r/GetStudying

During exam season I get insanely productive... but only with things unrelated to my actual subjects.

Right now I’m reading _1984_, watching videos about philosophy and AI for hours.

But right after exams finish, I can’t bring myself to read anything.

Does this happen to anyone else?

What’s this called and how do you deal with it?

How can I use this "exam energy" for my real studies?

the title says it all pero I really need y’all help. cets are just around the corner, I don’t wanna waste my time na huhu.

Every study day somehow follows the exact same script.

8:00 AM : "Today's the day. No distractions. I'm finishing two chapters."

9:30 AM : "Before I start, I should organize my notes."

10:15 AM : Ends up reorganizing folders I'll probably never open again.

11:00 AM : Somehow I'm watching a video called "The History of Forks" and I'm fully invested.

2:00 PM : "It's okay, I still have the whole afternoon."

4:00 PM : Takes a 15-minute break......which somehow becomes an hour and a half.

7:00 PM : Eats dinner and convinces myself my brain deserves a little rest before studying.

9:30 PM : Creates the most beautiful study timetable ever made.

Color-coded.
Time-blocked.
A masterpiece.
Never opened again.

Then, at exactly 11:47 PM, something magical happens.

My brain suddenly becomes the most disciplined person on Earth.
"Tomorrow we're waking up at 5."
"Phone stays in another room."
"We'll finish three chapters before breakfast."

Tomorrow-me then wakes up, looks at the alarm, laughs, and goes back to sleep like we never had that conversation.

😭😭

Please tell me this isn't just me.

More importantly...

If you used to be like this but actually managed to become consistent with studying, what changed?

Just one thing that genuinely made it easier to sit down and start studying before my brain decides that tomorrow is the perfect day... again.

I am not sure if it's me but do you ever feel sick to your stomach when you have to study from books you have beef with?

Actually, in my last exams I followed my books, the one provided to me by the school board and I still remember how stressful it was, the scream of my parents in my ears on how I should do x instead of y and etc.

Next year (in 7 months) I have my last exam to graduate High school (I am an adult who is back to school) and everytime I sit down to study with those, I have this wierd feeling like I am suddenly unable to study.

I usually do fine with books, I am a reader and often often help my siblings with their studies.

For now,I am doing my lessons from prof, leonard (pre cal) and I am doing fine but this book is just making me sick because there are topics in there which I need to do, specific kind of questions and stuff too.

How do you even deal with this?

I'm a CS student, and one thing I've been struggling with is how you're actually supposed to develop depth of understanding in university. 

In high school (up to Grade 12), we had an entire year to learn a subject. You had time to attend classes, let concepts sink in, revisit them multiple times, and solve enough problems to build intuition. 

At university, though, a course lasts around 15 weeks (~ 3 months of teaching and 3 weeks of reading and exams) . By the time you've attended lectures, done the readings, and understood the basic concepts, the next topic is already being taught. I personally found myself struggling to understand the concepts. After understanding a concept, I could not spend too much time practicing, or I would end up sacrificing another subject! 

The thing that confuses me is that exam papers often expect a very deep understanding. They don't just test whether you know the material:they expect you to apply concepts in completely new ways, almost as if you've spent hours thinking about the underlying ideas and practicing every possible variation. 

I understand that solving lots of problems is part of the answer, but when you're taking 4–5 other equally demanding courses, that seems almost impossible. In my experience, just doing the problem sets and tutorials does not seem enough to build exam technique and necessary intuition . 

So my question is: How do professors expect students to develop that level of depth within such a short timeframe? Is there a particular study approach that helps build deep intuition efficiently, or is it simply expected that not everyone will reach that level in every course? 

Hello,

From my own experience, I found that a low carb or keto are the best as they enhance my mental faculties.

What about your experience?

I'm a 4th-year medical student. I have 10 subjects this semester, and I know almost nothing about them. I have to take exams for all of them this month.

My exams start on July 12th – which is in just 7 days.

I started studying and preparing about a month ago, but my progress is practically zero. My best day, I only study for 2 hours.

I started preparing for the first subject (Dermatology) 5 days ago, and up until today, I've only studied 1 lecture out of 19. Each lecture averages about 30 pages.

I'm trying as much as I can to study, but with my slow progress and little achievement, I no longer have the motivation to keep going.

Please, help me.

So, according to neuroscience, there are only 4 ways you can read and remember anything. Just 4, that’s it. Everything you have ever learned or remembered up to now was encoded because of one of the four specific methods in your brain.

These are exactly what those 4 ways are, and how you can engineer them to remember whatever you read.

1. Novelty (The Automatic Filter)

Your brain is constantly deciding what to keep and what to discard. By default, everything unusual or unexpected is flagged as not worthy of retention.

For example, if you encounter a strange creature that you have never seen before, you don't have to make flashcards to remember it. You automatically keep it.

The Problem: You don't really have control over it. Once you are familiar enough with a subject, most things become routine and do not surprise you anymore. This filter stops doing its job. We must rely on the next three.

2. Emotional Relevance (The Chemical Lock)

Your brain retains anything that evokes a response. Whenever you react to something emotionally or feel stress, your brain releases certain neurotransmitters like dopamine and epinephrine. These chemicals serve as a signal for you: This is important. Save it.

Remember the first time you touched the hot iron? You didn't have to revise that. It shocked you, and your brain made sure you won't repeat the mistake again.

How to engineer it:

• The Google News Trick: Prior to reading a boring chapter, spend two minutes searching for this topic on Google News. Browse the headlines and find out how this topic impacts the world. Look for something that's relevant and interesting to you and read about that. You are setting a chemical lock on it before even starting to read it.
• Trigger a neurochemical reaction AFTER reading it: Exercise, caffeine intake and cold shower are all natural sources of dopamine and epinephrine production. Rather than having a cup of coffee prior to studying, drink it after. The spike of these chemicals will lock in the newly formed neural paths in your brain.

3. Repetition (Application, not Rereading)

I am not suggesting you read the same page five times. This just creates the "illusion of competence". Your brain learns the layout of the text, but not the knowledge contained in it.

The only repetition that works is application. Every time you retrieve the information and apply it, you solidify the connection.

How to engineer it:
Do not wait until the end of the chapter. Do it at the end of each paragraph. Ask yourself:

• How would I apply this?
• What problem will this solve?
• When will I see this in action?

This simple technique is both active recall and spaced application at once.

4. Association (The Most Powerful Filter)

Your brain does not retain information alone. It retains it within networks. The more links a new piece of information has to the things that you already know, the stronger it becomes embedded.

If you just read a fact and it hovers somewhere in your brain, it will be forgotten soon. But if you associate it with three other concepts, it becomes much more solid.

How to engineer it:
While reading, you should constantly find these two things:

• How this is related to what I know about this topic?
• How this is connected to the other things I have read in this session?

The Trick: You cannot do it in your head efficiently. Attempting to keep the complex network of information in your working memory and process the new material at the same time results in cognitive overload.

The top 1% of learners solve this problem by Thinking on Paper. You have to externalize the network.

Unfortunately, I couldn't include the complete mechanical explanation of how to think on paper into a Reddit post without making it a novel, so I created a complete video explaining how to Think on Paper. You can watch it here - https://youtu.be/YCLwftvz3MQ

PS - If you want to improve your learning, subscribe to my YouTube Channel, I post videos about learning how to learn there.

I am a 23 year old guy who is a NEET/Shut in with depression. I want to start studying for my honest degree in computing and take the test for it. I haven't studied in a long time and like its been years since I studied properly and i want to be good at studying and properly memorize things.