If you want to improve your memory and remember better, try the spacing effect. The spacing effect is a scientifically documented phenomenon where people learn better when they learn material over time. The opposite of spaced presentation is massed presentation, which we call cramming. Many students wait till a week or two before the exam to really begin studying. And then spend the night before the exam reading the material over and over again. Though cramming works up to a point, studies confirm that students who use spaced repetition outperform those that cram. By the way, if you cram the night before an exam, you might want to watch my episode 10 Exam Day Tips.
In legal education, spaced learning is extremely important because of the bar exam. In college you could take a course and never again be tested on the date that Rome fell or on the innerworkings of a cell. But the material in your first semester of law school will be tested again on the bar exam. By studying the material throughout the semester, not only will you do better on the final but you will also perform better on the bar exam.
How to Remember Better
You are probably asking, “How do I do this?” One technique for incorporating spaced repetition is through the use of Leitner boxes, which I describe in detail in my post on memorizing information. This flashcard technique incorporates spaced learning into your daily study routine. You create four boxes, or stacks of cards if you don’t have actual boxes. Then you regularly look at the flashcards reviewing information you don’t know well often, and information that you’ve mastered less often. This technique has been proven to reduce the overall amount of time you study.
In 1885, German psychologist Julius Ebbinghaus published his work called “On Memory.” For the first time in history, he quantified how quickly we forget by charting the “forgetting curve.” The most drastic forgetting occurs within the first hour and then begins to level off after one day. The good news is that you can benefit from Ebbinghaus’ breakthrough study. Given the rapid decline in our memory, the optimal time to review information is within the first 24 hours of first learning it. If you review your notes within 24 hours after class, you will make a stronger mental connection to that knowledge. This will help keep it in your memory longer. By repeating this process, not only will you retain the knowledge for the final, but also for the bar exam. For additional interesting information on how memory works, here is an article on long term memory retention.
Bart & Lisa
Let me end with a short apocryphal story. Bart and Lisa were both in the same Torts class, each struggling to understand proximate cause. On the final exam, both got an A on the proximate cause question. But Bart spent 20 hours learning the concept while Lisa spent 15 hours on it. Lisa was able to accomplish this by starting earlier in the semester using spaced repetition. Bart waited until two weeks before the final and then he crammed. Three years later, Lisa quickly picked up proximate cause while Bart spent hours relearning it.
The moral of the story is this: if you start studying right after class, and keep reviewing up to the final, you will take less overall time mastering the material and retain it in long-term memory. Cramming may help, but in the long run it won’t help you remember better.
Here are 8 tips when you need help staying awake and engaged in class when you are zoning out, spacing out, distracted, daydreaming, or flat-out falling asleep! These are all real issues that every student faces. If you are having problems outside of class, you may want to learn how to use mindfulness to improve concentration. Here are a few ideas to teach you how to pull your attention back to the important material being discussed in class.
Tip 1
One, turn off all electronic devices and put them away. Put your cell phone in a locker, the front of the room, keep it away from you so you’re not tempted. Recent studies show multitasking is ineffective. You do your best when you focus on one thing at a time. Electronics pull your attention away from the discussion and you might miss important information.
Tip 2
Two, sit as close to the front on the classroom as possible. Students who sit at the front score higher on tests for many reasons. There are fewer distractions from others, the material on the board is easier to read, and it is harder to fall asleep when you’re closer to the professor. Also, sound begins to dissipate at 8-12 feet away; so if you are beyond that range, your ability to understand is more difficult. Finally, those in the front are making a public commitment to learning, which actually results in more learning.
Tip 3
Three, recognizing that daydreaming happens to all of us, use a few strategies to get back on “To Do” list and then get back to paying attention. A second technique is to visualize you and your professor are in a one-on-one conversation. Focus on his or her eye, body language, and facial expressions just like you would in a one-on-one meeting.
Tip 4
Four, defer judgment. When you disagree with something that was said, write it down, mark it with a big “D”, then spend some time after class reflecting on the disagreement rather than focusing on it during class. Dwelling on it through the rest of the class is just going to take you away from the class and you are not going to be engaged with the discussion.
