It’s easy to learn through online platforms, right? You pick your favorite courses and you study in your free time. But, you can’t seem to stick to the plan. You keep promising to yourself that you’ll complete the task on your daily schedule, but somehow you end up with the thought “It’s okay, I’ll do more work tomorrow to catch up.”
That’s called procrastination, and it’s one of the greatest challenges to overcome. It’s not the only one. In the continuation, we’ll list the most common challenges people face when learning online. Don’t worry; we’ll offer some solutions, too. The solutions come in the form of tools that you can start using today.
- Challenge: Procrastination
It’s the devil. You want to learn. You want to complete the program on time. Still, your mind keeps playing tricks on you, convincing you that at this point, it’s more important to clean the entire kitchen and organize all items in your closet by color.
Tools to Help You Fight Procrastination
The trick is in productivity-boosting techniques. These are the right tools to use:
When you make a promise to yourself, it’s not that easy to keep it. When you have it in written, however, you will commit to it. Make sure to mark the submission dates of the projects. Develop a routine: you will listen to online lectures and study at the same time of the day. Once you discover the period of the day when you achieve the highest productivity levels and you make an effort to stick to that routine, it will turn into a habit.
- Checker Plus for Google Calendar
This is an extension for Google Calendar, which gives you desktop notifications for important events, and tells you how much time you have until that point. It simply makes the calendar more powerful.
- Challenge: Distractions
How do you end up watching cat videos on YouTube in the middle of an online lecture? You don’t even know...
Tools that Block Distractions
When the distractions are there, you’ll fall for them. The online world is full of temptations: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube… you don’t need those sites when you’re learning, so you need to block them.
This is an extension for Google Chrome. When you click on the tomato icon, it will start a session of 25 minutes. You won’t be able to access distractions during that time. Then, you’ll have 5 minutes of rest, so you can visit any site during that time. After that, you’ll start a new session of being focused for 25 minutes. It works!
This is another extension for blocking distracting sites. It gives you a daily limit for accessing distracting sites. You set that limit. If, for example, you give yourself 30 minutes for Facebook and Twitter, you won’t be able to access those sites once you use that time.
- Challenge: Writing
If you thought that online courses were not related to essays and other projects, you were wrong. Serious courses include such assignments, so you’ll have to find a way to boost your writing skills and focus on the research and writing process.
Tools that Boost Your Writing Skills
No matter how great your arguments are, the final impression will be ruined if the grammar is not flawless. Use this tool to fix all mistakes before submitting the projects.
No matter how hard you try to complete your papers, you may get stuck. Maybe you’re not that good at writing. What do you do; do you take an online writing course? You can do that, but you can also start collaborating with a professional writer, who will take the role of your tutor. You can order any kind of project at this site, and that experience will turn you into a better writer.
There are many writing tutorials all over the web, but this site offers the most practical tips. You’ll find citation rules, guides for writing different types of papers, and many other useful tips that will make you a better writer.
- Challenge: Lack of Motivation
One of the most common challenges in eLearning is the lack of motivation. Maybe you won’t be that enthusiastic about the content the course presents. Maybe you’ll find it difficult to maintain the motivation to the very end of the course. That’s why online courses are related to high drop-out rates.
Tools to Keep You Motivated
Motivational TED talks are the real deal. When you hear an inspiring person speak, you’re ready to do something more about achieving your goals. You feel like you can do more. You are more. One speech per day is enough to keep you going.
Procrastination, distractions, writing tasks, and lack of motivation - those are the four big challenges to overcome when you’re committed to eLearning. Hopefully, the tools suggested above will help you do that!
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