It's easy! Just takes a lot of time and work, but it's not difficult. I'm going to give you tips both for class and for NCLEX. Let's talk about the various stages:
1. Take good notes. In class, either write directly on a printed powerpoint or in a separate notebook. Otherwise, you won't have all the information you need. For NCLEX, take notes on all the information in questions you come across that you don't know. It should take you just as long to review the questions as it does to take them, if not longer.
2. Settle in for a long couple hours and write notecards. This is the really important part. Let's say you have the following information: "Acromegaly and dwarfism are both due to problem with the pituitary gland's production of growth hormone. Some children who get their pituitary gland removed will still need to supplement with additional amounts of growth hormone to finish puberty."
All of that should NOT be written on a flashcard. There should be a couple different flashcards made out of that information!
Flashcard 1- Front: Acromegaly is where the pituitary gland produces too _____ growth hormone while dwarfism is where it produces too _____ growth hormone.
Back: much, little
(Aka, it's a fill-in-the-blank. Let's keep going.)
Flashcard 2- Front: Children with pituitary dwarfism may need supplementation because...
Back: they need growth hormone to finish puberty.
The most important qualities of these two example flashcards are that they are SHORT and TESTABLE. In other words, if you ask yourself the question on the front, you should be able to answer all the info on the back without having stuff back there that you didn't prompt yourself to respond with. It's also easy to say to yourself, "Did I answer this correctly? Or did it sound vaguely familiar but I had to look?"
Creating the flashcards should take the longest. It's easy to have to make hundreds of flashcards in order to cover all the new information you've compiled. And it's necessary! Otherwise, you won't be able to test yourself on all of it.
3. Practice with the notecards. Now that you have all your flashcards made, you have to set aside time to actually work with them. Go through your whole stack and put them in an "I know this!" pile and an "I don't know this!" pile. Be honest with yourself when you do it. If you're the least bit hesitant, stick it in the don't-know pile. It will pay off later when you feel solid and confident in choosing an answer on the NCLEX or your nursing school test!
4. You are finished studying when all the flashcards are in the "I know this!" pile. Really. There is an end to studying! It takes work to get there, but it is doable. Trust me, I did it a ton in nursing school and afterward and it really helped me to memorize information better than I ever had before.
Learn my lesson and do it this way from the beginning of nursing school. I only had mastered this process in my last year! What a waste... oh well. At least now I can prevent others from making the same mistake. : ) Good luck!