September 7, 2025 • 24 mins
We explore five essential habits that can transform your academic performance by taking small, consistent actions throughout your studies rather than cramming at the end. Doing these little things well from the beginning will make your academic life significantly easier when exam time arrives.
• Stay organised as you go along – identify and remove your specific bottlenecks to staying organised
• Learn what excellence looks like in your subject from day one – seek examples and guidance early
• Address confusion immediately rather than postponing understanding – don't let knowledge gaps compound
• Create a "tangent list" for interesting but non-essential topics – balance core learning with exploration
• Practice memory journaling daily – spend five minutes retrieving key points to consolidate learning
• Keep your approach simple – start with one or two manageable habits rather than trying to do everything
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Hosted by William Wadsworth, memory psychologist, independent researcher and study skills coach. I help ambitious students to study smarter, not harder, so they can ace their exams with less work and less stress.
BOOK 1:1 COACHING to supercharge your exam success: https://examstudyexpert.com/workwithme/
Get a copy of Outsmart Your Exams, my award-winning exam technique book, at https://geni.us/exams
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome back to the Exam Study Expert
podcast.
Today I've got a little soloepisode for you, inspired by
circumstances all around me here, particularly here in the UK,
where students and theirteachers and their parents are
going back to school and theuniversity terms are also
starting just a few weeks awaynow.
(00:22):
So I know this is back toschool season, not just here in
the UK but also for many of mylisteners around the world,
though I know some of you havealso been back to term for a few
weeks already by now.
So with that backdrop of verymuch a sort of a season of new
beginnings and a bit of a resetfor so many of us around the
world, I wanted to share somesage wisdom coming to you, if
(00:43):
you want to think of it this way, from future you Some of the
things that future you at theend of this year might have
fervently wished you might havedone all along to make your life
so much easier down the line inthe run-up to that.
So, yeah, our big theme fortoday is doing those little
things well throughout theacademic year or throughout your
(01:05):
programme of study, such thatwe set ourselves up for success
in the long run.
It's your grandma's old advicea stitch in time saves nine
Little and often you know thesekind of bits of ancient wisdom
so often about doing the littlethings now that make things
easier for us in the long run.
Even the good book has somepretty clear advice on this.
The proverb reading the lazyone does not plough when the
(01:29):
planting season arrives, so thatat harvest time they shall look
but find nothing.
And you'll find similar thoughtsin the text and teachings from
religions and philosophies theworld over.
Chinese philosopher Confucius,for instance, writing that,
faced with what is right, toleave it undone shows a lack of
courage.
Hard man to please Confucius.
(01:49):
But how many times have weembarked on a new course, a new
term or semester, a new round ofstudying for the next set of
exams and told ourselves thistime will be different.
This time I'm going to do X andY as I go along, I'll start
buckling down early, I'llmeditate every day, I'll
exercise every day, I'll writemy flashcards as I go along,
(02:10):
I'll save myself all thoseproblems I had before where it
sort of piled up at the end.
And yet, when reality bites, therealities of football practice
and orchestra and keeping upwith friends, or, for many older
scholars, the reality ofbalancing your day job or your
clinical practice or even takingcare of your family.
When all that starts to swirlaround on top of your
(02:30):
ever-growing list of things youwant to achieve in your studies,
those good intentions aboutwhat you'll do to take care of
the, the, the extra steps inyour studies day in, day out,
week in, week out, some of thosejust fall by the wayside and we
get it, we get kind ofovertaken by the just getting it
all done and getting througheach day, getting through each
(02:53):
week, and the extra, extra spiceon top gets, gets neglected.
So I'm not sure I necessarilygo with confucius in terms of a
lack of courage per se alwaysbeing to blame for those good
intentions about the habits wewant to do day in, day out
getting forgotten.
I think so often it's.
We know we should be doingthings but it just becomes hard,
(03:13):
like often really hard, to kindof fit in the extra stuff amid
everything else that you need todo.
As many of you will know, I'vebeen coaching scholars of all
kinds for half a decade now andacross many hundreds of students
I've worked with at schoollevel, taking professional exams
, university, everything inbetween implementing those kind
(03:44):
of good intentions for going theextra little steps as they go
along, versus those who startout with good intentions, grand
intentions, but don't last pastthe second week of term or the
second week of your studyschedule.
So the pattern I've seen is, asso often is the case with the
things we teach here at ExamStudy Expert the pattern is to
keep it simple.
The secret is to keep it simple.
Don't be complex, don't betempted to make it over
(04:06):
elaborate, don't be tempted tobe over ambitious with what you
can achieve.
Keep it simple, keep it doable.
Complex or elaborate or overlyonerous is the enemy of getting
things done.
We like things simple, we likethings easy, we like things as
close to effortless as we canpossibly make them, so that we
(04:26):
stand the best possible chanceof weaving them into our messy
and busy day-to-day reality.
And if that means we need toscale back our ambitions a
little bit on day one, that'sfine, let's do that.
And if that's not ultimatelywhere you want to be and you
want to be taking on more andmore of this kind of extra stuff
, like you know, I'd alwayssuggest starting a little bit
small, starting a little bitconservative, and then we can
(04:48):
always build up as we go alongand we gain confidence.
But don't make the mistake ofbiting off more than we can chew
on.
Day one it not happening andthen nothing at all happening.
I'd rather a little bit of itwas actually happening than we
were trying to aim for too muchand then it didn't actually
happen at all.
So today I want to talk throughfive big habits.
(05:08):
Now I'll keep this episodefairly tight, but I've got five
ideas for you, some of thereally useful little things that
we can think about doing as wego through the academic year or
through your kind of course ofstudy.
