Disclaimer first: I am not saying that I stick to all of the below guides/tipps all the time and entirely. I may not always follow all of these, sometimes a tipp doesn't apply to a certain subject, sometimes I may be tired or too focused on the task at hand to take notes and later cannot put it into words anymore in a way that makes sense. Also, this may not apply or appeal to everone.
But I collected some guidelines and ideas for myself on how to study more effectively. here we go!
Time to reflect
For example once a week, ideally at the end of a week, but this could even be a daily habit if one has the time and energy: put time aside for reflection. Questions to ask yourself may be...
- What did you learn this week/today, that wasn't clear to youbefore?
- What was (most) difficult and why?
- What would you do differently next time?
- What are/were reoccurring points of struggle?
- Which mistakes did you repeat or what things did you forget repeatedly?
Noteworthy during a coding session
Some things that could help if they were documented while trying to solve a problem. Reflection doesn't have to result in a solution.
- What did you try first and why did you think that would work?
- What confused or hindered/blocked you?
- What did you understand after getting the answer (no matter if you found the solution yourself or if it was given to you)?
Before asking for a solution
Before asking online, another person or an AI, try finding clarity by answering these questions:
- What do you think where the error lies?
- What did you try to test that theory?
- What else could you try?
Don't just document
Yes, document, but that doesn't mean to mindlessly writing stuff down. Instead, write your thought processes as working through problems. Bonus tipp: if you're lazy to write, self-talk can also help. This is assuming you are studying/coding by yourself.
You can also document useful code snippets and error logs (ideally in a way that you can retrace what they meant).
Bonus Tipps: You can try to sum up what happened in a tutorial you've been watching - afterwards, otherwise it's cheating. And when you write your documentation you may or may not want to use color-coding and/or a tag- or symbol system (⚠️❓💡). In the end there is always the possibility to turn this into a cheat sheet :-)
PS: Works digitally and also manually. Whichever you prefer, I do a combination of both.
I hope you found this useful!
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