Studying from home: How to be productive

Being productive while studying from home is a challenge for all of us! Let’s be honest. See our productivity tips to save time, stay focused and stop procrastination!

Student life is great. You wake up whenever it feels right, you can party whenever you want, you meet a bunch of new people and there are about a thousand new hobbies that you could take on. You may have started living on your own or with friends now, you may have moved to a different city or maybe even another country. So many things to explore and discover, so many things to experience! Basically, you are at the start of your life and the possibilities are endless. But wait, are we forgetting a little something maybe?

RIGHT! Actually studying to get a degree is sort of part of the deal. At Amberscript, we understand that keeping the focus can be difficult. You may wonder how to be productive: here we have 7 productivity tips to make sure that you study as efficiently and effectively as possible. Let’s optimize your time to make sure you do not miss that next party, that ski trip your association is planning or that much-needed “Netflix and Chill” time.

One of the first productivity tips is to find your concentration station! You need to find the place and circumstances that work best for you. Find a place in your house, preferably not your bedroom, that you will name your “studying space”. The first step in how to become more productive while studying from home is setting boundaries, so you can mentally split studying from leisure time. Make your workstation as comfortable as possible, with desks and chairs that will not cause your neck and shoulders to get sore after a long study session.

Wherever you choose to study, try to make your working space organized. If there are pages of notes spread across your desk and it is taking you 5 minutes to find last week’s notes, you are probably not getting through the work as efficiently as possible. Creating routines, such as changing out of your pajamas and/or exercising before you start studying also helps to make your study time consistent. It is also helpful to divide up the work before-hand and create a to-do list per day. This makes the total workload seem less and makes it easier to have all assignments and revision done on time.

Are you attending an online seminar this week? Is your professor or teacher offering the class online? School notes can be hard to take especially when the class is online! Among the best note-taking methods, our favorite is the easiest: you can simply hit the record button on your laptop and transcribe the file on Amberscript later. Not only does this save you a lot of time, but it also means you can edit the notes, highlight the main points and keep the text to go back to when you need to study. Try it for free!

Want to know more about recording video and audio from your laptop? Read our article on how to record a video call on Zoom, Skype, Hangouts or with your computer.

It’s super simple, for every hour that you spend on studying, 45 minutes (or ¾) should be spent on reading/ writing or any other intellectual activities. Reserve the remaining 15 minutes for your break. Go for a short walk, drink some coffee, answer a few messages (but just a few!). Studying non-stop for hours without breaks is exhausting and in fact, may even lower your productivity. This technique is a good starting point, but you can also experiment by slightly changing the length and quantity of your breaks. See what works for you but remember: your study session should be 75% studying and 25% resting and not the other way around!

Generally, studying is your personal thing and you should be intrinsically motivated to do it. However, we know that studying from home, all alone, can be sometimes frustrating. Searching for a study group is not a bad idea at all. You can meet up occasionally to revise some topics or work on a project together. This way you not only have more viewpoints to work with, but also more feedback and (hopefully!) more motivation.

This may seem like the most obvious tip, but starting on time can actually save time! Procrastination is your worst enemy, obviously, but it can often feel like your best friend if you know that party is happening tonight and you still have two weeks until your exam. Just think about it for a second. If you choose to study for two hours each day, you are probably able to be much more productive, than forcing yourself to concentrate for three days on end just before the exam. As mentioned before, putting less strain on the brain can really help boost productivity!

Develop a few specific objectives, that you plan to accomplish by the end of the day. This can be a simple to-do list, such as read 50 pages of Marketing book, write 1 page for the assignment, learn a certain topic, etc. Keep in mind that goals follow the same principle as multitasking. The more goals you set the more likely it is that you won’t accomplish any of them. It’s much better to pick 2-3 realistic goals and stick to them.

Now you have all the productivity tips to success studying from home! If you have enjoyed reading our post, you can also take a look at:

• How long does it take to transcribe 1 hour of audio?
• How to transcribe audio: 3 ways to convert speech to text