9 Pro-Active Tips For Successful Students
9 Pro-Active Tips For Successful Students
Some time ago, I told you about some really good tips to be productive at work when you’re working from home, whether you’re a student or a freelancer. I felt like it would be a great idea to share some of my best tips for successful students. You can be an exchange student or studying in your own city, living alone, or still living at home with your parents, but if you’re serious about the path you’ve chosen to embark on, those are tips for student success that I have personally followed as closely as I could when I was a student.
These few tips are some of the best tips and strategies in studying I could think of. In addition, I have asked around for some additional tips to improve productivity and performance when you’re looking to know how to be a better student. I will mostly focus on proactive tips for successful students in this guide, from last minute revision tips to everyday life. Those are especially useful tips if you’re living life in a hostel for a few weeks or months while studying abroad.
I have written about the best ways to meal prep when you’re a college student, broke, and living alone. I also have in mind to write some guides with study tips for lazy students, tips for saving money, and, importantly, ways to increase your productivity when you study abroad and have never done it before.
9 Pro-Active Tips For Successful Students
If this is your first time visiting The Working Line, welcome to your productivity BFF online. Here, I write about the best coworking spaces in London, cafes to work in Rome, and much more. The goal is to help freelancers, digital nomads, students, and remote workers increase their work performance as easily as possible.
Having been a freelance writer and blogger for a few years, I have gathered quite a few good tips and methods to help out others increase their productivity and manage their time better. I am also passionate about working in coffee shops in London, Paris, Rome, and anywhere else in the world my feet carry me.
For now, let’s focus on the best tips for successful students – you’re about to learn how to be a better student with those easy proactive tips to study and live your best life!
One of the best strategies in studying I can share from the get-go is that you need to know what you have to know. It seems quite… random, almost absurd, for me to tell you that. What I mean is that if you want to know how to be a better student, productive, and everything, then you need to be able to sort out what you need to know.
Make a precise list of all the courses you will have during the semester or the year, and know exactly what you will have to learn. Whether you’re looking for tips for exchange students or ‘classic’ tips for successful students, we’re just going to go back to the same tip over and over again.
Any blog telling you about tips for successful students will tell you to build habits. But I want to go a bit further – build habits, and really stick to them. All the strategies in studying in the world will not help if you’re not consistent. That goes from anything academic to life matters. Be consistent if you want to be successful.
As a freelance writer, this is one of the hardest tips I have to apply to my life. When you’re a student, that’s quite easy to build habits as you have people surrounding you, ready to help. Teachers, professors, students – all you have to do is ask. Then, you also have the Internet telling you about how to be a better student pretty easily and directly.
But one of the best strategies in studying really is to build up healthy habits over the course of several weeks. One week is not enough, and you need to do the same thing day in, day out, for at least three to four weeks before you can actually feel the habit being ‘built up’ in your everyday.
Build a sustainable routine. Use Google Calendar, Trello, Asana, or whatever else you want to write down everything you need to do during the day, and during the week, to feel good and be as productive in your work as you can be. Every Sunday night or Monday morning, take that calendar and build it again if there are some tasks that you don’t necessarily have to keep up. Automate, automate, automate.
There are a few tips to be productive when studying or working from home that I’ve written about, that will really help you out, so I’d definitely recommend reading through them. Define your regular tasks, and keep going with them even if you’re not motivated. Don’t miss even one day, as your tasks will pile up and you’ll lose track of them fast otherwise. Whether you’re looking for tips for exchange students or you’re still living at home, that’s one of the best tips for successful students I can give you.
Tips For Successful Students: No Distractions
When you’re about to start studying, have a beginning of study time ritual. Prepare a cup of tea or coffee, put on the same background music or video, and write down your plan for the day in a beautiful notebook… But create that ritual, and that will definitely help you out if you’re wondering how to be a better student and more productive overall.
No distractions – that’s one of the ultimate strategies in studying. Turn off that phone, put it on airplane mode, and organize your laptop so you don’t see any logos at the bottom that may distract you, like the Netflix logo, for instance.
