How to study for long hours without getting bored?

Have hectic class schedules and long study hours left you exhausted? Are you sitting and wondering what to do in your free time? Do you feel your study is boring? You desperately need a break but a break, which does not take you away from your schedule and instead boosts up your exam preparation. Well, firstly you must take breaks in between long study hours, as they will help your brain process the information that you consume daily via classes (online or classroom).

In this blog post, we will discuss about the creative yet useful ways to get rid of study boredom. In addition, you will finally receive answers to a common question, i.e., what to do when you get bored and best ways to focus on studies without getting distracted from your actual goal.

How can I study for longer hours without getting bored?

While a break is always necessary and helps greatly to focus on studies, we will discuss the creative solutions that one can implement during their entire study or exam preparation journey:

1. Music: You must have heard that where words fail, music speaks. So whenever you feel bored and need an instant dose of energy to get rid of your mundane life. Pick up your earphones and play the music of your choice. If you love to dance, tap your feet to your favorite song and you will observe quick upliftment in your mood. Music can do wonders to your mood. Music from each genre has its significance. For instance, if you think about what to do when you are bored, but at the same time, you have many topics in each subject to complete for the upcoming exam; you must focus on listening to classical music. This music is known to improve concentration. Usually, happiness is an internal game, but you must prioritize boosting it with the right type of music, especially happy songs. Music also aids in the free flow of your imagination, thus ensuring the improvement of your creativity levels and overall health improvement. One added benefit is music helps you remember things faster and focus on studies well, thus helping in your memory retention.

2. Newspaper: You must have a habit of reading at least one newspaper daily as it builds general awareness. While taking a break from your studies, you can read the newspaper. This will make you aware of what is going on around the world. GATE and ESE aspirants who have developed the habit of regular newspaper reading will find it highly beneficial in the General Studies (GS) paper and the final stage i.e., interview. During the interview, you will come across as an aware citizen who knows about new avenues present in different subjects including science, politics, geography, sports, and economics. In addition, reading newspapers is a productive habit for every individual irrespective of whether preparing for an exam or not.

3. Sports/Walk: ‘Sports is the greatest physical poetry.’ Therefore, you must pick up a sport and dedicate time to learn it well if you find yourself thinking that what to do when you get bored. It is not necessary to take out time daily for sports activities. You can prepare a schedule to commit long hours to studies and enroll in your favorite activity once or twice a week. Apart from a fun break, playing a sport that includes a lot of movement will help you in your weight management, improve your blood circulation, and contribute to sharpening your brain. No play and only studies make you dull, so make sure if not playing a sport or running, you must at least go for a walk whether in the morning or evening. It will provide you with a much-needed rest along with rejuvenating your mind and mood, thus taking you out from the thought that study is boring. Despite the long study hours, it will also keep you fit and healthy. During this small walk, you can also brainstorm and create plans for your next study schedule. You can even introspect your daily targets, but you need to keep in mind that planning about studies is good but you need to keep a check on your mind to avoid overthinking throughout your study tenure. This will help you to streamline your studies in a better way without getting bored with your studies.

4. Hobby: We all know that hobbies are positive activities that help the respective individual deal with the existing troubles in the best possible manner. If you are a student or working professional who is planning to attempt competitive exams such as GATE, ESE, or competitive exams, then you must add certain time slots in your daily study schedule specifically for your hobbies. Therefore, hobbies will be the simple answer to the most common query ‘What to do when you get bored’. To get decent to immense pleasure, one can pick any one of the hobbies such as writing, painting, dancing, traveling, or any other hobby that interests you the most. You must not let your mental well-being and happiness take a backseat due to your studies or exam. If you like writing, then just pick up a paper and write about what is going on in your life, and how you feel. Penning down the daily happenings will help you clear all the mental baggage and make your mind clear of all tension that is often a cause of study boredom. This is one crucial reason why experts recommend every person to journal their day. If you like traveling, instead of visiting new places you can visit the museums, tombs or any other historical place in your city. This would not even make you feel guilty and lighten up your mood at the same time. When you feel that your studies are on track with optimum focus on studies, and you feel the need for environmental change, you can plan a quick weekend trip.

5. Novels: Whenever you read about any successful man, the one thing common in all of them is their habit and passion for reading. Well, inculcating a habit of reading, whether you read fiction or non-fiction doesn’t matter, reading increases your thinking ability and you will soon realize the change in you. Aspirants preparing for the competitive exams can develop the habit to read biographies of successful people like APJ Abdul Kalam, Benjamin Franklin, and Anne Fran, or non-fictional books such as Discovery of India, India after Gandhi. It will help you know about your country and world history, in turn, helping you with your General Studies. Choose the book wisely and ensure that you do not end up devoting more time to reading novels as compared to studying books and notes.

