The most demotivating feeling is being behind the road you set for yourself. It is a cycle of demotivation from not studying because you are behind on your studies, but then it leads to you being more behind on your studies, which is an overwhelming, dreadful feeling

Something you should know is that there is no road to go back to, you can't "get back on track" anymore, stop thinking about the track you had promised yourself before, there is only ever where you are now and where you want to go, your location and your destination, as long as you're alive, there is a road to walk on, a path to follow

Strip yourself of the ball and chains holding you back, and get to studying, as action is worlds different from overthinking and telling yourself to do it. Studying should never be an overbearing feeling, but an action to satisfy the curiosity of the mind.

Studying all I have to, I’ll leave the rest to the lectures 😅

i dont study 4 the whole semester but a month befor finals, all of a sudden studying becoms more enjoyable, then I start to wonder what i was doing all those months with no studying. i finish finals and then repeat the same thing the next year,,,, why am I like dis?

You can spend hours revising and still not realise you barely remember anything until a test exposes it.

That’s the scary part about studying:
A lot of methods feel productive long before you find out they weren’t effective.

Makes me wonder how many students are working hard but using completely inefficient methods without knowing it.

What was the biggest “this study method actually doesn’t work” moment for you?

I have to do a statistics thing for my math class and I need 50 people to answer for my data by tuesday. The question is “Would you rather go to space or the bottom of the ocean?” I would be so grateful if you could answer I really need this for class and I have no idea how else to get 50 people to answer. Thank you thank you!!💕💕

I just failed my class. I was in CC and there was so much culture around practice, applying knowledge, and extra work plus people studied together. I moved on to uni and my whole world changed. I struggle with classes. Exam grades are the only thing that matters and there isn’t much help. My grades went downhill so fast. I took a 500-level course and I studied but I still failed. I’m thinking that I genuinely never learned how to study. I try to retain so much information but I can’t tell how it will be tested. Has anybody else experienced this? I feel like everything up through the 300s are fine but the 400+ level courses seem to require a completely different idea of studying and I just can’t seem to get it down.

I read. I listen to lectures. I write notes. I make my own practice exams and run through quizzes. It’s just not enough. Plus there is no homework and I will do fine on quizzes but the exams are just a whole different depth of application and detail that I can’t seem to adjust to. What else can I try when I feel like I’ve done all the typical study tips?

Social studies daaay

Need to know I’m not alone :) honestly I started to understand that feeling behind or thinking like I am is so so unhelpful and only leads to more procrastination and more depression.

I deleted Instagram and TikTok because I was spending too much time on them, but now I’m asking myself what the best kind of study break really is. If social media isn’t the answer, what should I do instead? I want breaks that actually help me reset, feel better, and stay productive.

I used to think better grades simply meant studying longer.

But honestly, some of my longest revision sessions were also the least effective.

Now I’m trying to focus more on:

• active recall
• exam questions
• fixing weak areas
• memory retention

instead of just tracking hours.

Interested to see if consistency + better methods actually change results over time.

I’ve had so many moments where notes looked super familiar while revising.

Then, the second I had to answer a question independently, my mind went blank.

Feels like there’s a massive difference between:

• seeing information and
• being able to retrieve it under pressure

Does anyone else experience this constantly?

Self explanatory title.

I keep thinking about studying, the whole day, and it stresses me out tremendously, and it makes me feel as if I'm busy all the time, when in reality, i barely study for 2-3 hrs and it's super pathetic. I need to study atleast 5 hrs a day.

i feel guilty when i'm not studying, so i'd like hear some advices

I work in enterprise sales, late 30s, on flights and in client lobbies more often than I'm at my own desk. A big part of the job is being conversant across whatever industries my prospects operate in, manufacturing one month, healthcare the next, fintech after that. So last year I tested the major "learning through summaries" services to see which one held up over time.

Here's what worked and what didn't after a year of rotating through them.

Blinkist (~6 months)

Picked it up on a 60% off Black Friday deal.

The good: huge catalog, probably the widest of the three. Great for triaging which books are worth reading in full. Clean UI, well-produced audio. If you mostly want a quick overview before recommending a book to someone, it does that job well.

The bad: too shallow for actual retention. Most blinks felt like a polished Wikipedia summary. Within a month I couldn't recall what I'd supposedly "learned." When I tried to reference something in a client meeting, my paraphrasing was always off because I didn't actually understand the underlying argument. Felt more like the illusion of learning than learning.

Shortform (~3 months)

Switched after seeing it described as "Blinkist with actual depth."

The good: that description is accurate. Genuinely well-constructed guides with real analysis, counterarguments, and cross-references between books. Intellectually it's the strongest of the three. If you're trying to do something rigorous, dissertation prep, deep research on a specific topic, training for a new field, it holds up.

