A barrage of online courses

Online courses, webinars and workshops are not new and have existed for a while now.
However the pandemic has brought with it a barrage of such online courses where experts in different fields are getting infront of the camera, creating impressive presentations and packaging their expertise in easily consumable formats for people who might benefit from them.

Being a learner and one that does not mind hoarding educational material, I got in the habit of buying many such online courses.

Buying a course is so satisfying.
It makes one feel that they are investing in themselves and are moving towards a better and improved version of themselves. This usually happens on weekends or late at night when one feels that they can do anything that they set their mind to and nothing is impossible.

However one soon forgets the courses they bought.

Various studies also point to the fact that the average course completion rate in e-learning courses is low and is about 15%.
This may not be a huge concern to online learning portals as many a time their job ends once a user has purchased a course. They may try and upsell other courses, but completing a purchased course is not a strong priority.

So, as an individual, how can one manage the courses they’ve hoarded in the past ?
In this blog, I am listing down some tips from my own experience which have worked for me.

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Tips to complete your online courses

Make a list of the courses

Even if you have purchased only a couple of courses, make a list of them. It would be even better if you could create an excel sheet with the following columns:

• SNo.
• Course Name
• Course duration
• Validity (End Date / Lifetime)
• Priority Score
• Planned Completion Date
• Completed [Yes/No]
• Certificate saved and added on LinkedIn [Yes/No]

For each of the rows created in the above table, assign a priority score of 1,2 or 3.

1 => Low Priority
2 => Medium Priority
3 => High Priority

Calculate the priority based on factors like if the course is valid for a short duration, how important is the course for your personal life/career etc.
Focus on the courses for which you have assigned a priority of 3.

Blocking time for completing the course

After making a list of all the courses and identifying the high priority courses, now is the time to decide their completion date.
You can either use a physical calendar or any popular calendar application softwares like Google Calendar or Apple’s Calendar application.

Block time for different courses on your calendar in advance for the entire month and stay disciplined. This will ensure that you do not forget about going through the courses.

Going through the course material

• Try to complete the courses in one sitting instead of staggering it over weeks and months.
  A 3 hour block is better than 1 hour blocks distributed over 3 days.
• Maintain a system to record your notes. It could be a physical notebook, a stack of A4 papers in a folder, a Word Doc on your desktop or a Google Doc, note taking apps like Evernote, Notion etc.
  You could even follow different media for recording your notes for different courses. The important thing is to have a place where you can note down your thoughts while going through the course content.
• Watch it in 1.25 x speed if the course allows you to.
  Not only does it ensure that the course duration reduces, it will also force you to pay more attention so that you do not miss anything.
  [This concept is similar to speed reading. Speed reading ensures that you read quickly without compromising on comprehension.]
• Do not make elaborate notes. This is not an academic exercise. It is a low cost online course you have purchased to help yourself with a specific area in your personal or professional life.
• Do make a separate note of how you will implement some of the learnings from this course effective immediately. This will make it more actionable and ROI driven.

Setting up a review mechanism

Set up a weekly review mechanism where you access the sheet and note down your progress for the different courses. This could be done by setting up a calendar block along with the link of the excel sheet in the description, so that it’s super easy and low effort to have this 5 minute review with yourself each week.

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Dealing with low priority courses

In this blog I have tried to share an effective system for completing online courses which is in line with your aspirations and personal / professional needs.
However if there are some courses which you have enrolled which were free or low cost and have a lifetime validity, there is a high chance that such courses would find it difficult to find a place in your calendar.
This is because they would always remain a low priority (score of 1).

This might lead to a scenario where you might never access such courses for years and then it will be a lost opportunity.

It could be a hobby related course which is in line with your passion, it could be a simple business writing course that could help you communicate better with colleagues and superiors.

How does one make time for such courses ?
My suggestion would be that irrespective of the priority score that you assign, try and schedule all the courses on your calendar so that these also get covered. But in case you feel that there is not sufficient time to go through them, then I propose the following steps :

• Spend some time and have a look at the course contents.
• Use Pareto’s principle, try and identify which 20% of the content explains 80% of the course.
• Watch that 20% content in 1.25x or 1.5x speed.
• If you feel that you have got the knowledge that you needed, you can stop there and move on.
  If you feel that the course deserves your 100% attention, then increase its priority in your list so that it appears at the top.

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In Conclusion

Have fun with the process.
This will make you more productive and inspired to finish what you started.
It will also make you more productive as you will see the benefits of all this new knowledge that you will begin applying in your work life and personal life.

Do not stop buying courses.
If you come across a cool course, do not feel the need that you need to complete the pending ones before buying a new one. Do not suspend your learning because of your laziness in the past.

Do let me know in comments if you found this blog helpful.