Research shows that we remember things better when we’re in the same environment where we learned them. The environment also includes factors like time of day, background music, and perhaps even the clothes you wear or the pencil you use. The more you match your study conditions to the test conditions, the better your memory. Apparently, our memories of what we’re learning latch onto cues in our environment, and those same cues later help us recall what we learned.1
This makes good sense, considering how our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived. When foraging in a particular section of forest, you learn that certain berries are delicious, while others are poisonous. When do you need to remember that information? Whenever you’re foraging in that forest. The information doesn’t need to be recalled when you’re fishing in a river or wintering in the plains to the south.
Sounds like a slam-dunk case for carefully matching your study environment to the testing environment, right?
Wrong.
Although “it would be wonderful if, whenever we had to perform on some test, we could easily re-create the precise environment in which we studied, piping in the same music that was playing, dialing up the same afternoon light, the same mental state,” we can’t actually do that.1 You might initially learn the material in the same classroom where the test will occur, but the rest of your studying must happen elsewhere.
So the environment-matching approach isn’t a realistic study strategy. But the fact that our memories can be tied to a particular time and place does suggest something important about how we should study:
We should vary our study environment so that we can access the knowledge anywhere.
In other words, we need to actively overcome the brain’s tendency to link knowledge to the time and place it was acquired. Study in a wide variety of environments, so you don’t need to be in a particular one in order to recall what you’ve learned.
Here’s how Benedict Carey puts it in his excellent book How We Learn:
“Try another room altogether. Another time of day. Take the guitar outside, into the park, into the woods. Change cafes. Switch practice courts. Put on blues instead of classical. Each alteration of the routine further enriches the skills being rehearsed, making them sharper and more accessible for a longer period of time. This kind of experimenting itself reinforces learning, and makes what you know increasingly independent of your surroundings.”1
Likewise, we should vary our study methods to be able to access the knowledge in any format.
Write it, say it, draw it, and act it out. Use flashcards, do brain dumps, and take practice tests in as many formats as you can find. Do mental recall practice while driving to school, walking the dog, and doing the dishes.
Teach it to other people – a variety of other people. You’ll have to change your style/approach to fit the audience, forcing you to deepen your understanding. (I know this is true because it happens to me all the time as a tutor.)
You can’t count on the test asking the particular style of questions you’re most comfortable with. For instance, the SAT loves to ask you about math topics you know – such as quadratics – in really weird ways that throw you off your game. The questions don’t look like the kind you’ve practiced in class, so you falter and fail to recognize how to solve them. It’s only by training up your flexibility – by experiencing a wide variety of problem styles – that you become comfortable with these odd-ball questions.
Mix this with interleaving.
Back in 1986, a pair of researchers at Louisiana State University discovered that interleaving during a single practice session confers a similar benefit to studying in multiple contexts. Their subjects? A group of young women learning three common badminton serves. Some practiced in blocks – one type of serve for many repetitions, and then another type of serve for many repetitions – while others practiced the serves in a random order.
The random group was engaged in “mixed practice” or “interleaving,” which is akin to studying math by doing many randomized problem types in a single sitting. And just as interleaving helps learn math, this group did far better at game time – 50% better – than the group that practiced in blocks. The researchers concluded that “All that adjusting during a mixed-practice session … also enhances transfer. Not only is each skill sharper, but it’s performed well regardless of context, whether indoors or out, from the right side of the court or the left.”1
This finding and others that support the practice of interleaving runs counter to how most people feel about study and practice. We prefer blocked practice because we feel more successful while we’re doing it.1 And there is a value to doing both massed practice and interleaving, but we tend to neglect interleaving at our peril, as Carey explains:
“It’s not that repetitive practice is bad. We all need a certain amount of it to become familiar with any new skill or material. But repetition creates a powerful illusion. Skills improve quickly and then plateau. By contrast, varied practice produces a slower apparent rate of improvement in each single practice session but a greater accumulation of skill and learning over time.”1
It’s a form of desirable difficulty. A good rule of thumb is: If your studying feels easy, you’re doing it wrong. Remember, you’re at the brain gym lifting heavy weights. It’s supposed to be hard.
“One fairly obvious reason that interleaving accelerates math learning in particular is that tests themselves – the cumulative exams, that is – are mixed sets of problems. If the test is a potpourri, it helps to make the homework the same. There’s much more going on than that, however. Mixing problems during study forces us to identify each type of problem and match it to the appropriate kind of solution.”1
So yes, it’s very helpful to mix up your environment, your methods, and the material itself because doing so enhances your mental flexibility. This allows you to recall the information anywhere, anytime, in any format.
Mix all of this with spaced repetition.
Spaced repetition is one of the most powerful techniques to build lasting knowledge. I’ve always framed it as a way to convince your brain to care about the information, so it will devote resources to understanding and remembering it. But it also presents an opportunity to enhance memory through variety.
If you vary anything about when, where, or how you study, then each instance of spaced repetition will add more “contextual cues” to your memory. Learn something in one context and study it in another, and the knowledge is “now embedded in two contexts, not just one.”1
Lastly, productivity is different from studying.
Now, how do we square the value of varying your study environment with the well-regarded practice of having a dedicated home study space?
The answer is that having a well-supplied and organized home study space is really not about studying at all; it’s about making it easier to be productive. It would be more accurate to call it a “homework space.” It’s a place you design to make it easier to sit down, focus, and play the game of school.
I love having a “command center” in my office where everything I need to get things done is within arm’s reach. This makes it easier to start my work, which is the key to overcoming procrastination.
A dedicated homework space also provides context cues for your brain. Entering the space signals that it’s time to work, which helps you defeat your desire to not work. Heck, you can even put on a uniform of some kind every time you sit down to do deep work. In my experience, it helps.
Such a space can be used for studying, but you should also mix in a variety of other study locations because you don’t want your memories to be tied to this one location. Use environmental cues to your advantage by having a productivity-enhancing work space at home, but then make your memories immune to the need for environmental cues by studying all over the place.
1Carey, Benedict. How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens. Random House, 2015.
Chris Loper has been working as a tutor and academic coach since 2014, racking up over 13,000 hours of experience supporting students.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the co-creator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
Chris writes the popular self-improvement blog Becoming Better, where he also offers habit coaching, helping busy adults with habit formation and productivity.
Chris’s most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, he published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA, where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.