If there is usually noise, or if you’re living with people and still are looking for tips for successful students, I know that’s because you really want to make it. So, don’t feel embarrassed to close the door if you can while you’re studying.
Put on anti-noise headphones, and don’t be afraid to communicate to the people you’re living with that it’s time for you to be really productive and you are going to need to be alone for a while. That’s also one of the best tips for exchange students, since you often end up living with lots of people, in hostels, shared dorms, or find yourself having flatmates for the first time and it can get quickly overwhelming.
If you find yourself not having the time to learn plenty of information in one go, one of the best tips for successful students I can think of is using collections of past papers. I used to use this a lot when I was a student, as it shows you how to understand the academic mindset, as I like to call it.
As I mentioned above, try and communicate with your professors to know what they’re looking for when it comes to midterm knowledge. It’s not cheating, it’s trying to understand what is going to be important to know in the long term.
I spent years studying languages, and even if in the end, I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher or work in languages (my goal was to work with languages, which I managed pretty well as my mother tongue is French and I’ve been able to work in three different languages so far), talking to professors to know what would be useful for me in the future really helped me out a lot.
But seriously, if you’re looking for the best strategies in studying and how to be a better student overall, you’re going to have to know both why you’re studying this course, what the academic corps is expecting from you, and how this course is going to help you in the future when you’re out in the professional field.
Tips For Successful Students: Prioritize Tasks
One of the best tips for successful students looking for proactive strategies in studying: prioritize! If you learn how to prioritize tasks and do what you really need to do first, then that’s going to help you out later in life.
Being a student, and we often forget about that, isn’t just about studying dry subjects for midterms. For some people looking for tips for exchange students, it might be just about graduating so you can finally start living. For other students still studying in their hometown, it might be graduating so you get your parents off your back.
But I promise – being a student is also being a student of life. All the organization tips and safety tips for the workplace when you work from home will help you out later in life. They will help you whether you work for someone else or you build your own business, and learning how to prioritize will save you lots of time down the road.
Another good studying strategy is: don’t try and invent shortcuts. Even if you score a great mark because you’ve done last minute revisions because you were a lazy student all year, you are definitely going to forget most of the information in the next days or weeks. But there is some information you might really need, so if you prioritize at the beginning of the year, month, week, and on the day you’re working, then you can really work without stress and learn much more easily.
Be efficient – there are some courses you really don’t need to go to. Prioritizing is choosing what really needs to be covered and what can be put aside for now. There are some courses you would do better off with studying on your own, and that will have you way less tired as you don’t have to commute.
Often, professors will follow the pace of the majority of the class. If you’re looking for tips for successful students and you’re quite advanced or understand faster than most people, look into learning on your own with your notebooks and the Internet as it will save you loads of time for tougher subjects (especially if you’re studying medicine, engineering, etc). And visit some of the best stationery shops so you really find good, helpful notebooks and planners.
Best Strategies in Studying: Learn How To Live Alone
One of the very best strategies in studying – learn how to live alone first! Doesn’t seem that important, but it is. Even if you’re living with your parents, try to take on some cooking, some cleaning, and pick up chores to alleviate your parents’ tasks and learn how to live alone. You might not always be living there during your student years, especially if you’re choosing to get on an Erasmus program later on.
Each hour is precious, and when you learn how to take care of yourself, your home, and chores like cleaning and shopping, you’re actually gaining time for later in life. Plus, it also allows you to avoid procrastination. That also means that you need to respect the ‘Prioritize tasks’ and the ‘Build Habits’ steps I mentioned above.
That’s one of the very best tips for successful students I can give you. Sleep well, eat well, exercise, and meditate. Be mindful of your time, as being a student shapes you up for life. Don’t scre* up the precious time you have.
Last minute revisions are much easier if you’ve worked properly all year long. I’m talking about making revision sheets regularly as soon as you’re out of class and coming back to your full notes and the books when you have a doubt about something.