To make things easy for you bythe end and if you're listening
to this episode at a time whereit's kind of not the start of
your course, not the start of anacademic year, not the start of
(05:29):
your programme of study, andyou're already well underway and
partway through, then why nottake this episode as a moment to
stop, take stock, refresh,treat today as day one, a new
start, a new beginning.
Let's put aside what's gonebefore and what might or might
not have happened and giveyourself the opportunity for a
fresh start as of today andmaybe integrating one or two or
(05:53):
three of the ideas we talk abouttoday.
The best time to plant a treeis 10 years ago, but then the
second best time is today.
So, even if it's not the startfor you, treat this as a great
opportunity, a great impetus, agreat bit of inspiration to kind
of adopt some of these newhabits to help you out in
whatever part of your course orprogramme is yet to come.
(06:14):
Any one of these things, donerather than not done, can make a
big, big difference to youracademic performance in the long
run.
I will try and stay as true tomy promise as I can in terms of
keeping each one of these aseasy as possible, giving you a
really kind of easy, you know,very doable, very actionable way
to apply each of these ideas,the light touch, so we have the
(06:38):
actual best chance of actuallyachieving whatever of these you
decide you want to integrateinto your own study habits.
So, without further ado, let'sdive in and take a look.
So in at number five organise.
Now let's tackle a simple one.
First, stay organised as you go.
(07:00):
Some years ago on my academicjourney, I fell into the trap of
not really organising my stuffas I went, and so I'd hit the
end of the year with a big messyjumble of sheets of notes and
assignments and so forthhaphazardly stuffed into
different folders or my bag.
I was lucky if they were allstuffed in the relevant folder
(07:20):
for the subject that theybelonged to.
But even then it was quite abig task to kind of organise it
all, make sense of it all andget it into a form where I could
actually use that in exam timeand study from that.
And I guess it probably took meat least twice as long to do
the organisation at the end,compared to if I'd just done it
bit by bit as I went along.
(07:40):
I think we all would prefer tobe like.
I don't meet many people thatwould say they wouldn't prefer
to be organised.
So I think the key thing withthis one is figuring out why
it's difficult for you to stayorganised, if that is indeed the
case, and sometimes thebottleneck can be just quite a
simple little practical thing.
(08:01):
So for me I realised that one ofthe reasons I wasn't filing
stuff away and staying organisedas I went along was that I
didn't actually own a hole punchand many of the sheets that I
wanted to file away neededlittle holes punching in them.
So I got hold of a cheap lightlittle hole punch mini hole
punch thing that I could carryaround with me and that meant
(08:21):
that when I got new pages that Iwanted to file away, new
assignments, new handouts etc.
I could just do that as I wentalong, punch the holes there and
then and put them in the rightplace, and then I would have
everything sorted and therewould never be any need to do
any organisation at a laterpoint.
For you it could be a differentbottleneck, so you know, maybe
it would be taking that extralike 15 or 20 seconds at the end
(08:44):
of a class.
you know when the bell rings orwhen the lecturer dismisses you
just taking that extra littlebit of pride in your work and
you know, even if you're feelingfrustrated by it, it was a hard
piece of work or a hard lesson,hard lecture, you know.
File that away properly ratherthan just sort of sweeping
everything into your bag.
Just take that extra littlebeat at the end.
You won't make it out of theclassroom or the hall any
(09:04):
quicker.
There'll still be a queue outto get out the door.
So just take that extra momentjust to put it away neatly
before you take off.
Stay organized in the now andthe future.
You will be very glad that youdid so in a number four is know
now what good looks like.
It's quite an interesting onefor me again and, as some of you
(09:26):
might know, if you know alittle bit about my story, if
we've met before, you know I didwell really well in terms of my
grades that I got on myacademic journey.
But the thing is I tended not toland those grades.
I tended not to get good gradeson day one, far from it.
I tended not to get good gradeson day one, far from it.
Often those initial weeks I wasperforming at a fairly mediocre
(09:48):
level in the class.
You know, when the term wasstarting, when I was embarking
on a new course, I didn't do sowell.
I was kind of average at first,sometimes not even average,
sometimes not really good, verygood at all.
Now, over time, over the courseof the year or multiple years,
whatever it was, I would learnwhat it took to be successful in
(10:09):
that subject and I would catchup and I'd eventually be able to
do well.
But I wasn't doing super wellat first.
So I think the lesson from thisis taking the time to learn
what good looks like for yourcourse, for your subject, for
your programme of study, asearly as you can, particularly
if it's a new subject for you oryou've moved.
So carve out a little bit oftime at the outset, in those
(10:33):
early weeks, to ask questions,to listen, to, plan, to refine
your approach.
Ask your teacher or your courseleader for guidance on what kind
of work scores.
Well, have them.
Show some examples of students'work from previous years.
Perhaps that really shone.
You know, if you have an examboard that publishes examples of
what kind of okay versus reallygood looks like.
Study those.
Go into detail on those.
(10:53):
Seek out examples of what kindof okay versus really good looks
like.
Study those.
Go into detail on those.
Seek out examples of excellencein your subject.
Another way to do this isbefriending peers who've gone
through the same course as youin the previous year,
particularly those that weresuccessful, and find out what
they did.
Just beware with that, though,that not all peer advice is good
advice, even if they performedwell.
(11:15):
Try not to rely on guessing orinstinct.
Be great on purpose, not byaccident.
Learn what good looks like nowso you can work towards
delivering that from the outset,not six months in.
In at.
Number three is understand now.
So this one's all about takingthe time to really understand
(11:36):
what's going on and kind of getyour head around the course
material as you go along, ratherthan burying your head in the
sand if you find things hard orconfusing at points.
