Book: 10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades
- 10 steps to earn better grades and take the most of your time at college.
- It can be applied to every aspect of your life.
- Time to work on projects, build relationships, stay involved in clubs and have fun/relax.
- Paying better attention in class
- Take more effective notes
- Flow method: “Flow-based notetaking is a creative process, not a
recording process. Instead of just writing down
what the professor argues, you’re also going to
come up with your own ideas, examples, and
connections.” - Scott Young
- Flow method is my favourite but it is not perfect for every subject: You learn while you take notes (opposite to take notes to learn later.)
- Get more out of your textbooks.
- “How often you read something is immaterial; how
you read it is crucial.” - Virginia Voeks
- Active reading
- Active recall
- Summarising
- Teach others to learn better (The Learning Pyramid)
- Plan Like a General [Planning Efficiently]
- Why? Without plan we don't now how to start and we risk end up doing nothing.
- Planning more and Robot Mode (Doing Mode)
- Plan out your entire education.
- Plan your week (Thomas suggests Sunday to do this).
- Daily plan.
- Tasks context (High/Low thought-intensity work; batch low-intensity ones).
- Schedule for optimum effectiveness.
- Timeboxing. Hofstadter's Law. Fudge ratio.
- Break down projects into actionable steps.
- Build Your Optimal Study Environment.
- Design it deliberately: Location, study music/noise, limite distractions.
- Tools you may need available
- Fight Entropy and Stay Organised.
- Organize your files and have them available.
- Quick capture system: "Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them" - David Allen.
- Defeat Procastination
- Get over "I don't feel like it". (-> but I'm going to do it anyway).
- Procastination Equation. Luke Muehlhauser.
- Willpower vs Strong Habits.
- Avoid low-density fun.
- Pomodoro.
- Bring the pain.
- Study Smarter
- Replicate the Test Conditions.
- Gather your materials.
- Identify what is important and build a study guide. “The mark of good learning isn’t that you got it right; it’s that you can’t get it wrong.”
- Get to studying: Get to work!
- Emphasise Active Learning.
- Use Spaced Repetition: One of the most efficient techniques for getting new things into your long-term memory quickly. Flashcards/Anki.
- How to Study Math (and Similar Subjects): Abstract subjects are like a house, each new concept builds upon the last.
- Learn to notice your confusion.
- Understand, don't memorise: You should be shooting for the "Aha!" moments.
- Do.The.Math!: Math is not a spectator sport. Seek Help (Ask professors, form a study group, use online resources)
- Write better papers
- Do a Brain Dump
- Develop a Focus and Key Questions: Well-defined focus; guiding questions to answer. Research.
- Conduct Better Research: Cal Newport's book How to Become a Straigh-A Student; Avoid "Research recursion syndrome".
- Write an awful first draft: Perfectionism is paralysing.
- Edit Ruthlessly.
- Get feedback.
- How to Write a Great Research Paper
- Make Group Projects Suck Less
- Make good use of the first meeting.
- Everyone in the group is already present.
- The details of the project are fresh in everyone’s mind.
- Any relevant hand-outs haven’t had time to be lost yet.
- Avoid the Bystander Effect (“I’m sure someone else will take care of it”)
- Be deliberate
about assigning tasks.
- When in doubt, be the leader..
- Bonus: If the project if substantial enough, you can actually list it as experience
on a resume.
- Solutions vs. Mixtures.
- Well integrated final product vs separated portions of work slapped together at the last minute.
- The group needs an editor.
- The final deadline for each group member’s
assignments should be well before the actual due date of the project.
- Use Great Tools to Be More Effective
- E-mail sucks. It wasn’t built for managing
projects.
- Suggestions: Trello, Slack, Google Docs.
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