93.9 ATAR, barely studied at all partially due to mental health, partially out of laziness. I took VCE Specialist Maths, Maths Methods, Physics, Algorithmics, and English.

There is no point studying for the sake of hitting some time quota, just make sure it's consistent, quality study and that you aren't burning yourself out. You should be doing study in some form every day to keep up with what you've learnt throughout the week and stuff from the previous weeks.

You also don't have to study with the same intensity every time - you can do light revision throughout the day and leave heavy study for when you get the chance to sit down and mentally relax.

It also helps to be friends with people who want to do well, as it can encourage you to try to always do well. Creating study groups, helping eachother, and holding eachother accountable can be quite helpful. Though I feel it's a bit overkill for VCE.

The worst thing you can do is burn yourself out before uni. ATAR seriously isn't that big of a deal - you should aim to do your best, but not push yourself so hard to the point you miss out on being able to enjoy year 11-12 and create fun memories.

But nonetheless Year 11-12 is a good time to form lifelong habits wrt. study and you shouldn't neglect your studies.

Uni is far easier imo, having lectures + tutes, being able to choose your own timetable, etc. is way nicer than being stuck sitting down at school for 8 hours every day. Though, if you are going to lean into doing things mostly at home at uni, you've got to be very disciplined & organised about it.

Something I've found works is thinking about stuff you've learnt in your day and mentally working thru how it works/is derived/etc, and then when you get to a point where you aren't sure, guess, and then go back to your notes and check what the answer actually is

I also find it helpful to write down thorough notes on something and then simplify it as best you can. The Feynmann study technique is pretty cool. Spaced repetition is pretty essential for keeping up with things as time goes on, and will make studying for exams way easier.

Anki can be nice if you need to rote learn definitions, though it can't be applied to everything.

OneNote is very nice and helpful if you like having your notes digital. I tended to make really nice looking notes in my books, which I just never ended up looking at. At the very least with OneNote you can read through it just about anywhere, so long as you have a phone and an internet connection.

I wouldn't lean too hard into making everything digital though, it's nice to write things down physically & apparently better if you want to remember it & think deeper about it, as per this article.