Staying Motivated in Self-Paced Online Courses
Hi everyone! I've found that while hands-on building is a fantastic way to learn, taking courses from experienced instructors can also offer immense benefits. However, I often struggle with maintaining motivation throughout self-paced online courses, especially since they can be quite lengthy and require significant time commitment.
I'm reaching out to ask for strategies or tips on how to stay engaged and see these courses through to the end. How do you keep yourself motivated and on track in a self-paced learning environment? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Discussion
(2 comments)- 24 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
To question the premise: do you need to go through the entire online course? It feels good to "complete" something, but it might be better to be more precise on what you're trying to learn and just watch that portion.
If you do want to go through the entire course:
- Having someone to discuss with really helps
- Create a notes doc and fill in important points (in your own words) for each section
- Use a tool like FocusMate to stay on track (I just started using this and love it)
- 14 months agoEng @ Taro
I would try to think about what your end goal is for watching the online course. There's usually some reason for why you decided to watch the course. What do you want to get out of the course? As you go through the course, constantly try to connect each section with whether the content gives you some tangible action items for how to achieve your goal.
I am always taking notes when I watch courses. My notes are paraphrasing the content in my own voice or associating the content with ideas related to other subjects. I also take a lot of screenshots and annotate the screenshots. Watching a course should be a very active process.
I usually timebox watching courses to 30 minutes/day. Any more, and I start to zone out. My mind ends up feeling like a leaky bucket where any new ideas just stop sticking. Sometimes I need a good night of rest to really make sense of the new concepts from a course.