Tip 5
Five, participate. If your professor asks for volunteers, then occasionally raise your hand. I know, I know. Most of you don’t want to be “that student” that is constantly raising their hand to hear themselves talk. But decide to raise your hand every other class or once per class. Regardless of whether you are speaking aloud or not, you should always be answering the professor’s questions in your mind.
Tip 6
Six, on days when you are really finding it hard to stay engaged, write your goals at the top of your notes. For example, your goal might be to get on Law Review. It might be to keep your scholarship money or just to make it through school. Write it at the top of the page as a reminder of why paying attention is important for you. This gives you a reward, something to look forward to for paying attention. Also, make sure you are taking notes the right way.
Tip 7
Seven, ignore the professor’s lecture style. Maybe your professor says “um” all the time and you start counting the number of times he or she says it. Don’t do that! You are missing the content of the class. If your professor rambles, mark down where you started getting confused and use that as a tool to organize your notes after class. You are going to learn the class better anyway if you do the organization yourself.
Tip 8
Finally, engage in active note-writing. This means listening and then capturing the important thoughts being discussed, though not a verbatim transcript. For example, perhaps the professor uses a hypothetical. Rather than capturing every single word, listen to the hypothetical, answer it in your mind, and then capture some ideas from the hypo. So your notes might go something like this: “hypo dealing with adverse possession and whether car parked on neighbor’s property once a week qualifies, NO!” There you go! You have the essence of the hypothetical and your answer. By the way, a verbatim transcript of class, which will keep you awake, will result in less learning, not more learning. You may wan to learn check out my video on handwriting vs typing notes during class.
What’s the most creative excuse you’ve used for your procrastination? There is the usual: Facebook, surfing the net, checking your phone. Successful people do better because they put the important things, like studying, first and avoid the unimportant, like watching that 10,000th cat video.
Akrasia
Socrates called this problem akrasia, which is when someone acts against their better judgment. In the Bible, some English translations use the word self-indulgent. Regardless of the translation, the idea is that you know what is best for you and instead you do something else. For an easy-to-read article on why we procrastinate, read this article 0n procrastination.
100 Mile Hike
Last year I decided that I wanted to go on a two-week hike with the Boy Scouts at the Philmont Camp in New Mexico. But I had a problem: I needed to lose 75 pounds to be eligible to go. Over the course of 18 months, I experienced akrasia numerous times by indulging in several pizza buffets or eating ice cream. Each time I deviated, I knew I was hurting my chances to go on the hike.
I am glad to report I reached my goal and completed the entire two-week, 100 mile hike! To see how tan I got on this hike, and for some lessons I learned that apply to law school, check out my video on tips from hiking you can use in law school.
Tip #1
You need a commitment reminder system. I began doing this years ago by using a day planner. If you haven’t used one, this is a paper calendaring system where you place your activities into a schedule. Today you can do this with any calendar app, or if you want something a little bit different there is an app called BeeMinder. This app allows you to track any goal that can be measured by numbers. For example, you may want to spend 60 minutes a day studying for Constitutional Law. BeeMinder will send you reminders, where you can input your commitment into the app. But here’s the twist: the first time you don’t meet your goal, BeeMinder will ask you for a credit card. And if you get off track a second time, BeeMinder will charge you five dollars. By having a disincentive to lose five dollars, you are more likely to keep your commitment.
Tip #2
A second approach is for you to use short-term rewards to help you defeat akrasia. The part of teaching that I hate is grading exams. To force myself to grade, I place all the exams in stacks of five. When I grade five, I then have permission to go do something else, like get some coffee or talk to a colleague. Think about short-term rewards that will work for you. Maybe that means Facebook for five minutes or eating a chocolate kiss. Keep in mind that these have to be short-term rewards rather than long-term rewards. If you know that that 5 minute Facebook break will turn into a 60 minute Facebook break, then you should think about doing something else like going for a short walk. Exercise is a great way to get your blood flowing, which in turn helps you focus and retain information better. Watch this video on how the brain benefits from exercise if you want to learn more.
