My Secret Study Hacks for Extreme Productivity

What has worked for me in my past years of education

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I am writing this in the midst of preparing for the first half of my finals examination. I am no top student (so try these at your own risk) but I think I do things slightly differently.

This is not going to be your typical active recall and spaced repetition post; they work, but I wanted to post something different admist the sea of such content already available out there

Here’s what works for me:

Doing past year papers first before memorising

I guess the standard way of reading the notes first, then doing the past year papers, but I realised that this has been very ineffective.

I actually start by doing the past year papers as an open book kind of thing, this allows me to both go through the content that I am required to study and focus on those first when it’s time to memorise the content. This has been the most effective way for me in my years of studying.

Pomodoro on ROIDs

Pomodoro is a productivity technique (quite hyped nowadays) of working for 25 minutes and then resting for 5 minutes.

However, I find it hard to transit working to having a break, and even harder for me to transit from a break to work. There is also very little I can do for that 5 minutes and I actually find myself working better for a longer period of time in one seating.

So I actually combine 2 Pomodoros together: and work for 50 minutes, while resting 10 after.

Use of music, but differently

Generally, I prefer to study without music.

However, when I need to, instead of just playing music normally, I actually turn to playing certain songs on an hour repeat.

Just go to Youtube, search the song you vibe to and add “1 hour” behind. My current favourites are Stay by The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber, and Circles by Post Malone.

Stay on repeat for 1 hour — You know the vibes!

There’s just something about the repeating rhythm that helps me focus better and gets me into the flow of things.

As my last resort, I listen to house music (or Manyao for chinese songs). It works the best when I really just need to squeeze 1 more hour of work but just lack the energy to.

The amount of focus I get from this is insane, but once that hour is up, I am drained of all my energy, so that’s why I try to avoid this.

I hope these study hacks pique your interest. If you’re interested in a video version explaining a bit more, click here!

What are some of your weird study hacks, let me know in the comments!