The Straight A Students Time Management Secret
This is your lucky day. You are finally going to find out the secret time-management weapon which has only been known to a few wildly successful students. Until now.
(WARNING: Do not read this unless you are prepared for incredible academic success! However, if ready to have your life completely changed, read on.)
I have had the pleasure of teaching students who have ended up going to Cambridge, to Oxford, to LSE, to Harvard and to a range of other Ivy League universities. They were not completely alike, but they did have one behavior in common. After working closely with these students I am convinced that it was this single secret-behavior that set them apart from the crowd. It actually made it easier for them to learn more efficiently, to understand concepts in a deeper way than their peers. In a way, these students had an unfair advantage. And that’s why I feel you should have it too.
But before I share it with you, let me explain how hard-working students commonly behave.
Often, we, as well-intentioned, hard-working students make a simple mistake. We know that we are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. We realize that we will need to spend hours at home preparing for our tests and (because we realize how important High School is to our future success) we put in this time without complaint. We have a space at home we each review the material our teachers have taught us. We make sure we understand everything our teachers have covered. Our study-spaces have pictures of us with our friends, which helps keep us motivated. It has plants, to keep the air fresh and to keep us relaxed while we spend hours and hours there each week. Maybe we have been told that this is what will make us successful.
This is the traditional approach taken by those of us who do not understand the secret.
The secret time management weapon my top students use allows them to learn most of the material without these endless hours of revision at home before each test. What is it that they do? Quite simply, it is this: Top students learn while they are in class. That is the secret. They learn while they are actually in the class.
I know that doesn’t sound revolutionary. But, think about it for a moment. If you’re honest with yourself, you might realize that many of your peers (and maybe you yourself) spend a lot of your time in class not actually challenging yourself, not thinking about and challenging the material and therefore not actually learning. And this means that you must do it later, probably at home, by yourself.
Why do extremely hardworking students approach learning this way? I’m not sure. Partly, it isn’t their fault because they may have never learned to do it any other way. They may also feel that it will be easier to learn without any distractions. I made this mistake when I was young. It meant I was normally stressed out before my tests because I found it hard to learn the material alone, at home, at my desk. It wasn’t until my final year of High School that I realized how much time I could save by staying focused on learning while actually in the lesson. Even better, if I read though the chapter (or the novel, etc) before the teacher went over the material in class, I could say truly-insightful things during the actual lesson. And this was great because it meant I could have a genuinely interesting conversation with the teacher; the teacher could challenge these insights I was having and expand my understanding, pushing me further, far beyond what the other students could understand because (at that moment, in the lesson) they were just hearing about the concepts for the first time.
I promise that if you apply that secret consistently you will not be sorry. As I've said, I have seen it applied by all of my most successful students and it worked well for them.
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