Are you wondering how to take law school notes? If you are not a genius, like Mike from Suits, you will need to learn how to take notes during a classroom discussion. Many students fall into the trap of thinking they need to write down every word said during a class. This is a mistake! The key is engagement, rather than mindlessly copying everything you hear in class. Additionally, copying everything you hear stimulates the wrong part of the brain, as I discuss in Handwrite or Type Notes, and which is also discussed in the scientific study “The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard.”
One thing you should be aware of is that most of a classroom discussion is irrelevant for the final exam. That’s right, 95% of what you hear in class will not be necessary for the final exam! The key for law school success is to separate the important from the unimportant. Here are a few things that will help you determine what you need to write down from a classroom discussion.
Keep the End in Mind
When taking law school notes, you need to keep the end in mind. So ask yourself during a classroom discussion, “what do I need to help me in the final exam?” The vast majority of law professors test you on your ability to apply laws to a set of facts, NOT facts from cases read and discussed throughout the course. (Just as an aside, check out this article on how Supreme Court justices write their opinions). So step number one during class is to figure out the rule that your professor will test you on. Over a typical one and a half hour classroom session, you might have, at most, half a page of notes dedicated to the rules needed for exam purposes. Keep in mind that each case usually represents one rule and you only need a sentence or two for each rule.
Policy Rationale
Second, a few professors might want you to provide them with policy rationales on an exam. If your professor is going to test you on policy rationales, then yes, capture the policy rationales when they come up in class. If your professor makes past exams available, the best way to find out if he or she tests on policy rationale is by getting an exam from a previous semester, along with the best student answer. Remember, few professors actually want this information on an exam. And even the few that do will not usually assign too many points to policy rationales. So don’t lose too much sleep over policy! In most cases, you can create your own policy rationale, rather than providing the exact policies that were covered in class.
Professor Clues
Third, anytime your professor tells you that something is important, write it down. This is a major clue that you are likely going to see it on the final. For example, when I teach Torts, I tell students that they will see a products liability question on the final. Also, your professor may say something like “this is very important, so listen.” Again, a clue that you are going to be tested on this. If you have to, place a star or some mark by this in your notes.
Themes
Fourth, listen for recurring words and themes the professor keeps coming back to. These may be important in helping you determine what he or she might place on the test. Also, if your professor is an expert in an area that they teach, prepare for some of that to appear on your exam.
Writes on Board
Fifth, if the professor writes on the board, put that information in your notes. This is especially true if the professor rarely writes on the board. If the professor is writing too quickly, see if you’re allowed to make a picture of the board with your smart phone. However, if your professor writes lots of information on the board, they might be doing it for discussion and not exam purporses.
Don’t Do
Now let’s discuss what NOT to write down. Not everything your professor says or asks needs to go into your notes. Most of a classroom discussion is directed at getting you to understand the facts and law from a particular case. Do not write down facts from a case to help you understand the case better. Unless this is a constitutional law class, you will never need to know the facts from that case again. For example, if you read Pennoyer v. Neff in your Civil Procedure class, you might be tempted to write down some additional facts that the professor provides to help you understand the case. Don’t write those facts down as they are completely useless for exam purposes.
Also, don’t write down what your classmates say. Unless the professor tells you that the colleague just articulated a correct rule of law, much of what your colleagues say is irrelevant. The purpose of the Socratic Method is to get students to get to the right answer. But along the way, there will be dialogue that is just not necessary.
Taking notes is important, so make sure to primarily rely on YOUR law school notes, and not on what you find in study aids. As I explain in more detail in this video on study aids, there is a right way and a wrong way to use them.
To case brief or not to case brief? That is the question! Your professors and academic support faculty are telling you yes. And some upper level students are telling you no.
