How To Maintain Motivation And Sustain Momentum In Your Studies This Year
The start of a new year is often seen as the perfect time to lay the groundwork for our study goals for the rest of the year – whether through goal setting, intention or the age-old New Year’s resolution.
While 3 out of 4 people in the UK reportedly set New Year’s resolutions for 2025, historical data shows that only about 10% of us successfully follow through. While this may seem discouraging, there is a silver lining: by understanding the science of motivation, we can apply proven strategies to achieve our goals and maintain momentum throughout the year.
Find Your Why
Staying motivated begins with reconnecting to your core purpose—the reason you chose your subject in the first place. If you are studying psychology, whether driven by a passion for mental health or a deep curiosity about human behaviour, both motivations are equally valuable and meaningful. This personal connection to your subject serves as the foundation for setting concrete, actionable goals, such as SMART goals.
Set SMART Goals
SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound – and they can be a great tool to stay on track with your goals as a distance learner. If you want to improve your grades in Maths over a term, set a SMART goal such as ‘I will aim to improve my assignment grades by two grades this term by spending an extra 20 minutes a day focusing on areas of the Maths syllabus I find challenging.’
Adopt A flexible Approach To Your Studies
Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog, recommends tackling your most challenging task first thing in the morning to boost motivation. Completing the hardest task first often makes the rest of your work feel more manageable.
But on days when energy is low or you’re not feeling well, it might be more effective to start with a smaller, more enjoyable task. Choose a module or activity that can be completed in just 5-15 minutes. These small wins not only help build momentum but also give you a sense of accomplishment that can propel you through the rest of the day.
Practice Self-compassion
Everyone struggles with motivation from time to time. Setbacks and low-energy days are normal. If you struggle with motivation or enthusiasm occasionally, remember to be kind to yourself, acknowledge your efforts, and recognise that your future self will thank you for the positive actions you take today.
On days when motivation wanes, take a moment to reflect and identify the underlying cause—perhaps burnout, stress, or a lack of clarity on your goals is the culprit. Understanding the root of these feelings allows you to develop strategies for overcoming these obstacles moving forward.
Distance learning offers lots of flexibility, so one option might be to adjust your study schedule to the times of day that most suit you. You could also work with your tutor, a family member or a trusted mentor to set smaller, more achievable goals. Good habits like eating well, getting enough sleep, exercising, and taking breaks are key to staying motivated. Rest, beyond just sleep, is also crucial for productivity. Whether it’s reading, painting, chatting with a friend, or doing a puzzle—whatever helps you unwind should be prioritised and woven into your day.
When you’re feeling recharged, you’ll find it easier to make sound decisions, stay focused, and approach this year’s study goals with renewed energy and determination.
By building healthy habits and maintaining a positive mindset, you’ll be equipped to tackle whatever challenges the year brings.
Learning from home can be a big adjustment after time spent in public schooling. Every family has a different reasoning for exploring home schooling as an option, too, and each has a different experience of it.
After all, these changes aren’t just about preferential treatment anymore. Sometimes, the case for homeschooling can be as important as protecting a child and their well-being. Whatever your situation might be, there could be ways to make the change easier on you.
So, how can you better transition from school to home school? We’ve provided a few tips below that might help.
Know Your Circumstances
Jumping from one experience into another goes more smoothly when you have a better idea of what you’re in for. It’s impossible to map everything for an experience you haven’t had yet, but you can set some standards.
Have an open discussion with your parents if you haven’t already. Make notes on the information they share with you. A few questions you can ask and answer together are:
- Will I follow the national curriculum, or a different one?
- Are we going to spend more time together, and how might that change things?
- Which services and resources will I use for learning and tutoring?
- What time window will I be studying in?
- Is the home school arrangement permanent or temporary?
- Can I receive any help for any anxiety I might be feeling?
You can also set personal expectations of yourself. Expect that you won’t use television, video game consoles, or your smartphone all day just because you’ll be home. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better!
Explore Social Media
Many people roll their eyes at the mention of influencers. However, if you do want an insight into the homeschooling lifestyle ahead of time, it may be a good idea to seek a few out!
