A person who learns through reading is likely to read through books and worksheets to intake information. They may also find that reading through the same information multiple times helps them to remember it more. A person who learns through writing may rewrite their revision notes (often several times) in order to remember the information. In a seminar, a person who learns through writing and reading may try to write as much information down as possible to read over at a later date.
Kinesthetic learners find that being engaged in an activity helps them to learn. This could be taking part in an experiment, acting out a scene from a book or any other form of active engagement in a project. Kinesthetic learners like to be actively working on something. For example, if looking at the theory of gravity, a kinesthetic learner would want to do an experiment to see how gravity works.
Auditory learners find it easier to take in information when they hear it or speak it. An auditory learner may struggle to read information and benefit from having this read to them. They may learn through discussing content with other people or explaining concepts to others. If you are an auditory learner, your university may be able to provide you with software that reads your learning materials to you or provide you with support staff.
A visual learner is someone who learns through visual means e.g. what they see. This could be by looking at a chart or creating a mind map. A visual learner is less likely to benefit from someone explaining information verbally to them. For example, they may prefer to watch someone else complete a task and learn from this rather than being given a list of instructions. They could also learn from watching videos. Visual learners often colour code their work or draw pictures to trigger their memory.
The benefits of routine and planning
Look at what you have to do and prioritise these into the most and least important tasks.
Input these tasks into your daily schedule whilst remembering to schedule breaks. These breaks should prioritise your wellbeing. For example, you could schedule a period of time for you to cook a meal or to go for a walk. When being a student, it can be easy to forget about your physical needs but these are very important. Scheduling time to eat and drink is likely to increase your concentration and subsequent productivity and mood.
Remind yourself that you can’t possibly do everything in one day. There may be days where everything on your to do list gets done and other days where you only manage to do some of the most important things. This is okay! You may have to reschedule some tasks for another day but this doesn’t mean you have failed!
Remember that you can’t work 24 hours a day. You need to take breaks to recharge and recuperate. So be sure to make some time for yourself. Students can often feel guilty for scheduling time for themselves but not doing so could be detrimental to your wellbeing and your grades.
Why are time management skills beneficial?
The phrase ‘time management’ refers to how you manage the time you have. Having good time management skills when at university can be beneficial in a number of ways.
Increased Productivity: Keeping to a schedule can mean that you get things done more efficiently and sometimes even quicker. If you have a schedule to complete you are more likely to stick to it and work harder to maintain that deadline. Subsequently, increasing your productivity.
Increased Reliability: Having good time management skills can increase reliability as it will help you to stick to timescales and deadlines. This can help you to hand work in and attend classes on time, supporting you to have a positive experience whilst you are studying.
Less stress: Having a plan may help reduce your stress levels. This is likely to be beneficial for your overall wellbeing.
Less likely to experience burnout: Planning your use of time could help you to get more done with the time that you have available and may decrease chances of burnout and temptation to work for long hours.
Improved work, life balance: Managing your time effectively can also lead to an improved work, life balance, subsequently reducing mental and physical burnout. Keeping to deadlines creates more time elsewhere which you can then dedicate to your own needs.
Tips for good time management
Having a comprehensive plan
Having a comprehensive plan can be achieved by thinking about the following questions:
What do you need to do?
When does it need to be done by?
How much time do you have left?
Is there a specific place it needs to be done, for example do I need to go to the library or can I do it a home?
What resources do I need to do it?
Setting yourself realistic goals
By setting yourself goals, you can monitor your progress and ensure your plans are achievable. It is important to set realistic goals to help you stay motivated.
Being aware of deadlines.
If you are unaware of your deadline this can increase worry. Be sure to have your deadline dates in an accessible place. This will also allow you to prioritise your tasks based on importance. Remember that you can’t do everything at once and some things may have to be of a lower priority than others.
TED Talk
In the below video Laura discusses how to build the lives we want and time consequently saves itself. She has based her TED talk on her time diary project which involved studying successful women and their time management. She suggests two strategies for making your life how you want it to be.
We can lose motivation when challenging things happen around us and studying can understandably be less of a priority. In these cases it can be difficult to concentrate and find the time to study when other things are going on. Some examples of personal circumstances could include, divorce; illness, bereavement, relationship issues or a change in finances.
The student support services at your university might be able to help you. They may have members of staff who are able to talk to you about support services which might help with your particular circumstances.
You could also speak to an academic tutor about your circumstances as they might be able to support you with easing the pressure academically.
You might wish to explore any options around taking a break from your studies, if this is possible.
You could also reach out to your loved ones or other support networks for support.
When we experience mental health difficulties they can affect our confidence and willingness to try new things. This lack of motivation can impact other areas of our lives including our exercise, appetite, self-care and other activities. When being a student, this lack of motivation can impact our willingness to study or to attend classes.
