Provided by Brenton Burgess, Counsellor and Head of Department, The Berkeley Institute

1. Identify your best time for studying. Everyone has high and low periods of attention and concentration. Are you a morning or an evening person? Use your power times to study.

2. Study difficult subjects first. When you are fresh you can process information more quickly and will save time as a result.

3. Study in time blocks with short breaks in between. This keeps you from getting fatigued. This type of studying is efficient because while you’re taking a short break, the brain is still processing the information.

4. Make sure your surroundings are conducive to studying (see A Good Study Place, Pg 5).

5. Make sure you have time to sleep and eat properly. Sleep is often an activity (or lack of activity) that students use as their management bank. When they need a few extra hours for studying or socializing, they withdraw a few hours of sleep. Doing this makes the time they spend studying less effective because they are tired and need more time to digest information than they would if they were rested.