December 10, 2025 • 11 mins
Discover the three core ways to prioritise better in your studying, to get through what you need to do in much less time with as little impact as possible on the quality of your output.
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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/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Expert Podcast.
I'm your host, psychologist, andstudy strategy coach, William
Balter.
Today we are wrapping up alittle mini series which is
aimed at helping you studyfaster with minimal impact on
the quality of the studying youdo.
The ideas in this series applyto all forms of studying,
(00:22):
whatever the specific kind oftask is that you've got to do.
So whether it's research,writing, learning, revising,
problem solving, really any kindof academic work should benefit
from the ideas we've covered inthis series.
The first installment, uh firstinstallment back in episode 204,
saw how levelling up your to-dolist strategy can really move
(00:43):
the needle in helping you getthrough your study tasks for the
day faster.
And then in episode 206, oursecond instalment, we met the
time boxing strategy, a reallynice way to help focus the mind
through setting time constraintson the amount of time you are
allowing for different tasks orperhaps different subparts of
the task.
Today we're going to round outthe trilogy with a brief 101 on
(01:06):
the at times challenging arts ofproper prioritization for
scholars.
There are really three main wayswe should look at prioritizing
our tasks, I think.
And we're going to look at allthree of those ways today.
We're going to look first at thesmall and then gradually zoom
out to the large.
So start with the micro and zoomout to the macro.
(01:27):
Starting firstly with talkingabout prioritization within the
very task itself.
Then we're going to zoom out alittle to looking at the micro
tasks, as I call them.
So those specific things thatare on your to-do list each day
and prioritization within those.
And then finally, we'll zoom allthe way out to the macro task,
the big rocks, the big ongoingcommitments that take up the
(01:48):
majority of your time from weekto week.
Just before I dive in to today'sepisode in particular, I'd like
to add a note about who thisadvice is not for.
So if you're someone who isbumping along, doing the bare
minimum in your work to checkthe boxes required of you each
week, you've got plenty ofleisure time, you don't normally
(02:08):
go the extra mile, then thisepisode is not for you.
You don't need the adviceherein.
If anything, you want to bethinking in the opposite
direction.
How can I do 20% more on eachtask to really knock it out of
the park?
Rather than trying to prioritizeaway further.
That said, I know the studentI've just described tends not to
(02:29):
be my typical exam study expertpodcast listener.
You're all far more likely tohave the opposite problem, which
is why I'm doing this series.
So you want to do your best,you're juggling a whole bunch of
different commitments, and itfeels like there's never enough
time to do all that you want todo.
So if that's you, this episodeand this trilogy generally is
designed to help.
So let's take a look at thefinal idea for this series, how
(02:52):
to prioritize more sharply andwin ourselves a little bit of uh
a much valuable, highly valuabletime back as a result.
So, as I say, firstly, we'lllook uh right down in the weeds,
we'll look at prioritizingwithin the task itself.
So, the big question here to askourselves is how can we be more
disciplined or more focused inthe way we're approaching each
(03:14):
of our tasks in our studies?
What subset of the work that weintend to do on a given task can
give us most, if not all, of thebenefits of doing the task?
Here are some ideas for whatthis might look like in practice
for different kinds of studytask.
So, number one, prioritizing areading list, perhaps not doing
(03:36):
every bit of reading, uh, butusing the essay question,
perhaps, uh that you'll beanswering to guide us towards
just doing the highest valuereadings.
Or maybe you do uh breadth overdepth and read everything, but
not all the way through.
For example, just looking at themaking sure you've at least
looked at the abstract and maybethe conclusion for all the key
(03:57):
readings you want to do in ascience subject.
Number two, using my tangentslist concept that we've talked
about on the show before.
So this is when we make a noteof any interesting tangents, or
as some of my coaching clientscall them, uh, those rabbit
holes that we're kind of wantingto go down, those things that we
uh want to investigate further,but but are kind of going off on
(04:19):
a bit of a tangent.
They're not necessarily missioncritical.
What we want to do is we wedon't want to do them there and
then.
We want to pop them down on alist, uh, and then we maybe make
time to review that list at theend of the day or the end of the
week.
