[Tut] How to study effectively

This is my first, (yes first) tutorial, so constructive criticism is much appreciated. It's also ironic that I'm writing this, since I barley study.

This is a very important part of studying, you should never rush headlong into a "study session" without planning out how long you want to study for. Be sure to set a time "limit" that doesn't push your own limits, if you know that you have a fairly short attention span don't try and study for three or four hours at a time, you won't be able to do it and it will most likely result in you getting frustrated and giving up. Also keep in mind that studying one night for three hours isn't nearly as effective as studying a week for one hour each day.

Distractions. They come in many forms that most of us don't even notice, they can be easily avoidable like background noise from a TV or music, or things we have no control over like construction going on near wherever we are studying. Some people say that listening to music or having the TV going in the background helps them study, but for most people that isn't the case. If you are anything like me then if you listen to music while you study you get distracted by the music and find yourself not studying at all. The best way to study is have the environment you are in as quiet as possible, less background noise means you can focus on the material better which means that you will remember more of it. You may be thinking that sitting in a room for a long period of time without any form of "distraction" gets incredibly boring very quickly and would make you want to stop studying as well, which in essence is true and ties into my next topic where I'll go more in depth on that.

As I mentioned, studying for long periods of time with no "distractions" gets boring very quickly and makes you want to just quit. The easy remedy to this which also ties into scheduling is taking breaks. You always want to set reasonable break times during the "study session" to help alleviate some of the stress, get your mind back in order, process everything you've been studying, and just relax in general. I say reasonable because if you set a thirty minute break and you are only studying for an hour, then most likely you are wasting more time then you are actually using for studying. A twenty to thirty minute break is understandable if you plan to study for a long period of time; say four to five hours, but most people don't study that long, so a ten minute break is normally long enough to "relax" a little bit.

This is also a major factor in effective studying. You never want to try and study every subject all in one session. Subjects become jumbled, you forget more that way, and you might end up combining things together and putting some really weird answer on the test. The easiest way to choose what to study is to pick the subject that has a test coming up more recently then all the others. Focus solely on that subject until the test, and after that test focus on the next subject. In the event you have two tests on the same day, divide your time properly to be able to study each subject equally so that you get the most out of your time.


Note: I'll add more onto this tutorial in the future, once I think of other things to write about. I know this wasn't an incredibly in depth tutorial, but it was my first and since I don't study as much as most people my knowledge in this topic isn't the best, I figured it would be a helpful topic though.
If there is anything you would like to see added, let me know, I'm open to suggestions and constructive criticism.

I suck at setting schedules and sticking to them. That's my only prob.