While some students find it easy to study through distance learning, studying in the comfort of their own home, others would find it a bit problematic as some cannot find a way to achieve the balance, patience and the self-motivation that’s necessary to study on their own rather than students who ends up heading to a campus-based educational institution, where you can attend classes and have frequent interaction with fellow peers.

Students who study through distance learning unfortunately, when not occupied, do have the tendency to procrastinate when it comes to studying.

Things like technology, discipline and isolation does not tend to work in a student’s favour when it comes to studying and a lack of studying can result in dire consequences such as ending up getting worse marks than you’ve intended or outright failing your module because of lack of knowledge.

However, there are solutions that students can and should adopt to avoid falling into a false sense of security as well as avoiding procrastination, such as:

• Organisation is Key

Getting everything in order keeps you in order. Invest in a day planner, a scheduler or a calendar app for your phone, where you can create and keep track of events such as assignment due dates, exam dates as well as what to supposedly study for the day. You can find schedule making apps on your phone via the Google Play store or Apple’s App Store.

• Creating achievable goals

Make sure that what you plan to study for the day/night is achievable and attainable enough as to not overload yourself with too much information in one go. Set the bar at a certain level and every time you complete a goal, set the bar higher for yourself to encourage yourself to do more.

• Avoid Distractions

In this day and age of social media, it’s far too easy to get distracted. Spending time on Instagram, Snapchat or social media in general, takes away valuable time where it could in fact be used for other productive purposes such as studying. Make sure that your study environment is distraction-free so that you’ll have the freedom to study easier and in peace.

• Incentives

Give yourself an incentive or a reward each time for achieving a certain goal or landmark, no matter how small it is. Finished an assignment? You deserve that cup of hot chocolate with extra mini marshmallows. Incentives gives people a reason to achieve a goal or two.

• Taking a Break

Taking breaks is a simple method of telling your brain that it needs to recharge. A 10-15 minute break through studying periods can do wonders for the brain. It takes your mind off work and gives you a chance to regroup before tackling the next study session topic. 

• Tell Someone about your Goals/Study Partner

It’s very easy for some to just taking a “break” and then pick up a month or so later. Telling someone about your goals will help you avoid stalling on doing your assignments on the last day or cramping a few months of hard work all into 2 weeks before the exam. You can join study groups, physical or online (which you can find here) where you and your peers can study together. This way, you can not be alone in your journey.

Following these tips would surely set yourself along the way in the right direction to successfully tackling your studies step-by-step and in turn, avoiding negative results come the end of the year.

Together We Pass provides students with online study groups as well as study resources such as study notes and exam packs, so if you’re a distance learning student, then there’s no reason to study alone anymore when there’s a large online community just waiting for you. You can find out what we offer by clicking on the link here.

Last Updated: 12th November 2023