Well, Covid-19 has screwed things up for pretty much everyone on the planet. If you’re currently a student, you can no doubt relate to this as you’ve probably felt its impacts throughout a number of ways (both academic and non-academic). One of the biggest challenges students are now facing is in regards to being unable to spend much (or any) time on campus. This has resulted in current students now being required to study and learn either exclusively or almost exclusively off-campus, such as at home.

If you’re now having to study from home and are wanting to maximize the effectiveness of your study time, the seven tips within this article can be a great starting place for beginning to dial in a perfectly crafted home-study regimen that meets your needs.

Also, if you want some more great insight on studying for PT school, be sure to check out my articles: How to Do Well in PT School: Five Principles PT Students MUST Follow and Six Study Tips for PT Students That Work for ANY PT Course

A great quote to start things off

I’m going to share a quote here and want you to read it carefully:

“Champions are not champions because they do extraordinary things, rather because they do ordinary things extraordinarily well.” – Tony Dungy

I share this quote from Super-Bowl winning coach Tony Dungy because I wouldn’t be surprised if you find the tips within this article to be “non-sexy” or “fairly obvious”. But guess what? It’s not always about “secret hacks” or re-inventing the wheel; sometimes it’s just about doing the ordinary, mundane things extraordinarily well.

Studying isn’t the sexiest thing in the world, and there’s only so many ways that you can tweak it up while still making it time-effective and memory-effective. But, if you can take some simple, ordinary study concepts and really master them, you’ll be far ahead of most other students (i.e. you’ll be doing the ordinary things extraordinarily well).

So, if you’re wanting to up your study game at home and make the most of it, consider implementing any or all of these tactics:

Tip 1: Keep a clear, mental picture for yourself as to why you’re studying

I get it, studying at home can be tough, and studying material you’re not passionate about makes it even more of a total slog. But, this is what you signed up for as a student and chances are you had some sort of end-goal vision in your head when you signed up for your program.

Hold onto that mental image, vision or reason as to why you want this so much. Guard it however you need to because it will give you life and energy when you just don’t feel like gutting out another study session. Five minutes can feel like five hours when you continually have to study by yourself. Trust me, I’ve been there much of my academic life. But if you hold onto your “why” – why you’re willing to push yourself and commit to studying – then you’ll be able to stick with it, even if it isn’t pretty.

So whatever you do, don’t lose sight of your “why” – keep that mental image burned into your skull at all times and it will act like a spare battery pack to keep you charged up when you’re running low.

Tip 2: Develop a consistent and sustainable study schedule

See what I mean when I talk about non-sexy, straightforward study tips? This is why you need to learn to absolutely master them. Everyone is doing them, but few are doing them extraordinarily well.

This is how you separate yourself from the others.If you’re having to study from home these days, develop a schedule for it. It’s up to you in regards to what it looks like and when it takes place, but a schedule will keep you accountable. You’re paying WAY too much for school to be haphazard with it. You had an academic schedule before the Covid-19 shutdown took place, so why wouldn’t you implement one for yourself? Don’t you want to be exceptionally good at what it is that you do?

A schedule will help keep you accountable and help your brain and body know when it’s time to relax and when it’s time to dial in. The people who are often the most productive and successful in their pursuits are those who implements schedules and regimens into their lives in order to ensure things get done. When it comes to school and your future career, there’s simply too much at stake to be casual and sporadic with your study habits.

Tip 3: Set up a designated work station, keep it clean and free of distractions

Just work with what you got. It doesn’t have to be anything amazing or fancy. There’s a strange sort of beauty in students having to work with what they’ve got. Whether you’ve got a full-blown work station or a wooden plank running across some stacked cinder blocks for a desk, a workstation/ area that you can claim as your own is going to be your best friend.

The evidence is becoming pretty clear that the human mind focuses better and operates better overall when it’s in an organized area that is free of unnecessary and unorganized clutter. What “unnecessary” and “unorganized” looks like is up to you, but keep at least some semblance of organization around your station.

Tip 4: Alternate between studying topics you can’t stand and topics that you enjoy

Each and every course and/or subject that you have to study for your program exists somewhere in between on the spectrum of “I love to study this stuff” and “I hate studying this stuff”. Every now and then you’ll even get a course or subject that sits right on the end of either of those two extremes.

It’s easy to study the stuff that we’re more interested in, so naturally we study this stuff the most. The problem however then becomes that we’re left with nothing to study except for the stuff that we’re not interested in or can’t stand. These are the types of topics where even jut studying them for a half an hour can feel like pulling teeth.

