Interviews

Succeeding At Your Online Course Tip No. 2

05/12/2016

written by

Jac

Last week, we started a series of Successful Study Tips to help our students (and other students) achieve their study goals. Today’s tip is all about ‘routine. You have probably heard the theory that it takes 21 days to form a habit. This works for study too; which that that you can develop good, regular study habits if you have a set a routine that you can follow on an ongoing basis. If you do this each week, within a month you should find that sitting down to study on a regular basis, is just something that you do.

Establish a regular study routine

I highly recommend that you have a set time each week for study. Routine is highly effective when it comes to staying on task and achieving goals and as we mentioned above, developing good study habits.

I know that one of the reasons you have probably selected to study via Distance or Online is that you want to be able to fit study in and around your life, however if you don’t set aside some time each week for study, you will always find something else to do, rather than working on your course. If you have a set time for study and stick to it you will find it much easier to work through the course at a steady pace and your goals will remain achievable, even if there are the odd days when you need to put something else ahead of your study.

The hardest part of setting your goals will be finding the time to do the work. If you are struggling with finding time, keep a journal for a week and in it record everything you spend time on each day. At the end of the week, review your journal and I can almost guarantee that you will find times in the week that you could allocate to study. Once you have determined your ‘study times’ record them in your diary or online/phone calendar. In other words make an appointment with yourself to do what you have determined you need to do to reach your goals. Remember this is not forever. You just need to stick this out as long as it takes you to finish the course. Then you can use that ‘room you made’ in your schedule, for something else.