Study Less, Study Smart

These are my notes from Marty Lobdell’s hour-long “Study Less, Study Smart” lecture, which is on YouTube here: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0

How I went about learning the content of this lecture:

• Set the video’s playback speed to 1.5x

• Paused frequently to take Flow-style notes on notebook paper
• This pausing probably increased the total watch time back up to the video’s original 1-hour playback time,
but my method of watching it at a faster speed and pausing to take notes resulted in better notes.
• Immediately after, I translated the notes from my notebook to this Outline-style document
• This was mainly done for the benefit of readers, as my notes are chicken scratch. But it also serves to re-
encode some of what I learned, as you’ll see from one of Dr. Lobdell’s tips

My purpose was to understand the content of the lecture well enough that I could create a 6-minute video summary of it for
students who don’t want to view the whole thing. You can watch my summary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=23Xqu0jXlfs

Notes start here.

Lecture is broken down into 7 main tips:

1. Break studying down into chunked sessions
2. Create a dedicated study area
3. Study actively (and sleep well)
4. Take smart notes and expand on them right after class
5. Summarize/teach what you learn
6. Use your books correctly - SQ3R method
7. Use mnemonics to study effectively

Break studying down into chunked sessions

• How long can a typical freshman read and retain what they’re learning?
• Med students reported 4-5 hours - not typical
• Avg of UMich study: 25-30 minutes for both
• Reading
• Lectures
• Classes are 50 minutes, but most learning will only happen in first 30
• “Study more” is not helpful advice
• Efficiency tapers off after 20-30 minutes
• After that, it’s just wasted time
• The fix? Take breaks.
• “The moment you start to slide, you’re shoveling against the tide."
• Taking a 5 minute FUN break resets the session and brings your efficiency back up
 • We tend to do more of what is reinforced and rewarded
• Less of what is punished, ignored, or ineffective
• Reinforce study sessions with breaks and FUN REWARDS once the whole thing is done
• As you do this, you’re training yourself to study and your sessions can start becoming longer.

Create a dedicated study area

• Who has a true “study?"
• Most students study in bedrooms, kitchen or dining tables, or common areas
• In bedroom, bed starts to “call” like Greek sirens
• The context/environment largely determines the action you’ll take
• example: questions asked in class
• If asked to group, you raise your hand
• If asked to you, you respond verbally
• This response is pretty much automatic, because you’re conditioned to do it
• University of Hawaii study
• Biggest study problem: “We can’t get into it."
• Experiment - lamp in dorm room gets label, “Study lamp"
• desk turned away from bed
• That desk, and lamp, is now only used for studying
• When studying, lamp goes on.
• At first sign of distraction, lamp goes OFF and student walks away
• Those who did this had an avg. 1.0 GPA increase over control group
• Music - should be truly background noise.
• Don’t be trading your attention between studying and singing along

Aside about application

• “If it doesn’t change your behavior, you haven’t learned it"
• Try at least 1 or 2 things you learn from this, else it’s useless

Study actively (and sleep well)

