Studying is rough – especially when you have a huge final exam with an unbelievable amount of material to get through. Why not create a game so you can have a little fun in the meantime?
It may seem silly, but we tend to respond to reward systems and try to avoid feeling any negative consequences. If your rewards and consequences are felt immediately, it’s likely that you’ll stay on top of whatever it is you’re trying to focus on.
Take a few minutes to create your own study game. You can create your own rules, rewards and repercussions as you see fit.
As long as you’re aware of the rules, studying will be both productive and fun. Who knew studying could be this fun?
Here are some suggestions to make studying more fun by creating a literal game plan:
Make a board
Create a game board that outlines all your concepts, definitions and examples into spaces. You can use coins as game tokens, moving them through the board as you accomplish tasks.
Think creating a game board is a waste of time? It’s not, since you’re really outlining your material, evaluating what you need to study and learning in the process!
Levels –
Divide your material into different levels you can accomplish. These can be chapters, chunks of material or however you’d like to divide up what needs to be accomplished.
Power-ups –
As you get answers correctly, allow mini power-ups. Do something small and in front of you that doesn't require you to lose focus. For example, every answer you get right, take a sip of coffee or a bite of a snack.
You can also do things like allow yourself one phone check for every ten consecutive answers you obtain. As long as you know the rules, you can format them any way you like!
Lose a life –
Every time you get an answer wrong, you lose a life. This can be doled out with ten more minutes of study time or taking away one of your rewards.
You’ll likely find that having negative repercussions for whatever information you’re not absorbing can be a very motivating way to stay focused!
Rewards –
Give yourself different rewards for accomplishing each level. The harder the level, the greater the reward. Whether it’s a walk around the block, a piece of candy, going to get coffee or a 20 minute nap, you'll be happy to reward your accomplishment.
Bonus Points –
Achieve bonus points for any information you learn that’s above and beyond the ordinary definitions. Why not allot yourself five minutes of break time for every five bonus points you achieve?
Multiple Players
Create a game plan with a study buddy or a study group. Take turns quizzing one another, using a bag of candy and other rewards that can be earned and taken away.
Or, perhaps, you could create a jeopardy board out of note cards. Write out definitions on one side and terms on the other. Play with other classmates for points, candy, studying tasks (the loser has to make ten flash cards for the group) or even money (everyone puts in $1 or $5 at the beginning of the game - winner takes all).
There are endless ways you can come up with to motivate one another.
It’s likely that you’ll find even if you don’t actually want to eat the candy or utilize the rewards, your competitive nature will come out in the process, motivating you to win at all costs!
Do you have any additional suggestions for implementing a study game?
Do you have any additional suggestions for implementing a study game?
