In this lovely modern age a lot of my studying is done online. I have to use Blackboard for several of my courses, watch missed lectures on a professor’s website and, of course, use Wikipedia to do “research” for papers.

Recently I noticed that when I sit down at the computer to do those things I keep finding myself on Twitter, Facebook, Lifehacker or CNN.

I briefly toyed with the idea of banning those sites on my computer (they make software for it, I’m sure) and more old-fashioned methods, like snapping myself with a rubberband when I visited them.

My new solution is simple, practical and totally easy to implement.

1. Turn off the toolbars that distract – especially Delicious and the built-in Bookmarks bar for your browser. If you don’t have a quick link to Twitter you have to do more than click a button to visit.
2. Google search is often not your friend. It’s so easy to run off to lose time by using it. So, type in the box, all in caps “STAY FOCUSED ON (COURSE NAME)”
3. Open a text file and save it as “GetBacktoStudying.txt” – whenever you want to check something on Google or have an idea un-related to your current course type it in there and save it.

None of these things actually stop you from “being bad” – but they all make you pause a few seconds longer and have actually made a huge difference in how focused I am. The third one has been especially helpful, as it’s saved me from doing pointless research – what was so pressing while I was studying cell biology is of no interest several hours later when I could be going out for a bike ride instead.

* To turn off toolbars in FireFox just go to View > Toolbars and click the name of the one  you want to turn off. Easy as pie.

Image Credit: CarrotCreative / CC BY 2.0

Over the weekend I discovered Study Hacks, a site that offered me great tips and advice, as well as the link to this handy little note taking tool. One great piece of advice was to drop a class, which I thought was brilliant as I was seriously feeling the pressure with my 3 lectures, 2 labs and 1 online course. I dropped one class, and congratulated myself for not being such an over-achiever.

Today, the repercussions of that action came to kick me in the butt. I’m an older student and not rich, which means all my schooling is paid for by loans and grants. The dropping of a class pushed me under full-time by a credit, thus taking away my eligibility for the school’s grants. So I had to scramble to get it back into my schedule before someone stole my spot. Fortunately, no one had.

So, before you drop a class, check into how it effects your eligibility for financial aid! I’d rather be stressed over my courseload than worrying about how to cover college tuition!