10 best and effective strategies for completing an online course

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Having taken online courses for a number of years, I sometimes joke that signing up for an online course is quintessentially human, but taking and completing it is unarguably divine.

As funny as this is, it only tells online learners that completing an online course requires a great deal of effort and consistency.

From my experience, I have curated 10 best and effective strategies for completing an online course.

1.Don’t study in your bedroom, kitchen, dining or living room. Or if it’s in your bedroom, create a space for studying but not on your bed.

2.Utilise the morning hours. Wake up at 5am, study till 7am, while taking short breaks after say every 25mimutes.

Set your morning study goal before sleeping.That will help your mind prepare.Then normalize sleeping at 10pm, that will be 7hours of good sleep. It will not be easy the first few days, but good habits make good routines, so don’t give up.

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3.Revise in the evening. After you have learnt some concepts or things, take time out to revise, ponder on, digest or ruminate over what you have earlier read.

4.Remember to freeze your social media apps. You can even put your phone on flight mode and connect it to a WiFi if need be. By doing so, you’ll avoid distractions like calls or SMS.

5.Find an accountability partner and report to them every weekend. Or it may be to join a forum or group of like-minded other learners.

6. Find a way to “punish” yourself if you don’t go through them. It could be reduced social media time or no going out.

7. Give yourself a timeline. And understand that self-motivation is never easy to build. If you miss the timeline, give yourself a suitable knock on the head, it might be not buying that cloth you want as a way to punish yourself.

8.Follow the course outline and try to finish at least one topic daily.

9.Start with simple free courses that you are familiar with. And after knowing the subject area well, you can then proceed to a more in-depth or complex paid course, this is an effective way to reduce chances of burnout.

10.Lastly, be intentional and disciplined. It doesn’t matter how many strategies you draft out, if you’re not disciplined and intentional about it, you’d be deceiving yourself. If you like set alarm, you can still put it off when it comes on.

These strategies have been tested over and over again by other online learners and proven to be the best and effective strategies for completing an online course.