It’s always, always, always easier to learn piece by piece than feeling forced to read and learn the whole course in one go. Plus, that’s way less stressful – if you’re wondering how to be a better student, we’re here.
Preparation makes success, so if you’re down to make it happen for yourself, look into applying learning and revision methods, especially if you’re looking for tips for exchange students who study abroad. Unfortunately, even if you’re surrounded with people, it’s still your course, your path, and your liability.
Later on, I’ll get into self care tips for students on The Working Line so you can mix and match all those tips for successful students and avoid losing your mind come midterm. For now, try to find your method to read faster, make those revision sheets faster, sleep more easily, meal prep faster, and manage your time in a smart way, overall.
Best Strategies in Studying: Plan The Day With Work-Life Balance
If you’re looking for tips for successful students and end up working from home (especially after the pandemic when lots of courses happen via Zoom), then I can give you a really good piece of advice: plan the day globally and in your schedule, mix both work and home tasks.
I’ve touched base with that in my guide to being productive while working from home, and I’d recommend having a good, organized workspace that is just about work and not home. No mixing forks and spoons with your notebooks on your kitchen table, for instance. When you look at the workspace you’ve created for yourself, it needs to look like work and that’s it.
Another one of the good strategies in studying I can think of is that you can sprinkle home tasks during your day, before you start working, after the lunch break, and once you’re done working. Don’t forget to have an end-of-work ritual, like meditation, stretching, or taking a walk because your brain is absolutely fried.
If you’re a commuter student, do pay attention to what you do on the subway, the bus, or the train. Use those precious minutes either to really rest and meditate, read a few pages of a nice book, or maybe make some notes. Up to you, as long as you’re feeling productive and at peace with yourself.
Tips For Successful Students: Build Healthy Work Habits
The last one of my tips and strategies in studying is to build healthy work habits. Of course, one of the most important tips for successful students to follow is creating and respecting those work schedules you have to build for yourself when you start the schoolyear.
Try not to miss any study days, as the tasks and lessons to learn pile up and you might find yourself quickly overwhelmed. If you happen to miss some lessons, get some revision sheets from fellow students – the more precise, the better.
In terms of healthy work habits for students, let’s talk a little bit about your environment. It is important to sleep and eat well, drink water, and go to bed at a reasonable time (before midnight is the best, that’s what I’ve found as a freelancer). But it is also important to build a study environment that pushes you to be more productive when studying and reworking your notes.
Your desk chair must be comfortable, and your posture must be correct. Take healthy and reasonable breaks so you don’t go crazy. The lighting must be comfortable enough to work, but not too dim so you don’t fall asleep.
This is one of the best tips for successful students as we often overlook comfort. But, when you’re looking into how to be a better student, you’ll find that you need comfort as you’re already making lots of effort, brain-wise. So, if your body is comfortable while you’re learning, then you’re already halfway there.
9 Pro-Active Tips For Successful Students
So there you have them, all my best proactive tips for successful students – exchange student or not, those are productivity tips that will really help you out if you follow them all together. It might seem overwhelming when you have to apply everything at the same time, but if you take a moment to think, then you’ll understand that everything is connected.
If you go to bed at the correct time and eat well, then your energy levels will be that much higher. If you work from home with your books instead of going to lessons that might waste more time than bringing knowledge, then you can spend that time on making revision sheets that will really help for last-minute revision if you need it.
If you learn how to organize your work and prioritize tasks, that will help out in the future. Don’t forget that even if you’re studying in college for five years, those years will pass in the blink of an eye. Soon enough, you’ll be out of college and working, maybe building a business and a family, and you’ll have to know how to sort out and prioritize tasks. And that’s when you’ll thank yourself for the effort you’ve put in.
PS. If you’re ever in Italy, check out the best coworking spaces in Rome!
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Hi, I’m Sam!
Welcome to The Working Line, your ultimate BFF digital nomad and travel blog.
I am a freelance writer and travel blogger, and I share here all the best places to visit and eat and things to do in Europe and the UK.
Find here the best places to work and tips to become a better digital nomad, freelancer, and student while having the time of your life!