Spread the same study time over several days instead of cramming it all at once

15. Spread the same study time over several days instead of cramming it all at once

Cost: There’s no extra expense, and the total time required stays the same. The only change is the schedule: those same 3 hours are split into three 1-hour sessions. The challenge is that you must start planning days in advance — you can’t leave it all for the final night.

In plain terms: Studying the same amount of material over several days helps you retain it far better than cramming it all at once. 317 separate experiments have all confirmed this same conclusion. There’s also a practical rule to follow: the longer you want to retain the information, the longer the interval between review sessions should be. If a test is tomorrow, review the material that day; if it’s a month away, schedule a few review sessions in between.

Benefit: This is a meta-analysis that brought together data from 184 papers, 317 experiments, and 839 separate evaluations of distributed practice. It compared two key factors: studying material in one continuous block versus splitting it into multiple sessions (the spacing effect), and short versus long review intervals (the delay effect). Its main finding is that both the length of time you aim to retain information and the spacing between review sessions together determine your final retention rate: the longer you need to remember the material, the longer the ideal spacing between reviews becomes. Another review that assessed ten common learning strategies ranked distributed practice as one of the highest utility methods overall.

Evidence grade: A

Sources: Cepeda NJ, Pashler H, Vul E, Wixted JT, Rohrer D (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. <https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354>; Dunlosky J, Rawson KA, Marsh EJ, Nathan MJ, Willingham DT (2013). Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. <https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266>

Notes: This tip works best when combined with Tip 14 (self-testing without looking at notes): you can also spread out those self-test sessions over several days. Most of the study materials used in Cepeda’s meta-analysis focused on simple tasks like memorizing word lists, so no universal recommended interval length exists for more complex subjects. The original research states that the longer the upcoming test date, the longer the ideal spacing between reviews should be, but no specific schedule is provided. Cramming the night before an exam does offer some short-term benefit, but the information is quickly forgotten.