What to do when you are bored of studying?

If you still feel study is boring, then you must look for a solution instead of complaining or procrastinating. Here is another set of effective ways that you can combine the above-mentioned tips and tricks for the successful execution of your study schedule and timely exam preparation.

1. Meditate: ‘The goal of meditation is not to control our thoughts, but to stop letting them control you. Every morning before you begin your daily chores, sit for a brief period of 10 minutes and meditate. During exam preparation, we must not let any unwanted thoughts control us therefore whenever you need a break from studies just close your eyes and meditate. If you can do it yourself, then great. However, if you are looking for a digital guide, then there are apps such as Insight timer and Headspace that offer the required help to stay on track with activities such as meditation.

2. Nap: During this preparation, many students sacrifice their sleep for their studies. You must remember that sleep is in itself a rejuvenating exercise that your body requires daily. Skipping sleep can buy you time now but in the end, will cost you heavily. Therefore, if you are bored and tired, go back to your bed and take a nap. A power nap for 10-15 minutes always helps gain more enthusiasm and revitalize for better functioning of the brain, especially during study sessions.

3. Friends/family: If you are away from home, during the exam preparation you tend to stay away from your old friends and do not get enough time to talk to your parents. So picking up the phone and calling old friends can help you relive the good old fun times you had spent with them and will revitalize you with altogether new energy. If you stay at home then you can, plan a dinner with your family and have a great time talking and sharing thoughts and feelings. Research has shown that spending time with friends and family with whom you have a decent relationship helps to improve the happiness level in life. Therefore, you must prioritize spending time with your family members.

4. Movie: Most engineering students have watched many movies in college, and bunked college to watch the first show on the first-day release of the most awaited release. However, the GATE/ESE Preparation tends to take this away from us, which is one of the challenging aspects of studying without boredom. Well, that’s not completely true. You can take out some time over the weekend or public holiday and watch a good movie, change your surroundings, have a good laugh and enjoy your time. You must make sure that you have earned this time and do justice with your study schedule. Set monthly targets concerning your studies and when you have finished them, treat yourself, go out with your friends and watch a good movie. In this way, you can ensure that you strategize your study preparation and smartly avoid study boredom. 

5. Social work: Nothing in the world gives you more happiness than seeing a smile on someone’s face, especially when the reason behind it is you. Therefore, whenever you have time find yourself an NGO or an old age home and go spend some time with them. If possible, take something for them and gift them a smile by investing your time in them. You will see that you build gratitude for whatever you have got in life and get a decent solution for the study boredom. You can aim to contribute to building at least one life in the best possible manner. Therefore, you must begin your work now, and only then can you serve the nation better later as a government officer, post-graduate candidate at a premier institute, or even as a research candidate.

These are the most effective ways to focus on studies and effective solutions to what to do when you get bored. Implement the solutions one by one and avoid study boredom in the best possible manner.

How to study for long hours?

Now that we have learned about the different ways to avoid study boredom, students or exam aspirants must implement one or a few of them to find out the answer to what to do when you get bored. One of the best solutions is to choose the time and motion studies. You will be surprised to know that time and motion studies focus on the routine analysis of the student or working professional performance in the respective subject or topic.

If you are eager to reap the benefits of this effective method, then you must understand that the time and motion studies focus on the particular segments where the respective student or working professional can find out the areas, which require improvement and dedicate hours separately to gradually bring noticeable in the studies. Along with this unique technique, you can also experiment with the effective methods explained above.

Therefore, you can refer to the above-mentioned tips and tricks when you are bored. Depending on your choice, interest, and behavior, you can choose to do the activity that will provide you with the most happiness. However, you must remember that ‘In the journey towards achieving success in the competitive exam. It is necessary that you take a break and rejuvenate yourself, otherwise by the end of the race you may feel weak and the others may move ahead crawling over you’. Therefore, it is extremely necessary that you pause, take a break, and then start with fresh energy again.

Now that we know about the best ways to deal with long study hours without getting bored, check out the blog ‘How to cope up with long hours of classroom program?’ It will help you to learn how to deal with study boredom and avoid demotivation in any possible manner.

Hope you found this blog post useful.

Keep up your smart work and give your best to achieve your desired scores in the ultimate exam. Wish you all luck!

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