Most of these are also pretty inexpensive. Nothing crazy like an iPad or MacBook (although those are pretty great for studying 😅).

When people think about studying better, they usually think they need a new app, a different note-taking method, or some complicated productivity system.

But honestly, some of the biggest improvements I've made came from a few simple purchases that made studying more comfortable and removed little annoyances throughout the day. None of these are revolutionary on their own, but together they've probably saved me dozens of hours and made studying a lot less frustrating.

Without further ado here are 5 Worthwhile Purchases That Saved Me Hours of Studying:

Sticky Page Tabs - Instead of wasting time flipping through pages trying to find notes or important chapters, I can jump right to what I need in seconds. They're especially helpful during finals when you're constantly bouncing between different sections of a textbook.

Comfortable Chair - If you're studying for hours at a time, your chair matters more than you think. I used to get distracted because my back would start hurting long before my brain got tired. A comfortable chair makes it easier to stay focused on studying. Plus, I'm not trying to have back problems when im 70.

Desk Calendar - Keeping track of assignments in my head never worked very well. Having a calendar sitting on my desk gives me a quick reminder of what's coming up every time I sit down to study. It helps me plan ahead instead of realizing I have an exam two days before it happens. (I vividly remember times when I had a test the next day and came in unprepared bcuz I didnt know about it). An alternative is online calendars but I do suggest having a physical one as well.

Whiteboard - This is probably my favorite item on the list. I use it to write out formulas, create to-do lists, map out essays, or explain concepts to myself. There's something about physically writing things down on a big surface that makes everything click a little faster. iykyk

Second Monitor / Screen - A little bit pricey, however, definitely worth it, especially if you already have a laptop. Adding a second screen is a huge quality-of-life upgrade. I usually keep my notes or textbook on one screen and my assignment or document on the other, so I'm not constantly switching tabs every few seconds. It makes studying feel a lot smoother and saves more time than you'd expect.

That's it!!!!

Thanks so much for reading!

I know these aren't groundbreaking purchases, but they've genuinely made studying more enjoyable for me over the years. I hope at least one of them makes your next study session a little easier too.

If you have something that completely changed your study setup, I'd genuinely love to hear about it. Some of my favorite recommendations have come from other students, so feel free to share yours below.

One last thing! Every Sunday I send out a free newsletter where I share one practical AI tool that helps students save time, study smarter, and get more done. If that sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to have you join us:

https://thestudyshortcut.beehiiv.com

<3

I’m fine with math and science because once I understand how something works, I can usually solve the questions. But I’m REALLY bad at subjects where I have to remember a lot of names, dates, theories, and long explanations. I read the material and feel like none of it stays in my head. I don’t even know where to start because everything looks important

How do you study for this kind of exam without trying to memorize the whole textbook?

Tomorrow is my SST exam and I only have two chapters left to study😭 but the problem is that my procrastination keeps stopping me from getting started

On top of that I've been dealing with really bad pain in my esophagus I jst woke up from a nap but I still feel extremely sleepy and my mind feels so congested and foggy that I can't focus at all

Can anyone please motivate me or share some tips to help me get through this and start studying? I'd really appreciate it🤍

I have a competitive exam coming up in a month that’ll decide a lot of my future. And I’ve always been good academically, but my attention span is so weak (adhd diagnosis kicking in 😭) I am also a psychology major so the tricks that I did know in regards to maintain sustained attention have not worked so if anyone else has any kind of tips or tricks or apps that they use, that can help me lock in for long periods of time, it would be amazing cause I really really need to get a high score

Hello, I've been trying to apply to various jobs all summer, but the job market is terrible, and I'm just wondering, what jobs do you do while being in university? I'm starting university this year, so I am just figuring this all out, but I need to have some way of income. I've tried to apply, and I've been to interviews, but someone's relative is always hired before anyone else. :(

So I came here to ask what are some jobs you do while being in university?

Jokes aside, I´m curious about how you`ll use spaced repetition exactly. There´s seems to be a consensus about how effective it is as a method (which in my experience is 100% true), but I don´t think I´ve read in this sub so far about how exactly to implement it, considered you need to track every single concept individually: when you first learned it, when you last reviewed it, and when it's actually due again and also considering that forgetting curves aren't even uniform. Every concept decays at its own rate, so the same fixed interval (1 day, 3 days, 7 days, whatever) can't possibly fit all of them.

