A smart adult learner makes sure to study daily. Only this way can you assure you are growing. Studying and learning new things helps you to move forward. It helps you to get the job you desire. It can even help you to increase your income.
The biggest question is… how much should you be studying daily? This isn’t something you can easily answer. Adult learners all have different lives. What they mostly have in common is this. An adult learner has a (full-time) job. He has a family. An adult learner has a lot to do, and studying is something that is not directly making his life better.
Most adult learners don’t see studying as their priority. Family and work are more important. But still, you have to study daily to move forward. That is why I suggest you start studying for at least one hour per day. Don’t worry, you don’t have to sit down for one hour daily to study. There is a method to do this and still feel you have personal time.
Let’s continue to see how you too can study one hour per day…
Study Routine: Smart Reading
How Many Hours A Day Can You Realistically Study?
Working (full-time) and having a family already takes a lot of time. If you also like to have a little personal time… studying may not be your priority. It is important to have a realistic look at how much time you have. If you find it difficult to figure out how much time you can use to study per day, do this.
Start with the smallest number of minutes. For example, you can start studying for 30 minutes daily. Don’t think you have to do this all in one sitting. You can study for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night. If you feel you have a lot more time, make sure you enjoy this.
One of the most important things you should be doing is to make studying a part of your daily life. Don’t try and study for 5 hours during the weekend while doing nothing during the week. You better study 45 minutes daily and study for 5 hours per week this way.
When you try to maximize your daily study time, you will end up disappointing yourself. You may even start to feel bad when you think about studying. That is why you should not aim for the most daily study time. Better aim low and enjoy the extra time.
It depends on your situation and goals and how much you should study daily.
Study time is always a mix of time you have and the time you need. For example… suppose you want to study 300 pages in one month (30 days). This way you should be studying 10 pages per day. The time you have might be 30 minutes daily. You may have more time, but you can take this time to study. Every extra minute helps you to study even more .
Combine the should and could in one goal. In this case, it would be: I study 30 minutes per day and cover 10 pages. This means I take on average 3 minutes per page.
Maybe 1 page per 3 minutes sounds a lot. Using the right study tactics and techniques you too will be able to do this. Often the only thing limiting you to achieve this is your knowledge and state of mind (tired, bored, etc.). Let me know if you have any questions about this.
(Are you not that experience with smart reading, note-taking, etc.? In that case aim for 10 pages in an hour. You will be surprised how much you can do in one hour!)
Remember this:
Studying is important to create a better future. You may feel you should and can study the entire weekend and every evening during the week. When you have no personal life or family… you can, perhaps even do this.
You should always remember that a better future is created not just for yourself. You do this to give more opportunities to your family. Don’t neglect your family and friends. Success is best enjoyed with others…
I advise you to not aim for studying 8, 10, or even 12 hours a day. This is too much for most adults. If you feel you can because your life allows this, do it. As long as you spread out your studying over all days of the week. Studying 8 hours one time a week is not nearly as effective as studying 1 hour per day.
Study Routine: Smart Summarizing
Benefits And Problems With Studying A Lot
As mentioned before, there are benefits to studying a lot. There are also drawbacks to studying a lot. Let’s investigate this further. Knowing this, you can make a more informed decision about whether you should study a lot.
Benefits of studying a lot
You will be able to study faster. This means you can finish your courses faster and take your exams ahead of your schedule.
You will also have fewer distractions. When you study a lot, your head will be constantly filled with new knowledge.
At the same time, you probably experience less stress because you will be so much more focused.
Drawbacks from studying a lot
The most important thing is that you will have a lot less personal or work time. Sure, you will study faster, but what about time to do other things? What about time with your family and friends? What about having a social life if you study the entire weekend and most weekday evenings?
You may not have enough time to let all that information from your courses sink in. Sure, you can gain a lot of theoretical knowledge. But you don’t need to become a trivia machine. You want to be able to use what you learned in real life. (and if you don’t have a real-life, you don’t know how to have practical expertise).
You can have less stress when studying a lot. Yet studying all the time may result in feeling stressed about the process itself. There is no time for relaxing.
As you can see, studying a lot can be useful if you like to cover many pages in a short time. It does however create problems like stress and implementation of your new knowledge. It is up to you to find a balance in all of this.
One thing I should note is that for one person studying a lot means studying 8 hours a day. Some people can do this easily because of their situation. You may even feel that studying 30 to 60 minutes is a lot. Everybody is different, so try to find the right balance between work, personal time, and study. You are the only person who can figure this out. (of course, I can help you and guide you, but that is only if you want that)
A Simple Daily Study Routine
A simple study routine that I often talk about is this.
Read for 20 minutes in the evening. Highlight important sections. Read, not to remember, only to get familiar with it. Afterward, go to sleep and let your subconscious mind deal with the information.
In the morning, get up early. Go over the highlighted information. Take notes (mind map your notes). Re-read if you don’t fully understand what you read. This takes about 20-30 minutes.
During the day you go over your notes 2 times. This may take about 5 minutes each time.
In total, you studied for 1 hour. This does not include working on assignments and papers. Of course, there are other techniques you can use. This is a basic study routine that can help you study for 1 hour per day.
Study Routine: Smart Reading
Conclusion
Studying one hour per day is doable for most people. Yes, you too can study for one hour even though you may have a full-time job and a family. As you can see, this is possible by chunking your study time.
Study for 30 minutes in the early morning. Do this by getting up 30 minutes earlier. Remember to go to bed a little earlier as well. Getting up 30 minutes earlier isn’t bad if you do this. You can use these 30 minutes to recap what you read earlier. You can also go over questions you want to answer based on your exam.
You may do some light reading or note-taking during the day.