Obviously, reputable sources matter greatly here. Not every influencer is to be heeded. The most reputable influencers will acknowledge their own set of circumstances and have a good head on their shoulders. They’ll seek to keep you informed, rather than ‘look cool’.
Furthermore, not all websites are safe, either. So, even if you find a homeschooling content creator you like, double-check that they’re posting content on a reputable platform.
There are also Facebook groups for homeschooled kids in local areas. They are usually run by a community of parents. You and your parents could see if there’s one for your area and try to connect with your peers. Perhaps you’ll make new friends, get recommendations for suppliers and resources, and get a better sense of what to expect.
Be Kind To Yourself
It’s not guaranteed that you’ll feel like you’ve landed on your feet during the first day, week, or potentially even month of home schooling. There’s a lot to account for and acclimatise too.
However, you can be kind to yourself. Just because there may be some struggle here and there, it doesn’t mean homeschooling isn’t for you. It’s not uncommon to fear change in any context, so give yourself the time to push through that feeling if you’re experiencing it.
Learn your rhythm. The entirety of your routine is about to change, but with homeschooling, there may be more room for flexibility when it comes to start times and the duration and frequency of breaks between study. If homeschooling doesn’t come easy at first, stay hopeful, and patiently work with your family to find out which learning strategies work best for you.
Sometimes, to better appreciate a journey you’re on, it’s a good idea to think about those who came before you. What were their experiences like? Are they the same or different to yours? How did it all begin? There’s a long and storied history of home schooling in the UK. In 1977, there were twenty families in the UK being educated primarily at home. By 2009, that figure had risen to 80,000. Interestingly, 10,000 children entered the home schooling system in Autumn 2023 alone.
The main reasoning for the most recent upsurge in home schooling is to try and protect children’s mental well-being. Of course, when home schooling began (long before 1977), it was for different reasons via different means. Let’s explore how home schooling began in the UK.
Access To Education
To better understand the history of home schooling in the UK, we must briefly examine education as a whole. Put simply, there wasn’t much of it prior to the mid nineteenth century. Most families didn’t have access to a regular school in the late eighteenth century. The children of poor families were sometimes taught to read from nearby churches, but it would be rare for other skills to be taught in this setting.
Educated employers sometimes chose to teach children basic primary education skills. However, these instances were very occasional. It wasn’t until 1811 that the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor was formed to try and establish regular schooling in industrial areas. However, compulsory education wouldn’t be formed until the 1870s, with secondary education financed in 1902. France, Germany, and the USA all had faster rates of schooling provision compared to the UK. What were UK children left with before the immergence of public education, then? Well, answers vary from home schooling to almost no access to education at all, depending on wealth and status.
Home Schooling As Privilege
Home schooling is sometimes viewed as a ‘luxury’ or ‘privilege’ today. However, in prior centuries, the truth in these claims rang a little louder. Upper- and middle-class families had enormous dependency on home schooling in the late eighteenth century. At this time, governesses began to enter the homes of middle-class families, providing education on ‘the three r’s’: reading, writing, and arithmetic. They also went a step further, issuing instruction on social etiquette, too.
Children from working class backgrounds sought out ‘self-education’ at best, and didn’t do so in great numbers until the nineteenth century. Home schooling didn’t become a viable possibility for them until more modern times.
Home schooling became rarer with the emergence of public education, evolving into a greater sign of wealth and status. Fewer families were home schooled, yet most of the Royal Family were educated at home, a tradition lasting right up to Queen Elizabeth II’s time. Only in more modern times have children in the Royal Family been attending public school.
Stateside Influence
The US was ahead of the UK on the provision of public schooling. The growth of US home schooling soon surpassed that of other countries, too. Multiple states introduced legislation in the 1920s-1930s for Creationism to be taught in US schools. Creationism is the theory that the earth was made in seven days. However, the US constitution separates church and state as part of the First Amendment. In the 60s, Creationism was ruled a ‘belief of faith’ in the US by law, which meant that the decades-old state laws around teaching Creationism was suddenly rendered unconstitutional. Cue uproar. Conservative Christians expressed displeasure with the US school system, which began to teach different points of view from religious content. Therefore, it was in the 1960s that the call for alternative education in the US became louder. Even counterculture theorists boarded the bandwagon, highlighting more perceived failings in state education.