And then often half of the itemsyou can just cross straight out
as not being important at allwhen you look back on them with
fresh eyes a little bit later.
(04:40):
Number three, prioritizing uhwhat you write about in an essay
style question to most tightlyanswer the question.
So far from being a worse essay,often a shorter, crisper, more
tightly focused essay can oftenearn a higher score than a big,
rambling, unfocused thought thatfrequently deviates from
answering the core question.
(05:00):
And that shorter essay might befaster to write.
Number four, prioritizingstudying just a subset of topic
areas ahead of a test or exam,and we deprioritise the areas
that we're either already quitegood at andor those that are
rarely tested.
Number five, or perhaps we onlymake flashcards on the details
(05:21):
we don't yet know, if you don'thave time to turn every detail
of your course into a flashcard.
Now for four and five, ideallywe'd study every topic, ideally
we'd be as thorough as possiblein our work.
But if the time constraint issuch that that is not feasible,
that is not practical, then wemight need to make some hard
choices.
And what we ideally would liketo do, we need to sort of scale
(05:42):
that back a little bit.
We need to cut our cloth to fitthe available time.
If you're generally trying totrain yourself to be more
strategic in how you approacheach of your study tasks, one
little idea to consider issetting a timer to go off at
regular intervals through theday or through your study
evenings.
And each time the timer goesoff, that's a prompt to ask
yourself, am I working in a highvalue way?
(06:05):
Or could I be sharper and morefocused in the way I'm
approaching this task right now?
It's a little trigger to bringyou out of the weeds and just
check in high-level strategy.
Am I being uh as efficient aspossible in the way I'm
approaching this task, or couldI be even sharper, more focused?
So the second area, we'll zoomout a little and we'll look at
(06:27):
what are the tasks you've chosento take on in a given day or a
given evening of studying.
As you're writing your sockto-do list, see episode 204,
does everything on that listabsolutely have to be there?
Are there any tasks you coulddeprioritize for now and come
back to another day?
Or even cross off entirely.
(06:47):
A useful tool to use alongsidethis is the someday maybe list.
So there may be things that youwant to get to someday, maybe,
but you don't have time in theforeseeable future.
So we we put those ideas on oursomeday maybe list.
We're not necessarily saying noto them forever, but we can come
back to that list maybe at theend of the term or semester or
(07:09):
after we've got past the bigdeadline or the big exam when
you have a little bit more time.
And then thirdly, we zoom out alevel even further and we look
at those big macro commitmentsthat take up the majority of our
time and energy in thisparticular season of your life.
So you probably know the bigones off the top of your head,
(07:32):
but it's worth doing a littleaudit exercise sometimes just to
take stock.
So think back over the past weekand write down all the big
things that have it you'veinvested significant time and
energy into.
So this could be your differentcourses or classes, it could be
commitments on the home front,maybe looking after family,
especially if you're a maturescholar.
Uh, it could be workcommitments, it could be your
(07:55):
hobbies or interests, the sport,the music, the drama, the other
extracurriculars.
Uh, an even more sophisticatedway to do this is a proper time
tracking exercise.
For the next week, keep a diaryof where your time went hour by
hour.
It can be surprisinglyrevealing.
You often find that there arebig time sucks that you didn't
(08:15):
even really realize werehappening.
And or you can cross-check withthe screen time data in your
phone, what apps took yourattention and for how long each
day.
From your time tracking or maybelooking at your screen time
data, you might identify somelow-hanging fruit.
You're wasting an hour or two orthree doom scrolling or on some
(08:36):
phone game.
We could uninstall that and getourselves a lot of time back
each day as a result.
Beyond any low-hanging fruit, wemight find there are some hard
decisions to make.
If your life consistently feelscompletely overfilled and you're
stretched thin to breakingpoint, it may be that we need to
(08:57):
find a way to dial back one ofyour macro commitments, possibly
for a season, if not forever.
Is there anything you couldpause or scale back on until
after your exams?
Maybe you pause or scale backyour work commitments, or maybe
you get some help on the homefront, or um maybe there are
some extra curriculas you couldstop, or perhaps pause.
(09:19):
Again, it's not necessarilyforever.
Or maybe we're simply being tooambitious with our course or
classload.
