- [Narrator] This video is sponsored by Skillshare,
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- It used to be so simple, wake up at the crack of dawn,
grumble at your alarm a little bit
then get ready and go to class.
But then we had to go and add computers into the mix.
Online classes.
These things have been growing in popularity for years,
there are free ones, there are cheap ones,
there are very expensive ones,
talked to you by guys in their garages,
and they're even full-blown university courses
that you can take online,
even if you don't go to that university.
But this year, in 2020, they became the only option
for most people going back to school.
So, I thought it was high time that we make a video on them
because while online classes can be very convenient
in some ways, they can also trip you up
and make your life more difficult in others.
Hence, there are some things that I think you should know
how to do so you can prepare to be as successful
as possible in whatever online class you're going to.
So, welcome to class, welcome to my set.
I bet I bet none of your teachers on Zoom
have a set like this,
which honestly is okay because good education doesn't
need overblown production values like this, unless, like me,
you are a dancing monkey trying to also appease an algorithm
that will inevitably one day morph into
a universe-dominating superintelligence and vaporize us all.
Anyway, today we're gonna share five tips
for helping you prepare for and get
the most out of online classes.
I think this is gonna be helpful for anybody going back
to school in a formal setting online,
but this should also be helpful for anybody taking
an online class independently.
So, whichever camp you're in, let's get started.
Tip number one is to treat these classes
just like they are real, in-person classes.
See, the problem with online classes is
that they are usually taught asynchronously,
the instructor, the teacher prepares material ahead of time
and then you do it at a different time.
Now this might be changing a bit this year,
since a lot of schools are going to online only education,
you might see a lot of classes taught
through video conferencing apps like Zoom and Hangouts,
but I still think it's likely you're gonna have
a lot of asynchronous learning time.
You're going to be given a lot
of independent reading assignments, homework assignments,
and you're going to have to do them on your own at home.
And if you're taking an independent online class,
like I currently am with Samurai Guitarists class
on music theory, then everything is independent.
And the problem with this asynchronous, independent
and distance nature of online classes is
that it becomes really easy to fall behind
if you're not self-disciplined.
In-person classes are in-person,
and they happen on a schedule and that schedule makes
it a lot easier to stay on top of your reading
and all of your homework assignments.
And in addition to that, it also gives your day
a bit more structure as well.
With online classes, a lot of that structure is lacking,
and I know this from experience.
Back when I was in college, I took one online class
amongst all of my in-person classes,
it was a food science and nutrition class.
And I bet you can guess which class,
out of everything I took, I fell behind in the most,
and it was that one.
So, do whatever you can to treat your online classes
just like they're real classes, in terms of schedule,
in terms of where you do them, in terms of everything.
Now, maybe your teachers already have you covered,
they're gonna make you set up a desk,
they're gonna do all the classes on Zoom,
but in case they aren't, do it for yourself.
Number one, set up a dedicated workspace for yourself,
wherever you live.
I made a whole video about that,
I'll have that link in the description below
if you wanna check it out,
Secondly, create recurring events on your calendar
for all of your classes,
and then at the beginning of each week,
look ahead at what you've got on your calendar
and then build a schedule for yourself,
making plans for homework, for any other events
in the gaps between those recurring classes.
Lastly, it's a really smart idea to keep up your routines.
So have a morning routine that helps you get ready
for the day, but also build some momentum so
you start your online learning feeling fresh.
Tip number two is to get serious
about your calendar and your to do list.
That mainly means adding new events to your calendar
and new tasks to your to do list the moment you get them.
See, it is already hard enough to keep the jumble of events
and tasks straight in your head during normal times,
but when everything moves online,
you lose one key component to
what scientists call episodic memory formation,
which is the process that your brain goes through
to consolidate and encode new memories,
and that is location.
Location is a huge part of this process
as your memories get inextricably tied
to where you were when you experienced them.
And that's why people often ask questions like,
where were you when the Fire Nation attacked?
Personally, I was sitting in front of the TV
in my parents' living room, probably eating a Fruit Roll-Up.
Anyway, we also know that two pieces of information
in the brain get linked in a two-way relationship.
For instance, I can ask you, what is Goku's power level?
And you're probably going to tell me it's over 9,000,
but I can also ask you,
name me something that is over 9,000?
And you're likely to say, "Goku's power level",
and that's why "Jeopardy" works.
And I would submit that this also applies
to your recollection of what happens
as you go through a day of classes.
If you're used to going from classroom to classroom,
then moving everything online means that you're now losing
out on a whole bunch of unique location information
that would have likely helped you recall events
and due dates assigned to you,
which means that it's now more important than ever
that you're getting this data into a system,
an external system, that you trust,
and then at the end of the day,
you can review that system to make sure
nothing slips through the cracks.
And side note about calendars,
keep time zones in mind as well.
Now, if you're in middle school or high school
and your physical school building
is just a few miles down the road,
well then maybe this doesn't matter to you at all.
But if you're a university student who's maybe
out of state and for the first time ever,
doing school at a different time zone
from where your university and your teacher is,
then you wanna make sure that you have
the right time zones on your calendar,
and with Google Calendar, and pretty much
every other calendar software out there,
you can actually choose the time zone
of any event you're creating
and then it'll automatically translate
the time zone when you're looking at your full calendar.
