Staying motivated when studying at home is not as easy as it seems. In fact, online courses typically have a completion rate of around 12%, which shows just how many of us struggle to focus on studying remotely. As events people, we’re eager to get on site and put on a show, so if we find ourselves studying an online events course, it’s important to understand there are easy ways to keep on track with our learning. Most people say motivation is the enemy of success, but what if I told you your environment could be having a bigger impact than you may have first thought?
In this guide, we will be running through 10 tips for students studying from home in 2026, giving you actionable strategies to improve focus, consistency and study effectiveness.
If you’re currently sat in your living room, I’d like to ask you to look around and think about what is inside this room. What has it been designed to function for? No doubt there will be a sofa pointed directly at the TV, the remote on the arm ready for you sit down for the evening. This is what this room is designed for – it’s easy to watch Netflix because it’s right there waiting for you. And that’s okay. Downtime is just as important as periods of focus, but what if you applied the same logic to a dedicated study space?
If you’re struggling to focus in your living room, move to the kitchen. In fact, it can even be as simple as sitting in a certain chair or sitting in a certain corner, that can kick your brain into study mode!
Having a space dedicated just for studying improves your ability to focus when studying from home, and easy to apply to your own day-to-day!
Setting yourself goals is another easy way to improve focus and motivation when studying remotely. Giving yourself a target to aim for can be powerful, keeping yourself accountable for your own progress. Now, I don’t mean a goal to be achieved in 10 years – more like daily goals. Smaller targets that have been broken down into easy actionable steps, achievable today.
Setting yourself daily goals, weekly goals and monthly goals applies direction to your learning, and the more goals you hit, the more momentum you start building, the easier studying gets. It’s also important to track your progress, so you can visualise your routine, but remember to make a note of the days you miss, which can help you stay accountable.
Keep it simple – at this stage, you’re focusing more on building the habit rather than jumping 2 steps ahead.
Working in a similar way to creating your own dedicated study space, building yourself a consistent routine allocates, not a chair this time, but time of day, or day of the week to studying online. This is another simple to implement, powerful technique to stay motivated when studying from home.
Having the same time each day dedicated to study gives your learning structure and direction, helping you build discipline as you progress. Even if, to begin with, you start studying for 15 minutes, but if you only study between 7:30 pm and 7:45 pm, you start to build that habit, and your brain begins to associate that time of day with studying. Then, the further you go, the easier it becomes to stick to a routine.
The classic motivation killer – distractions. We’ve heard it all before: ‘put your phone in a different room’, ‘set your phone to do not disturb when studying’, and yes, while these hacks to help a lot of people, it’s important to find the technique that works for you. Here are 3 tips to remove distractions when studying online:
A famous technique people use when studying from home is the ‘Pomodoro Technique’. Invented by an Italian student in the late 1980s, it involves using a timer to break down studying into 25-minute intervals. Each interval is called a ‘pomodoro’, the Italian word for ‘tomato’, and is typically separated by short breaks to maintain consistency and prevent fatigue.
The technique is broken down into these steps
The pomodoro technique lowers that mental barrier for starting. It’s a lot easier to start when you know you only have to study for 25 minutes, rather than a few hours. In addition to this, this technique reduces mental overload making you less likely to burnout. Controlling burnout is key for study consistency.
In those moments where maybe, you haven’t studied in multiple days, and you could do with a spark of motivation to get you back into gear, it’s important to remember why you were completing your events course in the first place. Maybe that was because you’re exploring a new career path or adding a qualification to your current events career. Nevertheless, just remembering your why is powerful enough to get you back on track when studying remotely.
Try imagining your name on an event lanyard or being backstage at the headliners first set. Visualising these moments can easily give you the motivation to start studying again.
Then, apply the methods above to keep yourself accountable and consistent.
Your peers on your course are a perfect resource to help you stay motivated when studying from home. Reach out, express your thoughts and learnings with each other. Work together. You can set up study groups, agreeing with your fellow students to study at a certain time each day or day of the week. It can feel lonely at times when studying online, so having a strong student network and support system in place will greatly improve consistency and your progress.
People are 65% more likely to complete a task when committing it to someone else – this increases to 95% when they have check-ins! If you feel comfortable reaching out to your student network, it can be a fantastic resource to stay motivated when studying from home.
Celebrate how far you’ve come. It’s difficult to visualise your progress sometimes, so celebrating the little wins reaffirms you’re going in the right direction. We as humans are guided by ‘dopamine’, which is released from the brain when something feels good, and our brain takes note of this behaviour as something worth repeating.
The rewards don’t need to be massive either – they can be as small as ‘once I finish this task, I’ll eat my favourite snack’ or ‘if I get this module completed, I’ll watch my favourite TV show’. It matters more about the consistency, and the repeated ‘complete task -> reward’ workflow that tricks your brain into thinking studying from home is less of a chore.
As well as benefitting every other part of your life, taking care of your physical & mental health is vital to staying motivated when studying from home. In fact, a large study conducted by UCLA found that those who exercise regularly experience roughly 40% less poor mental health days. Here are some tips to improving your mental & physical health to keep you on track with your online studying.
When you’re sleep deprived, the part of your brain which is responsible for decision-making & self-control becomes less effective. Aim to get between 7 – 9 hours sleep each night for optimal brain performance.
I don’t mean go for a 2-hour mega gym session – a short walk is enough to increase blood flow, and for our brain to release chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, the chemicals which determine your mood, motivation and concentration.
Finally, after applying all the techniques we’ve discussed in this guide, everyboday is human. You can’t run at 110% all of the time without some give. Motivation will naturally fluctuate, and that’s okay – being able to spot low points and not feeling guilty when you need to take your foot off the gas is the mature thing to do, and is important for the longevity and consistency to your studying.
Motivation is powerful to getting started, but to stay consistent, discipline is a much more important factor. Everyone gets motivated, but not everybody can discipline themselves to actually make the most of that motivation. Use the techniques we’ve discussed to stay disciplined, and motivated when studying from home. Happy studying!
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