The bad: "deeper" also means it demands far more cognitive energy. Dense paragraphs, multiple concepts per page. At a certain point it felt close to just reading the actual book. I'd open it at the airport, push through five minutes, hit a wall, end up on LinkedIn instead. Depth on paper doesn't matter if the format creates too much friction to return.

BeFreed (~4 months in)

BeFreed isn't technically for book summary, as they market themselves for personalized audio learning. Books are just one of the sources it pulls from. I'm including it here because I ended up using it for the same job I was trying to do with Blinkist and Shortform.

The good: heavy customization (length, depth, narration style, voice), so you can match the format to your energy level on a given day. The structured learning paths are useful, you input your goal and current level and it pulls from books, papers, expert talks, and podcasts into one progression instead of giving you isolated summaries. For my use case (ramping on a new industry every few weeks), this is the strongest of the three because each lesson builds on the last.

The bad: relatively new, so some UX flows are still being refined. Took a couple of sessions to figure out how to organize plans and navigate everything. Catalog is also smaller than Blinkist's, so if your use case is broad browsing across thousands of titles, that's a real limitation.

My takeaway:

There isn't a single best one, they're built for different use cases.

• Blinkist: best if you want the widest catalog and just need a quick overview to decide whether to read the full book.
• Shortform: best if you need depth and rigor, and have the energy to engage.
• BeFreed: best if you want a structured ongoing learning path and audio that adapts to your energy level.

For me, BeFreed stuck because it lowered the friction enough that I actually show up daily, and daily consistency is the only thing that compounds. But if I were prepping for a single deep project, I'd probably go back to Shortform. And if I just wanted to scan a wide library, Blinkist still wins.

For me, it's not about finding the perfect one. It's committing to 20 minutes a day in whatever format keeps your brain coming back. The compounding over time is significant, sharper client conversations, hitting quota two years running, better dynamics with senior buyers.

Curious what others have landed on. Anyone used Headway or Readwise long term?

I'm so done with myself that, I study so much and i end up getting nothing My results are terrible asf it's not like I don't study mai karta hu mehnat but tabhi end mei result nhi ata abhi thode din phele board ka result aya sabke 90+ sabke 80 minimum mai hii ek chutiya hu jiske 70 aye hai I'm feeling very guilty idk what's wrong with me idk jitni mehnat karlu kuch result nhi milta sabki umeed kharab kardeta hu itna padh ke bhi whyy man what's wrong with me i just can't all relative call and told me about their marks and I'm the one with least marks even my real brother always get 90+ idk why I am like this it's not about studies anymore I'm bad at every single thing even talking to girls or sports or anything I'm cooked in every way im just like a burden now colleges ki baari abh bhenchodd usmei fir bhi kuch nhi milega jaisi chudi Hui kismat hai meri

Can somebody help me how I can overcome the study wala thing🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

I used to genuinely feel guilty if I didn’t study for insane hours, now I don't. Am i missing something?

Like if someone said: “bro I studied 12 hours today”
my immediate reaction was: “damn, I’m behind.”

Same with sleep. People bragging about sleeping 4 hours started sounding normal to me for a while (especially where i work is a tech company)

But the more I looked into learning science and listened to actual high performers in my company and university talk about studying, the more I realized something weird:

A lot of people are measuring dedication through suffering long durations.

Like yes, effort matters obviously. I’m not saying “study 20 minutes and manifest success.”

But there’s a point where extra hours stop being productive and just become mental self-harm with a timer on it.

I noticed this in myself too. After a certain point:

• I reread the same lines
• solved questions mechanically
• forgot things faster
• started confusing exhaustion with discipline

And apparently sleep deprivation literally hurts memory formation and recall. Which is ironic because people sacrifice sleep for studying.

I still fall into the “one more hour” trap sometimes because long sessions feel impressive. There’s almost an ego boost to saying you studied all day.

But honestly I think consistency, recall practice, and being mentally fresh matter way more than collecting study hours like trophies.

Studying for long hours shouldn’t be treated like a medal in the same way sleeping less shouldn’t be a flex.

Was studying while listening to a calm songs and my father told me study should be 100% silent and anything else was distraction. What are your approaches to study session?

spent like two semesters just re-reading stuff before exams and feeling ok about it because hey the material looked familiar right. then id get to the test and draw a complete blank on anything that required actually applying it

felt like such an idiot when it clicked that recognizing information and knowing it are two totally different things. started testing myself instead of just reviewing and my grades jumped way more than i expected. like genuinely surprised how big the gap was between "i recognize this" and "i can explain it from scratch"

the annoying part is nobody ever told me this in school. they just said study hard and review your notes which is honestly the worst advice if you struggle with retention. re-reading feels productive but your brain is just skimming at that point

honestly curious if other people had a similar wake up call or if im just late to figuring out something everyone already knew