And if you're trying to schedule events with a study group
or like a virtual project group,
and you're trying to figure out when everyone can meet,
you can also use tools like Doodle,
which lets everyone input the times they're available
and it'll automatically do
the time zone translation for you.
Tip number three, American three this time, grazie,
is to get digitally organized.
Now, maybe you think you're already perfectly organized,
maybe you watched my previous video and you actually
went out and got your KonMari certification
and now you're a minimalism master,
but we gotta talk about this because with in-person classes,
there are often a lot of paper handouts creating
an emphasis on physical organization,
on the beautiful analog world with all of its vinyl disks.
But when classes move online, we burn those vinyl disks
and everything becomes organized digitally.
So you have to learn how to flawlessly organize
all of your handouts on your computer.
So don't be that guy who saves everything to the desktop,
creating a giant jumbled mess of files and EXEs,
and game saves and whatever else,
create a folder in your file management system
for every class that you're taking,
and then create a sub folder for any kind of project
you have within those classes that has more
than one file associated with it.
Additionally, within your note taking system,
you wanna have a notebook for each class.
Whether you're writing out notes with a pen on paper
or using a tablet and a stylist,
or you're typing them into a computer,
you wanna have a specific place where everything
for each class gets organized and grouped together.
And if you're a Notion user, like I am,
then you may wanna check out the note taking template
that I created and made a video on,
which has two different levels of hierarchy
so you can easily organize your notes.
If you're curious about that,
I will have a template link in the description down below,
which you can duplicate and try out if you want.
Tip number number four is actually
my favorite tip in this video.
Find a way to break up your day.
One of the things I miss most from college
were little gaps of time in between my classes.
Because I went to college on this huge campus,
it was like a 100 acres or something,
and that meant that I would sometimes have
to literally power walk or get on my skateboard
in order to make it across campus,
to make it in time for the next class.
But those mad dashes across campus were actually
a nice way to break up the day,
and they made every class feel like
its own little independent segment,
and they also gave me a way to just kind of get outside
and get a little bit of exercise.
And I remember being kind of bummed
when I got my first internship and realized
that all of my work was done from one tiny little cubicle.
So, sometimes I would find ways to just get away from
that cubicle and break up my day a little bit
by going for a 20 minute walk downtown,
or sometimes literally just walking up
and down flights of stairs in the office building.
And if you're about to start a full suite of online classes,
then the place where you're going to be doing it is probably
not a whole lot different than that cubicle I had.
So you should find a way to break up your day as well.
This could be as simple as every once in a while,
getting up from your desk, stretching a bit
and going for a walk, moving around a bit,
just getting a little bit of a change of scenery.
If you have a decent amount of room in your home,
you could also take this a bit further
by maybe switching locations during the day,
going from your desk to the kitchen table, back to the desk.
But even if you're not working with a whole lot of space,
just getting up and giving yourself some of these breaks
will help to make your learning time not feel like
this big, giant amorphous blob of time that never ends.
Finally, tip five, get yourself a virtual study group.
Potentially, one of the worst things about learning online
is the isolation, at least the physical isolation.
Instead of sitting in a classroom with 20 other students
and a teacher, you're at home, alone.
- [Furby] Oh Thomas, you're never really alone.
- One way that you can mitigate this,
at least somewhat, is to form a virtual study group.
You can do this by asking a few of your classmates
to meet up with you on Google Hangouts or Zoom,
just a few times a week so you can study together
or review assignments, or make fart jokes.
And you can also do, what I like to call, work calls.
I used to do these all the time back
with some blogger friends who lived in different states.
And essentially we would just hop on Skype,
because these were the Dark Ages
and that's kind of what we had,
and we'd just get on a call where really nobody would talk,
but we would each be on the line with the other person,
knowing that they were getting their work done.
And there was just something about being in this call with
other productive people that felt a little bit like working
at the same table together.
So it was actually kind of a nice productivity hack.
And if this is something that you wanna do,
there's actually a site called Focusmate
that is kind of tailor-made for this purpose.
When you start a session, it pairs you up with somebody else
who wants a little bit of companionship,
and then you just kind of work in silence together.
My friend, Ransom, who is the head writer at my site,
College Info Geek, and who's written a couple
of the scripts for this channel, swears by this tool
and has been using it ever since the lockdown started.
So you might find it helpful as well.
Now, if you'd like to test out everything you've learned
in this video and also improve your habits,
which can help you study more effectively
and be more successful in your classes,
then you might wanna go take my habit building class
over on Skillshare.
This is a short one hour class
that'll help you stick to your habits,
even after the initial novelty period has worn off.
And we do that in three different ways,
European three this time.
Number one, strengthening your internal self-discipline,
number two, assisting that self-discipline with smart,
external systems that help keep you on track,
and number three, improving those habits over time
with regular reflection.
Over 40,000 people have already taken this class,
and I think you're gonna get a ton out of it
if you choose to take it as well.
And if you wanna take it for free, you can actually do
that by being one of the first 1,000 people
to sign up for Skillshare, using the link in
the description down below.
Doing that will get you a two month free trial
with unlimited access to the platform.
So you can go take my class and you can also check out
some of the thousands of other classes
they have spanning productivity, business, analytics,
marketing, video production, and lots, lots more.
Plus after the trial ends, Skillshare is still
way more affordable than most online learning platforms
out there with plans starting at less than $10 a month.
So once again, if you wanna take my class,
be one of the first 1,000 people to sign up with
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