Work Smarter and Review Weekly

W hether your school year started a week ago or a month ago, you’ve probably figured out that you need to make a few adjustments to how you approach your classes and other responsibilities.

Maybe a class requires more work or more detail than you thought it would, or a particular teacher’s way of doing things doesn’t match your preferences or expectations.

For example, in addition to the usual problems you were expecting, maybe your math test featured multiple-choice questions on definitions and concepts.

Or, it could be that the way your psychology teacher phrases the test questions only seems tricky because you don’t know the material inside and out yet, and if you really understood all the nuances, you wouldn’t get tripped up by the unexpected wording.

Now’s the time of year when it’s important to take a hard look at what’s working and what’s not! It’s only going to get harder later!! Do it now!!!

If you want straight As and you’ve gotten anything less than a 95 on anything, then review each class every weekend, making study guides as you go along, and quiz yourself weekly until your grades prove that you’ve mastered the material. By the way, reviewing saves you time and homework and makes studying unnecessary.

If you wish you had more time to sleep, hang out with friends, or do cancer research, then tweak your homework schedule. Do your hardest assignments first every day, ASAP after your after-school toilet, snack, and chill.

Take a five- or ten-minute break every hour, whether you think you need one or not. After dinner is the worst time to do homework, but it’s a great time to work on side projects or read for fun.

If you find yourself having to “study” for a quiz or test the next day, it’s because you’re not reviewing the material or making test corrections as religiously as you should be.

You can do it, you’re just not doing it yet. So, go do it!