If you're starting to take morestretching academic courses,
you'll inevitably come acrossmaterial that you don't fully
understand at first.
For me this was especially trueon some of the harder courses I
(11:57):
took at university level when Iwas at Cambridge, particularly
in my first year of university,before I sort of got my act
together a little bit more.
So I'd sit in those 9amlectures often half asleep which
was probably a big part of theproblem in hindsight and I
wouldn't really follow all theexplanations while I was sitting
there in the lecture.
But I'd tell myself that I'dstudy it all later and I'd get
(12:19):
my head around it in my own timeand I could take my time and do
that on my own and really, youknow, really dig into it and
figure out what was going on.
And so then I'd get around toattempting the weekly essay or
the weekly problem sheet basedon the lectures that week, and
inevitably I wouldn't haveenough time for that assignment.
So I wouldn't really have thetime I needed to really wrestle
(12:41):
with the stuff I wasn'tunderstanding.
So I'd end up leaving holes orguessing my way to get through
things and I'd go to thosesupervisions at the end of the
week and the tutor would walkthrough how to solve the problem
or you know kind of the coreideas, the core concepts that I
should have got and should haveincluded in the essay.
And I kind of nod along and I'dsay to myself, yeah, you know,
I'd definitely study up on that,so I know how to do it on my
(13:02):
own.
But then it would be into nextweek's lectures and next week's
problem sheets and next week'sessays and that would all land.
And I think you know I have agreat idea.
You know what I'll do for thatprevious week, that stuff that I
didn't quite get from last week.
I'll have tons of time when itcomes to the holidays at the end
of term, plenty of time overChristmas to catch up on all
these bits that I haven't quitegot as I've gone along and of
(13:23):
course it never quite works outlike that, does it?
When you're in a busy academicterm, the prospect of a
multi-week holiday can virtuallyseem like infinite time that
you have access to at the end ofit all, time enough to do
anything that you need, and it'sjust not.
Holidays can be a good time tocatch up, to consolidate, to
fill in the blanks, but only upto a point.
The time goes far quicker in aholiday than I mean, certainly
(13:46):
for me, than I ever predicted.
There's never enough time to doeven half of what I dreamed I'd
get done in a holiday, andbesides that the problem of
falling behind compounds.
So if you don't grasp a lectureor two worth of material or a
lesson or two worth of material,the problem then compounds as
you work through the rest ofthat topic or maybe even go on
(14:08):
to further topics that build onthat previous topic.
You know you don't have thosefoundations to build on, to
access the later material in thecourse.
So you get further and furtherfrom the pace and it gets harder
and harder to understand thoselater courses, those later
lessons or lectures, if youhaven't understood the
prerequisite material that isbeing built on.
(14:28):
So what to do about all of this?
Well, I think you've basicallygot two major choices if you
feel you're in a situation whereyou are not understanding
significant parts of your courseas you go.
Option one is to seriouslyevaluate whether it's the right
course for you.
It might not be.
Don't be a hero.
There is no shame in switchingto a course you're more suited
(14:49):
to, you'll be happier.
You'll be more successful.
Option two is digging in andwrestling with the tricky
material, really taking the timeyou need to get your head
around those bits that youhaven't quite understood.
There are at least a couple ofkeys to making this work time
and energy.
For me.
Back to kind of first yearCambridge me not really
(15:11):
understanding a lot of thecourses I was going through I
would have needed to have reinedup quite a lot of the courses I
was going through.
I would have needed to havefreed up quite a lot of time so
I had both time to get a propernight's sleep, so I was actually
awake in lectures and kind ofhad a decent energy level when I
was attacking those, thoseproblems in my own time.
And I would have needed to freeup time during the day as well
to kind of have that time toreally dig in and study and
(15:31):
wrestle with the tricky material.
And in my case that would havemeant I would have needed to cut
back on my extracurricularpursuits and free up time in my
schedule so I could actuallygive myself half a chance of
keeping up academically.
And the key thing here is,whichever way you go, whether
you decide it's not the coursefor you, or whether you decide
you need to take a differentapproach and perhaps dig in and
(15:53):
kind of wrestle with thematerial a bit more, maybe
adjusting other parts of yourlife, to give yourself the space
to do that.
The key thing is don't put yourhead in the sand.
If you feel things are sliding,be real with yourself.
Take the action now.
The longer you leave it, theharder it gets In.
At number two, say no for now.
So the counterpoint to my lastcomment is that you don't have
(16:14):
time to do everything you mightwant to do.
Once you get to a certain levelof academic study, once you
progress to a certain level,there's always more depth you
can go to.
There's always more papers youcan read.
There's more authors you canget relevant opinions from.
There are more problems you canpractice.
There's always more you can do.
(16:35):
You will never be quote unquotefinished.
The key, as with so many things, is to find that balance.
So while it's important toreally understand the core
material, as I was talking aboutin the previous tip, the parts
that you really really must knowor understand or have read we
might not always completelycover all the, I guess more
(16:55):
peripheral material that wemight ideally want to it's nice
to have goes into more depth,more detail, but we can still
perform at an acceptable levelon our course without having
that periphery nailed down toquite so much detail.
So one thing I talk about withmy coaching clients is the
tangent list idea, and this isparticularly helpful when you
(17:16):
are at those slightly moreadvanced levels in your academic
studies.
So it's a kind of universitylevel or professional exams, and
this is a simple list of theextra readings, the extra
questions, the extra littlepoints that you want to look up
issues, maybe extra books orpapers you want to read, extra
problems you ideally want topractice.
You know all these extra littlethings that you might ideally
(17:36):
want to do.
You're going to take thedecision to actually park those
for now, so you keep this listto one hand as you're studying.
