In today’s increasingly digital world, endless amounts of information and resources are readily available at our fingertips. But instead of being helpful, this often leads to confusion, distraction, and frustration.

When things take us longer than they should, it’s usually because we are overloading ourselves with resources, leading us to feeling overwhelmed.

If you are always looking for more resources or better techniques to help you achieve your goal, but instead wear yourself out in the process without reaching the end, you are probably overloaded. In this case, you fall into the category of being a busy but not productive student.

The most productive and efficient students are those that “own their study session” rather than letting their hours and distractions own them. They work to make every session as productive as possible.

Whether you lean more towards the “busy” category or the “productive” one, do not panic. This is something we can change and get better with over time. Let's explore the possible factors that are leading you to overwhelm your study sessions and learn how to avoid them.

Exaggerated or redundant investigation

You may be doing too much reading because you don’t want to miss the potential key ideas of that essay or explanation. You are eagerly convinced that you are not going to move on to the next step until you have all the most incredible ideas underlined and illuminated with different coloured highlighters. Two or three relevant readings will normally be enough to become aware of the main issues.

As you read, develop an outline of your answer to the question. My favourite study technique is to develop an organisational hierarchy of ideas, but a mind map or a "question and answer" draft are quite effective too.

This will help us to…

1.      decide how much space we can devote to each topic.

2.      get a balanced overview of the knowledge needing to be addressed.

3.      work out when we can stop researching.

Inessential planning

Due to the fear of achievement, we tend to wear ourselves out by creating the perfect plan before even taking the first step. For example:

Before studying a topic, you plan to increase your perspective and substantiate your knowledge. So, you fill your desk with the topic’s main book along with thousands of other possible books that develop the topic as well, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, notebooks, the respective thermos of coffee and headphones. When you’re finally ready to start studying, you realise you’ve invested more than an hour in accumulating all those resources on your desk—and your coffee has turned cold.

It is not necessary to know precisely how we are going to develop each step in the process. Instead, keep it simple and have a clearly identified final goal.

Whilst it’s a good idea to know where you’re going before you start, you don’t need to include every detail in your plan.

Plethora of writing

Just because the whole process of writing involves visual perception and motor function, that does not mean it should take up most of our time. The effectiveness of this technique should not be the goal itself. The excessive redrafting in our study sessions can lead to an unnecessary consumption of our precious time.

It's a good idea for a first draft to get the main arguments outlined in a summary. After that, we can focus on developing succinct reasons and explanations that will complement our writing.

Overcome distractions

One of the common complaints we might have is that we have been studying for days for a test we ended up failing anyway. External distractions can slow us down when we are trying to study.

The reality is that during these "study days," we only got 30 or 45 minutes of quality and efficient study immersion time. The rest of the time was spent getting lost in reading and rereading a topic whilst being distracted.

Studying too much can destroy our grades

“Study more, work harder, focus more” is the worst advice someone can give you, as it’s pushing you to spend your time inefficiently.

It's like if someone is walking the wrong way: they are walking fast but in the wrong direction.

It is recommended that rather than chaining yourself to your desk and working continuously over long periods, you should break up your study into chunks and have frequent, short breaks.

In my study sessions, I apply the Pomodoro Technique to achieve sustained concentration and avoid mental fatigue.