1. 1-Sentence-Summary:
1.1. How to Become a Straight-A Student gives you the techniques A+ students have used to pass college with flying colors and summa cum laude degrees, without compromising their entire lives and spending every minute in the library, ranging from time management and note-taking tactics all the way to how you can write a great thesis.
2. Favorite quote from the author:
2.1. "The simple truth is that the brute force techniques used by most students are incredibly inefficient." - Cal Newport
3. 3 lessons:
3.1. Increase focus while studying, decrease frequency.
3.1.1. Last minute cramming, pulling all nighters and 14-hour workday may feel productive, but really just amount to a lot of what Cal calls pseudo-working, because your concentration takes massive hits from all the interruptions and constant energy drain.
3.1.2. The studies Cal looked at agreed on roughly 50 minutes being the ideal study session length.
3.1.2.1. As long as you spend those 50 minutes on nothing but one task (e.g. studying flash cards or writing a paper), three of these level 10 focus sessions per day will get you just as far as ten hours spent with an average focus level of 3 (just making these up to compare).
3.1.3. Ruthlessly prioritize and manage your time with a calendar that’s always available for you to update and that you strictly follow.
3.1.4. Eliminate distractions. No phones, Facebook feeds, web surfing or snacking!
3.2. Keep a work progress journal to uncover your excuses.
3.2.1. Each morning, write down your most important tasks, including classes you have to go to, exams you have to study for, homework you have to hand in and even chores like fixing the TV or doing laundry.
3.2.2. At night, you check off everything you’ve accomplished. Now, you have to give an explanation for everything that didn’t get done.
3.2.3. Having to write down “I watched TV until 2 AM so I woke up groggy and couldn’t focus” for the third time really, really sucks
3.2.4. You’ll eventually show yourself that it’s always the same excuses that keep you from doing what’s important.
3.2.5. Since it’s hard to believe yourself when you say that “you really can’t change your late-night TV watching habits”, you’ll likely get tired of the excuse yourself after a while and procrastinating will become a lot less fun.
3.3. Use the three P’s to move through exams smoothly.
3.3.1. Planning.
3.3.1.1. In the planning section, you’ll simply flip through the entire exam, take stock of what questions you have to answer, and map out a quick order of how you’ll tackle the questions, as well as allot some time to each of them.
3.3.1.2. Keep a ten minute buffer at the end though.
3.3.2. Proceeding.
3.3.2.1. Then you proceed to answer the questions, starting with the easier ones.
3.3.2.2. Tackling a hard one first puts too much pressure on you (there’s already enough of it thanks to the time limit), so get some quick wins to boost your confidence.
3.3.2.3. After that you can move on to harder problems.
3.3.3. Proofreading.
3.3.3.1. Lastly, use your last ten minutes (and any additional, remaining time) to proofread and correct any mistakes you find or add important information you previously left out.
3.3.3.2. It’s tempting to skip this last part and just finish early, but don’t.