Could you take the exam a littlelater?
Or do you have an option to dropa course and scale back your
workload each week?
If those smaller shifts that wetalked about earlier in the
episode and earlier in thisseries aren't cutting it and
you're still feeling completelyoverwhelmed, sometimes we just
(09:41):
need that more radical pruning.
Again, it doesn't have to beforever, but it could be the
right move, perhaps for thiscurrent season, just to pause on
something for now so that wehave the space to make a proper
job of the core things we'retrying to get done.
So prioritize how you workwithin each task.
Prioritize the tasks you work oneach day, those micro tasks that
(10:04):
are on your to-do list each day.
And even consider how you canprioritize those big macro
commitments in your life at themoment.
Maybe there's something we canpause and see how much lighter
and more durable your workloadcould feel as a result.
And with that, that's a wrap onthis series.
I promised to keep each one toabout five to ten minutes, so
(10:25):
I've just about managed that fortoday.
Uh I hope you've enjoyed it.
I hope this helps uh you saveyou a little bit of time and get
through your work and stillperform at a really high level,
uh, but in a more manageable,more time-efficient way.
You know, one of the things Iconsistently hear from Exam
Study Expert listeners isthere's just never enough time
to fit it all in.
Uh, so I hope the ideas in thisseries have at least helped you
(10:46):
a little bit in that.
Please do keep your comments andquestions coming in uh if the
platform you listen to ExamStudy Expert on has that
feature.
If it doesn't, there's a linkyou can click in the episode
description where you can sendme a comment or a message
directly.
Uh, do note that I don't haveyour contact details if you
click that link.
Um so don't ask me a questionbecause I can't reply to it.
(11:07):
Uh, but if you do a comment insomething like Spotify, for
example, I do read and respondto uh all of those.
Uh and finally, I want to wishyou every success, as always, in
your studies uh and good luckstudying smarter, not
necessarily harder.
Very best of luck, everyone.
You've got this.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Just before you go, did you know you can hire
William as your very own coachand mentor to show you the
stress free way to ace yourexams by studying smarter, not
harder.
Find out how atexamstudiexpert.com slash
coaching.
Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Expert Podcast.
I'm your host, psychologist, andstudy strategy coach, William
Balter.
Today we are wrapping up alittle mini series which is
aimed at helping you studyfaster with minimal impact on
the quality of the studying youdo.
The ideas in this series applyto all forms of studying,
(00:22):
whatever the specific kind oftask is that you've got to do.
So whether it's research,writing, learning, revising,
problem solving, really any kindof academic work should benefit
from the ideas we've covered inthis series.
The first installment, uh firstinstallment back in episode 204,
saw how levelling up your to-dolist strategy can really move
(00:43):
the needle in helping you getthrough your study tasks for the
day faster.
And then in episode 206, oursecond instalment, we met the
time boxing strategy, a reallynice way to help focus the mind
through setting time constraintson the amount of time you are
allowing for different tasks orperhaps different subparts of
the task.
Today we're going to round outthe trilogy with a brief 101 on
(01:06):
the at times challenging arts ofproper prioritization for
scholars.
There are really three main wayswe should look at prioritizing
our tasks, I think.
And we're going to look at allthree of those ways today.
We're going to look first at thesmall and then gradually zoom
out to the large.
So start with the micro and zoomout to the macro.
(01:27):
Starting firstly with talkingabout prioritization within the
very task itself.
Then we're going to zoom out alittle to looking at the micro
tasks, as I call them.
So those specific things thatare on your to-do list each day
and prioritization within those.
And then finally, we'll zoom allthe way out to the macro task,
the big rocks, the big ongoingcommitments that take up the
(01:48):
majority of your time from weekto week.
Just before I dive in to today'sepisode in particular, I'd like
to add a note about who thisadvice is not for.
So if you're someone who isbumping along, doing the bare
minimum in your work to checkthe boxes required of you each
week, you've got plenty ofleisure time, you don't normally
(02:08):
go the extra mile, then thisepisode is not for you.
You don't need the adviceherein.
If anything, you want to bethinking in the opposite
direction.
How can I do 20% more on eachtask to really knock it out of
the park?
