This article contains a brief explanation on my studying technique through out the education period. This article is based on my own experience, So it is subject to criticizing, in case of any false information, please do notify.

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How to Study?
A Simplified learning approach
8/7/2015
Mounir Rafik Aziz Maurice

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Outline
 About the Author
 What is studying?
 The problems we face when studying and its outcome
 Steps of studying
 1st Step: Planning
 2nd Step: The actual study
 3rd Step: Summarizing and reporting processes
 Key notes on successful learning

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About the Author
Mounir Rafik Aziz Maurice is a graduate of the Arab
Academy of Sciences and Technology & Maritime
Transport in Alexandria, who majored in accounting
and finance with a minor in business administration.
He is a 23 years old accountant, at KPMG Hazem
Hassan auditing and consulting firm, who lives currently
in the city of El Giza.
His favorite hobbies are drawing, playing videogames,
listening to music and exploring the vast world of
knowledge.
Message of the author
“Dear friends,
I would like to welcome you as this is my first time to write a message to my dear
audience. I’ m sending this message to tell you the importance of seeking knowledge
and always learn new things whenever is possible.
We are all familiar with the quote of “knowledge is power”, but we don’t believe it until
we are faced with a situation, where weregret things weshould’ve learned in the past.
It is important for us to know that each and every pieceof information weacquire
through formal and informal learning, is a building block used in our pyramid of
knowledgeand experience, hence reflecting our true identity!
Yes, the fact that we are the outcome of the accumulation of past experience is what
makes me stress the point that what we learn, directly affects ourselves, our
appearance and our behavior.
In this article, I will be sharing some of my experience in studying, and how to make
learning a productive processwithout the negative feelings associated. Again
welcome and I hope this topic will be to your liking.”
Mounir Rafik Aziz

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What is studying?
If we look up the word (study) in the dictionary, we’ll find out something like this: “It is
the process of investigating, examining and acquiring the knowledge for a certain
period of time.”
So, studying involves, careful investigation and examination of information, or we should
call it (data), because it will be the raw material to our outcome (information); it
involves time.
To make it simpler, we gather the raw material (our data) which will be our input; the
process is studying, and finally the output is the simplified understandable information
which will add up to our body of knowledgeand experience.
Input
•Data
Process
•Mental
effort spent
Output
•Information
& expirience

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The problems we face when studying
Now that we know what is studying, let’s
know why the majority of the people
hate studying. It is simple, the bad
practice of studying results in a poor
outcome with wasted effort and
resources.
The main cause of the problemis our
way of looking to the process of studying,
most of the people view studying as a
process which includes lots of effort, time,
and even money in some cases. But we
actually don’t work on making the
process neither efficient nor effective; we
just dig in the ground without knowing
where to dig for the “gold”.
Of course the results of a bad practice
are poor outcome, lots of wasted effort,
no motivation, stress, and other factorsthat will result in losing interest in studying, and
even greater than that, the fear of studying.
The question now, how to make studying an efficient and effective process?First of all,
we need to agree on something, that studying is a process that requires effort, there is
no easy way. If you are looking for a way whereyou acquire information without effort,
then you ought to start putting some effort in that too.
We will discuss in the next page, on how to solve this problemthrough, an organized
and structured way for studying a certain subject, or topic.

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Steps of studying
Planning
•Setting the vision and objective of studying.
•Establishing Criteria of an efficient and
effectivestudying system.
•Setting the study plan (Scope, Schedule,
Quality Control, Communication
Channels...)
Executing
•Concentarteand focus all your mental
effort in the process.
•Construct a productiveand healthy
environment.
Reviewing
•Summarizing, reporting,Q&As, Storing of
information
•Key words, and mind mapping.

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1st step Planning
The first and most important step, is to plan the study, if you are familiar with strategic
management, this step should be a piece of cake for you.
The Vision
Start by asking yourself, why amI studying? This question is important, because you will
base all the next steps upon it. Let’s take a look on how this will affect our studying
process, if my goal from studying is to pass a certain exam in a short period of time with
no cost consideration, then my studying plan will be very efficient in terms of time, and I
will focus on just the milestones and the important topics, with high possibility of coming
in the exam. But if my aim is to make a full understanding of a certain subject, then I will
spend more time in research for example.
After knowing our objective fromthe studying process, weneed to explore the subject
by dividing it into smaller topics, and if necessary, wedivide the smaller topic into
fragments until each fragment is at its simplest form(Which means, that you can
understand it in a single learning day).
To clarify this point, let me give you an image on how studying is like. Imagine the
studying process is your digestivesystemand the subject is the food, which vary in
nature and type.
The objective of the digestive systemis to get the benefit fromthe food for the body to
use; the whole process of digesting the food fromthe moment it enters our mouth until
fully consumed, is the planning process, where you try to simplify the information as
much as possible, like the food, in order to be consumed and benefited from.

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The fragment ation t echnique
There are several ways and techniques on how to make the data “consumable”, in this
article we are going to use a project management similar approach, which consists of
dividing the subject into topics, subtopics and smaller fragments.
We then analyze each fragment in terms of priority, risk, understandability, sequence. In
case of a new topic, you’d better seek guidance in the analysis process by an expert,
or from multiple trusted sources.
After analyzing each fragment, you should estimate how much time, effort, money it
will take you to finish the fragment in order to proceed to the next one. Establish a
schedule and budget accordingly.
Qualit y Cont rol
On the other hand, one should establish a quality system in order to ensure that
objectives are met with efficiencyand effectiveness. But first things first, what is quality?
Simply quality is achieving the objectives set, following the standards, with no delays,
within budget.
Of course, we all know that the world isn’t perfect, and in the majority of situations, we
found ourselves behind deadline, over budget, and not achieving the highest possible.
Sometimes the problems could be because the plan isn’t flexible enough, or the
objectives aren’t clear and precise, so that’s why weneed the quality control process,
to ensure that all other steps work perfectly.
Est ablishing t he schedule
The schedule should contain the duration unit used, for example the week basis, day
basis or month basis scheduling system. Set a starting day and a deadline, and then
distribute each fragment in the working day according to the unit used.
The schedule should be flexible and precise in order to be efficient and effective.

