How do your grades look like at the moment? Could they be better? It doesn’t matter if you’re aiming for top grades or trying to swim out of the uncomfortable lower grade range – improvement is always possible and I will show you how to improve your grades.
And not just better than others, but better than the grades you received last time. If you have set a goal to improve your grades, then this article is exactly what you need. I will show you 7 unusual things at first glance that will immediately improve your grade point average and propel you to new heights.
If you take these 7 things to heart, you won’t just get good grades. You’ll earn them.
#1 Time Blocking to Improve Your Grades
The biggest enemy of good grades is procrastination.
Distractions.
It has always been that way and will always be. To improve your grades, you don’t need to work harder, but smarter.
Those who achieve outstanding grades are rarely more intelligent or talented than you. They have simply found the right learning systems that work for them.
Here’s how time blocking works:
Every morning, at the same time, write down your most important tasks for the day. Start with the most important task. Important tasks are those that will have the biggest impact on your grades, such as reviewing study materials, completing sample exercises, or producing written work.
It’s best to do this with pen and paper in a notebook. Divide the time you have available into 90-minute blocks and schedule at least 20 minutes of break time in between.
Assign your first block to the most important task, the next block to the second most important, and so on. As your willpower decreases throughout the day, the likelihood of getting distracted increases.
#2 Journaling to Improve your Grades
For time blocking, you can use a journal. I always buy a simple black notebook without lines and place it where I start working every morning.
You have complete freedom in how you use your journal. It’s yours. The important thing is that you use it.
At the beginning, it’s extremely difficult to turn it into a habit. You have to persist with it. If you find it uncool to write down your thoughts, plans, and goals, then you have an ego problem. Transferring thoughts onto paper is key to mental clarity, creativity, and systematic success.
If you’re unsure how to start, here are three widely used techniques:
Gratitude: Write down 3 small or big things you’re sincerely grateful for every morning. Goals: Write down your 3 most important goals every morning. These usually remain the same. Reflection: Write down 3 situations every evening where you were dissatisfied with yourself. Consider how you would act differently next time.
Step out of your comfort zone and start a journal. Not because you saw it in a YouTube video, but because you want to do something for yourself.
#3 Mind Mapping to Improve Your Grades
Lists with 3 things or situations are nice, but there are even better techniques to work on yourself or develop your ideas. Mind maps.
One mind mapping techniques I find fascinating is called Creative Yield of Word Associations. With this technique, you write the topic or your idea as a single word horizontally on a page.
For example, CAREER. What does it mean to you? Now, you can only come up with words that start with the letters from the word CAREER. Then, you connect these words to the central word on the page.
For me, it could be Ambition, Reflection, Concentration, Energy, Empowerment, Relaxation.
Since you have only a few letters to work with, you have to think carefully to find the perfect terms that you associate with the word. When you start the exercise, you can almost hear the gears turning in your head.
#4 Spaced Repetition
The biggest mistake I made during my study years was starting too late. If I had known about spaced repetition back then, I could have achieved much better grades with the same effort.
You review your content (e.g., using flashcards) over an extended period of time. Instead of cramming all your studying into a few days before an exam, you spread those days out over a longer period and leave space in between. The opposite approach, intensive repetition in a short period, is significantly inferior to this method. This effect has been demonstrated by many studies.
The spacing effect causes the content to move into your long-term memory, making it easier for you to recall on the day of the exam. For this distributed repetition, you need to set time intervals that become increasingly larger. This way, you’ll effortlessly improve your grades.
Example: On Day 1, you learn Topic A, but you don’t study it on Day 2. On Day 3, you review it, but not on Days 4 and 5. On Day 6, you review it again, but not on Days 7, 8, and 9. And so on…
#5 W=TxI
This formula comes from Cal Newport’s book “How to Become a Straight-A Student.” W represents the work accomplished through studying. T is the time, and I is the intensity.
Now, let’s say you study for 20 hours for an exam, dividing it into 2 days. That means you study 10 hours per day. It’s practically impossible to study for 10 hours straight, and if we’re honest, about 5 hours are filled with distractions. So, the intensity, how deeply you engage with the material, might be around 5 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Thus, your W would be 100 (20×5).
However, if you spread those 20 hours over 5 days, studying for 4 hours each day, you can achieve a much higher intensity. Maybe an 8 out of 10.
In this case, your W would be 160 (20×8).
What an improvement in the same amount of time!
#6 Developing Joy in Reading to Improve Your Grades
Exams are not everything, of course. As you progress on your journey, your written assignments become increasingly important. The greatest lever to improve your writing skills is reading. There’s no if or but about it. What you read is not as important as the act of reading itself.
If the last book you read was Harry Potter Part 7, then you have a problem. Reading must become a normal part of your life. It must become a part of your daily routine.
If you feel like you’re not reading enough, try two things.
#1 Reading must be enjoyable for you. You can achieve this by not starting with Foucault, but maybe with Newport (as we mentioned earlier).
The more we use technology and social media, the harder it becomes for our brains to release dopamine while reading. We can’t manage to read for 30 minutes straight without succumbing to distractions. It has gotten so bad that it happens to us even while watching television. Do you sometimes watch TV and use your smartphone simultaneously?
If so, you have a long way to go. Start with 10 minutes of uninterrupted reading per day and gradually increase it.
#2 Try to read at the same time every day. When you consistently pick up a book at the same time or in the same situation, reading becomes automatic. I read for 30 minutes every evening before bed. Every day. For the past 10 years.
If that doesn’t work for you, find another situation. Read during every train ride or right after waking up. Read novels for fun and non-fiction books for learning. Read out of curiosity. Be hungry for new knowledge.
#7 Sleep Hygiene
If you’ve never read the book “Why We Sleep” or heard of its author Matthew Walker, there’s a good chance you underestimate the importance of sleep.
Did you know that people who consistently sleep less than 6 hours per night over a long period of time suffer brain damage?
Have you ever heard that older people need less sleep? Complete nonsense. It’s just that as we age, our bodies aren’t able to sleep continuously for long periods.
In terms of learning success, Professor Walker’s research has produced particularly interesting results. Your brain only stores what you’ve learned in the right places if you get enough sleep after studying.
According to Walker, participants in his study improved their ability to recall learned content by up to 30% when they increased their sleep duration.
So, when you’re faced with the decision the night before an exam: Study for another hour or go to bed early? Always choose your bed! If you have a challenging exam in the afternoon, take a nap. It will give you an extra boost for recalling your memories.