Regain your studying mojo this autumn!

At this time of year, use the opportunity to rethink your approach to study. If you’re returning to studying after taking a hard-earned break over the summer, you’re hopefully doing so feeling refreshed and ready to get stuck in once again. Here are our top tips for regaining your study mojo this autumn.

For most of the UK, it’s been a mixed summer – both in terms of the weather and what we’ve been allowed to do – and for obvious reasons, foreign holidays haven’t been an option for most of us. Safe to say, it’s hardly been a typical year.

Yet as summer ends and cooler days approach, the new season still heralds a shift and the prospect of new beginnings. Along with the altered temperatures and TV schedules (it’s Strictly Come Dancing fans’ favourite time of year, after all!), your daily routine may well change.

And while many claim not to enjoy the darker, colder evenings or the end of the freedom of summer days, autumn can actually be a great season for kick-starting your study regime.

Here are our top tips for regaining your study mojo this autumn:

Start small

Especially if you’ve had a lengthy break, don’t charge back in thinking you can necessarily do two hours on the trot. Kick off with, say, 25 minutes, perhaps using the Pomodoro tomato timer technique.

By setting more realistic targets, you may feel pleasantly surprised that you find you actually want to keep going, promising yourself you’ll read ‘just one more page’ until you find you have worked through a whole topic.

Don’t think you will get everything done the first time you sit back down to work. Instead, decide what you can achieve in a specific period, and set yourself a ‘small win’ goal.

Still get outside

Clearly, autumn means fewer hours of daylight. That means you need to make more effort to get outside, probably earlier in the day.

When it’s cooler, and especially if you’re working more from home anyway, it can be tempting to stay put. But getting outdoors and immersing yourself in nature has numerous proven benefits, so make sure you step outside daily, even if it’s just for half an hour at lunchtime.

Physical activity also stimulates stress-busting endorphins, and of course, walking, running or cycling outside are all completely free!

Rethink your study regime completely

At this time of year, don’t be afraid to rethink the time of day you work, the place(s) you study, or your systems for tasks such as filing, planning your workload or taking notes. And if you have a son or daughter who is starting or leaving school or college, or moving to a different institution, that could affect your daily routine, too.

Now might also be a good point to consider rearranging your work area if doing so is likely to boost productivity – for example, to maximise natural light falling on your desk as the nights draw in. Or perhaps your study area needs an autumn clear-out rather than a spring one?

Take it offline

While you’re thinking about revamping your working life, consider whether you could switch off your internet connection a little more, even if that’s for just an hour or so each evening. This could be ideal for giving your brain the peace and quiet it needs to concentrate on a task such as a longer chunk of reading, free from distractions.

There is also research to show that making notes by hand can be a more effective way to learn, so consider swapping your state-of-the-art laptop for a good old-fashioned pen and paper.

Time to reconnect?

Over the summer weeks, with their different regime and rhythm, contact with some of your study connections may have slipped. Think about reconnecting, whether that’s online or in person. Make the most of your contacts to swap ideas, ask questions and offer mutual support.

All in all, autumn certainly doesn’t have to be a grey or gloomy time of year. Use the opportunity and the season to give your studying a reboot and a fresh lease of life.