We’re all busy—family, work, school, life. One of the major challenges faced by online learners is managing their time. Planning and manage your time is crucial to ensure you complete your course in the time that may have been delegated to you by your online tutor. If learners don’t manage time well, you will end up giving yourself a lot of stress and most probably fall behind on deadlines for submitting your work.

Here are some tips to help you successfully complete an online course:

1. Make the course a priority.

Begin an online course when you know you will have the time. If you have a heavy work load, many busy commitments, you will already be struggling. Decide the amount of time you are able to commit and make this a priority.

2. Online courses can be “a lonely experience” for some students.

Online learning could be “a lonely experience.” for some students. Do you have a friend spouse you can talk to about your course? Who knows they may want to do the course with you?  You will probably enjoy your course a lot better and be motivated to complete it quicker.

3. Fail to plan! Plan to fail!

Commit to the time you have set aside for your study.  Whatever the times you have planned for yourself do your best to stick to them. It could be an hour a day (more or less this is for you to plan how much time you have available) what time of the day works best for you? I am a morning person, my brain has usually gone to sleep by 3:00 pm. I always like to get the thinking and research parts of the course I’m doing out of the way in the morning. Then if I have more time to spare I do the fun things in the afternoon. I love courses that have practical elements to them. All of our online courses have a practical element to them.

4. Distractions are our worst enemy.

Where ever you decide to study, make sure there are no distractions. Be honest with yourself and make a list of what you know will distract you.

5. Set goals and incentives.

Don’t we feel great, excited, happy when we have achieved our goal? That assignment that keeps troubling you, that piece of research that you just can’t get your head around. Setting personal learning and time goals usually makes us determined to finish something. So when complete, celebrate you deserve it.

6. Learn to work at your own pace

In terms of workload, Many courses start out fairly easy (To allow you to get into the course) you may finish Module 1 quickly So, go onto Module 2, and so on. The beauty of online learning is that you can do it at your own pace.

7. If your course has some kind of an e-portfolio, start working on it during week 1.

Week by week, you can work on your e-portfolio. If you do a little at a time each week, you won’t be panicked and overworked at the end trying to create an e-portfolio at the last minute.

8. Ask for help.

If you are struggling, don’t understand or feel really lost, always ask for help—from your online instructor.

Penny Ellis
Founder/Director
Bali International Spa Academy