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5 minute read
3 Apr 2023

Studying from home: How to be productive

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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.

Productivity tips

1. Set-up is Key

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.

2. Organize your Space and Schedule

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.

3. Writing notes for Online Seminars and Classes

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.

Pro Tip: Learn to transcribe your files with Amberscript

As you already know, taking notes of online seminars is one of the most important actions to increase your productivity. But did you know that manually transcribing an hour of audio can take up to 5-6 hours?

Luckily, companies such as Amberscript offer fast and reliable transcription services that save you the time and energy of transcribing your lessons manually. We offer two types of transcriptions:

Would you like to know more about transcriptions? Read our blog post for a detailed guideline.

Transcribing with Amberscript

4. Use the ¾ technique

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!

5. Study Buddies

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.

6. Stop Procrastinating and Spread the Workload

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!

7. Start your study sessions with a clear-cut goal in mind

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 a 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 succeed studying from home! If you have enjoyed reading our post, you can also take a look at:

Frequently asked questions

  • Can I burn the subtitles directly onto my video?

    If you have exported the transcript as a SRT, EBU-STL or VTT file, you can easily burn them onto your video using video-editing software.

  • Can I change the position of the subtitles?

    That needs to be done using a video editor like VLC. Go to Tools > Preferences [CTRL + P]. Under Show settings, select the option that says All to switch to the advanced preferences. Navigate to Input/Codecs > Subtitle codecs > Subtitles. Under Text subtitle decoder set, the Subtitle justification to left, right or center.

  • How do I add subtitles to a YouTube video?

    To add subtitles to your Youtube video, simply add the file you have created using Amberscript to your video in the Youtube Studio. Click on “subtitles”, then “add” and finally “upload file” and select the SRT file.

  • How do I add subtitles to a video on Vimeo?

    To add subtitles to your Vimeo video, simply add the file you have created using Amberscript to your video in the editing window on Vimeo. Click on “distribution”, then “subtitles” and finally click on the + symbol to upload the SRT file.

  • How do I order translated subtitles?

    To order translated subtitles, you can upload your file like you would normally do. You can then select manual subtitling. Once you have selected this, an option will appear where you will be able to select the language the subtitles need to be translated to. If the language that you want is not one of the options you can contact us through our contact form.

  • To which languages can you translate subtitles?

    For our human-made subtitling services we work with a network of language experts in 15 different languages. Find out which here. If the language you want is not on the list, please contact us through our contact form.

  • What subtitle file formats are supported?

    Our software allows you to export the transcript from the video or audio file as an SRT, EBU-STL or VTT file.

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