Early in my teaching career, this question came up in a faculty meeting. In the room were very successful academics who attended the most prestigious law schools in the country. About half of them said they briefed all throughout school, the other half saying they quit after the first semester.
Purpose
Before answering the question, we have to discuss the purpose of case-briefing, which is two-fold. First, case-briefing is designed to prepare you for classroom discussion. Some professors cold-call and you don’t want to be embarrassed by not being prepared. But even if you’re not in that situation, you still need to be prepared because being it will allow for greater engagement during class time. If you’re not engaged, you will not fully understand the discussion which will lead to lower grades.
Rules of Law
The second reason is to get the rule of law. At a bare minimum, before class time, you need to find the rule of law for each case. Write it down. Then revise it during class if it’s not correct. This is important because the rule of law is the only information you will need after you finish discussing the case. If you are struggling with a difficult reading and just cannot find the rule of law, please watch this video on how to get through and understand difficult reading.
Should You Brief Cases
So now let’s answer the question of whether you need to brief cases. The answer is yes and no. During your first semester you should absolutely brief cases, including the case name, the court’s name, relevant facts, procedural history, issue, rule of law, holding, and the Court’s rationale. This is essential because you are learning how to read and understand case law. And I don’t mean a superficial knowledge, but a deep understanding that will help you develop the skills you need to succeed.
Most law students who do not brief cases do so because they think they understand the case after one read-through. They don’t. So use case briefing as a method, at least for the first semester, to learn how to think like a lawyer. After the first semester, if you’ve mastered the skill sufficiently, then you can cut corners. You can start writing notes in the margins of your case book.
How Much Time
Since I’m recommending case-briefing, let’s talk about how much time to spend on this task, which is, not a lot. Your brief should be no more than a page in length and ideally, around half a page.
Additionally, spend the bulk of the time on articulating the rule statement, which is vitally important for the final exam. As for the rest of the case, you only need a working knowledge of the case for classroom discussion. You do not need to completely master a case because you will never look at that case after the class is over. Some of your colleagues will spend hours on a single case, attempting to master every part of it. That’s a waste of time and effort since your two goals are class engagement and rule identification. Your time is better spent on other tasks like outlining and final exam prep. As I tell my students, if you are called on and you miss some facts or you don’t have the rule exactly right, the result is a little embarrassment. But ultimately most if not all of your course grade is coming from a single final exam. Instead you should use your time in a way that will maximize your grade, not help you feel better after being called on by the professor.
As an aside, if you are considering using study aids to get your case briefs, DON’T! Canned case briefs will not help you develop the skills you need to succeed in law school.
Have you wondered when to use law school study aids? Perhaps you have heard some 2Ls or 3Ls talk about certain study aids that helped them get an A in a class. Maybe one of your friends bought one of those 3L’s study outlines. If you are considering using a commercial study aid, please read this first to learn how to effectively use these study aids.
Commercial Law School Study Aids
A commercial study aid is anything other than what you created. This can be outlines, hornbooks, treatises, notes from a prior year, case briefs, audio, video, anything that you did not create is what I include in the concept of a commercial study aid.
In my first week of law school, my professors told me to never ever use law school study aids. I now understand why they gave their students that advice. This was because most students use study aids that hurt their chances for success. For example, study aids used the wrong way will create a false sense a mastery that results in lower grades. I’m not telling you that you will fail law school. But you may remain a B or C student when you could be an A student.
Canned Case Briefs
The one study aid that you should never use is the case brief. A case brief is when someone else has read the case and provided you with the relevant facts, issue, and rule of law. Since this is the one study aid that I am telling you to avoid, let me tell you why. The sole purpose for reading cases is class preparation. So in all likelihood, your professor will cover the case in class. It is okay to go to class not fully understanding every case you read as long as you truly worked through it and tried to understand it before class. If you want to learn more about this, check out my video on how to brief a case.
Most students believe they have to go into class as experts or their professor will destroy them. That may have been true years ago but today, the vast majority of professors will work with students if they are struggling with understanding a case as opposed to not having read the case at all. It is through struggling through the law that you learn, not by reading someone else’s notes. (For more information, watch my video on how law school professors operate).
