How to 10x Your Study Enjoyment, best routine

Studying is boring—so boring.

How can you be motivated to sit for hours and absorb information with the pressure of an upcoming exam?

When you start studying in a low mental state, you’re passive and unmotivated. You do only the bare minimum, your mind feels less sharp, and it takes you a long time to understand even simple concepts.

You start seeing studying only as a chore—boring, exhausting, and long.

Well, I know you sometimes feel like this too. I’ve been there too many times.

But there’s one life-changing shift that helped me get out of this phase.

And that is the concept of ownership.

Ownership

It’s based on the fact that humans love control.

We like to control what we do, when we do it, with whom, and for how long…

This tendency to crave control is widely used in marketing and customer service.

For example, in marketing, people create quizzes before customizing a product or service so you feel it’s made specifically for you, making you more likely to buy it.

Another astonishing example for me is the button at traffic lights. Did you know that most of those buttons aren’t even connected to the electric current?

They’re there simply because people feel better having "control" over when the traffic light will turn green.

(I discovered this in a book, The Art of Thinking Clearly, which talks about this “control” bias.)

Okay, so we understand that humans love control, but how does this relate to studying?

In studying, we can use this need for “control” to our advantage.

In fact, one of the biggest reasons students lose motivation and interest in studying is that they don’t feel they have control over it.

Think about a game:

If you know you have no control over winning or losing—that it’s pure luck or determined by the game itself—what’s the point of playing? You lose interest immediately!

The same thing happens with studying: school gives you everything—the exam date, what to study, how hard you need to study, and “the method” of reading, summarizing, repeating, and not much more.

Students fall into the routine, and it gets boring, especially if you don’t see improvements in your grades.

So, how can you regain some sense of control over studying and enjoy it more, like a game?

Well, taking ownership of your study method is the first step.

Here are 3 tips to help you overcome this low mental state and find more interest and fun in studying:

1. Protagonism and Use of Visuals in Your Studying

We cannot change what to study and when, or the date of the exam, but we can change how we study.

In particular, we can move beyond the general conception that studying is “serious and boring,” especially when it comes to memorization.

We often think of memory as involving long texts to memorize, but that’s literally the worst way to memorize.

Memory is primarily visual and emotional.

The more emotionally engaged you are, and the more visuals, colors, and images you incorporate, the easier and quicker you’ll memorize.

I want to share a little technique to help with this: Protagonism.

Protagonism simply means “to be the character” in what you’re trying to memorize.

• When you need to memorize something, instead of focusing on the words, create a scene of what you have to memorize with yourself inside it.

This can be done in many different ways—it could be something you do, you being in the middle of a historical event, or something more science fiction-like, such as imagining yourself walking into a heart and naming its components.

The stranger the image, the better you’ll remember it.

It might sound strange, but trust me and try it—you’ll discover how easy it becomes.

We are so stuck in the idea that studying should be boring and memorizing hard that we create methods that are actually boring and ineffective.

This is your starting line to break free and start having a bit more fun with your brain when you memorize, returning to that childlike state when you were so good at learning.

If you want to learn how to master this technique and truly return to that easy way of studying, my ebook Fall in Love with Studying is for you—check it out.

2. Set Your Own Growth Goals Outside of Studying—Use It as Personal Training

Another way to gain more control over studying is to set your own goals.

And I don’t mean study goals.

I mean personal goals.

You can use studying as a moment to face your own limits—things you want to change or improve.

For example, improving your discipline or stopping procrastination.

Or learning to take more breaks and avoid burnout.

The fact is, studying is a challenging moment, and a lot of who we are comes out when we challenge ourselves: limiting beliefs, blockages, and things we just want to get better at.

Start seeing studying as a “you moment” where you train yourself to become a better version of yourself.

It will take on a whole new meaning.

3. Energy Routine

Another more “physical” thing that can help you is to create a better energy routine.

By this, I mean something that allows you to be effective without getting bored or losing focus.

The best routine I’ve found is the following, but you can create your own to better fit your needs.

1. Warm-Up: Your brain needs to transition from bed to studying; it needs to warm up, like a muscle. The more it’s warmed up, the more ready it is to receive information, and the easier it will be for you to study. The best way to warm up, I’ve found, is to take 15-20 minutes before studying to repeat/review the topics I studied the day before. This is effective because it refreshes your memory, helps you retain information longer, and also prepares you to connect new knowledge to what you already know.

2. Deep Studying: After you’re warmed up, you can enter a deep focus state for one or two 45-minute sessions (depending on your usual study habits). This is when you move faster—studying the material, creating mind maps or notes, and understanding it. Your mind is fresh and focused.

3. Active Studying: When your concentration starts to decrease, you can switch to active studying, which includes quizzes, questions, etc., and memorization (using the previously mentioned technique). This phase is about producing instead of absorbing, changing your mental state, and avoiding boredom or distraction. It’s like changing the game after a while.

The essential part of an effective routine is having a clear plan of what to do and when, optimizing your energy, and getting the most out of the time you spend studying.

If you want to learn how to study effectively, cut your study time in half (or more), and achieve excellence while enjoying the process, check this ebook out.

I hope you found these tips useful and inspiring to change and improve your relationship with studying.

XO,

Isa

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