Advocacy for alternative schools rapidly grew. The appeal of personalised education developed alongside those calls. Home schooling started to amass marginal appeal through the 1980s, and by the 1990s, and the advent of the internet (its origins being the in the US), the genie was out of the bottle.
The UK didn’t gravitate toward home education due to any religious unrest. However, the UK did take notice of what the US was doing in the late 1970s with home schooling, beginning to draw on their models and frameworks for home education. The UK saw home education could be feasible for many, and not just an elite few.
The Coronavirus Pandemic
Home schooling as a concept didn’t start during the coronavirus pandemic. However, for many families, it was the first time home schooling felt like a realistic prospect for them. Despite many children having since gone back to public school, last June saw the number of children moving to home education at its highest level since the pandemic. People are now more aware of these opportunities, more technologically savvy, more in-tune with their child’s developmental needs and mental well-being, and more open-minded to explore different ways of learning. For many families, the home schooling journey is just beginning! And that’s great to see.
Conclusion
There’s been something of a ‘phased approach’ to home schooling’s start in the UK. While it may have begun centuries ago for the wealthy and elite, home schooling has taken on different forms, roles, and purposes through the years. Who knows how it may evolve further in the years ahead…
Oxford Home Schooling offer a variety of courses at different levels, details of which you can find via our Home page. You can also Contact Us.
Studying is no longer just about retaining information. It’s also about staying safe online.
There are new laws being implemented to keep children safe on the internet. However, the first lines of defence should always be your own precautions.
There can be a lot of anxiety around using the internet for looking up information today. AI has further muddied the waters. How do we know everything we’re viewing is trustworthy?
To help you feel safe online during your studying, an understanding of search engine optimisation (SEO) can be useful. So, without further ado, here’s a brief introduction to SEO.
A Quick Definition
SEO is a guiding set of principles outlining how content creators and marketers can optimise their content for search engines. It’s a literal term.
The more content creators utilise SEO, the higher their sites will rank on a search engine like Google, Bing, and a plethora of lesser-known variations. ‘Rank’ is the operative word, there.
SEO is quality assurance – an endorsement from search engine overlords that the content you’re about to view matches your search query and won’t harm your or your computer. If you feel comfortable clicking the first few links in a search engine results page, SEO has done its job.
SEO isn’t about who is shouting the loudest. It’s anti-clickbait. The informed voice of David Attenborough in a sea of Logan Pauls.
How Does SEO Work?
There’s a lot of voices out there. From an outsider’s perspective, the sheer volume of content might seem impossible to filter.
However, businesses (including those you study with) will typically hire expert SEO specialists and content writers to map all things SEO. Their roles will involve basic duties like:
- Tracking changes to search engine algorithms to better understand how poor content is defined and flagged by search engines; for example, Google’s algorithm was tweaked to combat a rise in slop produced by ChatGPT.
- Monitoring the trends around keywords to better produce content web users want to engage with. Keywords must be integrated into text naturally, and not be deemed spam.
- Studying analytics for the content that peers and competitors produce. Which site has the highest visibility, and how did they achieve it?
- Categorising and tagging their content appropriately, and not misleading readers.
- Taking all the information learned and producing high-quality content.
SEO is an ever-evolving field – one requiring specialist oversight to keep track of each change. Now AI is on the scene, one can probably expect faster algorithmic tweaks and changes to occur in future too.
Websites can be penalised for producing content that is unoriginal, unnatural, repetitive, or badly written. Every site you see at the top of a results page shouldn’t have content that suffers from these problems.
Why Should You Care?
If you’re a homeschool student, you may think that SEO is only for adult marketing professionals. However, this information certainly pertains to you.
Understanding SEO means you can put more trust in some types of content you see online. That while there’s a breathtaking amount of misinformation on the web, there are pockets of cyberspace where you can generally feel at ease. We hope that helps!
If you aspire to create your own business one day, knowing all about SEO will be essential too. Many successful entrepreneurs make a go of things in their teens, so understanding how to be seen as reputable online can give you a head start.
