Welcome to the 80/20 College Success Masterclass. In this course, I'm going to cover how to study effectively. The concepts I’ll be presenting are a collaborative effort between myself and my business partner, Jim Seaberts. He works behind the scenes writing, researching, and working directly with students. Most of the concepts are based on our own experiences, as well as research from many different sources.
Our advice applies to any student, regardless of your background or previous academic experience. In fact, Jim and I come from very different backgrounds. Jim was a terrible student in high school but turned it around and did great in college and law school. I, on the other hand, was a great high school student who struggled as a student-athlete at Harvard.
Our goal was to identify problems that apply to everyone. We believe that being a successful student is more than just getting good grades — it's about being able to have fun and enjoy college life without the constant anxiety that too many students experience. Lots of students have perfect grades, but often at the cost of excessive stress and missing out on fun around campus.
Jim and I realized there are really two main causes for most of your problems in college. First, never really knowing how much time you have or need. We solved that in the first course by showing you how to build a real study plan. But we also know that having a well-organized study plan isn't enough. You also need to use good study habits because if you don’t, you’ll still be wasting time, stressed out, and getting poor grades. This course will make sure that doesn't happen.
I’m going to show you how to make sure you're using your study time as efficiently and effectively as possible. I’ll cover how to take notes, read textbooks, and study for exams — and, more importantly, why you should do it that way. I’ll explain why certain study habits get you better results for the time and effort you put in.
Jim and I spent a lot of time discussing what we thought worked and what didn’t, and we did a lot of research to see what science says. We read books, studies, visited websites, and watched videos. We consumed everything there is to know about studying, learning how to learn, organizing, planning, and anything else we could find about college success.
There's a mountain of study advice out there and many different theories on every topic you can imagine. But what I'm not going to do is cover all of that here. It's not that I don’t think it’s valuable — it's just way too much. One thing about book authors and YouTubers is that they like to generate a lot of content — that's how they make money. For example, a typical productivity YouTuber has videos covering concepts that contradict each other, and then it's up to you to waste your time figuring out which one actually works.
We know that you already have too much to do, so we wanted to limit your choices to advice that is simple, practical, and easy to apply. This is the Pareto Principle of How to Study — the 80/20 rule. It's the idea that 20% of your effort delivers 80% of your results.
This course is that 20% of the study advice that will deliver 80% of your results — though we think it’s more like 99%. It's the advice that’s easiest to do and will give you the most success for the time and effort you put in. Are we missing some things? Sure. But they are marginal.
Our goal for you is to create a system — a consistent way of doing things the same way every day to get a predictable result. You shouldn’t have to think about it. You just do it because it works. You’ll be organized and in control. You will have no uncertainty about what you have to do and whether you can finish it on time. You’ll know when, where, and how you’re going to get it done.
The results will come just by following the steps. You should be able to see concrete success right away — perfect grades and more time to have fun on campus without constant stress.
Ultimately, it’s up to you. You have to make the effort and follow the plan, but our promise to you is this: we will do everything we can to improve your odds of success. If you need help, contact us.
Be the best, and don’t settle for less.
Now, it’s time to start digging!