Studying the Scriptures Smarter, not Harder

Recently I had a post called "Study Smarter, not Harder."  Part of my inspiration for thinking about this is that I have been thinking about how I study the scriptures.

How Does Scripture Study Compare to Studying for School?

I have recently been analyzing scripture study and school study side by side for inspiration on how to improve my scripture study.

Goals and Plans

In school there is a strict plan (a syllabus) and explicit, measurable goals (get good grades).  In my scripture study there is no plan and there are no goals which are forced on me.  This makes school easy and studying the scriptures hard because I have to try that much harder to figure out what I am going to study and to keep myself motivated to study it.

Focus

I have an incentive to study focus 100% when I get into my studying for school (as explained in this post).  If I focus, I can get better grades in less time.  In my scripture study, when I am at my worst, my main goal is to do my scripture study for a "sufficient" amount of time.  When I focus only this goal, my incentive is to study while focusing as little as possible.  This requires less effort but still accomplishes my imperfect goal.

Activities and Results

In "Study Smarter, not Harder" post, I put forth the following theory:

Study Power = Quantity of Study X Quality of Study.

When I am studying for school, I have a natural incentive to have a low "quantity of study", i.e. I don't want to spend more time studying than I have to, while maintaining a high level of "study power", i.e. good grades, etc.  Therefore, according to my formula, I aim for a high "quality of study".  A big part of my "quality of study" is my choice of study methods.  I avoid study methods in which I learn slowly, and I replace them with methods in which I learn quickly.  Further, once I feel that I have sufficiently learned something for school, I will spend very little time reviewing it between when I have learned it and when I am tested on it.  My school study is very results-oriented.  I do things in the quickest, best way I know how.  I try to exploit the 80-20 rule as much as possible.

My scripture study, on the other hand, has been more activity-oriented.  In the past, I haven't thought as much about what is the quickest, best way of doing things because my incentive is not to finish studying the scriptures as quickly as possible, my incentive is just to do it like I am supposed to.

New Information

In school, I am typically given a constant stream of new information.  All I have to do in this case is understand the most important items.  If possible, I try to boil down a subject into a few overriding principles and then just focus on those principles.

In scripture study, I am not given a constant stream of new information.  By just doing an ordinary scripture study, I am likely to see large chunks of material that I have seen before.  In this way, scripture study is different from school study.

I compare this to my learning Portuguese.  During my first few months in Brazil, when I was just barely learning Portuguese, out of all of the things I did to learn, my Portuguese skills improved the fastest from simply talking to Brazilians in their language than anything else I did.  In speaking with the natives, I was given a constant stream of new words, new grammatical constructions, etc.  Practicing the language, in the beginning, was way more effective than studying vocabulary and grammar from a book.

As my Portuguese improved, I didn't learn as much of the language from talking to people.  I could now understand and talk to people effortlessly in Portuguese.  I was getting a stream of familiar words, familiar grammatical constructions, etc.  At that point, I improved more quickly by conscientiously studying grammar and vocabulary.

In school, I am always on the first phase where there is lots of new information; this is the easiest phase.  In scripture study, I am on the second phase; I have simply crossed a plateau where I am not receiving new information organically; I feel "comfortable".

Note Taking

In school, I (sometimes) take notes.  All I have to do is get one notebook per class and take notes.  I write down the date each class period so that my notes are in a nice logical order.  When I need to refer back to them, it is easy to find information.  When I finish a class, then I have a completed set of notes for that class.

In scripture study, it takes more work to get a logical order out of my notes.  Currently I am exploring digital alternatives to old-fashioned methods of notebooks, filing systems, and scripture marking.  I mentioned this here.

Filling a Requirement vs. Learning

In school, I am at my best trying to learn something, but at my worst what I do is only to fulfill a requirement.  As mentioned, I exploit the 80-20 rule in that I spend 20% of the effort to learn 80% of what the class has to offer.

In scripture study, I am not bound by requirements.  I can design it to meet my needs.  This aspect is easier than school work because I can work on the things that I am motivated to work on.