Midnight, one more chapter
Priya is in Year 12 and has a history test on Thursday. At 11:40pm on Wednesday there is still a chapter left, so she makes tea and keeps going.
By one o'clock she has read the same paragraph four times. She goes to bed wired, and the chapter still feels unfinished.
On Thursday the lesson before the test slides straight past her. In the test, the dates are foggy.
The extra hour cost a day
In 2013, Cari Gillen-O'Neel, Virginia Huynh and Andrew Fuligni at UCLA asked 535 students from three Los Angeles high schools to keep a diary. Every night for two weeks they wrote down how long they studied and how long they slept.
On nights a student studied more than usual by cutting sleep, the next day went worse. They were more likely to not understand something in class, and more likely to struggle on a test or homework.
Studying a lot was not the problem. Students who studied more overall did fine. The cost came from paying for the extra study with sleep.
Stop, check, sleep
In 2016, Stéphanie Mazza and her team in Lyon had adults learn sixteen word pairs in a new language. Half practised in the evening and again the next morning, after sleep. The other half practised in the morning and again that evening, with no sleep in between.
After the night, the sleepers still knew about 10 of the 16, against about 7.5. They got them all back in about three rounds instead of six. A week later they held about 15, against about 11.
Tonight
Stop on time
Ten minute check
Misses on a note
Morning
Five minutes
same note, book shut
Work out your stop time from when you get up. Eight hours is the low end of what sleep doctors at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommend for teenagers.
When do you get up tomorrow?
At your stop time, shut the book. For ten minutes, say or scribble everything you remember. Anything you missed goes on a sticky note.
The note holds what is unfinished, so your head does not have to. Stick it on your phone, then lights out. In the morning, give it five minutes before anything else.
If you have ADHD, stopping can be harder than starting. Set an alarm for your stop time, so the decision is already made when it rings.
Three dates on a sticky note
The next week Priya set an alarm for 10:20pm. When it rang she shut the book, scribbled what she remembered, and wrote three dates she had missed on a sticky note.
She did not feel finished, and went to bed anyway. On the bus she read the note, and two of the three dates were already there.
Tonight, find one sticky note and put it by your books. That is the first step.
Plan2Ace
A sticky note does the job. Plan2Ace keeps the note for you.
Make a flashcard for each thing you missed tonight. Flashcards come back when they are due, so the morning review is short and ready. Prefer paper? The method is the point.
A few more questions
What if my test is first thing tomorrow?
Same plan. Do the ten minute check, sleep, and read your note over breakfast or on the way in.
Is getting up early to study any better?
Only if you still get your sleep. An hour cut from the morning is the same trade as an hour cut from the night.
What if I lie awake thinking about the test?
Put the screen away when you stop and keep the room dim. Whatever is still circling goes on the note, so it is waiting for you in the morning instead of in your head.
Got ten minutes?
Pick a stop time, shut the book, and fill one sticky note. Or let Plan2Ace keep the cards. Free to start.
Download on theApp StoreiPhone, iOS 26.5 or later