Available Law School Study Aids
Now let’s look at all the resources that provide the black letter law. These resources include hornbooks, treatises, outlines, audio, and video. My recommendation is that you use these resources to help you understand the law. For most students, you should probably read one of these resources first and then read your assigned cases. That way the case will make more sense to you. After all, you learn the law better if you read a case in its legal context.
Audio resources in particular can be used very effectively. For example, you have to get to school, that means you either walked there or drove there, taking some time to get to class. Don’t waste that time! Use your time effectively. Audio can be a great way to use that down time rather than listening to the radio or something else as you’re driving into school.
How to Use Commercial Outlines
Finally, let’s discuss commercial outlines. DO NOT USE someone else’s outline, whether purchased or not, without making your own law school outline first. You are going to learn a whole lot more if you condense your notes and turn them into your own outline instead of relying on someone else’s thought process. Now, you did not hear me say to not use someone else’s outline, period. What I tell you is to struggle and make your own outline first. Once you have put your best time and effort into creating your own outline, and you are convinced that you have the best outline possible, then look at someone else’s outline to see what they have done. Then you can make changes to your own outline. Certainly you are going to miss things but you do not want to look at someone else’s outline first and then not do the hard work because then you don’t learn and you remain that B or C student.
The primary reason why most people that use law school study aids never reach their full potential is because they never struggle with the law, which is how we learn. Many students become satisfied with their grades, believing that they can’t do better because they just didn’t understand the material, the professor was too hard, or the exam wasn’t fair. While a B student will graduate law school and pass the bar exam, the best jobs and opportunities go to A students.
Have you wondered what is the best way to read and outline a book? When most students read an assignment from a book, they pull out the book and the assignment, which says, for example, read pages 39-47. So they go and read the pages. That’s what most of us do unless you learn how to read a book better.
When you start reading the assignment on those pages, have you ever asked yourself what you are about to read? Probably not. Students will of course know the title of the course and maybe even the topic. But they probably will not have a good sense of what they will be covering for that particular assignment or even, for that matter, the course. So here are some steps to help you learn how to read books better. (If the reading is especially difficult, try out the 15 minute method video)
Table of Contents
First, review the table of contents. This will help you understand what the book is about, where the author is going, and how the author is getting there. You need to do this so you can start developing your own schema, which will help you understand and categorize the material better.
After you review the table of contents, I strongly recommend that you then use the table as your outline. If this is new material for you, then you don’t have a starting point. Presumably the book’s author is an expert and has categorized the material in a systematic manner. If at some point during the course you find a better way of organizing the material, then by all means, make changes. But at the beginning, the table of contents is a great organizational tool to help you start your outline.
Index
Step number two is to look at the index. The index will help provide you with all sorts of great information that will give you a sense of where the author is going, what are the key terms, how much does he or she cover certain material. All of this is very valuable information that will help you learn the law better.
Chapter Summary
Step three, go to each chapter in the book and see if the author has provided a chapter summary at the beginning or ending of each chapter. Many books have this kind of summary information. Read it so you will have a sense of what the book is about.
Skim the Book
Step four, skim through the book. Read a few paragraphs here and there to get a sense of the author’s style and purpose. Also go to the end of the book and read through the last few pages since most authors summarize the book at the end.
Many of you are not convinced that this will help. So let me tell you why these steps are important by sharing a story with you.
Suppose for a moment you know nothing about American history. Someone shares with you a story about some low-ranking colonial officer that served in the British colonial forces in the 1750s during the Seven Years’ War. Your initial reaction would probably be one of disdain as you wonder why you would care about some lowly colonial officer who lived some 300 years ago. But as you get more of the story, you find out that the officer’s name was George Washington. Now, without more information, that is also rather meaningless. Finally you find out that this George Washington guy went on to lead the American army during the war of independence from England and he became America’s first President. Now it all starts to make sense.
