TIPS AND TRICKS:How to structure your studying and improve productivity

- An informational guide

Posted on April 18th 2024, by Omar Said

Hey everyone, this will be the first of a series of blogs that will be posted exclusively here on EGS Tutoring. Our goal is to write interesting content that provides both general advice to help you along your academic journeys as well as challenge your pre-conceptions on what it really means to learn. This first blog here falls under one of four categories, this one specifically being titled “Tips and Tricks", a section whose focus is primarily on (as you may have guessed) general suggestions and insights we personally have found helpful that we'd like to share with you all.

Today, our topic is straightforward, I'd like to share with you all what I have personally learned to be not only an effective way of organizing your studies, but a way that becomes more and more of a necessity as you progress on your academic journeys. I call this strategy Neural Optimization (though you can call it whatever you like). Neural Optimization, as I so lovingly like to call it, is a strategy that's based around 2 steps, understanding the layout of a course and how it intends on testing you, then optimizing your study routine to best prepare you to tackle those tests. While that might sound pretty simple at first, the real genius of the strategy is found in the execution. So, let's go over both steps in detail and I'll explain what really makes this strategy worth adopting.

Step 1: Understanding the Challenge.

As I explained prior, the real first step is taking the time to understand how the course in question plans on testing you. What does that mean in practice? That means taking the first few days to understand if the course is based on the understanding and memorization of terms or built around connecting and understanding large concepts within a framework. Almost every course will, almost invariably, fall within one of these two distinct categories. In the rare cases they don't, they are likely built around the combination of the two. A biology course for example is likely more focused on the understanding and memorization of terms (like memorizing the roles of different organs). A math class on the other hand will likely be built more around understanding large concepts and being able to connect different formulas and strategies. The reason I carefully made the delineation between these two "types" of challenges is because my infamous "Neural Optimization" is built on a philosophy of divide and conquer. When we understand the ways in which our courses will challenge us, we can optimize the way in which we prepare for these challenges. A sprinter may train his general strength as well as endurance but what matters most is his ability to run fast. Neural Optimization is about finding out the kind of race you will be running and then optimizing your training to best prepare you for that specific race. That optimization is the crux of step 2.

Step 2: Optimize, Optimize, Optimize.

I had previously said that step 2 was about optimizing you’re studying based on the data you collected in step 1. Well, how do we do this? In truth, you can optimize you’re studying in a wide variety of ways. Your goal is simply to structure your studying in a manner that both plays to your own individual strengths as well as addresses the challenges you will face once testing day arrives. For me, that means using online flash cards (such as the ones found on sites like Quizlet) to help me memorize terms for my psychology and biology courses, and relying on practice problems supplied by my instructor for my math and chemistry courses. Maybe you will find these tactics to be both simple and effective, maybe you’ll use different ones. The most important takeaway here is that being flexible is a big part of learning to spend your time optimally. Don’t allow yourself to persist in strategies you know don’t work for you. Don’t hesitate to build your own bag of tricks as you progress. With the two core steps that I have provided to you in mind, who knows what novel strategies you may come to adopt. Just remember, neural optimization isn’t a strict guidebook or a path, it’s a perspective, one that allows you to optimize both how you learn content as well as how you learn about yourself.