The Best Time of Day to Study, and How to Find Your Own
There is no single best hour for everyone. The best time to study is the time you are sharpest, and it depends on your body clock. For many students it is not early morning but later in the day. What to do with that: put the hardest material in your best hours, the easy tasks in the weak ones, and don't cut sleep for one more hour of studying.
Morning or night? It depends on your body clock
Everyone has a natural lean toward certain hours, called a chronotype. There are "larks" who are sharpest in the morning, "owls" who come alive in the evening, and most people somewhere in between. At student age the lean usually tilts later. In a study of about 190 first- and second-year students, a large share were evening types, and the researchers recommended starting the university day later. Evans et al., 2017.
Research has a name for this: the synchrony effect. People perform certain tasks better at their peak time of day. May et al., 2023.
What happens when the hours don't match
A study of course-system logins from about 15,000 students found that most of them had a gap between when their bodies wanted to be active and when their classes were, a kind of weekly jet lag. The bigger the gap, the lower the grades, and owls were hit hardest. That is a correlation, not proof, but the direction is clear: build your study hours around your clock, not against it. Smarr and Schirmer, 2018.
How to find your best hours
The simplest way is a one-week experiment. A few times a day, rate how alert and focused you are from 1 to 5, and note when you understood material fastest. After a week a pattern shows up.
| Time | Alertness (1 to 5) | What I studied and how it went |
|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | ||
| 12:00 | ||
| 15:00 | ||
| 18:00 | ||
| 21:00 |
Another hint: when do you wake up without an alarm on a free weekend? If you naturally wake late, you are probably more of an owl; if you wake early even without an alarm, probably more of a lark.
What to study at each time of day
| When | What fits |
|---|---|
| Peak hours | The hardest work: new material, problem sets, proofs, writing |
| Medium hours | Practicing material you already know, past exams, review |
| Low hours | Organizing notes, admin tasks, light flashcards |
| Before sleep | Light review, nothing new and no stolen sleep |
What if you have an 8 a.m. lecture?
You can't choose the lecture time, but you can choose your study hours. If you are an owl, don't put hard material right after an early lecture. Use the morning for the lecture and light tasks, and keep the afternoon or early evening for work that needs real thinking. And try to wake up at about the same time on weekends too, so the gap between days doesn't grow.
And how many hours should you study a day?
There is no single number. During the semester, a common rule of thumb is one to two hours of self-study for every hour of lecture, with the weekly total split across the days. Our semester load calculator does the math from your credits, and the reasoning behind it is in our guide to credits. In exam season, which hours matters more than how many: focused rounds with breaks, at the times you are most alert.
Most important: not at the cost of sleep
Studying until 2 a.m. because "I'm an owl" only works if you can sleep late the next day. With a morning lecture, the hours taken from sleep come out of the next day's focus. Better one hour less at night and one hour more in your peak hours.
In Focusity's settings you choose when you focus best: morning, afternoon, evening or night. The study plan puts your hardest and most urgent tasks in that window and the rest in your other free hours. Free.
Build my plan — freeFrequently asked questions
What is the best time of day to study?
There is no single hour that suits everyone. The best time is when you are most alert, and that depends on your body clock. For many students it is not early morning but later in the day. To find yours, rate your alertness a few times a day for a week, and put your hardest material in the good hours.
Is it better to study in the morning or at night?
It depends on whether you are a morning or an evening type. At student age many people lean later. What matters is that the hard material goes into your peak hours, and that studying at night doesn't come at the cost of sleep when you have an early lecture the next day.
How do I know my best study hours?
Run a one-week experiment: a few times a day, rate how alert you are from 1 to 5 and note when you understood material fastest. Another hint is when you wake up on your own on a free weekend. After a week there is usually a clear pattern.
How many hours should I study a day?
There is no single number. During the semester, a common rule of thumb is one to two hours of self-study for every hour of lecture, with the weekly total split across the days. Focusity's semester load calculator does the math from your credits. In exam season, which hours matters more than how many: focused rounds with breaks, at the times you are most alert, without giving up sleep.
Should I study before bed?
A light review of material you already know is fine before bed, but not new, hard material, and not at the cost of sleep. Enough sleep matters more for the next day's focus and learning than one more hour of studying at night.
Can you change your body clock?
To some extent, and slowly. Waking at the same time every day, weekends included, and getting daylight in the morning help shift it a little earlier. But it is easier to build your study hours around your clock than to fight it.
Hard material, in your good hours
Focusity builds a weekly study plan by due date, difficulty and the hours you are sharpest, inside the free time you actually have. Free on iPhone, Android and the web.
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