5 Helpful Online School Tips For The COVID-19 Pandemic

With a lot of life steeped in uncertainty, one thing that gives me some sense of ease in knowing that my university studies will continue this fall. There is one catch though… all of my classes are online, which could prove to be a problem. So, to set my year up for success, I’ve constructed 5 tips that I think will improve my grades while studying at online school.

If you’re a student, I think you’ll find some value in these tips too.

1. Keeping The Sense Of A Routine

Now that you’re not at school, you’ll be losing out on many of the routines that were part of your day, like leaving the house in the morning or walking from class to class.

These routines provide structure to your days and set you up to be more focussed and productive. Without them, days can devolve into one continuous blob spent watching Youtube or scrolling through Instagram.

To prevent that from happening, I’m starting every day with a routine designed to regain some of that structure.

This is my routine and why I do it:

• Opening my curtains – This gives me a view of the outside; brightening up my space, and making it feel less cramped. It also wakes me up and has a huge positive impact on my mood.

• Making my bed – This helps keep my room tidy, which, in turn, keeps me focussed. 

• Taking a walk – A quick walk inside or outside my house gets me moving and makes it less likely that I’ll try to climb back into bed. It also gives me a good chance to start thinking about my day.

This routine has consistently helped start my day off right, however, it may not be the same for you. The main tip here is to choose simple tasks that you think will start your day off well. Then, make a habit of doing them. 

If you create a good routine, it could set your school days up for success.

2. Scheduling Work

For me, scheduling my work has often been the difference between me writing an “ok” paper and writing one that I was truly proud of (and the grade reflected that).

Here are the steps that I take:

• Identifying projects and deadlines – This normally involves reading through the syllabi of my courses and noting all upcoming due dates for tests, papers, and projects. I also give myself a deadline to complete the project that is a day or two before the actual deadline. 

• Breaking the projects down – Here, I separate those projects into smaller tasks, each with their own deadline. A task like “Write Communications Paper” is intimidating, and often leads to me putting it off. When it’s broken into more manageable tasks like: “Plan key points of the paper” or “Write the first draft”, it’s way easier to get started.

• Putting it out in the open – If it’s visible, I’m reminded of what I need to do every time I see it. I usually put my schedules on a whiteboard hung on my wall.

I can’t recommend having a solid plan for your work enough. It keeps you on track and could greatly improve your quality of work.

3. Turning The Negatives Into Positives

It sounds weird to say, but in many ways, online school is a lot better than in-person school. You don’t need to run to get to class on time. Or feel hungry during a lecture or uncomfortable while sitting in a poorly designed classroom chair. You now have a huge range of control over your work environment and that’s something to take advantage of.

The best place to start is your work area. You should make it a space that you actually enjoy being in (or at least don’t hate). The more you like your space, the easier it is for you to sit down and commit to studying. Be careful though as with this comfort comes the risk of distraction. So, you will have to make sure that your changes are helping your success rather than hindering it.

Personally, I’m going to make things comfortable by:

• Having water and snacks nearby – In case I get peckish.
• Taking stretch breaks about every 30 minutes – So I don’t feel cramped.
• Keeping my stress-ball at my desk – To play with while listening to lectures.

But to keep myself focused on my lessons, I’ll:

• Keep my camera on for Zoom lectures – I’m less likely to slack off if I think people are watching me.
• Take notes just as if I was in a classroom – For easier review and to force myself to focus on the professor.
• Keep my desk clear and my phone out of sight – So I’m not tempted by any distractions.

Doing these things, I think I can maximize the perks of online class while minimizing the downsides. Try some of these out yourself and think about how you can make your work environment better for learning. 

Just be careful because comfort and distraction go hand in hand.

4. Picking Up A Hobby

When you’re at home almost 24/7 it’s easy to fall into periods of either constantly stressing about getting work done, or, trying to avoid it at all costs. This can lead to unstructured working habits that could kill your productivity and cause deadlines to creep up on you.

My tip to avoid this is to find a hobby; mine is playing the guitar. When I’m not feeling in the mood to do school work, I play for a bit. Soon after, I’m more open to being productive. On the flip side, if I’ve been working for the whole day and feeling like I can’t relax, a few minutes of strumming later and I’m de-stressed and ready to take it easy.

For you, it could be anything else from drawing, to taking a walk, to typing. The goal is to find an activity that you enjoy doing and try it whenever you’re struggling to either start or stop doing your schoolwork. You’ll see just how quickly it helps you get into the mindset you want to be in.

5. Don’t Be Too Hard On Yourself

The world is going through a really tough and overwhelmingly stressful time right now. It’s natural that because of all this, you won’t be able to perform as well as you would in normal times, and your grades may even slip.

You need to understand that this pandemic is not an easy time to focus on school or improvement in general. By realizing this fact and accepting it, you can perform better in the long run.

For me, I was often disappointed when I didn’t get as much work done on a given day as I thought I would and I’d blame myself for it. I would become demotivated and go days on end, putting the work off to avoid falling short of my own expectations.

Now, I’m a lot easier on myself and understand that kicking myself when I’m down is far worse than simply getting back up and starting again. To help refocus my mindset, I tell myself this: At the end of the day, my goal is progress, not perfection, and getting some work done, is better than none.

To help maintain your mental wellbeing, think about the progress that you’ve made and the overarching success that you’re trying to achieve, not the tiny failures that you may encounter along the way.

Wrap up

I hope that seeing what I plan to do this semester gave you some ideas for how to approach your online classes. In the future, I will be posting an update on how these steps worked for me and what I might change, so subscribe to stay up to date with that.

If you want another tip for improving your productivity in general, I recommend limiting your social media use. This is an experiment that I tried out recently and saw some good results from and it’s one that you might benefit from too.

Comment below and let me know what you think of these tips or if you have any suggestions of your own.

I hope you have a successful school year.

Isaiah :^)