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Cram well, without the guilt

Time, memory and flow. Three strategies that make cramming work when it is your only realistic option.

Three Highly Effective Learning Strategies
According To My Research  ·  Gian Pittard
DVFZ Training Consultancy Services, 2022  ·  4 chapters in 6 ideas

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PEAK TROUGH REBOUND time memory flow

01 The premise

Cramming is not a character flaw

The research definition sounds like an accusation: a period of neglect followed by a concentrated burst of studying immediately before an exam. The same research notes that even successful students routinely cram.

Adults cram for two honest reasons. Either the subject is too easy or too hard to hold their motivation, or life has genuinely taken the hours. Choosing a crying child over an open textbook is not neglect. Delay is part of making priorities.

The delays worth fixing are the voluntary ones that quietly damage your performance and your wellbeing. Everything else deserves a plan, not an apology.

Do this now

Answer one question honestly: why do you cram? Lack of motivation, low confidence, distraction, or competing responsibilities? The answer decides which of the three strategies will carry the most weight for you.

Why do I cram? By choice By necessity motivation is missing the hours are gone Time  ·  Memory  ·  Flow
Both routes into cramming end at the same three strategies. Only the emphasis changes.

02 Strategy one  ·  time

Perfect timing: stop racing the clock and use it

Chronobiology says your internal clock already knows when you learn best. Your chronotype, lark or owl, sets when you are naturally alert. Forcing study into the wrong window costs you hours you do not have.

Underneath the chronotype there is a daily shape most people share: a sharp, focused peak, a midday trough that is good for very little, and an evening rebound that is calm rather than sharp.

Match the task to the window. Analytical work and problem solving belong in the peak. Insight work, re-reading notes and reflecting, belongs in the rebound. The trough belongs to nothing.

Find your own peak

Recall the last day nothing demanded your time. What hour did you wake without an alarm? When were you most alert? That is your peak, whatever the textbook curve says.

PEAK TROUGH REBOUND analytical work nothing useful insight work problem solving, new material notes, re-reading, reflection ALERTNESS
The daily curve is not advice about willpower. It is a schedule: hard work at the peak, light work at the rebound.

03 Strategy two  ·  memory

Creative memory: make it mean something or lose it

Memory holds what has meaning. With hours instead of weeks, the fastest way to build meaning is three processing techniques, used in order.

Elaborative interrogation asks how the new text connects to what you already know. Self-explanation asks why the text is telling you this and what it does for you personally. Practice testing asks what you can still recall with the book shut.

Practice testing while cramming does not mean writing a mock paper. It means deliberately remembering. Trying to retrieve something is what makes the memory durable.

New experiences are often nothing more than new arrangements of information that we already possess.Tigner, 2010
1. Elaborative interrogation How does this connect to what I already know? 2. Self-explanation Why is it telling me this, and what does it do for me? 3. Practice testing With the book shut, what do I actually remember? builds on then proves
Two techniques build the meaning, the third checks whether it stuck. Skipping the third wastes the first two.

04 Strategy three  ·  flow

Flow: get in the zone on purpose

Flow is total involvement, the state where you lose track of time and of yourself. It happens when your capacities and the opportunities around you are well matched, which is why one person's ideal coffee shop is another person's noise.

Four conditions make it repeatable: a clear goal, attention centred on the work, loss of ego, and a felt sense of competence and control. Set them deliberately and the venue matters far less than you think.

Flow is not reserved for good days. When circumstances are bad, give the problem its own time slot outside the session. That is mental discipline, not denial.

The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1997
In the zone Clear goal Centred attention Loss of ego Competence set all four and the venue stops mattering
Flow is not luck. It is four conditions you can set before you sit down.

05 Putting it together

Which technique goes in which window

The three strategies are not three separate things to do. Time decides when, memory decides what, and flow decides how well.

Elaborative interrogation and self-explanation both take creative mental effort, so both belong in your peak. Split the time between them and skip neither: one connects new material to old knowledge, the other connects it to your own life.

Practice testing is deep thinking but stores nothing new, so it fits the rebound comfortably.

The whole plan in one line

Peak: interrogate and self-explain. Rebound: practice test. Trough: rest. Set the four flow conditions before every session.

WINDOW WHAT YOU DO Peak most alert Elaborative interrogation Self-explanation Trough sleepiest Rest. Good for little effort. Rebound calm, attentive Practice testing FLOW CONDITIONS SET BEFORE EVERY SESSION
One schedule, three strategies. Flow runs underneath all of it rather than sitting in its own slot.

06 The whole book

Time, memory, flow

The strategies are not tools you have to acquire. The internal clock, the memory that makes meaning, and the capacity for flow are already in you.

Time

Perfect Timing

Know your chronotype, find your peak and rebound, and schedule hard work and light work into the right windows.

Memory

Creative Memory

Connect new material to old knowledge, then to your own life, then close the book and retrieve it.

Flow

Flow Experience

Clear goal, centred attention, loss of ego, felt competence. Set the four and the hours stop leaking.

The last lesson is the shortest one. Lose the guilt. Sometimes we do what we need to do to survive, cramming included, and the last person who needs to judge you is you.

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Adapted from Three Highly Effective Learning Strategies According To My Research
Gian Pittard  ·  © 2022 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services  ·  26 cited sources in the source edition