Conclusion
This quick overview of SEO should help you better understand how web content is produced, published, and assessed for quality. Despite much of the conjecture out there today, there are still areas of the internet you can trust – those with great SEO!
Bright Ideas
Home schooling comes with many perks. Your learning schedule can be more flexible, and you also get lots of one-on-one time with your tutor. However, it might seem hard to interact with your peers when you’re at home studying. Socialisation is an important part of growing up, as it can teach you all about how to make friends, teamwork, and network. To be social is to have a healthy lifestyle. Still, being home schooled doesn’t mean you have to miss out on being social. It just means you need to put yourself out there and come up with some ideas on how to socialise. Without further ado, here’s five ideas to help you achieve better home schooling socialisation.
Research Volunteer Opportunities
When home schooling, teens can sometimes feel a frustration with themselves. They may feel stuck at home with mum and dad or like they’re unable to make a difference and do something meaningful beyond study. Volunteering can help here. You’ll feel connected with your local community, meet new people, and have plenty of opportunity to socialise.
You’ll also learn new skills which can facilitate further socialisation. After all, while sometimes a bit of small talk is necessary, being able to talk about the things that enrich your mind and set you apart from others is also great. Put simply, volunteering can make you more interesting to talk to! The British Red Cross accept volunteers from age 15 and over. You can also explore work experience with them. So, take a look at their opportunities and see if there’s anything that appeals to you.
Socialise At The Public Library
Libraries are usually thought of as a place for quiet reading more than socialisation. However, these assumptions can be proven wrong in many cases. There are libraries out there that offer opportunities for teens to socialise together. They have dedicated space for socialising, sell affordable beverages, and provide computers and Wi-Fi that are free for you to use while on the premises. Most importantly, libraries making this possible go to the great lengths to ensure the spaces they create are safe. They’ll have security on the premises, and staff checking in or supervising things to ensure all is well.
Join Home Schooling Clubs
You’re not the first home schooler to strive for more social activity! There are many out there, and they try to unite however they can. Many home schoolers, and their parents, start various clubs to bring together others in a similar boat. They might be reading clubs, gym clubs, or even just weekly meet-and-greets. It’s quite easy to find these groups! Sometimes, those running them will start a Facebook group, making it easy for others in their area to connect. Start your search there – you might be surprised by who and what you find!
Write To A Pen Pal
As you grow up, you’ll realise getting along with different kinds of people is just as important as finding ‘besties’. Having a pen pal can teach you that. It’s recommended that you sign up for an official pen pal scheme rather than searching for anonymous friendship online. That way, you can be sure that you’re safe.
Still, pen pal schemes can be terrific for socialisation. You can write to peers in entirely different countries, finding common ground across great distances. Pen pals can quite literally introduce you to a larger world! You’ll have plenty to talk about.
Keep Up With Public Events
Whether you live in a city or a town, public events will be thrown often. Consider attending some! Events can range from standard markets and fairs to some pretty strange (but hilarious) traditions around UK towns. They bring all sorts of people together for days filled with laughter and good times. Some town events might not always sound like the ‘cool’ thing to attend as a teen. However, they are put on for everybody. There will be things to do for people of all ages, and you and your family are always invited by default!
Field Trips For Home Schooling Students
Everyone enjoys good field trips. However, for homeschooled pupils, the opportunity to get out of the house and see the world can be very exciting.
Field trips are amazing. Depending on the nature of the trip, you may get to see how all your textbook learning bares relevance in the real world. From witnessing the application of your academics to better understanding the context of your wider learning, it can all bring with it a fresh perspective that revitalises your motivation to study. As with all things, how you approach these circumstances can influence your enjoyment of them. So, we’ve prepared a few tips below to help you make the most of a homeschool field trip!
Have Your Say
While it’s not right to say that you can ‘demand’ where you go on field trips, it’s likely your parent or guardian will take your input into consideration. More so than a school would let their pupils influence the trip destination, at least!