So do you see what I did there? I created context for you which helped you learn the story better. Without that context, you would have forgotten the information. But with context you were more likely to remember it because you understand where it fits in with everything else that is stored in your brain.
Non-Fiction
It’s no different with works of nonfiction. If you just start reading a book, like most of you currently do, your brain doesn’t have the place to put the new information. But your brain desperately wants to comprehend that information. So it starts working on placing that new information in categories. In effect, unless you provide some context for the new information, you’re asking your brain to do double duty. One, to create new categories for the information. And two, place that new information into those new categories. But it’s even worse than that! Because in addition to adding two steps to the process, you’re creating categories that later on may not make any sense. So you may have to forget bad categories and learn better ones.
So by following these steps, you will create context for what you will learn, which will help you learn the material faster and better than if you just jump in and read the assigned pages. To see how to take preparing your reading assignments to the next level, check out How to Prepare for Law School Classes.
If it anytime you need more help, our tutors are ready to help.
Don’t give up on difficult reading! We’ve all been there! It’s 11:00 at night, you’re tired, you have been in classes all day, and now you have 50 pages of reading to get through before tomorrow. You find yourself struggling with understanding concepts within the material. Most law students, especially new law students, struggle with law school textbooks.
To be honest, a lot of lawyers sometimes struggle to get through wordy legal documents. This is why they employ associates and paralegals to do that kind of tedious work. But in law school, you can’t exactly hire someone to do your reading for you. This would be ineffective and a violation of a school’s honor code!
Dale Corson Method
So, what do you do? Dale Corson, the eighth president of Cornell University, developed a technique to help students not only get through difficult reading, but to also understand it. When you are having a hard time with a reading assignment, mark each paragraph that you don’t understand with a small “s” which stands for “struggling.” Many times, the next paragraph or two will help to clarify what you did not understand in a previous paragraph. However, if this is not the case, and you have a page or two of “s” paragraphs, you must first struggle to understand it on your own. This is vital! (For more information on pushing through when you just want to give up, watch my video on grit and motivation). Once you reach your breaking point of truly not being able to understand the material without help, follow these steps.
First
First, get paper, a pencil, and a timer. Set the timer for 15 minutes. During that 15 minutes, give it everything you’ve got to try to understand the material. This may seem like a pointless exercise because you have already hit that mental block where you feel like you just can’t get it. But there is a good reason to do this. You have given yourself permission to stop working on the problem at a definite time.
The fifteen minutes you set on the timer acts as a trigger to your brain to relax and often this will be enough for you to be able to figure it out.
Second
Second, during those fifteen minutes, go back to the first “s” that you marked in the material. Write down everything that you do not understand. What is it precisely that does not make sense? If you figure it out while you are writing these notes, great! But if after this exercise, something still does not make sense, then take it to your professor, private tutor, or study partner. You will have fifteen minutes worth of detailed notes to go over with that person. (Just as an aside, writing your notes, as opposed to typing them on a laptop, will vastly improve your note-taking abilities. See another episode of mine titled Handwrite or Type Notes
Many professors will have more sympathy for the student who has struggled with the difficult reading, over the student that just shows up at the professor’s office to ask him or her to explain a concept covered in class. Additionally, the student that uses this method will be in a much better position to understand the material because they worked so hard to understand it on their own before seeking help from anyone else. Finally, if you aren’t getting the help you need from your professor, you can always reach out to one of our tutors.
Have you considered using flash cards in a more focused manner? If you have worked hard to prepare for classes all semester, you probably get frustrated when you have trouble memorizing the law for final exams. This method will help you move that information from your short-term memory to long-term memory. Unless active steps are taken to remember what we learn, much of that is forgotten within the first 24 hours of learning it. (See this government publication for more information on the different types of memory.) The Leitner boxes will help you retain that information throughout the semester. Also, you will want to use the elaborative interrogation technique for deep learning.
Four Sets
For this method, you will need notecards and four boxes to hold those notecards. After you have assembled these materials, the first step is to write on the notecards. This includes all of the rule statements, definitions, etc., you will need for your final exam. All of these cards will go in box number one.