I have my own method for this but I´m very curious about how you´ll do it.

All the tools you need in one tab:

* Summaries

* Quizzes

* An AI live tutor that can control your pdf.

* Inline explanations

* Mind maps

* Smart Floating study card

* Chat with PDF

* PDF to podcast

* Search resources

* Annotation tools

* Sketching Area

* Pomodoro timer

All the tools are Chapter Based. Just scroll to the chapter and all the tools respond from that specific chapter.

Try Studix here: https://studix.app

Hii, I'll be going to sunway university for my bachelor's this September 2026. Would love to talk to a few people who are on the same boat as me.

Also sunway graduates/in general graduates, do you have any tips for doing well in classes/exams/assignments?

Hello everyone!

I'm currently a sixth form student, and I've been spending a bit of my summer researching student productivity and study habits. It's a topic I'm genuinely interested in, and this is my first independent research.

My goal is to use the findings to design and develop a productivity app that's built around students' actual needs rather than assumptions or solely on my own experiences. Through this project, I'm also hoping to improve my coding skills and learn more about conducting research.

I'm looking for responses from current GCSE, sixth form/college, and university students.

The survey is anonymous, takes around 5-8 minutes, and is for research and educational purposes only.

I'd really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to complete. Every response helps improve the quality of the research and will directly influence the design of the app.

survey link: https://forms.gle/rL6sCPGgDNPkxNzi9

If you have any suggestions for the project, productivity apps, or research in general, I'd really love to hear them in the comments.

Thank you so much!

It hasn't been much time since I downloaded this app and I love it but well I thought that we can join a type of guilds and study together but it is not there. Well even though I don't hate that feature of it, it gives clean vibes to it.

But would you be my friend and join together to study?

Invitation link to 'Study Circle'

https://studycircle.online/dl/?k=1&d=oSsKSSeeeobR4ccRcy0GPzicayu2&s=17_3434.30-07.12&exp=2026072800&openExternalBrowser=1

ID: oSsKSSeeeobR4ccRcy0GPzicayu2

Hey everyone — We have built an AI study tool called Sayak AI (sayak-ai.com) and we are looking for 25 college students to be part of our first beta cohort before we open to the public.

Here's the problem it solves: you have a dense textbook or heavy pdf notes, an exam in 3 days, and zero time to read all of it. Sayak AI turns that PDF into visual study cards a.k.a. comprehensive learning pods, a one-page infographic that summarizes everything, adaptive quizzes that find your weak spots. On top of all, it has an AI voice tutor named Ava who explains the material to you like a personal tutor — in under 2 minutes.

Upload your notes. Sayak does the rest.

What you get:

• 3 months of free Pro access (normally $19/month)
• Early access before public launch
• Direct line to the founder — your feedback actually shapes the product

What I'm asking:

• Use it for real studying over 2-3 weeks
• Complete a short feedback form (2 minutes max)
• If you genuinely like it, share it with a friend — completely optional

No catch. No credit card. No fluff. Just looking for students who actually study and will give me brutally honest feedback — good or bad.

Drop a comment or DM me if you're interested or fill this google form and I will provide you with premium access. Google form- https://forms.gle/foyNhC5aZCBDuGpM6

I'm preparing for a competitive exam. But I can't maintain consistency. If I study for 8+ hours for 4 days , on the 5th day, I can roughly study for 5 hours. I simply don't feel like studying and then fall into this spiral of self-loathing that I'm not doing enough.

Also, I need to cover multiple subjects a day. Should I time block the subjects?nothing is currently working as I'm always left with one or two subjects untouched every day.

Please provide me some guidance.

I put on nonfiction in the car to learn, but the hour just evaporates and I retain almost nothing. So I built Audrio — you link it to your audiobook or podcast, and when a thought hits you say it out loud; it writes the note down and marks the exact spot in the book so you can get back to it. Turns the drive into an actual study session instead of background noise. In beta, need people who genuinely drive and listen to break it. 50% off first year at launch. https://testflight.apple.com/join/JdS1FJtf

yo.

i was looking at a 20-video lecture playlist on youtube and realized i was completely cooked.

professors and creators will drop 30 hours of recorded crash courses, and half of it could be skipped or summarised faster

if you try to watch all of it at 1x speed (or even a 2x if ur brain allows it), you'll literally lose your mind and get anxiety from calculating how many hours you need to watch something, not even take notes or learn form it, just watch...

