Following the lockdown this year many of us were forced to continue our education from home. Whilst this was still a great way for us to ensure that we could continue our education, we ultimately were faced with quite the temptation in terms of being at home and having to make the time and find the discipline to study. Many in the educational profession such as the brilliant Professor Harvey Shapiro have been sharing some tips on how you can stay motivated to study at home, and these tips actually extend beyond the lockdown, they can also apply to exam prep and other at-home studying.
Pomodoro Technique
The pomodoro technique is a timed session of work which sees you break up your study time into manageable segments. The name stems from the Italian word for tomato, and the time is split up as you may cut such a piece of fruit. Timings vary but generally you will study for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. This is repeated 4 times before you take a longer 30 minute break, and then complete another session of 4. Breaking your studies down into 25 minute segments is the perfect way to maintain your levels of focus.
Internet Free
The biggest temptation when you are studying at home is that social media and the internet is just a click of a button away, and very quickly those minutes online become hours. To avoid this you must put yourself in a room and leave your phone outdoors. If you do need to go online then do so before your study session to gather any resources which you will need. Of course you can get your phone if you really wanted to, but leaving it outside serves as a nice deterrent.
Realistic Goals
Whilst timing is great for focus, it doesn’t always provide a good indicator of the amount that you have studied. Saying that you will study for 4 hours today, or perhaps 5, is all well and good, but not if you aren’t actually working towards something. With this in mind it is worth you while aiming for a specific point to reach in your day. Failure to do this could result in studying more or less than you need or want to.
Working Out Your Best Time
Some people study best first thing in the morning, others find that the evening is the optimum time, we are all different in this regard. It makes sense for you then, to spend the first week playing around with different study times to find out where your sweetspot is. This, believe it or not, could save you hours of time as 3 hours of study when your re clearly concentrating and focused, is worth 5 hours of study when you are not giving it your all.
Studying from home can work very well indeed, the key is to find out what best works for you and to ensure that you break down your study hours, and set goals.