Anytime you come across one ofthese little tangents, or rabbit
holes as some people call them,just write that point down on
your tangents list and don'tpursue it for now.
And then, when we design yourweekly routine together, one of
the rituals we might allocatetime for is some time to review
(17:59):
your tangents list from thatweek and we give you at least a
little time to pursue some ofthose points.
Maybe you cherry pick a few ofthose most interesting points on
your tangents list from thelast week and go and do a little
bit of research and reading oneach of those.
So we focus on the core and butwe have a little bit of time to
explore as well and do a bit ofthat peripheral work, with
(18:20):
appropriate boundaries andbalance.
In at number one is the idea oflearn now.
So, as many of you will know,probably my favourite subject of
all is how to learn effectivelyand the science of getting
stuff to stick in memory, andit's one of perhaps as a result
of that, is one of the mostcommon things that that that my
(18:41):
kind of study strategy coachingclients bring to to our coaching
sessions.
You know, particularly at thistime of year as new academic
terms and semesters are gettingunderway, which is, you know,
how can we do a little bit ofstudy or revision as we go along
so that there's less to do atthe end.
Almost everyone who's studyingfor a final exam of some kind
(19:04):
can divide their work into twobroad phases.
So there's the initialdiscovery of the content and
then there's the final review orrevision in the last weeks or
months before an exam.
So kind of initial discovery,initial learning, initial
presentation, initialunderstanding, and then the kind
of final review and revision tomake sure you kind of know it
all and master it all ahead ofthe exam.
(19:26):
So we're talking here about whatto do in phase one.
So while you're in school,going through your normal
lessons through the term, or atuniversity, getting your normal
lectures through the term orsemester, or if you're following
a self-propelled course tostudy for professional exam, and
you're kind of going throughthe initial chapters or the
initial online classes orwhatever for the first time,
what can you do during thisinitial phase one to make life
(19:48):
easier for yourself?
You know, six months, 12 monthsdown the line when it comes to
phase two and you've got theexam a few weeks away and you're
doing your final study to getready for the exam.
There are quite a lot ofoptions for this, and the best
option for different peopledepends on things like the
different subjects you're taking, your preferred style, and a
big one is how much time we'vegot to work with.
(20:10):
So you know, have we got theluxury of a lot of blank canvas
time to populate each day, inwhich case we've got more
options.
Or, as is perhaps more commonwith the students I work with,
are we fitting things into analready quite full schedule each
week and we have to be a littlebit pragmatic about how much
extra time we allocate for thestuff beyond.
You know, keeping up with theweek-to-week sort of homework
(20:32):
and assignments and coursework,etc.
One of my favourite ways toapproach this is memory
journaling.
I talked about this back inepisode 23 of the podcast, my
five minute a day secret tosupercharge your learning.
In essence, memory journalingis a daily exercise to retrieve
and therefore consolidate someof the key points you've learned
in your classes or lessons thatday.
(20:54):
We take a moment at the end ofeach day, or perhaps the
following morning, to simplywrite down from memory some of
the key points that you coveredthat day, and ideally we do this
again.
I'm a big fan of kind of youknow these idea of daily rituals
or weekly rituals.
So we are doing good things onpurpose as part of a system
that's easy to keep going with.
(21:14):
So we find a time for us thatworks each day to do our memory
journaling and we stick to doingit at the same time as part of
our daily routine.
It's a really nice way just tohelp lock in some of your
learnings as you go through weekto week, month to month, so
that by the time you get to examseason you've got a bit more
locked away that you've actuallyremembered through the rest of
the year from kind of earlier inthe academic year, from kind of
(21:37):
earlier in the academic year.
So if you are serious aboutyour success in the exams you're
working towards at the moment,it would be my pleasure to work
with you as your study strategycoach to help you find the right
day-to-day, week-to-week habits, routines and systems that not
only help you set you up forgreat success in your final
exams but also make the wholeprocess feel lighter, feel
(22:00):
easier, feel more enjoyable.
I should say no one else doescoaching an exam study expert
it's me, with the exception ofvery niche questions like how to
go about your kind of academicwriting at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels.
So if you're working on yourwriting skills for a
(22:20):
dissertation or thesis, I dobring in some external expertise
.
That's not me who is muchbetter placed to talk about that
, because that's not a personalsphere of expertise, but for
everyone else studying for theirexams at school, university or
even as part of their career.
You have the opportunity to workdirectly with me so you can
optimise your study strategy foryour specific circumstances, so
(22:44):
we can set you up to ace yourexams this year the smart way I
can make a difference to you,you know, even at the last
minute ahead of your exams.
But the earlier we startworking together, the better, as
the more time you'll have tobenefit from having adopted the
most efficient and effectiveversion of your study system,
your study habits.
The whole process of workingtogether starts with a casual
chat about how you're getting onand how I might be able to help
(23:06):
.
You can book that today, yourcomplimentary consult with me at
examstudyexpertcom forwardslash coaching.
That's examstudyexpertcomforward slash coaching.
I look forward to meeting yousoon.
And with that I just wanted tosay thank you, as always, for
tuning in today.
It's been great to have yourcompany as we think about some
(23:27):
of the right habits.
You can take some of the rightsteps you can take here at the
start perhaps, of the academicyear and set you up for success
in the long run.
And as we wrap up this episode,I'd encourage you to reflect on
the various ideas we sharedtoday and if you were just to
pick one or two of the ideasfrom today that you want to put
into action you want toprioritise putting into action
(23:49):
take a moment to actually writethis down.
So you know, grab a physicalpiece of paper, a notebook, or,
at the very least, get the notessection of your phone out and
take a moment to actually writedown what's like the one or two,
or maybe even three things fromtoday that you really want to
act on to make life easier andmore successful for you this
(24:10):
year.