So, perhaps start things off by presenting a few ideas to your parent or guardian. If they know you’re passionate about visiting a relevant place for your studies, they may well be more inclined to choose it for the field trip. It may also be a good idea to tap into how your parent or guardian feels about travelling. After all, some adults travel while teaching their kids, letting them see the world as they learn about it. If your parent or guardian is more adventure-inclined, the choice of your preferred field trip could play into that. Don’t despair if your parent or guardian doesn’t choose your preferred choice of trip. It’s still quite likely they’ve valued your input and chosen a destination that ticks your boxes and theirs.
Keep A Record
If you’re being homeschooled, your parents or guardians are probably more prepared to relax ‘no phone’ policies on a field trip. At least during cool or intriguing moments that are worth a quick picture. So, it may be a good idea to have a chat with your parents or guardians. See how they feel about phones on the trip, and if you can negotiate a few strategic snapshots at the least. Or, they may take some pictures or videos on your behalf, if they don’t wish for you to be looking at your phone the whole time.
Once the intriguing parts of the trip have been documented, you can reflect on them in future study sessions. That way, your field trip is more than just a quick flash in the pain experience, like so many trips can be for private and public school pupils!
Plan Future Trips
When pupils embark on field trips with their public or private school, typically they will enjoy one visit only. After all, funding the adventures of an entire class or even year group of pupils will not come cheap. Sadly, cuts to school budgets have been made regarding field trips.
As a homeschooled pupil, however, there’s a good chance you can plan repeat visits with your family. You’re a smaller unit, which means less money will be spent on the endeavour. That can very well open the door to repeat visits over the course of your academic year.
Why begin with this acknowledgement? Well, it can inform your attitude to your field trip. You won’t rush around trying to see and do everything, and you’ll have more time to calmly absorb everything you’re experiencing on the trip. You’ll feel better about things, and therefore more likely to enjoy the field trip.
Conclusion
Making the most of something nearly always involves taking a step back, planning, and seeing the bigger picture. If you do that with your homeschool field trips, it’s highly likely you’ll get so much more out of them. Good luck out there!
If you want to see the range of courses Oxford Home Schooling offer for study, you can find our Home Page here. Scroll to the top of the page and click on Courses.
A Back To Home Schooling Guide For Students
As summer comes to an end and your new home schooling year begins, you might be feeling an amalgamation of excitement and anxiety. The shift from the relaxed, carefree days of summer to the structured routine of schooling can be challenging. To help you navigate this transition smoothly, it’s important to understand the potential challenges and take steps to prepare yourself both mentally and academically.
Understanding The Challenges
Returning to your home schooling after the summer holidays can be a challenge. One of the biggest challenges is the “summer slide”—the learning loss that can occur when you’re away from school for an extended period. Research from the Education Endowment Foundation shows that students can lose up to two months’ worth of learning over the summer, especially in subjects like reading and Maths.
In addition to academic challenges, many of you might experience increased anxiety as the school year begins. A survey by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found that nearly 45% of students feel more anxious during the first few weeks back into the academic year – so if you’re feeling nervous know you are not alone. This anxiety can be due to various factors, including the pressure to do well in your studies and the stress of adjusting to a new schedule.
Tips For A Smooth Transition
To make the transition from summer to the academic year easier, here are some tips you can follow:
1. Ease Back Into Your Routine
Start adjusting to your school routine before the first day back. Gradually begin going to bed earlier and waking up earlier a week or two before school starts. This will help you reset your body clock and make those early mornings less of a shock.
2. Brush Up On Your Schoolwork
To avoid the summer slide, take some time to review what you’ve learned in the past year. This doesn’t mean you have to study all day, but even doing a little bit of reading or playing educational games can help refresh your memory and prepare you for the new school year. You can even look over your end of year report and think about the feedback you have been given and try to work on it.
3. Get Organised Early
Make sure you have all your home schooling supplies ready well before the first day. Organising your stationery, books, and other materials in advance will help reduce last-minute stress and make you feel more prepared for the academic challenges ahead.
4. Set Personal Home Schooling Goals
Think about what you want to achieve this school year. Whether it’s getting better grades, improving in a specific subject, or participating in extracurricular activities, having clear goals will give you something to focus on and work towards. You could write these goals down and put them up in your room so you can remind yourself of your personal goals. You could even share them with a friend or family member so that you can get excited about your goals and have accountability.
