: flashcards, blank-page brain dumps, practice questions without notes. Getting it slightly wrong and correcting is part of the process, not a failure.

Spaced repetition

Review material at growing intervals: day 1, day 3, day 7, day 21. Short, frequent sessions beat one long cram.

A simple weekly system

1. Learn new material in 25-minute focused blocks.
2. End each block by writing five questions you could be tested on — answer them tomorrow.
3. Keep a running error log and review it twice a week.
4. One full timed practice per week.

What to cut

Marathon rereading, passive video watching at 2x, and studying in a group that mostly socializes. All three feel like work without being work.

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