Don't just leave this being anice set of ideas.
Let's go, take some action andmake a difference.
It's been such a pleasure tohave you with me and I sincerely
wish you all every success inyour studies this year.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
If you've got exams coming up, you can now get all
of William's favourite tips andtricks to save you time and get
you higher grades all in onehandy cheat sheet.
Grab your copy atexamstudyexpertcom.
Slash free tips.
Thanks again for listening andsee you soon.
Hello and welcome back to the Exam Study Expert
podcast.
Today I've got a little soloepisode for you, inspired by
circumstances all around me here, particularly here in the UK,
where students and theirteachers and their parents are
going back to school and theuniversity terms are also
starting just a few weeks awaynow.
(00:22):
So I know this is back toschool season, not just here in
the UK but also for many of mylisteners around the world,
though I know some of you havealso been back to term for a few
weeks already by now.
So with that backdrop of verymuch a sort of a season of new
beginnings and a bit of a resetfor so many of us around the
world, I wanted to share somesage wisdom coming to you, if
(00:43):
you want to think of it this way, from future you Some of the
things that future you at theend of this year might have
fervently wished you might havedone all along to make your life
so much easier down the line inthe run-up to that.
So, yeah, our big theme fortoday is doing those little
things well throughout theacademic year or throughout your
(01:05):
programme of study, such thatwe set ourselves up for success
in the long run.
It's your grandma's old advicea stitch in time saves nine
Little and often you know thesekind of bits of ancient wisdom
so often about doing the littlethings now that make things
easier for us in the long run.
Even the good book has somepretty clear advice on this.
The proverb reading the lazyone does not plough when the
(01:29):
planting season arrives, so thatat harvest time they shall look
but find nothing.
And you'll find similar thoughtsin the text and teachings from
religions and philosophies theworld over.
Chinese philosopher Confucius,for instance, writing that,
faced with what is right, toleave it undone shows a lack of
courage.
Hard man to please Confucius.
(01:49):
But how many times have weembarked on a new course, a new
term or semester, a new round ofstudying for the next set of
exams and told ourselves thistime will be different.
This time I'm going to do X andY as I go along, I'll start
buckling down early, I'llmeditate every day, I'll
exercise every day, I'll writemy flashcards as I go along,
(02:10):
I'll save myself all thoseproblems I had before where it
sort of piled up at the end.
And yet, when reality bites, therealities of football practice
and orchestra and keeping upwith friends, or, for many older
scholars, the reality ofbalancing your day job or your
clinical practice or even takingcare of your family.
When all that starts to swirlaround on top of your
(02:30):
ever-growing list of things youwant to achieve in your studies,
those good intentions aboutwhat you'll do to take care of
the, the, the extra steps inyour studies day in, day out,
week in, week out, some of thosejust fall by the wayside and we
get it, we get kind ofovertaken by the just getting it
all done and getting througheach day, getting through each
(02:53):
week, and the extra, extra spiceon top gets, gets neglected.
So I'm not sure I necessarilygo with confucius in terms of a
lack of courage per se alwaysbeing to blame for those good
intentions about the habits wewant to do day in, day out
getting forgotten.
I think so often it's.
We know we should be doingthings but it just becomes hard,
(03:13):
like often really hard, to kindof fit in the extra stuff amid
everything else that you need todo.
As many of you will know, I'vebeen coaching scholars of all
kinds for half a decade now andacross many hundreds of students
I've worked with at schoollevel, taking professional exams
, university, everything inbetween implementing those kind
(03:44):
of good intentions for going theextra little steps as they go
along, versus those who startout with good intentions, grand
intentions, but don't last pastthe second week of term or the
second week of your studyschedule.
So the pattern I've seen is, asso often is the case with the
things we teach here at ExamStudy Expert the pattern is to
keep it simple.
The secret is to keep it simple.
Don't be complex, don't betempted to make it over
(04:06):
elaborate, don't be tempted tobe over ambitious with what you
can achieve.
Keep it simple, keep it doable.
Complex or elaborate or overlyonerous is the enemy of getting
things done.
We like things simple, we likethings easy, we like things as
close to effortless as we canpossibly make them, so that we
(04:26):
stand the best possible chanceof weaving them into our messy
and busy day-to-day reality.
And if that means we need toscale back our ambitions a
little bit on day one, that'sfine, let's do that.
And if that's not ultimatelywhere you want to be and you
want to be taking on more andmore of this kind of extra stuff
, like you know, I'd alwayssuggest starting a little bit
small, starting a little bitconservative, and then we can
(04:48):
always build up as we go alongand we gain confidence.
But don't make the mistake ofbiting off more than we can chew
on.
Day one it not happening andthen nothing at all happening.
I'd rather a little bit of itwas actually happening than we
were trying to aim for too muchand then it didn't actually
happen at all.
So today I want to talk throughfive big habits.
(05:08):
Now I'll keep this episodefairly tight, but I've got five
ideas for you, some of thereally useful little things that
we can think about doing as wego through the academic year or
through your kind of course ofstudy.
To make things easy for you bythe end and if you're listening
to this episode at a time whereit's kind of not the start of
your course, not the start of anacademic year, not the start of
(05:29):
your programme of study, andyou're already well underway and
partway through, then why nottake this episode as a moment to
stop, take stock, refresh,treat today as day one, a new
start, a new beginning.
Let's put aside what's gonebefore and what might or might
not have happened and giveyourself the opportunity for a
fresh start as of today andmaybe integrating one or two or
(05:53):
three of the ideas we talk abouttoday.
The best time to plant a treeis 10 years ago, but then the
second best time is today.