5. Take Care Of Your Mental Health
With all the pressures that come with a new school year, it’s important to look after your mental well-being. Make sure to take breaks, do activities that help you relax, and spend time with friends and family. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to talk to a teacher, counsellor, or someone you trust.
Final Thoughts
Transitioning from summer to the academic year can be tough, but with some planning and the right mindset, you can make it a positive experience. By easing back into your routine, reviewing your schoolwork, and setting goals, you’ll be better prepared to start the year strong. Don’t forget to take care of your mental health along the way—balancing schoolwork with relaxation and self-care is key to a successful year.
As you step into the new academic year, do so with confidence, knowing that you’re ready to take on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Good luck!
Oxford Home Schooling offer the opportunity of a number of courses, which you can find by visiting out Home Page and clicking on Courses at the top of the page. You can also Contact Us and speak to one of our Student Advisers for more information.
Transitioning From Summer To The Academic Year
As summer comes to an end and the new academic year approaches, you might be feeling an amalgamation of excitement and anxiety. The shift from the relaxed, carefree days of summer to the structured routine of home schooling can be challenging. To help you navigate this transition smoothly, it’s important to understand the potential challenges and take steps to prepare yourself both mentally and academically.
Understanding The Challenges
Returning to school after the summer holidays can be a challenge. One of the biggest challenges is the “summer slide”—the learning loss that can occur when you’re away from school for an extended period. Research from the Education Endowment Foundation shows that students can lose up to two months’ worth of learning over the summer, especially in subjects like reading and maths.
In addition to academic challenges, many of you might experience increased anxiety as the school year begins. A survey by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found that nearly 45% of students feel more anxious during the first few weeks back home schooling – so if you’re feeling nervous know you are not alone. This anxiety can be due to various factors, including the pressure to do well in your studies, the fear of fitting in socially, and the stress of adjusting to a new schedule.
Tips For A Smooth Transition To Your Home Schooling
To make the transition from summer to the academic year easier, here are some tips you can follow:
1. Ease Back Into Your Routine
Start adjusting to your school routine before the first day back. Gradually begin going to bed earlier and waking up earlier a week or two before school starts. This will help you reset your body clock and make those early mornings less of a shock.
2. Brush Up On Your Schoolwork
To avoid the summer slide, take some time to review what you’ve learned in the past year. This doesn’t mean you have to study all day, but even doing a little bit of reading or playing educational games can help refresh your memory and prepare you for the new school year. You can even look over your end of year report and think about the feedback you have been given and try to work on it.
3. Get Organised Early
Make sure you have all your home schooling supplies ready well before the first day. Organising your stationery, books, and other materials in advance will help reduce last-minute stress and make you feel more prepared for the academic challenges ahead.
4. Set Personal Goals
Think about what you want to achieve this school year. Whether it’s getting better grades, improving in a specific subject, or participating in extracurricular activities, having clear goals will give you something to focus on and work towards. You could write these goals down and put them up in your room so you can remind yourself of your personal goals. You could even share them with a friend or family so that you can get excited about your goals and have accountability.
5. Take Care of Your Mental Health
With all the pressures that come with a new school year, it’s important to look after your mental well-being. Make sure to take breaks, do activities that help you relax, and spend time with friends and family. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to talk to a tutor, counsellor, or someone you trust.
Final Thoughts
Transitioning from summer to the academic year can be tough, but with some planning and the right mindset, you can make it a positive experience. By easing back into your routine, reviewing your schoolwork, and setting goals, you’ll be better prepared to start the year strong. Don’t forget to take care of your mental health along the way—balancing your home schooling work with relaxation and self-care is key to a successful year.
As you step into the new academic year, do so with confidence, knowing that you’re ready to take on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Good luck!
Oxford Home Schooling offer the chance a variety of subjects at a number levels. You can see which by clicking on Courses on our Home Page here. You can also Contact Us via the details given here.
