How To Study From Home
8 min read ★
We are currently going through what looks to be a once-in-a-generation event. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone’s lives in some way, and university students are no exception. With all (or almost all) university law courses going online, law students are forced to adapt to a new kind of challenge – online distance learning, with no contact time with lecturers or professors.
We are here to tell you that this year can be just as successful as you planned.
The goal of this article is to set out four Simple principles which will help you succeed when studying exclusively from home.
1. Build and Maintain an Effective Routine
2. Design your Study Space
3. Use the Simple Guide to Self-Motivated Study
4. Stay in Touch and Leverage your Network
1. Build and Maintain an Effective Routine
As we often stress in our posts, building a routine which works for you is essential. (Check back soon for our comprehensive article on how to build habits and set goals.)
When something you do is part of an established routine, you remove the need to make additional decisions, and often remove the mental blocks which come with having to start something – when that thing is part of your routine, you simply do it without thinking about it.
To maintain a routine for completing your university work during this period of isolation, it is more important than ever to formulate a weekly plan and conduct your weekly Simple Planning Appointment to evaluate, adapt and reflect on your plans. For all you will need on this topic, refer to our Simple Planning Essentials: Do This Each Week.
As set out in that article, along with setting a time and day to reflect and plan for the week ahead, you need to follow through with the plan as the week goes along and decide when it’s the right time to change your plan.
But, of course, planning your substantive study routine is only half of the battle during this time.
Being at home, it has become harder than ever to maintain your motivation and drive to go through with the substantive plan. You can no longer do things which were previously set tasks and “triggers” for work, such as leaving the house at a set time, settling into your favourite isolated study space on campus, or going your local café. Everything is now done at home.
To help with this, we suggest the following:
- Wake up at the same time every day (at least on weekdays): This can be an important motivator because it improves how “awake” you feel at the very beginning of the day. Your body gets used to waking up at the same time and begins to perform at full capacity right away, rather than going through the process of waking up and grogginess.
- Build a strong morning routine: For me, during this time in isolation, my morning routine consists of the following:
- Wake up at 7:30;
- Journal for 10-15 minutes;
- Home workout for 30-45 minutes;
- Shower (hot and cold), breakfast and get to work.
By 8:30, I am feeling energized, clear-headed and ready to start the working day on the right foot.
- Work out what time of day is most productive for you: As you can probably see from the above, I consider that the morning is my most productive time for working. It is when I feel at my best. However, this is not the same for everybody. Many people find that they work best in the night hours of, say, 8:00pm-12:00am.
This is fine – adapt and modify your routine and wake-up times to align with this. This might mean, for example, that you wake up at 11:00am every day and get to work by midday.
However, don’t ignore the daytime hours. We all generally work best during the day – and you should get the bulk of your work done when the sun is up.
The challenge (and the beauty) of working from home is that there are no rules and no one is monitoring your timetable. If you use the above 3 tips, along with following your Weekly and Semester Plans, it will be easier to fall into a productive routine each day.
2. Design your Study Space
For law students, we recommend always studying in isolation. The place you do this is up to you, and depends on the environment where you feel most comfortable to reach your flow state.
As the university campus and cafes/coffee shops are no longer an option, you will need to ensure that your study space at home is up to the task.
I would recommend putting together a study space at home which is isolated and away from your bed and TV. This could be in a spare room or even the dining table (if nobody else will bother you during the day).
If you’re someone that has a desk and TV in their bedroom and nowhere else to study, don’t worry. Unplug your TV during working hours and do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to lie down on your bed to take a “short break”. We both know this could lead to an accidental 3 hour nap or scrolling through social media until your head gets fuzzy. Instead, schedule short breaks throughout the day. If you’re feeling like you can’t focus, take a longer break and maybe go outside to refresh your mind under the sun.
In all other aspects, your space can be just as you like it. A clean and large desk is useful, and you might consider it worthwhile at this time to invest in a computer monitor to give yourself a second screen (you might even be able to write this off on your tax return).
Your study space will be your home base for the foreseeable future, so make sure it is somewhere you are comfortable.
Also, putting some effort into associating that space with hard work can go a long way – in other words, try to only use your study space when you are actually studying, and when you are taking a break or have finished for the day, go elsewhere to watch YouTube videos or scroll through Simple Law’s feed on Instagram.
3. Use the Simple Guide to Self-Motivated Study
Self-motivation is now more crucial than ever. There is nobody around to push you, and no tutors to make you complete your work as they stand over your shoulder.
We recommend at this time re-visiting our Simple Guide to Self-Motivated Study to refresh yourself on the most important principles to ensuring you use your time efficiently and stay motivated during the period of isolation.
In summary, those principles are:
- Choose the right environment and time of day – where and when you choose to sit down to study are the most basic principles which will make or break the study session.
- Take on short, high-intensity study sessions – Taking on short, high intensity study sessions and giving yourself time to recharge is a complete game-changer. Three go-to methods for achieving this are the Pomodoro method, time chunking and mini deadlines.
- Minimise procrastination through Simplification – the most effective tool for minimising procrastination is breaking down your task into manageable pieces. The trick is to deconstruct the complex task into its simplest elements. We work best when we are doing one thing at a time – and not always worrying about the entire daunting task.
- Find your flow state – The goal every time you sit down to study is to reach a state of optimum effectiveness – a “flow state” – which allows you to be completely focussed on the task at hand and make tangible progress towards your goal.
For more detail on each of these principles, click here to read the article. We promise you won’t regret it.
4. Stay in Touch and Leverage your Network
A final risk during this period of isolation is losing touch with other people and feeling alone. Generally, we find that as humans, we social creatures and are stronger when surrounded by friends and like-minded peers.
You should also endeavour to stay in regular contact with people who are in the same position – not just when you need to discuss a problem question or the upcoming assignment, but on a regular basis to check in with how their routine, home study space and self-motivation is tracking.
Sharing these aspects of your life, and learning from others, will create some valuable accountability and connection that will make it easier to get through this period.
Having said that, as always, your network can be very important when you are stuck with respect to the substantive law school work – whether you are stuck on an assignment question or struggling with the weekly content. To keep in touch with your regular study group, it may be that a weekly or fortnightly Zoom/Skype call is the answer.
Finally, always feel free to reach out to us and the wider Simple Law community on Instagram or elsewhere! Slide into our DMs if you want to discuss how you can optimise your current study situation or anything else we may be able to help with.
Best of luck during this time and we hope you all are healthy and doing well.