If you find yourself in this situation, chopping up your studies in a way that alternates back and forth from a more enjoyable topic to a less enjoyable one can help balance things out. Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to enjoy all the subjects/material that you’re studying, other times you don’t have much of anything that you enjoy. I acknowledge this and have experienced it all too many times.

Just do your best to alternate between a more interesting subject to you and a less interesting one. It’ll break things up quite nicely, even out the study process overall and help you grind through the unpleasant portions more effectively. Whether you choose to bounce back and forth every half hour, every hour, etc. is up to you. Just find what works for you timing-wise and get ‘er done.

Tip 5: Figure out when to give yourself study breaks and then adhere to them

The nice thing about studying from home is that you don’t necessarily have to sit down and pay attention for two hours non-stop like you often are expected to do in many of your lectures. Most evidence suggests that humans can’t really keep solid focus on a lecture or presentation for over 45 minutes to an hour. Having a ten or fifteen-minute break every 45 minutes or so can make studying and learning not only a lot more manageable, but a lot more effective as well.

The key is of course to make sure you adhere to your allotted rest break time before getting back to the studies (believe me, I know that this is oftentimes easier said than done).

Maybe this will take a bit of trial and error in order to really fine-tune what works for you, but that’s ok. What matters is knowing what works for you. I usually found that I could study quite well when I went at it for forty-five minutes and then took a fifteen minute break. Sometimes I’d change it up depending on some other factors, but this was my “default” study:break ratio.

Tip 6: Don’t worry if your study style and schedule looks vastly different from everyone else’s

Once you find a regimen and style that works for you, shut out the rest of the world when it comes to comparing it to the study regimens of others. Part of being successful in life is learning to have confidence in your own style and just knowing what works for you.

Studying in school is no different. If your study methods are unconventional but they work (i.e. they allow you to study effectively, consistently and in a sustainable manner while producing the results that you’re currently after), then you’re sitting on a winning lotto ticket.

We’re all ultimately going to do things different in one way or another when it comes to studying in a manner that works best for each of us. Chances are there will be plenty of overlap from one person to the next when it comes to certain aspects of studying, but there will likely be unique factors as well, even if on a more subtle level.

So be bold enough to find something that works for you and then roll with it, regardless of what others think or say about it. At the end of the day, grades speak for themselves, and if you’re getting the grades that you’re after, you might just find others trying to “copy” your study style and/or schedule.

Tip 7: Acknowledge and celebrate the little victories along the way

When it comes to consistently pushing through something that requires a lot of discipline to get through, taking a minute or two here and there to acknowledge to yourself that you’re pushing through what not every person can become disciplined enough to do can be an incredibly rewarding and empowering feeling.

If you’ve worked hard and were effective for the portion of the day that you had set aside to study, celebrate it. I’m not talking about celebrating by binge-watching Netflix the next day or anything, but rather just simply take a moment and remind yourself that your discipline is crafting a bulletproof mindset within you when it comes to doing stuff that not everyone can do.

When you acknowledge these things to yourself and take a moment to reflect on them, it will slowly change how studying feels to you. Don’t be hard on yourself if you have a day that isn’t as productive or as ideal as you would have liked it to have been. This type of stuff is inevitable. Just re-focus and re-calibrate for your next study session and celebrate the fact that you at least made an attempt or got something done for the day.

Concluding remarks

If you’re a student who is having to study and learn from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic (or for any other reason), know that you have my utmost respect. I get that what you’re likely now having to persevere through is a challenge that you didn’t sign up for.

The beauty of all of this is that you’re going to learn more about yourself than others who have never been in this situation before. You’ll what you’re made of; habits and regimens that work best for you and so many other features to a MUCH better extent than everyone else. And trust me when I say that it will be on full display when you graduate and enter back into the real world.

In addition to this article, keep exploring and going through the trial and error required to develop study habits that work the best for you. We’re all going to do this a little differently. Another great article to check out is this one on study tips for success, by artofmanliness.com, (girls, you can read it too!) where they break down some other great study tactics you may find helpful.

So keep grinding onward. It’s a process and one that can take some time to figure out and master for yourself. But when you’ve got that process figured out and nailed down, your studying, your grades and your mindset will be on a whole new level. This I fully believe.

Grind hard. You’ve got this.

Related articles

1. How to Do Well in PT School: Five Principles PT Students MUST Follow
2. Six Study Tips for PT Students That Work for ANY PT Course
3. Six Helpful Apps to Help PT Students Achieve More in School