Steven Robbins here.

Welcome to the Get It Done Guy's quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

It's back to school time and Get It Done Guy podcast listener Amanda posted a question on my

Facebook page and via email.

How do I run a successful study group?

Great question.

A study group meets around a shared goal. It's like a team

in business, only the purpose is a bit different and you don't have a psychotic boss demanding

impossible things in an unrealistic time frame, just a psychotic professor demanding you

understand impossible things in an unrealistic time frame. Here are nine tips to manage a successful study group.

Start with your goal. Make sure everyone in the group agrees on why you're there. For example,

a good goal would be to learn the material. Some people may be showing up just to fulfill a

requirement or to have an impressive class on their transcript or because their parents always

wanted them to be a doctor or a lawyer.

If you all have similar goals to your groupmates, great, you'll be able to help each other reach them. If you all have wildly different goals, you're probably doomed and should

abandon school to start an anarchist collective. But if most of you agree on goals, but one person

is out of step with the rest, you can just trade members with another group.

And if that's not possible, there are simple brainwashing techniques that will bring your lost little lamb back to the fold.

Tip number two, after you've started with your goal, choose your members for the long term.

It's extremely crass to choose your friends on the basis of who you think will someday have

the most money power and connections, but they're not your friends yet, so it's fine to

choose your study group that way.

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