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How To Study Without Getting Distracted
Ways to Avoid Distractions and Stay Focused on Studying
- Get organized with a to-do list.
- Silence alerts and keep open Internet tabs to a minimum.
- Break big projects into small pieces.
- Use music and headphones to cut down noise.
- Find the best environment for efficient studying.
- Clean up and organize your work space.
7 Ways to Avoid Distractions and Stay Focused on Studying
Updated: Aug 06, 2021
College can be overwhelming when you’re trying to maintain your grades, work a part-time job and/or balance relationships. Most of us get distracted with push notifications, text messages and phone calls. According to research conducted by Dr. Larry Rosen, professor emeritus at California State University, Dominguez Hills, “the typical student” is “distracted for at least five out of every 15 minutes they set aside to study,” most often as a result of texting and social media use.
With so much going on, it can be very difficult to stay focused, but it’s not impossible.
Here are seven tips to help enhance your productivity:
- Get organized with a to-do list
- Silence alerts and keep open Internet tabs to a minimum
- Break big projects into small pieces
- Use music and headphones to cut down noise
- Find the best environment for efficient studying
- Clean up and organize your work space
- Reward yourself for accomplishments
Make a Schedule or To-Do List
Juggling multiple projects and deadlines at school can be stressful. When you’re working on one assignment, it’s easy to forget about another. You can help organize your deadlines and manage your time more efficiently with a proper schedule. Figure out when you’re most productive and set time aside for homework and activities. Keeping a planner or digital calendar will help you keep track of your classes and assignments. Paper planners are perfect for those who like writing to-do lists and scheduling appointments by hand. One study suggests that the simple act of writing things out helps boost your concentration and memory.
Turn Off Alerts
Constant notifications and text messages are every college student’s enemy. Put your phone on silent or in “Do Not Disturb” mode, and close unnecessary tabs on your computer. If you need the Internet, keep one tab open. You can fight online distractions by blocking or hiding time-wasting websites and apps.
Break Down Your Work into Smaller Tasks
Defeat procrastination by breaking a large project into small pieces. It’s easier to motivate yourself to do something in smaller tasks rather than jumping into a huge one. If you’re having a difficult time studying or getting work done, break up your time effectively. Try giving yourself a 10-minute break for every 45-50 minutes of work you do. Studies show that taking breaks can help you retain information and increase productivity.
Use Headphones
If you’re working in a noisy environment, use noise-canceling headphones. Listening to music through earbuds can also tune out distracting noises like people talking too loudly or construction work. Often, though, music with lyrics can be too distracting. Researchers suggest listening to classical or instrumental music to improve concentration.
Find the Right Place to Do Work
Some students work best with a little background noise, while others need complete quiet. Get to know your work style and the type of atmosphere you prefer. Are you the kind of person who works better in silence at the library? Or do you prefer the campus coffee shop with ambient noise? Try a few different spaces and see how each study session works out.
Clear Your Desk
Is your desk covered with stacks of papers? Is your computer monitor framed with layers of sticky notes? If so, it’s time to get organized. A messy workspace can keep you from getting your work done. Go through your desk and keep only the essentials. A clean workspace can help reduce anxiety and make room for motivation.
Reward Yourself
A little motivation can go a long way. Setting up a reward system is a good way to encourage yourself to do something. For example, if you finish an essay without any distractions, give yourself a reward like watching a video or taking a nap.
list of distractions while studying
Regardless of who is most affected by these classroom distractions, it is important to identify what is distracting students so that you can find an effective solution.
- Personal devices. …
- Unnecessary talking. …
- Eating food or chewing gum. …
- Tardiness. …
- YouTube. …
- Class activities.
With so few instructional minutes in a class period, teachers are tasked with keeping students focused during class by limiting classroom distractions. Classroom distractions come in various forms, some most distracting to fellow students and some most distracting to the teacher. Regardless of who is most affected by these classroom distractions, it is important to identify what is distracting students so that you can find an effective solution.
1. Personal devices
Devices like cell phones, hand-held games, and even school-issued laptops are some of the biggest classroom distractions. Students can be easily distracted by a notification or message, taking them away from the lesson and focusing on texting a friend back or reaching that next level in their favorite game. This can be distracting for teachers as lack of eye contact from students and noises from these devices takes teachers’ attention away from what they are teaching.
2. Unnecessary talking
In any setting, unnecessary talking is a distraction for anyone, but this is especially distracting in the classroom. When students talk while the teacher is leading a lesson, their focus gets taken away from what they are teaching as well as distracts other students from being able to pay attention to the lesson. On the other hand, when students talk unnecessarily during times when the class needs to be quite, it disrupts what students are doing and takes focus away from the task at hand.
3. Eating food or chewing gum
Students typically shouldn’t eat during class, but if for whatever reason they do, it can be a huge distraction for many reasons. When students eat during class it can bring unnecessary sounds and smells into the room that can be unsettling for both students and teachers. Food also comes with the risk of a mess and leftover trash. Cleaning up these messes or throwing away trash from food during class can be an added distraction from the lesson at hand.
4. Tardiness
Teachers always ask that students not be tardy so that they don’t miss out on valuable material covered during class. However, unexpected things like traffic on the way to school, talking to a teacher after their prior class, or extracurricular activities can occur which can make students occasionally tardy. Not only does this cause students to miss material, but walking into class late is a classroom distraction that interrupts the teacher’s lesson and can cause students to engage and talk with the tardy student.
5. YouTube
Although many teachers choose to use YouTube for educational purposes to enhance their lessons, students can easily see YouTube as a classroom distraction. Because YouTube allows users to see suggested videos that might not be related to their current video, when a teacher is done showing a video to the class, students might see other videos that pique their interest and draw attention away from the lesson, causing them to talk to each other or go on YouTube on their own devices.
6. Class activities
A great way to keep students engaged with a lesson is by incorporating different activities that enhance the lesson. Whether it is group activities for collaboration, worksheets, or interactive games like Kahoot, in-class activities can help students grasp the material more effectively. However, when doing these activities requires students to move seats, work in groups or take out devices, unnecessary classroom distractions arise.
Some of the biggest classroom distractions are ones that teachers don’t anticipate ahead of time. It is important to be able to identify where these distractions can come from so that you can look for suitable solutions to eliminate these distractions from the classroom.