Getting support for your mental health and well-being may be the key to improving your motivation.
It could also be useful to try to slowly increase your studying (If this has been lacking) at a manageable place and recognise when you need to take a break.
It is important to look after your mental health just as much as your physical health.
Overwhelm can decrease or even diminish our motivation. It can increase our worries, stress and have physical as well as mental implications on our bodies. It can also affect our productivity and outcomes in assignments as we are more likely to put less effort into our work or even stop working altogether.
Here are some tips for if you are feeling overwhelmed:
Don’t be frightened to take a step back. Taking a step back doesn’t mean that you have given in or that you are going to fail!
Give yourself a break. Go out with a friend, spend some time on your own if you need to. Maybe getting outside of your room and having a change of scenery could be useful.
Setting goals that are SMART can reduce some of the overwhelming feelings and in the long term increase your productivity. The SMART Model can be used to create realistic and manageable goals.Sometimes we make goals that aren’t achievable. Doing this can make us feel even worse when our motivation is already low. See the below explanation of the SMART goals below.
Specific: Have you got a specific aim?
It isn’t useful to have goals that aren’t concise as we can’t measure whether we have achieved them.
So make your goals specific!
Measurable: Can you measure your goal? In other words will you be able to tell when you have achieved your goal or when you haven’t?
If not make sure it is measurable.
Achievable: Is your goal achievable? If not try to think about a goal that would be more achievable.
If your goal is not achievable this can decrease motivation and productivity.
Realistic: Is your goal realistic?
Sometimes we set goals that are impossible for us to reach. Is your goal realistic? Do you have the resources, time or ability to achieve it, if not what is a more realistic goal?
Time bound: Have you set yourself a time scale of when the goal needs to be completed? Having a time scale can increase your motivation and desire to achieve the outcome. It can also help you to create a detailed and organised plan of action.
Self-doubt can lead us to feel negative about ourselves and our capabilities. This can impact studies and in severe cases can even lead us to question whether we are capable of completing our qualification at all.
It can help to remind yourself of your original motivation to study. Why did you choose to study in the first place? What do you want to achieve? How will studying benefit you? What opportunities will studying open up for you? Take some time to think about why you choose to study. It may help you to write the answers to this question on a notepad so that you can look back at them. If you are struggling to find any answers we have included some examples below.
To increase my job prospects.
To gain a qualification in a subject that I am good at.
Having a lack of understanding can reduce your motivation. If you are feeling confused or that your work is too challenging, this can impact your confidence and lead to difficulties staying motivated. However, it is important to remember that we all learn in different ways and at different paces, and remember a lot of the information and ways of working will be new to you, so it is okay if you don’t understand everything.
It might help to:
Talk to your lecturer to see if they can support you.
Make use of any one to one tutoring sessions which might be available to you.
Check out resources your university has within student support services or the library.
Additionally if you have a disability, the university support team can help you to identify any support needs and recommend reasonable adjustments if required.
A lack of motivation can be caused by burnout. Burnout is when we feel exhausted. It can include both physical but also mental exhaustion. Students can be more prone to experiencing burnout due to the intensity of university and studying. When at university it can be very easy to put all of your effort into studying to the point where you start to prioritise studying over your own needs. This could be detrimental to your physical and mental wellbeing.
Ways to combat burnout can include:
Pacing yourself.
Allowing time for self-care activities.
Trying to not feel guilty for having free time to just do things for you or even to do nothing, you need this time to recharge.
Allowing yourself to have breaks.
Gradually increase your studying time at a manageable pace in order to not overwhelm yourself with information.
Working on reducing your burnout symptoms can help you to get your motivation back!
Has something happened that has caused you to lose interest.
The first step is noticing your lack of interest and motivation. The second step is to try to work on regaining that interest again. This could be done by changing the way that you study to best suit your learning style. You could also change the environment up where you choose to study. For example you could go to the library or sit and do your work in a park. You could even redecorate your study space in a different way to create a more positive association with studying.
Self-confidence is how we view ourselves and our capabilities. Our self-esteem covers all our feelings about ourselves, how we think about ourselves and view ourselves. Having low self-esteem could lower your confidence and reduce your desire to study.
Self-esteem and studying
It is important to make your physical and mental health a priority to help you feel healthy and happy throughout your studies.
Try not to be too critical of yourself when things don’t go to plan. We all have good days and bad days and these can sometimes influence our academic output. Show yourself some compassion at these times (more information on this can be found on the ‘Self-compassion’ section of this course).
Acknowledge your efforts. We don’t always get the results that we hoped for but this doesn’t mean that your efforts shouldn’t be acknowledged.
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