5 Study Tips for the Lazy College Student

5 Study Tips for the Lazy College Student

I’m a procrastinator. I avoid doing homework for as long as I can, and I probably do everything wrong when it comes to studying. We’ve all been there. You’re burning out halfway through the semester and you’re tired because you have three papers, two presentations, and an exam due next week. I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how I can spend less time studying.

But, somehow I’m an honor’s list/dean’s list student. Sometimes I wonder how, with my study habits. I am incredibly last minute on a lot of my assignments, and often it’s not on purpose. I do work a lot, and am involved in multiple extra-curricular activities. According to all of my syllabi, you’re technically supposed to spend 2 hours outside of class doing classwork/studying for every credit hour you have. I’ve done the math before, and during certain times of the year, I am technically supposed to only have 12 hours a week to sleep, after being at school, doing homework, and working two jobs. This doesn’t count eating or doing anything to keep myself from going crazy.

College is an experience. I’m in my last semester before I obtain my Associate’s in Fine Arts, and it isn’t easy to find time for everything I need to do. School is very time consuming, especially depending on the classes you take.

While I don’t recommend being like me and being a “lazy” college student, if you are a procrastinator, here’s five tips I offer!

Use a planner –  I know, I know. This is the tip that everybody gives and half of us ignore. This is probably the number one tip I’ve heard about studying in college. Your planner will be your best friend. I am often terrible about using my planner, so I have to force myself to use it. I take it out in each and every one of my classes and if I think about it, I look at it and add anything I think I’ve forgotten. For me, this is essential to remember my homework, work schedule, everything. I have tried so many planners and they rarely stick with me. I’ve been using this planner from Amazon and I love it.. I finally have a planner that I can fit everything I need/want to in a planner. My planners usually end up in a corner in my room and I never see them again, but this planner has actually worked for me. Find a planner that works for you! Or use your phone. I’ve used the calendar in my phone before as a planner and it works.  I tend to remember things better when I actually write them out.

Do homework in between classes –  If you’re anything like me, you don’t want to think about school when you get home from school. This often isn’t the best solution, but it happens. On Tuesdays, I am at school for at least 11 hours. I have classes that day between 9:30 am and 8:00 pm. I have a night-time bio lab that practically kills me and I usually feel brain dead by the time I get home (to be totally honest). So, before my bio lab, when I am stuck at school but have nothing to do for 2-3 hours, I do homework. I’ll study notes during my lunch breaks or run to the library and print out timelines for my art history class in the shorter breaks between classes. Do little things when you have time during the day so when you go home you have less to do and less to worry about.

Take notes in a way that makes sense to you –  It shouldn’t matter if your notes make sense to another person as long as they make sense to you. I’m sure that my notes make very little sense to others. I can be very weird with the way I make connections, the abbreviations I use, and the way I organize my notes. Not to mention, when I’m writing quickly during a lecture, my handwriting is awful. But it makes sense to me. If I ever give somebody notes because they missed a lecture, I rewrite the notes I took for them so it might make more sense.

IT’S OKAY IF YOUR NOTES ARE A MESS, MINE OFTEN ARE!

Set realistic goals – If your goal is to get an entire 8 page paper done in two hours along with an online quiz and practicing for your speech, you might not get all that done. Setting smaller goals along the way helps so much. I find that setting smaller goals, like writing one paragraph tonight and doing a couple of smaller quizzes works a lot better than trying to get it all done at once. Even though I’m a procrastinator, this is how I keep up on most things. I know there are often times where I will try and get everything done at once, so I will also do smaller things on a more daily basis to make it easier when I try and crank out that 8-10 page paper in one night.

Find friends to study with – I honestly would not get half of my biology homework done if I didn’t study with my best friend every Tuesday before class. We’ll split up the classwork and do it all together. I have other friends that I’ll just hang out with and we’ll work on papers for our various classes and have homework sessions. As long as we make sure we’re actually working on homework and not talking about everything else in the world, this helps so much. I find that it keeps me from going crazy in the middle of a study session and I can ask my friends for help if I don’t understand something.

So there it is. My five study tips for “lazy” college students. If you find a way that works for you, go for it. Doodle when you take notes, do a bullet journal, use colorful pens, do whatever it takes for you to get through your classes. Most people who write articles on studying would probably be horrified to how I approach school work and studying, but hey, what can you do sometimes?