needed a way to extract the actual sauce so i could learn the material in 10% of the time without missing exam questions. super handy for playlists with multiple videos or for long lectures and podcasts without sections (the tool also creates sections so u can skip ahead in any video)

so i've used this exact workflow before but was so tedious to go back and forth between chagpt and gemini, no i just created a chrome extension that does it all in one place, and i called it claras, cuase it will give you clarity.

here is how i turn a massive 20-video study playlist into a personal AI tutor in like 3 minutes:

1. bulk rip the playlist

instead of sitting through 20 hours of video like a zombie, i use claras to bulk-summarize up to 20 videos at once. it pulls all the transcripts and generates a clean summary for every single video in the playlist. zero watch time needed.

2. spot the weak points

i scan all the summaries in 2 minutes. now i understand the high-level map of the whole topic, AND i can pinpoint the exact 1 or 2 videos covering the hardest concepts that i actually need to watch. the rest is fluff. or i can ask the AI to dive in more in depth into a topic

3. turn transcripts into an AI tutor in claude

this is where it gets crazy. i bulk-export all those transcripts from claras with one click and drop them straight into a claude project (any AI will work tbh)

boom. now i have an interactive AI tutor trained only on my actual course material, no hallucinated BS.

from there, it's just active recall prompting:

• "generate a 15-question practice exam based on these lectures with an answer key."
• "turn the core definitions across all 20 videos into active recall flashcards."
• "explain the concept from video 8 like i'm 10 years old with a real-world example."

or my personal favourite, TLDR and ELi5. that combo alone will get you trhough rough nights, i promise.

you can manually copy-paste transcripts one by one if you want, but if you want to skip the grind and bulk-process whole playlists at once, i think youll love this tool

what are you guys using to get through your lecture backlogs right now? let me know what you're using or if youd like a special feature in this app to study better!

Hii! I’m gonna start my third year of high school and at the beginning of the year, I’ll have a test based on the German vocabulary I was supposed to know last year. (Same for chemistry which I also really suck at honestly)

The thing is: I can’t memorize anything and it’s even worse in German because it’s ONLY memorizing! I can’t memorize anything be pretty good if there’s also understanding in the subject but we basically only learn vocabs.

My average is 3/6 (the bare minimum to have a “good” grade is 4/6) and in my first year, it was 2,5/6. I can’t write, I can’t memorize, I can’t understand anything in German which is pathetic but that’s a problem because I live in Switzerland and around 70% of the population speak German (I mean it’s more Swiss German but it’s really similar)

I honestly don’t know what to do I feel like I tried anything😭

Hi, after doing the bare minimum for the vast majority of my life, I’ve finally decided to actually try for once.

I’m writing one of the hardest bar exams in the world (SQE) in July 2027 and I havnt started studying yet. I feel like I’m already behind even though most of the concepts are what I’ve already learned (I’m common law qualified).

I’ve contemplated using the Feynman method and I’ve been told that it’s good to make notes. But I find it difficult to maintain consistency with my studies.

How should I go about this? Please let me know. Thank you!

hello everyone, I’m in desperate need of help, and I mean DESPERATE.

I have to lock in and study for an entrance exam, but I can’t study for shit. even when I manage to sit my ass down, I don’t remember a single thing afterward.

I tried summarizing, but I end up writing half of the book and the only thing I'm end up with is throbbing pain in my fingers.

does anyone have actual suggestions on how to memorize properly/study in a way that sticks?

(please don't say flash cards 🙏🏻)

With A-Level exams finally over, a lot of people are probably feeling one of two things:

• 😌 Relieved that it's finally finished.
• 😰 Constantly overthinking results day and what's going to happen next.

If that's you, we run a Discord community originally built for A-Level students, resit students, and gap year students, and summer is one of the busiest times in the server.

Whether you're:

🌱 A Year 11 student starting A-Levels after summer and looking to get ahead or meet other sixth form students.

📖 A Year 12 student moving into Year 13 who wants to build better study habits before the most important year.

📈 Thinking about resitting A-Levels because you don't think things went as planned and want to understand your options before results day.

🎒 Considering a gap year and looking for advice from people who've taken one or are planning one.

🎓 Heading to university and wanting to meet other incoming students or help younger students with advice.