• “The more active you are in your learning, the more effective you’ll be."
• Studying is NOT reading over and over - rote memorization can work for some, but for most of us it’s
ineffective
• Best way to study - ask yourself, “What am I learning?
• Concepts - “What does this bone do in the body?"
• Facts - “What’s the name of this bone?"
• Most professors are concerned that you learn concepts.
• Once grasped, they stay with you forever
• Facts can fade away, by contrast
• But we have Google to look them up again
• Marty’s daughter knew all the lyrics to a song, but didn’t know what it was about. Facts vs concepts
• However, teachers test over both facts and concepts
• To learn both , put the concept IN YOUR OWN WORDS
 • If you can’t, you don’t understand it!
• Marty’s memory test - which string of letters can you remember better?
• YTHURSPHDAAYP
• HAPPYTHURSDAY
• Same letters, different order - one has actual meaning
• Deep application vs. superficial thinking
• Marty asked one group to count number of vowels in each of 30 words
• Other group was asked to evaluated usefulness of each in a survival situation
• Short-term memory (about 20-30 seconds) was then dumped with name/date/phone number exercise
• Afterwards, students were asked how many of the 30 words they recalled
• Vowel-counting group: 5/30
• Survival-usefulness group: 10/30
• “What is the meaning… of meaning?"
• Something is meaningful if it relates to something you ALREADY KNOW
• It’s like a file system or database - new entries are easier to find if they have data that links to already
existing entries
• Teachers try to add meaning to concepts through:
• Stories
• Examples
• But these don’t always work for you, so you must work to tease out meaning for yourself
• How to “tease out” meaning
• Study groups
• multiple people = seeing problems from different angles
• Don’t make highlighting mistakes
• Highlighting can be dangerous. You highlight when reading, then come back and see the highlighted
sections and say, “I remember that!"
• Recollection vs. Recognition
• it’s very easy to confuse simple recognition for actual recollection.
• Look at an old magazine you’ve seen before - you’ll probably recognize the ads and picture
• but unless you can PREDICT what’s on the next page, you don’t actually recall what’s in the
mag
• Same with highlighted text - you recognize it from before, but can you recall it truly?
• this is the danger of highlighting - if you confuse recognition for recall, and you’ve
highlighted the most important facts in the text, then YOU DON’T STUDY THE
MOST IMPORTANT FACTS!
• A better way - test yourself. Challenge your recall
• This is active learning
• You also need to sleep well
• Brain science is revealing that REM cycles are crucial for consolidating and storing memories
• Lack of sleep = studying sabotage

Take smart notes and expand on them right after class

• Taking notes is vital, but...
• ASAP after class, you should try to expand on them so they’re more efficiently encoded.
• This puts things in your own words
 • Only takes about 5 minutes per class, and you save so much study time later
• This can be considered increasing Learning Efficiency in my study time equation
• If you’re fuzzy on a concept, ask a classmate to see their notes, or ask the professor
• Go to office hours, or ask for clarification at the start of the next class

Summarize/teach what you learn

• Best way to learn is to teach others
• reinforces learning
• true test of whether you understand material
• will reveal gaps in your knowledge
• No person to teach? Record a podcast or video! Or speak it to an empty chair
• Or summarize by writing it.
• Your own words = effective summarization
• “80% of your study time is best spend reciting - only 20% should be spent reading."

Use your books correctly - SQ3R method

• Textbooks are a powerful tool
• Designed for “pedagogy” - helping you learn
• Marty’s recommended reading method: SQ3R
• Survey
• Question
• Read
• Recite
• Review
• I (and Cal Newport) don’t think it’s necessary to stick to this system - it’s time consuming
• However, individual pieces can be useful
• “Survey” - also can be known as “read backwards” - go to end of chapter, note vocab and review
questions
• This primes your brain to pick these things out when reading or scanning

Use mnemonics to study effectively

• Mnemonics are great for memorizing facts - better than rote memorization
• Acronyms
• ROY G. BIV
• Radeo - “right deoxygenated"
• Right atrium of heart pumps deoxygenated blood"
• Coined sayings
• “In 1492, columbus sailed the ocean blue"
• Rhymes are memorable
• Interacting images (Marty’s favorite"
• The weirder or more emotionally evocative, the better
• Sinkhole to hell with weird demon fish popping out of it - Helsinki, capital of Finland (fish have fins)
• This is one of mine
 • Car has 4 wheels, and pro circuit cars still have 4 wheels
• “Car” - carbohydrate and “pro” - protein - each have 4 calories per gram
• Cat has 9 lives - rich dude is a “Fat cat” - fat has 9 calories per gram

Want to see the original 7 notebook pages of Flow-style notes I took while watching the lecture? You’ll find scans of
them here: http://collegeinfogeek.com/study-less-study-smart/