The Habit Loop is a three-step process that explains how habits form and stick over time. It consists of the Cue, Routine, and Reward. This loop helps you build positive, lasting behaviors.

What Is The Habit Loop?

The Cue is the trigger that initiates the habit. It could be something as simple as a notification, a time of day, or a specific location.

Step 1: Cue

The Routine is the action you take in response to the Cue. This is the behavior you want to build into a habit, such as working out, journaling, or meditating.

Step 2: Routine

The Reward is the positive reinforcement you receive after completing the routine. It motivates you to repeat the behavior, making it a solid habit over time.

Step 3: Reward

By understanding and using the Habit Loop, you can better control how habits form, making it easier to build routines that stick and create lasting positive changes in your life.

Why It Works

This short explains the habit loop, a foundational topic in habit formation. Read on to get a distilled breakdown of the concept, and learn where you should focus most.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

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Personal Development

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Habits

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Videos

Don’t Form Habits Without This…

Chunking is the process of taking small pieces of information and grouping them into larger, more manageable unitsThink of organizing your pantry – instead of having dozens of individual spices scattered around, you categorize them by type (Italian herbs, baking spices, etc.).

What Is Chunking?

Research shows that we can hold around 4 pieces of information in our short term memory at a time––chunking allows us to group multiple smaller ideas into a single big piece of information . Basically, we’ve tricked the system.

Tricking The System

<ul><li>Encoding: The act of chunking strengthens the connections between individual pieces of information. When you encode information (learn it for the first time), you want it to enter your short term memory with as much street cred as possible ––having it in a group gives it the street cred it means to enter your long term memory earlier. </li><li>Relational Power: Chunking taps into the brain’s natural ability to identify patterns and relationships. By grouping similar ideas together, we can see how they connect and build a <a href="https://edefficiency.com/studying/7-powerful-ways-to-study-for-an-exam/">stronger mental framework </a>for understanding the bigger picture. </li> </ul>

Why Chunking’s Important

Take AP United States History (APUSH) for example. You’re studying conflicts between Native American tribes and European settlers throughout American history.<ul><li>Try grouping conflicts by region, timeframe, or theme</li></ul>

Case Study: APUSH

<ul><li>Chunk 1: Conflicts over land acquisition in the Northeast (King Philip’s War, Metacom’s War) </li><li>Chunk 2: Resistance movements in the Southeast (The Creek War, Tecumseh’s Rebellion) </li> </ul>

The Chunks Would Look Like This:

Or, you might chunk Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s New Deal policies if you’re studying the Great Depression: <ul><li>Chunk 1: Job programs (CCC, CWA, PWA, TVA, etc.) </li><li>Chunk 2: Aid programs (REA, FERA, etc.) </li> </ul>

FDR Policies: More Chunks

This chunking approach makes the information easier to digest, but most importantly, easier to compare to other pieces of information . If you want to compare the job programs of FDR to Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ)’s Great Society programs, you can just say “FDR’s job programs were more robust than LBJ’s” instead of having to compare each individual FDR organization to its LBJ counterpart.

What This Accomplishes:

Learning is a cyclical process . Chunking on the first pass should focus on grasping the overall structure and key concepts. Subsequent passes can then deal with clarifying the relationships between the smaller details within each chunk.

Learning Is Cyclical(!!!)

By incorporating chunking into your study routine, you’ll be well on your way to transforming overwhelming information into manageable, memorable knowledge. So next time you’re faced with a mountain of information, remember – chunking is your secret weapon for conquering complex concepts and achieving deeper learning.

Conclusion

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Problem Solving

Chunking: A Student's Best Weapon for Exams - EdEfficiency

Procrastination is a universal struggle for students, making it difficult to initiate study sessions. This article aims to dissect the psychological underpinnings of procrastination and offers evidence-based strategies rooted in learning psychology to overcome this challenge.

Procrastination | A Research-driven Approach

Procrastination is multifaceted, stemming from the human inclination toward immediate rewards over long-term goals. Fear of failure exacerbates the issue, creating a cycle of procrastination and heightened anxiety. The article emphasizes the need to first be able to understand these psychological aspects before developing strategies to solve the problem.This way, you address the root causes of procrastination.

