5 Top Tips for Studying Online at Home

This blog has been sponsored by the University of Birmingham, University of Bath and University of Glasgow.

One of the main advantages of studying online is that you can do it at a time and place that suits you! For a lot of you, that will mean studying at home which comes with the bonus of being close to the kitchen for tea breaks and studying in your pjs with no judgement.

But it can be hard to keep motivated with homely distractions (especially if you run a household!) so here are our top five tips for keeping you going during your online Masters study sessions at home.

#1 Mark your start and finish time

When you’re studying online, it’s really important to set boundaries, not just about where you study, but when. It would be easy to think “I can study any time” and then end up not studying at all, or constantly studying and not taking any time for yourself.

These are easy traps to fall into when you’re not organised with in-person lectures and don’t have set commuting times – so doing something small to mark the beginning and end of your study session will help you to set boundaries for yourself, and everyone around you. They will also help you on a subconscious level because these actions will act as indicators to your brain that it’s time to get studying!

It could be as simple as starting the day by writing your to-do list, and ending the day by reviewing it and writing one for the next day. Or you might decide that you’ll have a 15 minute stroll around the block to get going and that’s also how you end your day to get you out of your studying headspace.

#2 Be realistic with your to-do list

This advice is in two parts. Part one: write a to-do list and part two: decide what you’re going to do from that list today.

Most of the content for your online Masters will be broken up into weeks or units of study so you can use these as starting points for creating your to-do list. Think about giving yourself between three and five tasks to do a day so you’re not overwhelmed. This will also help you to prioritise what’s most important because you have a finite number of tasks you’re allowing yourself to do each study session. Any major deadlines should be highlighted in your VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) so keep these at the front of your mind when prioritising what needs to be done first.

Whether you’re making lists the old fashioned way with pen and paper, creating a work of art with post-it notes or getting creative with digital boards. . . keep it simple and realistic.

#3 Don’t procrastinate, get the task you don’t want to do…done first

We’ve all been there. You’ve sat down ready to crack on with your studies. . . you know you need to write a difficult section of your assignment. . . so you decide to clean your desk, then tidy your folders, and now your laptop needs adjusting, and actually surely now it’s time for a tea break?

Our advice. . . take a deep breath and dive straight into the least fun task. This is known as the first thing, worst thing strategy. If you know there is a particular assignment that you don’t want to start or a tricky reference book you don’t want to read. . . do it first! Get it off your to-do list, otherwise you’ll spend your study time procrastinating and doing other things. You’ll be amazed at how great you feel once it’s done and how much more you’ll be able to focus on your other online studying tasks.

#4 Use timers

Your online Masters will be set up in a way that keeps learning engaging with fun activities and bitesize tasks to complete as you’re studying. But if you struggle with staying focused on a task, especially if it’s a larger assignment, using timers could be a solution. There are lots of different timer methods so you will probably have to practice what sort of “study burst” works best for you, but one of the most common techniques is Pomodoro timing. Set yourself a timer for 25 minutes, focus on a single task for that time, then have a five minute break when the timer goes off. Do this four times and take a longer final break of 15 to 30 minutes and see if that helps to focus you!

Play around with it and see what your optimum focus time is. It could be shorter or longer, but don’t get too fixated on the timer – it’s there to help you, not add any pressure. If you don’t complete the task in 25 minutes, come back to it for the next 25 minutes. The whole purpose of the timer is to give you a set amount of time to focus and hopefully keep distractions at bay.

#5 Learn to walk away (for the right reasons)

We’ve all been there – you’ve got writer's block when trying to phrase an argument in your essay or you just can’t get the code to run the programme properly, and instead of going onto something else for a bit, you just sit, staring, hoping, praying that the laptop will somehow write it for you! This is even more frustrating when you’re studying online because everything you need is on the screen, but it’s just not hitting the mark. Our top tip when this happens is to simply get up and walk away. This is the same for group work and discussion boards as well, if you’re getting stuck, it’s ok to say “let’s park this for the moment and come back to it later”.

Procrastinators beware, this is not us giving you permission to avoid your studies! Make sure you’re walking away for the right reasons, and not just because 3.23pm is obviously the best time to put a wash on, even though you’re halfway through a sentence and could easily carry on, you’d just prefer not to.

Hopefully these tips will help make your online Masters studying at home more efficient and effective, so you can get that all important distinction!

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