Next, memorize all of the information on each notecard perfectly. Perfectly means you can recite all of the information on the notecard without looking down at it once. You go through all of the notecards in box number one every two days. Once you have a notecard memorized, it goes in box number two.
The notecards in box number two you will go through every four days. If there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back in box number one. Once you have a card from box number two memorized perfectly it goes in box number three.
The notecards in box number three you will go through once a week. Again, if there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back to the previous box, i.e. box number two. Once you have a card from box number three memorized it goes in box number four.
The notecards in box number four you will go through every two weeks. You get the idea; if there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back to box number three. Keep reviewing these throughout the semester until the final exam.
Caution
A word of caution to those who know they will be having an open-book or open-notes exam. You still need to know and use this method to learn and remember the information. As you know, the meat of an exam essay answer comes in the analysis / application section. In this section, you link the rule of law to the set of facts provided in the exam question–watch this video on the IRAC method to learn how to to this. Your notes and textbook will not contain the answers to an application portion of an essay. You need to know the rules of law front to back so you can go right into your application section with complete confidence that you know that rule and how to apply it. If you are spending time looking for rule statements or definitions in your notes or books, this will take away time you could be spending on actually analyzing an issue. And if the exam is timed, you do not want to spend that time flipping through your book when you could be writing your answer. The Leitner box method will save you that time because you will already know the information in your notes and in the book and will be able to write it from memory.
Have you ever encountered mental roadblocks? We’ve all reached the point where we just can’t study any longer because we have been studying too long. Some people just keep reading, even though their brain stopped working hours before. Our brains were not designed to run marathons, so they need regular breaks. Also, regular sleep is important to keep your brain operating at peak efficiency.
Mental Reboot
When you hit mental roadblocks, you need a mental reboot. So just stop what you are doing and go do something else for a couple of hours. Make sure that whatever you do is completely unrelated to what you’ve been studying. For many that might be going to the movies or out for some exercise. If you go out with friends, try to avoid talking about the law. The key is to think about anything except what you were studying, which will allow your brain to recharge and prepare you for studying when you return. When you complete your two hours away from studying you will find that you can continue studying.
Most of the time when your brain is tired, a small break will do. But when the small break doesn’t work you need to reboot your brain. You do this by engaging in an activity where you completely forget about the law for a couple of hours, which allows you to return later and begin refreshed.
Fun
For example, go watch a movie at the theater and enjoy a soda and popcorn. If you like to exercise, go to the gym for a few hours–your brain will benefit from exercise. For some, get a good night’s sleep, maybe 10 to 12 hours. Go hang out with your friends for awhile and enjoy some pizza with them. The key is to do something, anything, that will get you to stop thinking about the law for a few hours. Once you reset your brain, then you will be ready to start learning again.
Artificial Stimulants
By the way, you should not take stimulants to try to keep you going. Drinking coffee, soda, and energy drinks may work for short periods of time, but when you are at a complete roadblock all that will happen is that you will become more mentally exhausted. You may make some miniscule gains, but soon you will be back to where you were: tired and unable to learn.
In 1885, German psychologist Julius Ebbinghaus published his work called “On Memory.” For the first time in history, he quantified how quickly we forget by charting the “forgetting curve.” The most drastic forgetting occurs within the first hour and then begins to level off after one day. The good news is that you can benefit from Ebbinghaus’ breakthrough study. Given the rapid decline in our memory, the optimal time to review information is within the first 24 hours of first learning it. If you review your notes within 24 hours after class, you will make a stronger mental connection to that knowledge. This will help keep it in your memory longer. By repeating this process, not only will you retain the knowledge for the final, but also for the bar exam. For additional interesting information on how memory works, here is an article on long term memory retention.
But here’s the twist: the first time you don’t meet your goal, BeeMinder will ask you for a credit card. And if you get off track a second time, BeeMinder will charge you five dollars. By having a disincentive to lose five dollars, you are more likely to keep your commitment.