Understanding the Complexity of Procrastination

<ul><li>Learning psychology offers valuable strategies to overcome procrastination.</li><li>The concept of "chunking" – breaking down study material into manageable parts – makes learning more enjoyable, and greatly increases retention</li><li>Active learning techniques, such as summarizing and teaching, enhance learning and retention.</li><li>Applying these techniques makes study sessions more productive and enjoyable.</li></ul>More enjoyable & productive learning = less procrastination

Learning Psychology Insights

<ul><li>Setting clear study goals and breaking them into achievable tasks is crucial.</li><li>Establishing a study schedule aligned with energy levels helps create a structured routine.</li><li>Minimizing distractions, like turning off phone notifications, fosters a conducive study environment.</li><li>The Pomodoro Technique, involving focused work followed by breaks, aids in maintaining motivation.</li></ul>

Practical Strategies to Overcome Procrastination

<ul><li>Procrastination is a common challenge but can be conquered with understanding and strategies.</li><li>Setting clear goals, utilizing effective study techniques, and implementing practical strategies are key.</li><li>Students have the power to take control of their study habits and achieve academic success.</li></ul>

Conclusion: Empowering Students to Overcome Procrastination

This article is crucial as it addresses a pervasive issue—student procrastination—and provides actionable insights and strategies based on research.

This article presents a research-supported approach to overcoming procrastination, employing concepts from learning psychology to fix the root of the problem.

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The Psychology of Procrastination: Unlocking the Secrets to Studying Efficiency

Literature is not only a mirror; it is a map, a geography of the mind.

Because of various benefits which one can reap from Mind Maps, it will help you succeed in academia, or in the workplace. They allow you to bridge the gap between the thought and the capture, thus improving retention.

The Importance of Mind Maps

Mind maps are a visual representation of information, with branches representing subtopics from a common idea.

What are Mind Maps?

The slash mind map utilizes slashes in favor of classic notes. You can have branches which cover more specific information.

The Slash Mind Map

It will save you significant amounts of time if you omit specific facts from a lecture. Instead, cover broad topics with each node. You can always search things up.

No facts - Just concepts

<ol><li>Start with your main idea</li><li>Add branches to this idea</li><li>Add images/colors</li><li>Continue branching</li></ol>

The Guide

Make a node in your mind map, generally the title of the lecture, or the main idea of the current slide.Remember - stay as general as possible.

The Main Idea

The initial branches should still be general. As you branch out further, and the radial tree gets more complex, the nodes become more specific in scope.Don't jot facts here. This should just be a title of the subtopic, or concept.

Branching out

If you are a visual learner, and find joy in aesthetic colors/images, you can supplement the mind map structure with auxiliary images.Try to do this after the lecture is over.

Images/Colors

I have started to use mind maps more often, and I love them. They force you to take what the lecturer says, and summarize it as simply as possible. Further, you have to break that summary into logical, coherent parts. I can take a glance at my lesson summaries, and see the general flow of the lecture. If I need to see a specific topic, I can search the tree formation by subtopic, or use Google if necessary.

Final Thoughts

I recently wrote an article on my blog, EdEfficiency, on the topic of Mind Maps. I started implementing them in my Biology lectures, and saw miraculous results. I was able to remember more content, and had easy notes to reference later on.

Active recall allows the user to study much more efficiently. It prompts 
you to recall the term from your memory, instead of trying to embed it 
there through re-reading. This article teaches you active recall techniques 
that you can implement right away.

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Active Recall: The path to mastery. | EdEfficiency

Despite the vehement push of our contemporary culture to despise laziness, and champion discipline, laziness can actually be utilized to your advantage.

Inherent Laziness

In essence, if you make something easier to begin, you will be more likely to make substantive progress on that activity. This applies to habit building as well - you are more likely to ingrain a habit that is easier to start and perform.

Easier = Better

You can accomplish this in a myriad of ways:<ol><li>Have a dedicated area for studying.</li><li>Put your study paraphernalia in places of easy access. </li><li>Have similar items together (pens in a jar, books on a bookshelf, etc.)</li><li>Try to stay organized as best as possible.</li></ol>

Making it 'easier'

The converse of this idea is that: If you make something harder to begin/access, you will make little/no progress on that activity. This is an important notion for removing unnecessary elements from our studying lives.

The Converse

If you are distracted by Instagram, YouTube, Netflix, TikTok, or any other social media app, we can use this method to remove them, and be less distracted whilst studying.

Applications for this idea

As you can probably guess, we accomplish this by making these things harder to access.<ol><li>Put your phone into another room - you will have to walk over to the other room in order to access it.</li><li>Silence notifications</li><li>If applicable, use a website blocker to temporarily prevent you from accessing distracting websites.</li></ol>

How to accomplish this

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”

If we can make something as easy as possible, 'just getting started' will seem like a breeze, and you will see an immediate improvement in your life, wherever you apply it.

If you want to study well, you need to make studying as easy as possible. 
The answer to this lies in our inherent human characteristics, and, if used 
correctly, can prevent procrastination, and make studying easier to begin.

Don’t Form Habits Without This…

Chunking: A Student's Best Weapon for Exams - EdEfficiency

The Psychology of Procrastination: Unlocking the Secrets to Studying Efficiency

Active Recall: The path to mastery. | EdEfficiency

How to make Studying Easier. | EdEfficiency

Jeremy Kamber