How to Study

Take Advantage of “In-between” Time
You can be even more productive by identifying the little windows 
of opportunity that open every day. They don’t arrive with much 
fanfare, so if you’re not alert to them, you’ll never even notice them.
What must you do with this “inbetween” time, while you’re stuck in
traffic, waiting in line, or sitting by the phone? Recognize it as soon
as it occurs and utilize it immediately by taking premeditated action.
If you don’t have a plan, you will waste this time!
Here are some suggestions:
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Make phone calls. 
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Read something. 
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Mail letters. 
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Pick up groceries (or make your grocery list). 
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Clean your desk and return things to their proper places. 
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Review your daily schedule and reprioritize, if necessary. 
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Go through your mail. 
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Write a quick note or letter home. 
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Proofread some or all of one of your papers. 
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Think! (About an upcoming assignment, a paper you’re 
writing, any upcoming project.) 
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Relax! 
How Perfect Are You?
Superior students show they care about their work and consistently
apply the effort necessary to achieve their goals. Perfectionists care
perhaps too much, finding it impossible to be satisfied with anything
less than “perfect” work (as they define it), presuming for a moment
that such an ideal can actually be attained.
It is possible, of course, to score a “perfect” 100 on a test or to get 
an A+ on a paper the teacher calls “Perfect!” in the margin. But in
reality, doing anything “perfectly” is an impossible task.
How to Study
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What does all this have to do with you? Nothing, unless you find
yourself spending two hours polishing what is already an A+ paper 
or half an hour searching for that one “perfect” word or an hour
rewriting great notes to make them “absolutely perfect.” In other
words, while striving for perfection may well be a noble trait, it can
easily, perhaps inevitably, become an uncontrollable and unstoppable
urge that seriously inhibits your enjoyment of your work and your 
life.
If you find yourself fighting this demon, remind yourself (frequently)
of the Law of Diminishing Returns: Your initial effort yields the biggest
results, with each succeeding effort yielding proportionately less. 
And there comes a point where even the most prodigious efforts yield
negligible results. This applies not only to perfectionists, but also to
those of you who scoff at the very thought of using a “simple” out-
line or producing a “formulaic” report. You do not have to always be
innovative, dazzling, and creative. You do not have to invent a new,
multimedia, interactive book report. Sometimes a good six-page book
report that gets an A– is just fine, and that A+ “innovation” is more
trouble (and time!) than it’s worth!
When I am tempted to do far more than necessary, just because 
it would be a “cool” solution (and time consuming and wasteful 
and inefficient and difficult), I think of George Simenon, the French
author best known for his Inspector Maigret mystery series—and 
the 500 total books he wrote in his lifetime. How did he do it…
and still have time to eat and sleep? Simple—he used only 2,000
vocabulary words (out of the 800,000 plus available to him) so 
he wouldn’t have to interrupt his writing to consult a dictionary or
thesaurus. (And he probably didn’t eat or sleep much.)
If you really would prefer spending another couple of hours polishing
that A+ paper or searching for a website your teacher’s never heard
of to taking in a movie, reading a book, or getting some other assignment
done, be my guest. Is the extra effort really worth it? Maybe in some
cases, but not usually.
Chapter 2
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How to Organize Your Studying
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