3 tips to create your study plan!

There are numerous study plans available on the internet. Among them, though, there is only one that is the best for you to use. It is the one that “works” for you.

This does not mean that none of the ones that already exist won’t work for you. It means that, instead of searching for a ready plan that would be ideal for you, you can simply build your own.

For that, you don’t need more than three essential things: time, content and review.

Let’s talk a little about each of them so that, in the end, you can put together a personalized study plan.

Time

Time is something essential that can be the deciding factor for your studies. It means to set aside a part of your day to focus only on a specific topic or subject.

Source: Pinterest 

There is no rule for the amount of time you should be frequently dedicating, as it depends on what you can fit into your schedule, but it is extremely important that you do it in as many days as possible in order to create a routine.

Routine in general is associated with something boring, but if your focus is to pass an entrance exam, having a routine can becomes something pleasant if you always keep in mind the rewards that you can receive by having it.

So, understand how many hours a day, or a week, you can dedicate to your studies and set your own goal. It will help a lot to plan according to what you stipulated.

The goal, associated with your routine, will awaken in you the necessary motivation for your study plan to work. 

Finally, check in the short story below the difference that time and goals can make in your studies.

Source: Pinterest

“Two students from the same school, Maria and Ana, start studying for an entrance exam.

Ana set her goal as 5 hours of study per week – 1 hour a day from Monday to Friday.

Maria managed to guarantee 45 minutes per day from Monday to Friday, which left her with 3:45 hours per week.

After a while, Ana ended up getting distracted and studying less time than planned. Maria instead managed to frequently extend her study sessions for a little longer.

For three weeks in a row, they both managed to study 4 hours per week. When they met again, they started talking about how their studies were going.

Ana complained that she was discouraged and couldn’t handle everything. Maria mentioned that she had managed to follow her entire planned schedule, and still could fit in some extra exercises.”

Source: Pinterest 

Notice that neither of them commented about how long they had been studying. Rather, it is easy to see that as the goal was reached, the motivation increased; and the opposite had also happened.

So be very careful how you quantify and use your study time, and also don’t get discouraged comparing yourself to someone who is not in the same conditions as you.

Content

Once you have established the time for your studies, the next step is to choose what to study.

Let’s face it: if we strictly follow all the content that is asked for in the entrance exams, it’s practically redoing a few years of school.

So why do they ask for all this?

Source: Pinterest 

What happens is that a more complex exam exercise includes the basics of the subject. This way, they save questions and include more than two topics in a single question.

Before you start to panic, there is a method to study the content and still discover the points you need to pay more attention to.

Take any exercise, see how it can be solved, and write down the topics and concepts that were used to solve it. 

As simple as it may seem, it reinforces in your brain the subject you are studying. Instead of thinking that you can’t solve an entire exercise, it can happen that it’s just a small portion of it that’s getting in your way.

See the example below:

Remember that if you get to a part of the exercise and can’t progress anymore, it’s important to analyze the topic you are having difficulty with. The example above refers to an exercise in proportions, but it has more than that behind the curtains.

Review

“At an old martial arts academy, a young man began training to become a black belt. As much as he tried and tried, he had trouble remembering all the required moves, thus delaying his graduation.

He discovered that a monk, who lived on top of a hill, knew a technique that would help him. And followed the arduous path there.

Panting and with body aches after so much effort, he explained to the monk his difficulties, which were listened to attentively.

Source: Pinterest 

The monk handed him a magic pot and a small bag full of stones. He said they were special and that at the end of each day, he should hold a rock, remember everything he learned during the day, put the rock in the pot and cover it.

The student was delighted with what he had just won. As soon as he returned to the academy, he was increasingly drawn to classes. At the end of the day, he always did the ritual with the stone and the pot.

After moving up two ranks, all thanks to his secret, the pot was full and his stones ran out.

Desperate, he dropped his apprenticeships and again climbed the mountain after the monk.

When he got there, he desperately started begging for more rocks and other pots, as he wanted to keep learning and needed the rocks so he wouldn’t forget.

The monk took the pot, removed the lid, poured the stones into a small bag, and returned both to the student. He then said that what was helping him with his studies was the routine he had created of trying to remember what he had learned, and not the stones or the pot. In any case, he offered the items back to the student, if he so wished to keep them.

 
Source: Pinterest

The young man went back to his room in disgust, and spent a week without repeating the ritual he used to do with the stones.

He noticed that it was harder to remember the learnings when he didn’t review them at night. And as much as he didn’t want to agree with the monk, he went back to the previous routine, but using a notebook and a pencil to write everything down instead of just mentalizing.”

The story above shows the power that a simple habit can bring to your study routine.

So here’s our advice! Do your own content review, write the topics you think are important. Keep a notebook just for taking notes of everything you find worth taking.

Over time, you will be able to reap the rewards of your efforts, in addition to always having resources to revisit if you have any questions.

How to optimize your study plans

Now that we’ve explained how to set up your own study plan, here’s another tip for you to optimize it! It is very straightforward: private tutoring.

Someone with exclusive attention towards you, with experience on putting together customized study plans, that presents exercises along with their step-by-step resolutions, and reviews everything that has been studied when the need arises.

If you want to meet great qualified tutors that can help you with all of this, click here and find the perfect one for you!