Celebrating Youth And Young People: International Youth Day: 12 August
You are midway through the summer holidays – well, in the UK anyway – and you might be getting a little restless, perhaps a bit bored – and you are itching to get back to learning. Well, on 12 August, you could spend time thinking about International Youth Day (IYD) – a day which celebrates young people the world over.
Facing Forward
IYD came about to do two main things: to recognise the role that young people have to play in the future of the world and also to draw attention to issues that young people face every day. This has been running since 1999 when it was decided that such a day needed to exist.
Across the world, there are nearly 2 million young people aged between ten and twenty-four years old. Shockingly, about half of these live in war-torn areas – and lots are affected by lack of education, access to healthcare, suitable jobs and other potential opportunities.
One of the aims of the International Youth Day is to teach young people how to make a better life for themselves – and to help them become equipped with the skills to do this. One example is knowing how to promote peace and having ideas about how this can help for future generations.
How To Be A Part Of It
So, how might you get involved this year? Well, you can participate on social media using #YouthDay and #Transforming Education. You can find out more at https://www.un.org/en/observances/youth-day – there is a lot more information provided here. This year’s theme is From Clicks to Progress: Youth Digital Pathways for Sustainable Development. Technology plays a huge role in how the world works today and young people are often very quick to pick up on new initiatives.
When the 12th of August rolls around, try and get involved with issues that will affect you – and other generations – in years to come. This is how you can make a difference to the world we live in today.
‘Time management’ is a commonly used phrase in educational settings and workplaces, but the phrase itself has somewhat lost its meaning or gravitas for many of us. In part, this may be because most people recognise time management as an important, and sometimes intangible, aspect of our busy lives, and therefore, the need to improve it is somewhat stating the obvious. As the one thing we all have the same amount of, time is actually something which cannot be managed (Michael W. Weiderman, 2023); it’s our behaviours which determine what we do within it. The answer, perhaps, lies not in taking instruction from available information and tools, but to pay more attention to ourselves and the psychology behind what we do with our time. According to Weiderman, there are three psychological tendencies which effect time management:
Task Completion Bias
Psychologists recognise that uncompleted tasks create psychological discomfort, so people are more likely to complete shorter, easier tasks first in order to satisfy a sense of achievement. While any completed task is a success, this usually means that larger, more important tasks are delayed, sometimes continuously, as we get stuck in a cycle of task completion bias.
Multitasking
A highly sought after skill by employers, multitasking demonstrates the ability to manage several tasks at once. However, Weiderman argues that multitasking induces stress, which ultimately compromises one’s ability to complete larger tasks which require closer work and attention.
The Planning Fallacy
Organising ourselves, tasks and time into digestible and quantifiable chunks is common practise, but this habit demonstrates how humans tend to be overly optimistic with estimating the time available and required to complete a given task. We tend to underestimate how distractions and interruptions will inhibit and elongate certain tasks, ultimately rendering our planning futile.
So, what can we do about it, if anything? There’s a deluge of advice available on time management, which is largely agreeable in theory, but putting it into practice is challenging simply due to human nature. In knowing this, how we can begin to better utilise our time?
The Importance Of Impact
Rethinking tasks according to the impact they have can help to achieve it. Ask yourself, which task is likely to reduce the most stress, or have the longest lasting impact, once complete? Organising tasks in this way is more likely to lead to success and help relieve anxiety associated with tasks.
Utilise Your Bias
Use task completion bias to your advantage by deconstructing larger tasks into smaller, achievable steps. This reduces the risk of delaying or ignoring larger, important tasks altogether, and helps to avoid multitasking which can compromise concentration.
Think Real Time
Avoid the planning fallacy by overestimating how long tasks will take and underestimating the time you have to do them. Equally, anticipating interruptions and delays, and planning how you will respond, will streamline your efficiency. These plans are known as implementation intentions, which facilitate task completion.
Ultimately, there is no straight-forward solution to better managing your time. But, when it comes to managing studies, workload, or home life, if you know your own habits a little better and take some time to think about how to change them on a small, realistic scale, you can achieve longer lasting positive outcomes and a higher success rate.
Source Reference: Michael W Wiederman, 2023: The Psychology of Time Management
