5 Popular Study Habits That Do Not Work (and What to Do Instead)

1. Highlighting Everything

Highlighting feels productive, and a page full of colour looks like work done. But the major 2013 review of study techniques by Dunlosky and colleagues rated highlighting as low usefulness. It rarely involves deep thinking, and it can even make you focus on isolated facts instead of how they connect.

Do instead: read a section, close the book, and write the key points from memory. Highlight only after that, if at all.

2. Re-Reading Your Notes

Re-reading builds familiarity, which feels like knowing. It is not. The same review rated re-reading as low usefulness compared with self-testing.

Do instead: active recall. Turn your notes into questions and answer them without looking.

3. Learning Styles

The idea that you learn best as a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learner is very popular. But reviews of the research, including a well-known 2008 paper by Pashler and colleagues, found little evidence that teaching people in their preferred style improves results.

Do instead: match the method to the material. Diagrams for processes, practice for skills, spoken explanation for ideas. Combining words with visuals, called dual coding, helps most people.

4. Marathon Cramming

Long cramming sessions right before an exam feel intense and effective. They work poorly for long-term memory and often cost you sleep.

Do instead: spaced repetition. Shorter reviews spread over days and weeks.

5. Multitasking

Studying with messages, videos or social media open feels efficient. In reality, attention switches between tasks, and every switch has a cost.

Do instead: single-tasking in timed blocks, with your phone in another room.

What the Evidence Does Support

These feel harder. That is usually a sign they are working.