If you are trying to study, but things like the Internet and instant messages keep distracting you, it can be very annoying. So to make yourself more productive when studying, here are a few handy tips to help you prevent that distracting Internet addiction and get what is needed done.

By the way, if you are reading this while you should actually be studying — relax, just a little read won’t hurt you.

Disconnect the Internet

Disconnecting yourself from the Internet may be one of the hardest things you can do (especially if you spend most of your day on it). The simplest thing you can do to prevent that kind of Internet addiction is to pull out your ethernet cable, switch off your wireless or turn off your modem. Some routers also allow you to set a time when you can use the Internet. The trick here is make sure it is hard to turn it back on. Therefore, if you want to do something really quick like check your email, hopefully you have enough strength in yourself to not turn the internet back on for one little task. If you do turn it back on, you may get an email which may waste more of your time.

TIP: If you have made a study schedule, makes sure you turn the Internet off when it is your study time.

If you can’t force yourself to turn it off, get someone to do it for you and make sure they have some measure to stop you turning the Internet back on.

Don’t Waste Time on the Internet

I spend a lot of wasted time on the Internet. This can mean logging into sites every 15 minutes to see if has been updated. I have to admit, I do this a lot. Gmail, Facebook, Myspace, Google Reader, I can’t believe I had time to write this up.

The trick here is to pace yourself and check the Internet once a day. Spend the rest of the day doing something else.

Create a Study Plan to Prevent Internet Addiction

Plan your week. Allocate time to each subject to study. Remember to include break times that allows you to surf the Internet, eat and watch TV. In other words, reward yourself for studying.

Work First, Plan Second

Get into the habit of having all your work for the week (or most of it) done before you start having fun, going out, playing computer games or browsing Youtube. By doing this, you know you can go out Sunday night with your friends instead of doing all the study you didn’t do. In other words, prioritize your tasks.

Study Smart

People tend to study in different ways. Some people like studying by themselves, others in groups or even while playing sports. OK, sports? Well if you lose a point (while playing tennis, for instance) your opponent asks you a question then you have to answer correctly, if you don’t, you’ll lose two points). By doing this, you can have fun, be social, and study at the same time.

Be in front of your studies from the beginning. Don’t fall behind. Read the topics for the week ahead beforehand (if you can) and write notes before the actual lecture. The advantages of doing this is that you can afford to fall asleep in the lecture if you had a late night, and it allows you to focus on things you had issues with or didn’t quite understand when taking the notes. Remember, be in front and not behind.

As soon as you get work to do, finish it straight away as soon as you get home, before you do anything else that could be distracting. This allows you to recollect of all the tasks you have to do and easily recap what you have learnt. If you wait a day or later on in the night, you may get tired, or get distracted by your friends ringing you up, or possibly forget what you had to do.

I hope these tips of helped or will help you study in the future. If you have other tips, or things that you have done to study effectively, please do share them with us.

Tagged: college • education • learning • procrastination • productivity • students