You can find a variety of pretty useful recommendations when it comes to increasing your productivity which is required for being successful in studies. You have certainly come across a variety of really useful strategies for studying such as for instance, gamification of your learning process or getting into a group of people who are working on the same learning problems. All of these methods are certainly useful. At the same time, you can see many other tricks for boosting your productivity such as various ways of managing your time.
Still, there is one crucial aspect of a learning process which you should keep in mind as without it your productivity will never be able to reach to its full potential. This crucial elements is being realistic about any possible issues related to your studies.
Be realistic about your physiological preferences
Certainly, the majority of time-managements gurus are recommending people to study during the day and especially early in the morning and there is absolutely nothing strange in it as for many individuals such an approach can really be helpful. Yet, you do not have to be just like all of these people and you might have not just your own preferences. You might just not be capable of waking up early in the morning even after having a sufficient night sleep and start studying while you always feel more productive at night.
Be aware of your personal abilities and use them to the maximum rather than pushing yourself into applying the recommendations which might not actually be useful for you.
Another great example of such an issue is using particular options for dividing your time into sessions of work and breaks. Again, even though concentration really drops with time and the longer you will be working, the less concentrated and productive you will be, it does not mean that popular time management strategies, for instance, the Pomodoro technique will necessarily work for you. You might be one of the people who is getting into the flow and after 25 minutes you will be at the highest pick of your concentration. It might also be that you will spend these 25 minutes in an attempt to focus on your work. Again, take such recommendations just as recommendations and listen to your own needs.
Be realistic about your educational goals
It is great to be ambitious when it comes to studies and you are certainly the only person who is capable of limiting yourself. Setting ambitious goals for your education is really amazing, however, for each of such goals you should have a roadmap as well as some realistic time for fulfilling these goals. In fact, you absolutely should allow yourself to have as crazy dreams about your educational progress as you want, but you should remember to give yourself enough time for working on them. Only in such a case you will really feel joy while moving towards your goals.
This point can also be applied to choosing an educational programme which is especially true for self-education programmes.
If you are looking for a course, it cannot be too complicated for you right now no matter how good you are at learn. Even if you manage to fill of the gaps in your knowledge on your own, such an educational process will only give you more anxiety than satisfaction. Needless to say, you can easily get demotivated choosing an educational programme on the level which is a way too higher than your current knowledge of the subject.
By the way, this also works in the reverse way. You should not underestimate your level of preparation as it might happen the course you are taking is too simple for you and you will not be able to learn anything new for yourself. Undeniably, this will make you rather unsatisfied with the learning process and you do not want it to happen.