Skip to content
The Study Hack That Could Make You Money
There’s a well-established fact about comprehension that, when you mix it with the right tools and processes, could help you do more than just pass your exams. What is it?
It is the simple fact that teaching is the best way to learn.
You can’t teach something until you understand it. At least until you understand it better than you would if you were just cramming for an exam. What’s the best way to teach?
These days, I’d say the best way to teach is using video. If you can turn everything you’re learning into a sequence of videos, you’re not only helping yourself, but you could be helping other people. Helping other people can very easily translate into getting paid. But how do you make videos if you’re already busy studying?
With the tools I’ve developed, it’s possible to create high quality videos with just your Mac, iPhone and iPad. The skills you learn will be highly transferrable - you won’t need to become a specialist content creator or video editor, instead you’ll focus on communication skills that will help you in the real world, for the rest of your life.
So let’s talk about how to start banking your study sessions. Not just in your brain, but maybe in the bank too.
Banking your study
What does this look like?
You’ve got your book. You’re studying away, trying to make sense of the material.
You’re noting key points, marking and saving paragraphs, just sort of studenting away.
You’re probably seeing this through the lens of an assignment or an exam.
But if you’re thinking about teaching, you’re also thinking “how would I explain this to someone else?”.
Now you need a video script, which is a lot more concrete than a loose collection of post it notes, highlighted paragraphs and bookmarks.
You need to put your own structure on all this information so you can communicate it clearly.
It’s a different headspace. Now you feel accountable to another person, so you really want to get it right. You wouldn’t want to make a video that somebody else sees or relies on, if it had bad information, would you? Even if that other person is just your future self.
With a script, you need to distill information, instead of just keeping everything.
With my app, CueCam Presenter, a script is more than just words.
What is a CueCam Script?
CueCam Presenter lets you write ‘smart scripts’, that is, scripts that you can read from a teleprompter that will also control what goes on screen. You can think of it as an inversion of Keynote or Powerpoint’s “Speaker notes” features, but with CueCam, your speaker notes come first, because it’s more about you on camera, like a TV presenter, than a dry deck full of bullet points. You don’t need a ‘slide’ for every single point, but you can very easily include text, images or video clips, when you need them.
When you’re writing, you can keep your hands on the keyboard instead of the trackpad (fiddling about with text boxes, choosing templates and trying to figure out why your slides already look ugly). That’s just a much better way to capture ideas.
Here’s what a smart script looks like. You build up your cue cards on the left, and add content on the right. You can tag some text to create titles, quotations and footnotes.
I’m not saying this is easy, but I’m saying that if you assemble what you’re learning into a script that could become a video, your study is going to become much more focused. It’s a way to unlock a feeling of social obligation or pressure in a safer way than you could do otherwise.
Turning scripts into videos
Once you’ve got your script, you can shoot it in one take, like a presentation.
This means you don’t need to worry about editing later, which is huge.
Only unlike Keynote or Powerpoint, you’ll be able to draw live notes and diagrams using your iPad. You’ll be able to use your iPhone as a camera, teleprompter and extra screen.
I’ve built these apps to work together seamlessly, and they’re great for this kind of content.
You’ll set up your laptop with CueCam. Put your iPhone on a stand (you can use a selfie stick tripod or a bean bag on a pile of books) and hold your iPad.
The iPhone’s front-facing camera isn’t the best one, but it does let you preview your recording on the iPhone screen, and with CueCam you’ll see your teleprompter, so you a) don’t have to learn your script by heart and b) you can make eye contact with the camera as you go.
Use your iPad to sketch as you go. With CueCam you can even set a picture to trace over, so you don’t need to be great at drawing.
CueCam helps you prepare so that you have everything ready when you go to press record.
If you want your videos to be watchable
The most important thing you’ll need if you want these videos to me watchable is a good microphone.
Nobody wants to listen to you talk indistinctly in an echoey room, not even you. Get the audio quality good and the rest will follow.
You can get a bluetooth lav mic that clips on your clothes, or a desk mounted USB mic - but anything will be better than your phone or laptop’s built-in microphone.
The hardest part of all this will be finding somewhere quiet that you won’t be disturbed. Perhaps your university offers study rooms. A music practice room might be an option! Or maybe you’re in the 21st century and have access to A/V production facilities somewhere.
CueCam does have a voice isolation feature which can help filter out bangs and background noises but it’s better if it doesn’t have to.
You will mess up a lot of recordings when you start out. Don’t be disheartened. Nobody else ever has to see those ones. Stick with it and before long you’ll start to get great results. Then you can start getting feedback and spotting how much your video can help somebody else understand, and where you can improve even more.
The sooner you start, the better. The beauty of this method is that even if your first scripts suck, even if your first videos suck, you’ll still come out if the process having learned and understood things a whole lot more than you would have otherwise.
The video-making and script-writing side only gets easier. With each new chapter of your textbook you’ll be collecting videos that you can watch back again and again. This also helps you spot flaws in your understanding.
How do you make money from this?
With regular, helpful videos, you can build a following on social media (or better yet, grow an email list). This probably doesn’t apply to over-saturated subjects like the first parts of an undergraduate degree, you’re much more likely to find a devoted audience if your content is more specific.
And the more specific it is, the more discoverable it is.
So now, when somebody searches YouTube for “medium energy ion scattering in crystal structures” they’ll find your content, and they’ll probably be ready to pay for it!
Teaching is the best way to learn
I wish I’d thought of this when I was a student! (Actually, this wouldn’t have been possible when I was a student, not without a camcorder and all sorts of specialist equipment!).
Nothing forces you to learn like the prospect of telling somebody else.
With your advanced understanding of the subject matter, exams will be easier. And after exam time, you can look back at your videos and see if you have something worth sharing.
Maybe you need to redo some early videos, but if you can create a decent sequence, you’ve now got yourself a video study guide that you can sell on Gumroad.
Or not! Either way, you’re developing skills that will help you learn and communicate for the rest of your life.
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.