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Communicat ion channels
In case of studying with a group, a communication channels should be established in
order to access the information needed on time.
Communication channels should be agreed upon from the beginning with the group.
Environment preparat ion
The studying environment should be a clean, comfortable and quiet environment with
no distractions. Also the environment should contain all the tools and equipment
needed to make the studying process easy, such as ITsupport, good lightning system
and desktop equipment availability.
Now that everything is set, we know where weare going to dig for the gold, we have
prepared ourselves; haveall the needed tools and equipment, now it is the time to dig!

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2nd Step the actual study
After spending about 80% of our time in planning and simplifying the subject, we are
now ready to start in the 20% remaining part; which consistsof the actual study and
review.
There isn’t much to say in this step, as we already covered the most important parts, but
let me highlight some important things. As we discussed before weare going to use the
LPR method which consists of learning, practice and review.
Learning process
Learning is the process of focusing mental effort by examining, inspecting and
analyzing the data, to come up with understandable information. Let me give you an
example, let us imagine our brains as CPU, this CPU only reads the coding system of
zeros and ones (e.g.: o1oooo1111o1o); the data on hand are written in the analog
system; so in order to understand the data and transformit into useful information, we
exercise some effort in order to transformthe analog language into digital language;
that’s exactly what happens in the learning process.
So according to the plan, we must make a healthy and productive environment in
order to be able to focus all our mental effort in the studying process, remember that
our brain is very sensitive to outside effects, that’s why weneed to maintain a quiet
environment as possible.
Pract ice process
After acquiring the information, we should apply it, through tests, Q&As, quizzes, essays
…etc.
The importance of the practice process is that it allows you to use the acquired
information in a simulated example, it is like an experiment, where you test a certain
chemical element, which is said that it has a certain effect, according to the books, but
you need to see it in reality.

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In some cases, practice material are not available for us, what should we do then? In
my opinion, we can use the information gained, and construct our own tests, it is like a
reverseengineering, although we need to be familiar with such procedureif we are
going to use it.
Review process
It is the process of comparing the practice with learning, and coming out with our own
conclusion and opinion. The review process is as important as the other two processes,
and we should spend enough time in it as well.

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3rd Step Summarizing & reporting
We have planned and established vision, strategy, and a system of studying, after that
we haveconducted the actual study through the LPR method. Now it is time to write
down what we have learned.
The importance of the reporting process is to not just writing down the information for
storing purposes, but also to make it easier for you to reallocate the information at any
time in the future.
Let me use another figure in order to clarify things, imagine that the brain is like a
desktop, where all memories, knowledge, experience, daily problems, emotional
thinking and lots of other stuff are on this desk, if you were to allocate a piece of
information stored in the past month, you will find that this piece of information is buried
under the pile of other things.
So you have here twooptions, either to make this desktop organized, which needs a lot
of effort and discipline, or to just “label” the piece of information.
We can “label” by using techniques such as the keyword method or the mind
mapping, there are lots of other ways, but we are going to discuss those two ways in
this article.
Keywording
When we summarize the information, we are putting the pieces together again, making
it a bulk again, so we use the keyword technique simply to make our brain recall the
bulk using simple words. Wecan use other things than words, such as graphs, smart arts,
drawings for example.

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The mind mapping
This is a sample of a mind mapping chart, it is self explanatory; the subject is about
buying a new car, the aspects of the car are drawn in the first lines such as the
performance, setting, interior …. Etc
We notice that in mind mapping, the lines are drawn in a curvy shapes, not linear ones;
that because it is easier for the brain to absorb it that way. (For more information about
mind mapping, see Buzan mind mapping technique.)

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Key notes on successful learning
 Spend lots of effort and time in the planning process, as it is considered the
foundation which you will build on the rest of the pyramid of knowledge.
 Be ready to face problems, problems are natural things that rise in a certain
situation, be sure to analyze the problems, to know its sources and solvethemas
soon as possible. (For more information about problemsolving, you can find a
whole article discussing about this topic.)
 Always keep track of your plan, scope, quality control, schedule and learning
method for updates.
 You need to be dedicated for the study. If you are not up to it, just don’t take it.
 Your schedule is your tool, not your master, make sure to update the schedule in
order to satisfy your needs and meet your objective.
 Take a step away fromthe study from time to time, and make sure that your
schedule applies that; spending overtime in studying will result in an opposite
effect to what’s desired.
 Make sure to reward yourself, in case of great performance.
 Use your imagination when studying, it sometimes helps in boosting your brain
and motivating you; for example, you can imagine yourself as a great scientist
when you are studying chemistry.
 I recommend to use notes, pen, papers, and pencils; I know that the ITand
softwareare better in a lot of aspects, but the traditional pen and paper method
has its perks too.
 Keep track of your performance and evaluate yourself on a regular basis, let this
be an opportunity to discover new skills, new techniques and new experience for
you.