In this article, I will be covering everything related to where your study time actually goes and why it is not what you think it is. This particular topic is something that a lot of students never even realise is a problem until it is too late and their exam is right in front of them. So if you want to actually understand where your hours are disappearing and how to get them back then read this article till end.
Hello guys! What's up? My name is Prince Upadhyay and welcome to MegaMocks, your go-to place for exam prep tools and study strategies. So let's start with the topic...
So since exam season is coming and a lot of students are sitting down every day and feeling like they studied the whole day so the real question becomes why are they still not prepared. And this is something I personally went through as well — actually I remember sitting at my desk from 9 in the morning till like 9 at night and feeling completely exhausted and then getting a bad score and just being like how did that even happen. The reason is simple, you were not actually studying for those 12 hours. You were just present near your books and that is a completely different thing and a lot of students don't understand this particular difference.
In addition, a lot of people have this habit of telling themselves and others that they study 5 to 6 hours a day and they genuinely believe it too. But when researchers actually got students to log every single thing they did throughout the day and measure it properly then the actual number came out to be 2 to 3 hours. Sometimes even less than that. So since the gap between what you think you are doing and what you are actually doing is so massive so this particular gap is what is silently destroying your preparation and you don't even know it.
In this article I won't be going into detail about how to make a full study schedule which I have already covered that in another article. So do check that one out but later on. Right now what I want you to understand is this particular thing about time leakage and how it is happening to you every single day.
So let me tell you about the biggest thief first and that is your phone. The average person checks their phone 96 times in a single day and if you break that down it comes to once every 10 minutes and that is crazy when you think about it. So each check is maybe 30 seconds but — and this is the part most people don't get — after every single check your brain takes 15 to 20 minutes to get back into deep focus mode and so if you are checking your phone every 30 minutes during a study session then what you are actually doing is never entering deep focus at all. You are just doing this shallow surface level activity that feels like studying and looks like studying and you are sitting at your desk and everything but the actual output is a fraction of what it could be. It is kind of like when you are trying to fill a bucket with water but the bucket has a hole in it and you keep pouring and pouring and then you look at the bucket and it is still empty and you are like how is it so?
Now let's talk about passive study because this particular thing is one that a lot of students don't even consider a problem. Reading your notes, highlighting things, watching lecture videos — all of this feels productive because you are doing something related to the subject and so your brain kind of convinces you that you are working hard. But an hour of passive reading often gives you less learning then 20 minutes of active recall would give you. So since you are spending the time but not getting the proportional result so you end up studying for 3 hours and retaining what you could have retained in 45 minutes.
Then there is what I call the transition problem and this one is really sneaky. How much time do you spend before you actually start studying? Like you sit down and then you reorganise your notes a little bit and then you look for the right playlist and then you sharpen your pencil and then you check your phone one more time and before you know it 25 to 30 minutes have passed and you have not done a single thing yet. And this happens at the start of every single session so across a full week that is easily 2 to 3 hours that you have spent on absolutely nothing.
And then there is the unplanned break and this particular one is my personal enemy honestly. A planned break is totally fine and I will talk about that in a second but the unplanned break is dangerous. You tell yourself you will just check one thing online and it becomes 45 minutes. You go to get a glass of water and it becomes a full conversation. The break itself is not the issue — it is that you never decided when it would end and so it just keeps going and you are not even aware that it is happening. Okay?
The most accurate method is time tracking and what you do is you write down what you are actually doing in 30 minute blocks throughout the whole day. It is a little tedious for the first day but — honestly I was genuinely shocked the first time I tried this — you will be surprised at what you find. Most students who do this one particular exercise realise that their phone time alone is way higher then they estimated and their actual deep study time is a lot lower.
There is a tool called the Time Leakage Finder and this one makes the whole process a lot easier and so what you do is you enter your estimates for each activity in your day like sleep and school and meals and phone time and TV and studying and breaks and so on and then the tool calculates how much time is going to each category and it compares your actual study hours against your goal and tells you where the biggest leaks are. I generally use a simple time log in a notebook first and then I cross-check it with this particular tool and it is really useful.
The most common thing people discover over here is that phone and screen time is way higher then they thought. Not a little bit higher — significantly higher and all that.
The highest leverage change you can make — and I mean the single thing that will give you the most back in terms of real study time — is to deal with your phone properly. And when I say properly I don't mean just flipping it face down because that honestly doesn't work, you still know it is there. What actually works is putting it in a different room entirely. Or if that feels too extreme then use an app blocker like Forest or Cold Turkey or Freedom and actually block the apps during your session. Students who make this one particular change usually get back 1 to 2 hours of real productive time per day and that is not a small thing at all.
Study for 45 to 50 minutes and then take a genuine 10 minute break and use a timer for this particular thing. The reason this works is because the timer makes the end of the session feel real and you are a lot less likely to check your phone randomly when you know there is a proper break coming in 20 minutes. You have something to look forward to and so the urge to drift just becomes smaller you know.
Decide before you sit down to study when your breaks will be and how long they will last and write it down. An unplanned break invites overrun and a planned break is contained. The reason is simple, when the break is already decided it has a start and an end and you are not just wandering into it without knowing when it will stop.
When you replace even one hour of passive reading with one hour of practice questions or active recall you are not studying more — you are getting more out of the same time you are already spending and this is probably the easiest efficiency gain available to most students. Past papers, testing yourself without looking at notes, doing questions from memory — all of this produces more learning in less time and so you are not adding hours you are just making the existing hours actually count.
Now let me explain the logic behind why even one hour makes such a big difference. Why? Because it compounds. If you recover just one extra hour of real study time per day and your exam is 3 weeks away then that is 21 extra hours you now have and that is enough to cover two full practice papers and revise three weak topics and do a complete pass of important material. So since the compound effect of small consistent improvements is so powerful so you don't need to find 4 extra hours. You just need to make 1 hour count that currently doesn't.
You don't need to find 4 extra hours. You need to make 1 hour count that currently doesn't.
So friends, this was Where Does Your Study Time Actually Go — was this article helpful to you? Let me know in the comments section below what your biggest time leak is, I am curious to know. Till then, I'm signing off, So stay tuned and stay safe...😊
Map your typical day and see exactly where your study hours are disappearing — this particular tool will honestly surprise you.
Open Time Leakage Finder →