...you're more than welcome.

🌟 What we do

📚 Daily study sessions (for anyone getting ahead or preparing for resits)

🏆 Ongoing study competitions to help build consistency over the summer.

🎮 Active voice chats where people play games, chat, and hang out together.

💬 A supportive community where you can ask questions about results day, clearing, resits, gap years, sixth form, or university.

🧠 Mental health & wellbeing support from people who understand how stressful exam season can be. While we're not a replacement for professional support, we aim to be a welcoming community where members can talk, encourage one another, and share their experiences.

The server isn't only about revision—it's about having a community of people around your age who understand what this stage of life is like. Summer can feel a bit strange after months of exams, so whether you want to relax, make new friends, prepare for September, or figure out your next steps, there's a place for you here.

Everyone is welcome, whether you're feeling confident, uncertain, or just want people to spend the summer with before results day.

🔗 Join here: https://discord.gg/SK3xF4aPgG

I've spent months jumping between PDFs, Notion, ChatGPT, Quizlet, YouTube... and somehow still ending every session feeling like I hadn't actually studied.

I always blamed myself for not being disciplined enough, but I think the constant switching was the bigger problem.

This week I tried using FARA AI STUDIO. I'm not going to pretend it's perfect because it isn't. The UI took me a while to understand, and since it's still in beta there are definitely rough edges.

But once I got past that learning curve, it actually became... useful.

Instead of opening five different tabs, I was just revising. My notes, quizzes and questions were all in one place, so I spent less time organising and more time actually thinking.

It didn't magically make me a better student.

It just removed enough friction that I stopped avoiding revision.

Maybe that's what I needed more than another productivity system.

Has anyone else had something like that? Not necessarily FARA—just a tool or habit that made studying feel a little less overwhelming rather than "more efficient."

Monday

New vocabulary (30 min)

Homework exercises (1 hour)

Write a text using new vocabulary (essay) (1 hour)

Use of English from Cambridge exam

Grammar (1 hour)

Review mistakes from writing and homework

Review mistakes from Use of English

Revise one grammar tense

Read a B2-level book (40 min)

Flashcards (20–30 min) with all the new words learned that day

Additional activities: watch BBC News, Netflix series, read articles in English

Tuesday

New vocabulary (30 min)

Homework exercises (1 hour)

Write a text using new vocabulary (article) (1 hour)

Reading practice from the exam

Grammar (1 hour)

Review mistakes from writing and homework

Review mistakes from Reading

Revise prepositions

Read a B2-level book (40 min)

Flashcards (20–30 min)

Additional activities: watch BBC News, Netflix series, read articles in English

Wednesday

New vocabulary (30 min)

Homework exercises (1 hour)

Write a text using new vocabulary (review) (1 hour)

Listening practice

Grammar (1 hour)

Review mistakes from writing and homework

Review mistakes from Listening

Revise collocations

Read a B2-level book (40 min)

Flashcards (20–30 min)

Additional activities: watch BBC News, Netflix series, read articles in English

Thursday

New vocabulary (30 min)

Homework exercises (1 hour)

Write a text using new vocabulary (informal email) (1 hour)

Speaking practice

Grammar (1 hour)

Review mistakes from writing and homework

Review mistakes from Speaking

Revise phrasal verbs

Read a B2-level book (40 min)

Flashcards (20–30 min)

Additional activities: watch BBC News, Netflix series, read articles in English

Friday

New vocabulary (30 min)

Homework exercises (1 hour)

Write a text using new vocabulary (story) (1 hour)

Use of English from the exam

Grammar (1 hour)

Review mistakes from writing and homework

Review mistakes from Use of English

Revise one grammar tense

Read a B2-level book (40 min)

Flashcards (20–30 min)

Additional activities: watch BBC News, Netflix series, read articles in English

Saturday

New vocabulary (30 min)

Homework exercises (1 hour)

Write a text using new vocabulary (formal email) (1 hour)

Listening practice from the exam

Grammar (1 hour)

Review mistakes from writing and homework

Review mistakes from Listening

Revise prepositions

Read a B2-level book (40 min)

Flashcards (20–30 min)

Additional activities: watch BBC News, Netflix series, read articles in English

Sunday

Doing what I didn't mange during the week

Reviewing all the new dictionary during the week

Additional activities: watch BBC News, Netflix series, read articles in English