I’m officially proclaiming I suck at online course taking.

Whilst running through the videos for this weeks homework assignment I decided to sneak a peak at the questions.

As I read through the questions it dawned on me that the videos provided no help. The video topics were far more relevant for last weeks assignment. This is when I realized I was watching the wrong videos! I failed to watch all the videos last week. Here I thought I was on track when in reality I was further behind.

I also haven’t been blogging as regularly or following my self-designated schedule. I even started looking into marketing jobs - this happened a few times during the week.

Keeping to my schedule is becoming harder than learning to program or completing my Coursera assignments. Reality is… I’ve forgotten how to drive myself. It hasn’t been long since I graduated from university or had to keep a schedule for work, so one would assume the transition would be easy.

Wrong.

When you’re at university almost everyone in your life holds you accountable to delivering (at least that’s what it feels like) seeing as you’re paying a hefty tuition fee. When you’re at work everyone on your team depends on you following through and being self-motivated (granted it’s more a motivation to keep your job and deliver value). These days, I have neither. I never think “crap, my prof is going to be pissed if I’m late with this assignment” and I definitely don’t think “I need to confirm social media posts for Thursday’s event and the follow-up email to the winners”.

I’m finding the difficulty with online courses to stem from my (newly acquired) lack of self-discipline. Just because I’ve scheduled “Watch Social Network Analysis videos” from 1 - 2pm on Monday’s, doesn’t mean I’m going to do it. It barely means I’m going to remember.

In an attempt to rectify my poor behavior this past week, I’m attempting a change in mindset.

I did well as a consultant by following a simple schedule:

  • Get out of bed early and get ready
  • Have a cup of tea or coffee
  • Catch up on news

do the above by 9am (based on you working from home)

  • Go through schedule for the day & week - take note of immediate “to-do’s”
  • Start first task and keep going till lunch time
  • After lunch, complete tasks for the day
  • If tasks for the day are completed before 6pm, get started on tomorrow’s tasks.

The basic principle is to stay productively busy. The way to get started is by having a solid get-out-of-bed-early strategy.

Entering week two of transitioning from Marketing to Programming.

Best of luck to those of you making the transition and/or taking online courses!