Second year study at the open uni, advice please

Errata

Draw up a study calendar with study hours blocked out. During these hours you either study or look at a blank wall for the whole period. Surprising how the thought of staring at a blank wall for a couple of hours encourages study action !
Written by someone who at times would have rather painted the whole of the house than do an hour's study

flower24

Getting the kids to bed in a mo then I'm going to crack on with it, I've made sure I've done all the reading, and a good essay plan, and picked out quotes etc so it's a case of getting it down lol

Oldernotwiser

Errata wrote: »

Written by someone who at times would have rather painted the whole of the house than do an hour's study

It's amazing how attractive doing the housework can become!

movingforward2010

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

It's amazing how attractive doing the housework can become!

Oh I know, how can wanting to hoover the car be so appealing?!

movingforward2010

Well I feel a little better now that I'm not the only one.

What do you lot do to get motivated ?

Oldernotwiser

wxmlad wrote: »

Well I feel a little better now that I'm not the only one.

What do you lot do to get motivated ?

Worry about failure.

scubaangel

I tend to leave things to the last minute too but I take my books to work with me as I work solo on site it means I can sit down and read when I have no other tasks, when I worked at my previous job I'd get to work an hour early and do some work in the staff room before my shift started and again at lunch time.

movingforward2010

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Worry about failure.

That gets me questioning everything I write and I end up with a fried brain :eek: lol

Impet_Limpet

As others had suggested put time aside in advance.
Let other people know you are busy so they are less likely to interrupt you. I don't know your circumstances/home life but I made an agreement when my other half would do tea for us and that meant I was free from 5pm til about 7pm.

Also make sure you set a target for what you are going to achieve in that amount of time, make it specific for example
"I am going to write a plan of my essay with page numbers of quotes/info"

or

"I am going to watch a video on the DVD rom and take notes"

"Don't say I am going to study for 2 hours" as your mind can tend to wander, switch off the internet if you don't need it its amazing how long you can spend browsing first class/MSE/eBay etc!!

the best thing I ever did on my OU courses was to use a photocopy of the learning objectives (LOs) as a (very big) bookmark and I could jot ideas down on the other side as I read - I found I didn't take it in when I just did highlighting.

olly300

I've found from doing other courses in the past that drawing up a calendar or blocking out a diary can be an excuse not to do any work because you can spend ages making a pretty one.

Therefore I tend to work out when my assignments have to be handed in, then work out how much material I need to go through to be able to do the assignment and split it up into weeks then chunks in the week.

The OU actually make this easy as they have online calendars for each course, give you a paper calendar or tell you how many weeks you are suppose to spend on each module.

It's actually a good idea to write on your paper calendar the modules you need to do that week at the beginning of the course.

One one of my courses they even tell you how many hours a week you are suppose to be spending on each chapter of the book. Other universities don't do this.

I also try and utilise my 35 minute train journey from work and my 15 minute tube journey to work. On my train journey I tend to read material and highlight it. On my tube journey I tend to memorise material from notes. This means I don't have to do the work at home.

I tend to come home for work and fit in one-two hours of studying before going off and doing other things.