But the number one reason that students don't study is because studying just takes too long.

And I still remember despising school and hoping and hoping that my teachers wouldn't announce a new test.

Because if they announced a new test, that would mean more studying.

And studying meant having to sit down on the weekends and spend hours upon hours doing something that I didn't want to do.

It felt so boring, tedious and daunting.

And you know procrastination is actually caused by this daunting feeling.

So by learning how to study fast, I slowly rewired studying from something that I despised and I always hated to do, something that would take lots of time, to something that's quick and easy and simple.

And since I started to be studying on that way, I ended up procrastinating less and I got better and better results.

And in case you haven't met before, I'm Stephen, also known as JSpark, and I got this set of perfect results in my GCSEs.

But the key is, I was able to do this while studying little, so that I had time to do all these other things.

And I'm going to teach you how to do the exact same.

The first way to study faster is to manage your expectations.

There was a study done and there were two groups of people that were followed.

One group of these people associated ageing with illness.

And they'd like, they'd had beliefs such as, oh I'm going to age so poorly, when I age my skin's going to become all like wrinkly, it's just going to be like diseases, like bad stuff, like negativity, right?

Whereas one group had a more positive outlook on ageing.

They had a more, it is what it is, like I'm going to live my best life.

And like, you know, I'm actually going to take care of myself and you know that ageing's not even going to be that bad.

And the crazy part is that the group who expected to age poorly actually did.

They went to like the hospital more frequently, they literally had like a worse quality of life when they did tests, like they were more prone to get diseases, they had worse skin.

Whereas the group with the positive outlook aged well and they actually did end up living their best life.

Expectations are powerful.

It literally has an effect on your well-being and health when it comes to like the ageing.

And so your expectations when it comes to studying can actually dictate how long it takes.

And since whenever I sat down to study on those weekends, I'd always be like, oh man, this is going to take forever, this is going to take hours, it's going to be so boring.

My study sessions ended up taking hours and actually being boring.

Next time you sit down, use this framework.

Say it out loud.

This task or like whatever it is, so past papers, studying, etc.

This is only going to take X amount of time.

Easy.

And as crazy as it sounds, when you start a task with this positive outlook and you tell yourself that it will only take like a certain amount of time, as opposed to, oh my god, this is going to take so much time, you end up finding ways to do something quicker, you're more focused and you'll be more efficient.

As David Robson said, by changing your perception, you can change the way you act.

And if you're tired of just being average and school feeling tedious and you just feel like you're not making enough progress, it just all starts with a change.

I used to be kind of mediocre, average, until I made a change and that led me to get these results.

But you can't get this without knowing what to change.

And there's so much that you need to learn, especially if you want to study fast like I did, because I needed to have the time to do all these other things that I still love.

So if you want to learn how to study efficiently, you want to learn how to become a top student in all aspects, get the extracurriculars, build up an impressive portfolio, it all starts with learning how to be productive, how to be efficient.

And these are all things that I teach you in this free study masterclass.

So make sure to check that out.

First link in the description.

It's completely free.

Anyway, back to the video.

The second chapter is you're doing too much.

Imagine you're a miner and you're looking for gold.

You dig and dig and dig, but most of the dirt you find is just regular dirt.

However, in a small part of the mine, you discover a huge vein of gold.

That small area is what gave you most of your wealth, right?

That's the 80-20 rule.

In studying, there are certain concepts like gold, they're worth more than others.

And you can find these gold nuggets, which isn't found everywhere.

They're only found in certain areas.

And when you focus your study time on those areas, you're going to end up getting so much more better results.

You don't have to dig everywhere to find treasure.

You need to focus on the right spots.

The main reason that studying takes a lot of time is because you spend time studying everything.

But let me tell you something.

Let me make this a rule.

From now on, you should only be spending time on studying areas that are your weak points or areas that will be tested heavily in exams.

Suddenly, you're not having to spend time on your strong points because although that's the most fun part of revision, because you're going to get all this stuff right, you're not actually learning anything new.

And when you revise, you need to study the areas that will come up in the exams.

And so when you study heavyweight topics in the exams, you know you can bag yourself the most marks.

And this 80-20 rule can also be applied in the context of how you study.

During your study sessions, 20% of what you do actually gives you 80% of the results.

And then the remaining 80% of that only actually gives you 20% of the results.

And so it makes sense to only focus on 20%, especially when we're trying to study fast.

The way to find out what parts of your study session are the most important is to ask this one question.

If I only had two hours a week to study for whatever subject that you're trying to study for, what would it look like?

It may seem like a ludicrously short amount of time, since you might be used to multiple hour-long study sessions per day.

But once you ask yourself this question, you naturally categorise the most important and non-important parts of your study sessions.

For me, before I optimised my study sessions, it would contain a lot of relearning.

I'd reread textbooks, I'd reread notes, and then I'd review, and then finally I'd test.

But if I had only two hours a week to study for that subject, I'd focus on just doing past papers.

Because actually getting familiar with the exam structure and getting to know what kind of questions might come up is far, far more valuable than actually relearning.

Because you're not trying to relearn everything when it comes to your exam.

It's called revising for a reason, it's not relearning.

And a common thing that a lot of students say when I advocate for you to do past papers is, I can't just do past papers since I'm not actually learning anything.

But studies prove that you actually learn most through your mistakes.

And so when you do papers and you get stuff wrong and you review the mistakes, that's more of an efficient learning than all the other study techniques put together.

It's not study or revision if you're not making mistakes, and so you should focus your time on that.

And the third tip is to put a timer on.

This is a kind of a unique tip, but try timing your study sessions when you do them.

There's many reasons for this.

Firstly, when you have a timer in front of you, you're acutely aware of how much time you're spending on the study session.

And so you see that if you've been studying for like an hour already, you know how much time has elapsed and you know if you need to speed up or slow down.

Also, studies actually prove that when you time doing something, humans are just naturally inclined to try and get it done in the least amount of time possible.

That's why speed runs exist, right?

And also, when you have a timer on, you can also start to set targets.

I want to get this task done in one hour.

And when one hour passes, you know if you've been efficient or not.

And that's why when you like climb mountains, there's checkpoints.

Like by like hour 14, you want to get to like the checkpoint A, checkpoint B.

And imagine instead of that, you just said you wanted to get to the top of the mountain by four days time.

During those four days, you wouldn't know if your pace is correct or not.

You can start to do the same with study.

When I used to study poorly, I would never tell myself like how long I'd be there.

I just say like I need to study.

And so I ended up spending the whole day there, eight hours.

And as we talked about, my brain started associating study sessions to be eight hours long, right?

And so I dreaded it.

And that led to procrastination.

But the trick is to always set the time that you're going to use to study to be something that's unrealistically realistic.

Parkinson's law says that your task will always fill the dedicated time that you give it.

So actually, although one hour might be unrealistic, then you might think that it's like, oh my God, there's no way I can finish this in one hour.

I used to think this as well.

But when I actually like gave myself one hour or two hours to do the task, that would normally take eight hours.

You'd be surprised that I actually found that I could get it done in that amount of time.

Never underestimate efficiency, the flow state, and getting things done in the least amount of time.

Don't believe me?

Set up a time of your next study session, and you'll be surprised about how efficient you are.

And if you like this video, you probably like learning from me.

And so if you want to make sure that your student years are the best they can be, you want to get the top grades like I've done, you might want to check out the Student Accelerator.

It's where me and experts help you become the best student you can be with exclusive courses, workshops, and live calls.

The value there is immense.

Make sure to check out our first link in the description.

But as always, take action, and I'll see you in the next one.