I’m glad I read the whole thread. In college, I used to use the 2 hours of study, one hour of listening to to music rule. Since you’re studying music, this might not work, but how about 2 hours of studying and then one hour of activity you really like? Perhaps working out at the gym or swimming or hiking?
Oh my god, this is such a good idea! Thank you!
I suck so hardcore when it comes to studying. I’m lucky that I have a good memory but good isn’t going to be good enough starting in January. I am terrible at taking notes but this would be so much better. Now I just have to wait til I have some money so I can get one. 
Hmmm lots of useful advice in this thread 
just have to figure a way to apply it to learning music theory.
BigT - I do have a piano and my teacher is teaching me classical singing and also music theory and also helping me with piano, she really is amazing I need to get up to a good grade in singing and music theory before I think about auditioning for an opera course at a college and have been told it could take a couple of years.
Jaledin, I’m in the UK so the theory I’m studying is the ABRSM standard testing, music theory in practice and guide to music theory books are what I’m reading and working through. Oh and I think dumb would apply to me rather than old 
although, being 23 and doing this when so many of my tutor’s students are in teens and tweens… it can be a little disheartening.
I have to disagree. I never studied through most of my education, even through grad school. The few times I really tried, by taking notes, I found that taking notes meant I was paying less attention to the lecture and I actually learned LESS, not more. If I did all the reading, and read all the slides and stuff, I became saturated and picked up less.
The key there, though, is that I tried a few different methods of learning and I found what worked for me. That meant listening to the lecture and doing the projects (I was a CS major, so the coding projects were essential), but I really couldn’t miss a lecture, I had to hope that I could figure it out as part of the project or I just wouldn’t be able to get it from reading. I also had friends on the opposite side and constantly skipped lectures and even some projects, but would do the reading and go through the notes and be fine. And I had other friend still who pretty much needed to do all of it and might even do more beyond that.
So my suggestion is to just try some of the different ideas here and see what works for you, and what doesn’t. But I really don’t think that the idea that there’s some single best way to learn holds any water, because I tried so many of them and almost all of them just made my experience more difficult than what I figured out on my own.
Reading the OP, I was going to reply with my one bit of advice:
Turn off the music when studying.
Good thing I read on, though. 
Studying is really an individual thing, but some good general advice is:
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Don’t do things that don’t work for you, even if other people like them. For example, flashcards are useless for me. I know other people swear by them, but they just don’t work for me. For years, I’d spend hours staring at flashcards because I thought that’s what a good student did. What a waste! If something isn’t working, move on until you find something that sticks.
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Set goals- really think about what you need to be able to do with this knowledge, and figure out how you will know when you’ve learned something as well as you need to. Don’t just think “I have to know this.” but rather “I have to be able to intelligently discuss this in class” or “I have to apply this concept to these kinds of problems” or “I need to be able to use this concept in this kind of paper.” Think about what behaviors you will need to do. Then you can understand your purpose a bit better and set good benchmarks to measure your progress (and give yourself a sense of accomplishment.)
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Make it your job. Don’t just study whenever you feel like it and flip aimlessly through your material- mark down discrete times on your schedule, have a goal for those sessions, and hold yourself accountable for it.
Wonderful tips even sven, I have been sporadically studying without a set timetable.
I’ve also noticed that the music theory guidebook isn’t too useful for a beginner, it contains everything I need to know of course but it’s like a big mass of information and you have to skip through certain pages to garner information for the workbook it’s accompanied with, so am going to search for some other music theory books which have chapters on a specific subject then a test corresponding each chapter, ergo it’s a more organized way of taking in information.
What works depends on how your brain is wired. Some people are auditory learners–they learn best by listening to someone talk about the subject. Some people are visual learners–they learn best by watching a process or reading about a subject. Some people are kinetic learners–they learn best by actually performing the process or writing the information down. Most people are a mix, with one type being dominant.
I’m a primarily visual learner with a healthy dollop of kinetic, so doing a preliminary read-through, then going back and reading more slowly and taking notes, then reading over the notes and going back to the book if something doesn’t quite click is usually my best bet. Unless it’s rote memorization, like math facts or foreign language vocabulary words. Then I just write and say the damn thing over and over and over until my hand and mouth can just write/say it without my conscious brain actually being involved.
This method works abysmally for my brother, who is an almost purely auditory learner. The tape recorder method mentioned above works quite nicely for him, but it would do diddly squat for me.
Acorns, you might ask your tutor if there’s a good website that’s a little more basic that you can work through to get a grounding, then go back and hit the textbook. That’s what my new boss has recommended for me learning ophthalmology–learn this online source backward and forward, then start the textbook.
But “doing” is part of studying: that’s why every subject has homework.
Some good sources for exercises: if you have a book with exercises, do all of them and not only those the professor asks for. See if you can find similar texts in the school library. Since you’re studying music theory: occasionally, pick a composition and try to apply to it what you’re working on at the time. If you’re studying for example contrapunto, pick some work by a composer who’s famous for it, but not his most famous work (because you’re likely to dissect that one in class).
Figure out what are your best hours for study: some people study best at night, some first thing in the morning. Figure out whether you should have music/background noise or not, and whether you study better in a library or at home: these things vary by individual (I move a lot and suddenly when I’m concentrated, so libraries are not a good place for me to study - I can’t concentrate completely when I’m trying to “behave”).
Love all of the advice. Not a bad suggestion from OP to get a more linearly-arranged book. FWICT Walter Pistons Harmony (probably doesn’t matter which edition – I’m sure you can find a cheap copy or use the library) is pretty darned widely use in college courses introducing music theory. I flipped through it thought it was clear, with lots of examples, and takes from soup to nuts, pretty much
There are other books, but I can’t think of one that’s really geared for someone just starting out and doesn’t use a less-than mainstream style of theory than good old Roman Numerals.
If you have some extra cash or can find it in the library and want what I think is a witty book which does explain theory well, starting with the basics, I own and still read for fun now and again Arnold Schoenberg’s Harmony – don’t let the name fool you. He’s a good writer and teaches mainstream stuff pretty clearly (with lots of entertaining digressions – those are what keep me coming back for more).
Even if your goal is to play jazz – I still think it’s better to start with Theory rather than that made-up little invention somebody called “jazz theory” (which doesn’t exist, IMHO).