So, even if it's not the startfor you, treat this as a great
opportunity, a great impetus, agreat bit of inspiration to kind
of adopt some of these newhabits to help you out in
whatever part of your course orprogramme is yet to come.
(06:14):
Any one of these things, donerather than not done, can make a
big, big difference to youracademic performance in the long
run.
I will try and stay as true tomy promise as I can in terms of
keeping each one of these aseasy as possible, giving you a
really kind of easy, you know,very doable, very actionable way
to apply each of these ideas,the light touch, so we have the
(06:38):
actual best chance of actuallyachieving whatever of these you
decide you want to integrateinto your own study habits.
So, without further ado, let'sdive in and take a look.
So in at number five organise.
Now let's tackle a simple one.
First, stay organised as you go.
(07:00):
Some years ago on my academicjourney, I fell into the trap of
not really organising my stuffas I went, and so I'd hit the
end of the year with a big messyjumble of sheets of notes and
assignments and so forthhaphazardly stuffed into
different folders or my bag.
I was lucky if they were allstuffed in the relevant folder
(07:20):
for the subject that theybelonged to.
But even then it was quite abig task to kind of organise it
all, make sense of it all andget it into a form where I could
actually use that in exam timeand study from that.
And I guess it probably took meat least twice as long to do
the organisation at the end,compared to if I'd just done it
bit by bit as I went along.
(07:40):
I think we all would prefer tobe like.
I don't meet many people thatwould say they wouldn't prefer
to be organised.
So I think the key thing withthis one is figuring out why
it's difficult for you to stayorganised, if that is indeed the
case, and sometimes thebottleneck can be just quite a
simple little practical thing.
(08:01):
So for me I realised that one ofthe reasons I wasn't filing
stuff away and staying organisedas I went along was that I
didn't actually own a hole punchand many of the sheets that I
wanted to file away neededlittle holes punching in them.
So I got hold of a cheap lightlittle hole punch mini hole
punch thing that I could carryaround with me and that meant
(08:21):
that when I got new pages that Iwanted to file away, new
assignments, new handouts etc.
I could just do that as I wentalong, punch the holes there and
then and put them in the rightplace, and then I would have
everything sorted and therewould never be any need to do
any organisation at a laterpoint.
For you it could be a differentbottleneck, so you know, maybe
it would be taking that extralike 15 or 20 seconds at the end
(08:44):
of a class.
you know when the bell rings orwhen the lecturer dismisses you
just taking that extra littlebit of pride in your work and
you know, even if you're feelingfrustrated by it, it was a hard
piece of work or a hard lesson,hard lecture, you know.
File that away properly ratherthan just sort of sweeping
everything into your bag.
Just take that extra littlebeat at the end.
You won't make it out of theclassroom or the hall any
(09:04):
quicker.
There'll still be a queue outto get out the door.
So just take that extra momentjust to put it away neatly
before you take off.
Stay organized in the now andthe future.
You will be very glad that youdid so in a number four is know
now what good looks like.
It's quite an interesting onefor me again and, as some of you
(09:26):
might know, if you know alittle bit about my story, if
we've met before, you know I didwell really well in terms of my
grades that I got on myacademic journey.
But the thing is I tended not toland those grades.
I tended not to get good gradeson day one, far from it.
I tended not to get good gradeson day one, far from it.
Often those initial weeks I wasperforming at a fairly mediocre
(09:48):
level in the class.
You know, when the term wasstarting, when I was embarking
on a new course, I didn't do sowell.
I was kind of average at first,sometimes not even average,
sometimes not really good, verygood at all.
Now, over time, over the courseof the year or multiple years,
whatever it was, I would learnwhat it took to be successful in
(10:09):
that subject and I would catchup and I'd eventually be able to
do well.
But I wasn't doing super wellat first.
So I think the lesson from thisis taking the time to learn
what good looks like for yourcourse, for your subject, for
your programme of study, asearly as you can, particularly
if it's a new subject for you oryou've moved.
So carve out a little bit oftime at the outset, in those
(10:33):
early weeks, to ask questions,to listen, to, plan, to refine
your approach.
Ask your teacher or your courseleader for guidance on what kind
of work scores.
Well, have them.
Show some examples of students'work from previous years.
Perhaps that really shone.
You know, if you have an examboard that publishes examples of
what kind of okay versus reallygood looks like.
Study those.
Go into detail on those.
(10:53):
Seek out examples of what kindof okay versus really good looks
like.
Study those.
Go into detail on those.
Seek out examples of excellencein your subject.
Another way to do this isbefriending peers who've gone
through the same course as youin the previous year,
particularly those that weresuccessful, and find out what
they did.
Just beware with that, though,that not all peer advice is good
advice, even if they performedwell.
(11:15):
Try not to rely on guessing orinstinct.
Be great on purpose, not byaccident.
Learn what good looks like nowso you can work towards
delivering that from the outset,not six months in.
In at.
Number three is understand now.
So this one's all about takingthe time to really understand
(11:36):
what's going on and kind of getyour head around the course
material as you go along, ratherthan burying your head in the
sand if you find things hard orconfusing at points.
If you're starting to take morestretching academic courses,
you'll inevitably come acrossmaterial that you don't fully
understand at first.
For me this was especially trueon some of the harder courses I
(11:57):
took at university level when Iwas at Cambridge, particularly
in my first year of university,before I sort of got my act
together a little bit more.
So I'd sit in those 9amlectures often half asleep which
was probably a big part of theproblem in hindsight and I
wouldn't really follow all theexplanations while I was sitting
there in the lecture.
