Back to online school — need help

@butterlycow For learning all those plant names, perhaps one of the well known memory techniques might help. You can easily find them if you Google memory techniques.

For the unguided nature of your studies, perhaps you can organize your studies better if you get one (or more) good textbooks that have good reviews, then try to match the online activities with the structured material in the books.

For overcoming social media addiction, perhaps again you can find useful techniques by searching the Internet.

You might be able to find a listener here at 7 Cups who can support you with all of these things in the next year. Finding a good long term listener can be difficult, but it is certainly possible.

Charlie

@butterlycow

I'm also a student taking online classes and I stuggled on social media addiction 2. Here is something that helped me a lot.

I don't know if you heard of pomadoro technique (25 mins studying, 5 mins break), but this never worked for me lol [I can't stop after 5 mins :( ].

Instead, I study for around 60 minutes (or shorter if unable to focus that long), take a 20 mins break allowing myself to scroll through social media, and repeat this cycle. This might not be the most effective way, but it's much better than spending a whole afternoon doing nothing but looking at the phone. Hope this helps!

Hello, @butterlycow

Having to have gone through the first year with online schooling already, you've pointed out what you wish to change for the second year. This is a good sign. Online studies require a lot of self-discipline and self-motivation. It really helps if you're studying something you feel passionate about, as it can become your drive to learn more about it as your read through the text. The thing with memorization, I took a Psychology course before, and an average person, is able to memorize at least 7 items at a time. So, if you have that list of plant names already, it would take you about 57 days to memorize it all.

As with Social Media, if you're overly addicted to it, the best option would be setting boundaries/limits to the amount of time you browse through it. Depending on the level of focus when you're studying, for example, for every 60 minutes of studying, your 10 minutes breaks in between, you'll look at Social Media. During the time to focus with studying, put your phone away, stick it in a drawer, turn it to mute, or if it's the computer, turn off the screen. Print out your PDF files, rather than reading it off from the computer. Have the paper physically in front of your to focus on, you can even highlight and take notes on it.

You have the mind to want to achieve more in your second year with online learning. With this thought in mind, let that be the reason for you to stop turning to Social Media and waste your precious time of studying. Stay focused that your goal is to do better in your second year, compared to your first year; and in order to do that, you'll have to restrain yourself from turning to Social Media too frequently. Social Media is pretty much garbage, just gossip about things happening around the world, it may only entertain us, but doesn't really educate us. So, if you want to do well with your studies, you'll need to have some self-control over the amount of time your spend on Social Media and be strict with yourself.

I've enjoyed doing online studies myself. I get to study at my own pace, organize time to study and do assignments. It was perfect, when I worked part-time too. I picked subjects that I had an interest in, so it made my studying easier. For myself, if helped when I set goals. Perhaps studying a section of a chapter every day, or if it's an assignment, set time goals to get the outline finished, etc.

So, the most important way to succeed with online learning, is to have self-discipline, self-motivation, and self-control. You also need to stay focused whenever you're putting time into your studies, and not be distracted with Social Media!~