Rather than trying to prioritizeaway further.
That said, I know the studentI've just described tends not to
(02:29):
be my typical exam study expertpodcast listener.
You're all far more likely tohave the opposite problem, which
is why I'm doing this series.
So you want to do your best,you're juggling a whole bunch of
different commitments, and itfeels like there's never enough
time to do all that you want todo.
So if that's you, this episodeand this trilogy generally is
designed to help.
So let's take a look at thefinal idea for this series, how
(02:52):
to prioritize more sharply andwin ourselves a little bit of uh
a much valuable, highly valuabletime back as a result.
So, as I say, firstly, we'lllook uh right down in the weeds,
we'll look at prioritizingwithin the task itself.
So, the big question here to askourselves is how can we be more
disciplined or more focused inthe way we're approaching each
(03:14):
of our tasks in our studies?
What subset of the work that weintend to do on a given task can
give us most, if not all, of thebenefits of doing the task?
Here are some ideas for whatthis might look like in practice
for different kinds of studytask.
So, number one, prioritizing areading list, perhaps not doing
(03:36):
every bit of reading, uh, butusing the essay question,
perhaps, uh that you'll beanswering to guide us towards
just doing the highest valuereadings.
Or maybe you do uh breadth overdepth and read everything, but
not all the way through.
For example, just looking at themaking sure you've at least
looked at the abstract and maybethe conclusion for all the key
(03:57):
readings you want to do in ascience subject.
Number two, using my tangentslist concept that we've talked
about on the show before.
So this is when we make a noteof any interesting tangents, or
as some of my coaching clientscall them, uh, those rabbit
holes that we're kind of wantingto go down, those things that we
uh want to investigate further,but but are kind of going off on
(04:19):
a bit of a tangent.
They're not necessarily missioncritical.
What we want to do is we wedon't want to do them there and
then.
We want to pop them down on alist, uh, and then we maybe make
time to review that list at theend of the day or the end of the
week.
And then often half of the itemsyou can just cross straight out
as not being important at allwhen you look back on them with
fresh eyes a little bit later.
(04:40):
Number three, prioritizing uhwhat you write about in an essay
style question to most tightlyanswer the question.
So far from being a worse essay,often a shorter, crisper, more
tightly focused essay can oftenearn a higher score than a big,
rambling, unfocused thought thatfrequently deviates from
answering the core question.
(05:00):
And that shorter essay might befaster to write.
Number four, prioritizingstudying just a subset of topic
areas ahead of a test or exam,and we deprioritise the areas
that we're either already quitegood at andor those that are
rarely tested.
Number five, or perhaps we onlymake flashcards on the details
(05:21):
we don't yet know, if you don'thave time to turn every detail
of your course into a flashcard.
Now for four and five, ideallywe'd study every topic, ideally
we'd be as thorough as possiblein our work.
But if the time constraint issuch that that is not feasible,
that is not practical, then wemight need to make some hard
choices.
And what we ideally would liketo do, we need to sort of scale
(05:42):
that back a little bit.
We need to cut our cloth to fitthe available time.
If you're generally trying totrain yourself to be more
strategic in how you approacheach of your study tasks, one
little idea to consider issetting a timer to go off at
regular intervals through theday or through your study
evenings.
And each time the timer goesoff, that's a prompt to ask
yourself, am I working in a highvalue way?
(06:05):
Or could I be sharper and morefocused in the way I'm
approaching this task right now?
It's a little trigger to bringyou out of the weeds and just
check in high-level strategy.
Am I being uh as efficient aspossible in the way I'm
approaching this task, or couldI be even sharper, more focused?
So the second area, we'll zoomout a little and we'll look at
(06:27):
what are the tasks you've chosento take on in a given day or a
given evening of studying.
As you're writing your sockto-do list, see episode 204,
does everything on that listabsolutely have to be there?
Are there any tasks you coulddeprioritize for now and come
back to another day?
Or even cross off entirely.
(06:47):
A useful tool to use alongsidethis is the someday maybe list.
So there may be things that youwant to get to someday, maybe,
but you don't have time in theforeseeable future.
So we we put those ideas on oursomeday maybe list.