But I'd tell myself that I'dstudy it all later and I'd get
(12:19):
my head around it in my own timeand I could take my time and do
that on my own and really, youknow, really dig into it and
figure out what was going on.
And so then I'd get around toattempting the weekly essay or
the weekly problem sheet basedon the lectures that week, and
inevitably I wouldn't haveenough time for that assignment.
So I wouldn't really have thetime I needed to really wrestle
(12:41):
with the stuff I wasn'tunderstanding.
So I'd end up leaving holes orguessing my way to get through
things and I'd go to thosesupervisions at the end of the
week and the tutor would walkthrough how to solve the problem
or you know kind of the coreideas, the core concepts that I
should have got and should haveincluded in the essay.
And I kind of nod along and I'dsay to myself, yeah, you know,
I'd definitely study up on that,so I know how to do it on my
(13:02):
own.
But then it would be into nextweek's lectures and next week's
problem sheets and next week'sessays and that would all land.
And I think you know I have agreat idea.
You know what I'll do for thatprevious week, that stuff that I
didn't quite get from last week.
I'll have tons of time when itcomes to the holidays at the end
of term, plenty of time overChristmas to catch up on all
these bits that I haven't quitegot as I've gone along and of
(13:23):
course it never quite works outlike that, does it?
When you're in a busy academicterm, the prospect of a
multi-week holiday can virtuallyseem like infinite time that
you have access to at the end ofit all, time enough to do
anything that you need, and it'sjust not.
Holidays can be a good time tocatch up, to consolidate, to
fill in the blanks, but only upto a point.
The time goes far quicker in aholiday than I mean, certainly
(13:46):
for me, than I ever predicted.
There's never enough time to doeven half of what I dreamed I'd
get done in a holiday, andbesides that the problem of
falling behind compounds.
So if you don't grasp a lectureor two worth of material or a
lesson or two worth of material,the problem then compounds as
you work through the rest ofthat topic or maybe even go on
(14:08):
to further topics that build onthat previous topic.
You know you don't have thosefoundations to build on, to
access the later material in thecourse.
So you get further and furtherfrom the pace and it gets harder
and harder to understand thoselater courses, those later
lessons or lectures, if youhaven't understood the
prerequisite material that isbeing built on.
(14:28):
So what to do about all of this?
Well, I think you've basicallygot two major choices if you
feel you're in a situation whereyou are not understanding
significant parts of your courseas you go.
Option one is to seriouslyevaluate whether it's the right
course for you.
It might not be.
Don't be a hero.
There is no shame in switchingto a course you're more suited
(14:49):
to, you'll be happier.
You'll be more successful.
Option two is digging in andwrestling with the tricky
material, really taking the timeyou need to get your head
around those bits that youhaven't quite understood.
There are at least a couple ofkeys to making this work time
and energy.
For me.
Back to kind of first yearCambridge me not really
(15:11):
understanding a lot of thecourses I was going through I
would have needed to have reinedup quite a lot of the courses I
was going through.
I would have needed to havefreed up quite a lot of time so
I had both time to get a propernight's sleep, so I was actually
awake in lectures and kind ofhad a decent energy level when I
was attacking those, thoseproblems in my own time.
And I would have needed to freeup time during the day as well
to kind of have that time toreally dig in and study and
(15:31):
wrestle with the tricky material.
And in my case that would havemeant I would have needed to cut
back on my extracurricularpursuits and free up time in my
schedule so I could actuallygive myself half a chance of
keeping up academically.
And the key thing here is,whichever way you go, whether
you decide it's not the coursefor you, or whether you decide
you need to take a differentapproach and perhaps dig in and
(15:53):
kind of wrestle with thematerial a bit more, maybe
adjusting other parts of yourlife, to give yourself the space
to do that.
The key thing is don't put yourhead in the sand.
If you feel things are sliding,be real with yourself.
Take the action now.
The longer you leave it, theharder it gets In.
At number two, say no for now.
So the counterpoint to my lastcomment is that you don't have
(16:14):
time to do everything you mightwant to do.
Once you get to a certain levelof academic study, once you
progress to a certain level,there's always more depth you
can go to.
There's always more papers youcan read.
There's more authors you canget relevant opinions from.
There are more problems you canpractice.
There's always more you can do.
(16:35):
You will never be quote unquotefinished.
The key, as with so many things, is to find that balance.
So while it's important toreally understand the core
material, as I was talking aboutin the previous tip, the parts
that you really really must knowor understand or have read we
might not always completelycover all the, I guess more
(16:55):
peripheral material that wemight ideally want to it's nice
to have goes into more depth,more detail, but we can still
perform at an acceptable levelon our course without having
that periphery nailed down toquite so much detail.
So one thing I talk about withmy coaching clients is the
tangent list idea, and this isparticularly helpful when you
(17:16):
are at those slightly moreadvanced levels in your academic
studies.
So it's a kind of universitylevel or professional exams, and
this is a simple list of theextra readings, the extra
questions, the extra littlepoints that you want to look up
issues, maybe extra books orpapers you want to read, extra
problems you ideally want topractice.
You know all these extra littlethings that you might ideally
(17:36):
want to do.
You're going to take thedecision to actually park those
for now, so you keep this listto one hand as you're studying.
Anytime you come across one ofthese little tangents, or rabbit
holes as some people call them,just write that point down on
your tangents list and don'tpursue it for now.
And then, when we design yourweekly routine together, one of
the rituals we might allocatetime for is some time to review
(17:59):
your tangents list from thatweek and we give you at least a
little time to pursue some ofthose points.
Maybe you cherry pick a few ofthose most interesting points on
your tangents list from thelast week and go and do a little
bit of research and reading oneach of those.
