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Ramesh Kugendran

June 28th, 2022

How to stay sociable and productive while living at home

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Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Ramesh Kugendran

June 28th, 2022

How to stay sociable and productive while living at home

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

After residing at Carr-Saunders Hall for my first year, commuting from my home in Greater London has been a refreshing change. Although my commute time to campus tripled from a 20-minute walk to now, an hour-long commute, this blog aims to share insight into my experience living at home as well as some ideas on how to keep up a social life and stay productive.

My overall experience …

Commuting from home can often be super stressful, especially when trying to maintain a social life at LSE. One of the most noticeable differences I observed was the reduction in the amount of time I spent with my friends, especially after living in halls and eating with them at practically every meal. This is something that I missed a lot. Since the bulk of my mates did not study my programme, I realised that the best thing for me was to organise meet-ups when I was on campus. This way I was able to kill two birds with one stone by providing an incentive to trek to campus even on days when it was bitterly cold!

Nevertheless, I genuinely preferred living at home since it allowed me to have a solid schedule instead of going out on a whim with no purpose. I suppose that when you live in halls, you are more inclined to go out, or, maybe I just get more tempted! But I guess what I mean is that staying at home provided me with the best of both worlds, allowing me to control when I wanted to have fun while also having that rigid schedule that many people lack while living out. This also allowed me to save as much money as possible for the summer, which is fantastic! That being said, the one disadvantage of staying at home was the number of distractions I had, whose strategies to cope I mention below.

4 tips to stay productive at home

If you’re like me and find it tough to stay productive when living at home, you should make a timetable or routine that works for you. Unlike others, I really worked fairly well at home, but my time was limited because I worked at Harrods three days a week during term time. This seriously restricted my availability, and I quickly realised that it was tough for me to sustain my high grades while still maintaining my social life, which is equally essential!

1. Have separate study and leisure spaces

I cannot stress how important this is. Working in your bedroom or living room is generally not a good option because you are usually tired and easily distracted by what is going on around you. Having two different areas to rest and study permits your mind to properly absorb and focus on what you are studying.

2. Purchase a desktop screen

A desktop screen for your Mac or laptop will be an absolute godsend. Not only is the screen significantly larger, which is really beneficial to your vision, but it is also difficult to move once set up, compelling you to work at a suitable workstation rather than your bed or sofa.

3. Keep your phone in a separate room

Those TikTok videos and Instagram reels, as entertaining as they are, will not help you pass your exams. Keep your phone in a different area when studying! Don’t even consider installing WhatsApp on your Mac; it’s merely another distraction.

4. Use the Pomodoro technique

You can divide your study time into 30-minute increments. The concept is to divide the half-hour into 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break. You may obviously experiment with the times to find what works best for you. Personally, I discovered that a 45-minute study session followed by a 10-minute break worked best for me.

Final thoughts

All in all, I don’t believe living at home is as terrible as it seems. But, practically, the second year is the time to buckle down and work, and if staying at home would help you with that, go ahead and do it; you won’t be sorry! Although, yes, your social life drops compared to your first year, everyone experiences this, including those who live out on their own, since the workload in the second year is intense. It is ultimately up to you if you make an effort to reach out to your friends and schedule plans while on campus.

If you’d want to learn more about my experiences working part-time at Harrods, check out my past posts here. Furthermore, if you have any questions about my experience commuting from home, please share them in the comments section below.

About the author

Ramesh Kugendran

Welcome to my blog! I'm Ramesh Kugendran, a student of International Social and Public Policy at LSE. As someone who is passionate about Social and Public Policy, I am excited to share my thoughts, insights, and experiences on this blog. Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoy reading my blog!

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