We're not necessarily saying noto them forever, but we can come
back to that list maybe at theend of the term or semester or
(07:09):
after we've got past the bigdeadline or the big exam when
you have a little bit more time.
And then thirdly, we zoom out alevel even further and we look
at those big macro commitmentsthat take up the majority of our
time and energy in thisparticular season of your life.
So you probably know the bigones off the top of your head,
(07:32):
but it's worth doing a littleaudit exercise sometimes just to
take stock.
So think back over the past weekand write down all the big
things that have it you'veinvested significant time and
energy into.
So this could be your differentcourses or classes, it could be
commitments on the home front,maybe looking after family,
especially if you're a maturescholar.
Uh, it could be workcommitments, it could be your
(07:55):
hobbies or interests, the sport,the music, the drama, the other
extracurriculars.
Uh, an even more sophisticatedway to do this is a proper time
tracking exercise.
For the next week, keep a diaryof where your time went hour by
hour.
It can be surprisinglyrevealing.
You often find that there arebig time sucks that you didn't
(08:15):
even really realize werehappening.
And or you can cross-check withthe screen time data in your
phone, what apps took yourattention and for how long each
day.
From your time tracking or maybelooking at your screen time
data, you might identify somelow-hanging fruit.
You're wasting an hour or two orthree doom scrolling or on some
(08:36):
phone game.
We could uninstall that and getourselves a lot of time back
each day as a result.
Beyond any low-hanging fruit, wemight find there are some hard
decisions to make.
If your life consistently feelscompletely overfilled and you're
stretched thin to breakingpoint, it may be that we need to
(08:57):
find a way to dial back one ofyour macro commitments, possibly
for a season, if not forever.
Is there anything you couldpause or scale back on until
after your exams?
Maybe you pause or scale backyour work commitments, or maybe
you get some help on the homefront, or um maybe there are
some extra curriculas you couldstop, or perhaps pause.
(09:19):
Again, it's not necessarilyforever.
Or maybe we're simply being tooambitious with our course or
classload.
Could you take the exam a littlelater?
Or do you have an option to dropa course and scale back your
workload each week?
If those smaller shifts that wetalked about earlier in the
episode and earlier in thisseries aren't cutting it and
you're still feeling completelyoverwhelmed, sometimes we just
(09:41):
need that more radical pruning.
Again, it doesn't have to beforever, but it could be the
right move, perhaps for thiscurrent season, just to pause on
something for now so that wehave the space to make a proper
job of the core things we'retrying to get done.
So prioritize how you workwithin each task.
Prioritize the tasks you work oneach day, those micro tasks that
(10:04):
are on your to-do list each day.
And even consider how you canprioritize those big macro
commitments in your life at themoment.
Maybe there's something we canpause and see how much lighter
and more durable your workloadcould feel as a result.
And with that, that's a wrap onthis series.
I promised to keep each one toabout five to ten minutes, so
(10:25):
I've just about managed that fortoday.
Uh I hope you've enjoyed it.
I hope this helps uh you saveyou a little bit of time and get
through your work and stillperform at a really high level,
uh, but in a more manageable,more time-efficient way.
You know, one of the things Iconsistently hear from Exam
Study Expert listeners isthere's just never enough time
to fit it all in.
Uh, so I hope the ideas in thisseries have at least helped you
(10:46):
a little bit in that.
Please do keep your comments andquestions coming in uh if the
platform you listen to ExamStudy Expert on has that
feature.
If it doesn't, there's a linkyou can click in the episode
description where you can sendme a comment or a message
directly.
Uh, do note that I don't haveyour contact details if you
click that link.
Um so don't ask me a questionbecause I can't reply to it.
(11:07):
Uh, but if you do a comment insomething like Spotify, for
example, I do read and respondto uh all of those.
Uh and finally, I want to wishyou every success, as always, in
your studies uh and good luckstudying smarter, not
necessarily harder.
Very best of luck, everyone.
You've got this.
SPEAKER_00 (11:26):
Just before you go, did you know you can hire
William as your very own coachand mentor to show you the
stress free way to ace yourexams by studying smarter, not
harder.
Find out how atexamstudiexpert.com slash
coaching.
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