So we focus on the core and butwe have a little bit of time to
explore as well and do a bit ofthat peripheral work, with
(18:20):
appropriate boundaries andbalance.
In at number one is the idea oflearn now.
So, as many of you will know,probably my favourite subject of
all is how to learn effectivelyand the science of getting
stuff to stick in memory, andit's one of perhaps as a result
of that, is one of the mostcommon things that that that my
(18:41):
kind of study strategy coachingclients bring to to our coaching
sessions.
You know, particularly at thistime of year as new academic
terms and semesters are gettingunderway, which is, you know,
how can we do a little bit ofstudy or revision as we go along
so that there's less to do atthe end.
Almost everyone who's studyingfor a final exam of some kind
(19:04):
can divide their work into twobroad phases.
So there's the initialdiscovery of the content and
then there's the final review orrevision in the last weeks or
months before an exam.
So kind of initial discovery,initial learning, initial
presentation, initialunderstanding, and then the kind
of final review and revision tomake sure you kind of know it
all and master it all ahead ofthe exam.
(19:26):
So we're talking here about whatto do in phase one.
So while you're in school,going through your normal
lessons through the term, or atuniversity, getting your normal
lectures through the term orsemester, or if you're following
a self-propelled course tostudy for professional exam, and
you're kind of going throughthe initial chapters or the
initial online classes orwhatever for the first time,
what can you do during thisinitial phase one to make life
(19:48):
easier for yourself?
You know, six months, 12 monthsdown the line when it comes to
phase two and you've got theexam a few weeks away and you're
doing your final study to getready for the exam.
There are quite a lot ofoptions for this, and the best
option for different peopledepends on things like the
different subjects you're taking, your preferred style, and a
big one is how much time we'vegot to work with.
(20:10):
So you know, have we got theluxury of a lot of blank canvas
time to populate each day, inwhich case we've got more
options.
Or, as is perhaps more commonwith the students I work with,
are we fitting things into analready quite full schedule each
week and we have to be a littlebit pragmatic about how much
extra time we allocate for thestuff beyond.
You know, keeping up with theweek-to-week sort of homework
(20:32):
and assignments and coursework,etc.
One of my favourite ways toapproach this is memory
journaling.
I talked about this back inepisode 23 of the podcast, my
five minute a day secret tosupercharge your learning.
In essence, memory journalingis a daily exercise to retrieve
and therefore consolidate someof the key points you've learned
in your classes or lessons thatday.
(20:54):
We take a moment at the end ofeach day, or perhaps the
following morning, to simplywrite down from memory some of
the key points that you coveredthat day, and ideally we do this
again.
I'm a big fan of kind of youknow these idea of daily rituals
or weekly rituals.
So we are doing good things onpurpose as part of a system
that's easy to keep going with.
(21:14):
So we find a time for us thatworks each day to do our memory
journaling and we stick to doingit at the same time as part of
our daily routine.
It's a really nice way just tohelp lock in some of your
learnings as you go through weekto week, month to month, so
that by the time you get to examseason you've got a bit more
locked away that you've actuallyremembered through the rest of
the year from kind of earlier inthe academic year, from kind of
(21:37):
earlier in the academic year.
So if you are serious aboutyour success in the exams you're
working towards at the moment,it would be my pleasure to work
with you as your study strategycoach to help you find the right
day-to-day, week-to-week habits, routines and systems that not
only help you set you up forgreat success in your final
exams but also make the wholeprocess feel lighter, feel
(22:00):
easier, feel more enjoyable.
I should say no one else doescoaching an exam study expert
it's me, with the exception ofvery niche questions like how to
go about your kind of academicwriting at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels.
So if you're working on yourwriting skills for a
(22:20):
dissertation or thesis, I dobring in some external expertise
.
That's not me who is muchbetter placed to talk about that
, because that's not a personalsphere of expertise, but for
everyone else studying for theirexams at school, university or
even as part of their career.
You have the opportunity to workdirectly with me so you can
optimise your study strategy foryour specific circumstances, so
(22:44):
we can set you up to ace yourexams this year the smart way I
can make a difference to you,you know, even at the last
minute ahead of your exams.
But the earlier we startworking together, the better, as
the more time you'll have tobenefit from having adopted the
most efficient and effectiveversion of your study system,
your study habits.
The whole process of workingtogether starts with a casual
chat about how you're getting onand how I might be able to help
(23:06):
.
You can book that today, yourcomplimentary consult with me at
examstudyexpertcom forwardslash coaching.
That's examstudyexpertcomforward slash coaching.
I look forward to meeting yousoon.
And with that I just wanted tosay thank you, as always, for
tuning in today.
It's been great to have yourcompany as we think about some
(23:27):
of the right habits.
You can take some of the rightsteps you can take here at the
start perhaps, of the academicyear and set you up for success
in the long run.
And as we wrap up this episode,I'd encourage you to reflect on
the various ideas we sharedtoday and if you were just to
pick one or two of the ideasfrom today that you want to put
into action you want toprioritise putting into action
(23:49):
take a moment to actually writethis down.
So you know, grab a physicalpiece of paper, a notebook, or,
at the very least, get the notessection of your phone out and
take a moment to actually writedown what's like the one or two,
or maybe even three things fromtoday that you really want to
act on to make life easier andmore successful for you this
(24:10):
year.
Don't just leave this being anice set of ideas.
Let's go, take some action andmake a difference.
It's been such a pleasure tohave you with me and I sincerely
wish you all every success inyour studies this year.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
If you've got exams coming up, you can now get all
of William's favourite tips andtricks to save you time and get
you higher grades all in onehandy cheat sheet.
Grab your copy atexamstudyexpertcom.
Slash free tips.
Thanks again for listening andsee you soon.
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