Starting online courses and failing to finish them

[Primmulla]

I love MOOCs - Massive Online Open Courses. I often participate in several courses at the same time. The problem is, I do not finish most of them. I am primarily interested in subjects such as literature, especially poetry, and history and other things which are not very "useful" or practical. These are not exactly the skills which can get me a better job, and even more, I would not get any certificates from these courses since these are quite expensive when converted to Polish prices (and of course I would not be spending money on something which is rather a kind of hobby). And as a result, I often fail to complete these courses, though initially I am very interested in the subject matter. What can I do to be more consistent and finish every course which I start?

[Cam Adair]

1. Do one at a time.
2. Commit to finishing the course - no matter what.
3. Remember why you are doing the course. If not for skills to help you get a better job - why?

[Jeremias]

1. Do one at a time.
2. Commit to finishing the course - no matter what.
3. Remember why you are doing the course. If not for skills to help you get a better job - why?

Awesome tips Cam. I resonate with number 2 - committing to yourself 100% and/or other people has helped me tremendously.

Do, or do not. There is not try.

That said, understanding why you want to complete the course is important

[Primmulla]

1. Do one at a time.
2. Commit to finishing the course - no matter what.
3. Remember why you are doing the course. If not for skills to help you get a better job - why?

I wonder why only one, at school we do not start geography only when we are done with history, during one day at school various subjects are taught, often quite diverse such as humanities and sciences, at least this is how it works in Poland The same thing happens at the university, where the students do not spend entire semester only on one subject. So why MOOCs should be any different? Particularly because most MOOCs are definitely less demanding than school or university courses. I thought about combining several MOOCs to form a self-made school curriculum  

[ScienceBitch!]

I can relate to your problem since I myself started various MOOCs and only finished one of them.
For me I found out, through a blog post from Scott Young, that I have the habit of not finishing things.

Countless books started, read for the first 100 pages and then dropped for another book, that seemed interesting. Maybe you can relate to this yourself.

After noticing my habit, I focused on actually finishing every book/course I started, sometimes just for the sake of finishing, to stop this habit.
Like Cam advised, one at a time and commit 100%. Do not allow yourself to pick another one up until you finished the course.

PS: Here is the blog post I mentioned above Finish what you Start - Scott Young

Hope this helps

[Primmulla]

I can relate to your problem since I myself started various MOOCs and only finished one of them.
For me I found out, through a blog post from Scott Young, that I have the habit of not finishing things.

Countless books started, read for the first 100 pages and then dropped for another book, that seemed interesting. Maybe you can relate to this yourself.

After noticing my habit, I focused on actually finishing every book/course I started, sometimes just for the sake of finishing, to stop this habit.
Like Cam advised, one at a time and commit 100%. Do not allow yourself to pick another one up until you finished the course.

PS: Here is the blog post I mentioned above Finish what you Start - Scott Young

Hope this helps

I used to subscribe to the notion of finishing every book no matter what, but later I came to the conclusion that life is simply to short to waste time on books which I do not enjoy. Unless this book is an obligatory reading for your school or university, you are absolutely under no obligation to finish it if you do not like it. What is the point in plodding through a boring book if there may be dozen others which would genuinely interest you or even enchant you? This is turning what should be a pleasurable activity and a joy into some kind of weird torture No wonder so many young people avoid reading books since they associate reading with being forced to go through texts in which they cannot find anything interesting. But reading is actually one of the most wonderful pastimes if a book is well-chosen. Good reviews do not mean that you would enjoy a given book, so if you do not like a current bestseller, there is nothing wrong with you at all I once started a fantasy novel which has positive reviews and the blurb also seemed enticing, but it turned out that the characters were not only flat, but also behaved in a totally unrealistic way as far as human psychology is concerned, and the plot was quite predictable, so I simply stopped reading it and switched to another book. I have read quite a lot since and most of these were great reads, unlike this unfortunate novel.

Maybe it is more important to be consistent with courses, but what is the point of continuing a course if it stops to be relevant to you? The course description may often seem promising, but if the actual course does not live up to your expectation, why should you devote your precious time to it? Anyway, I usually subscribe to every course the subject of which may remotely interest me now or in the future, so that I can download the course materials to study them later on my own pace. When the course is finished, in most MOOCs (apart from FutureLearn ones) the course materials are no longer accessible, but if you are enrolled, you can download them for later study. Otherwise you have to wait for another edition of the course to view the lectures. And since I would not get any certificates, it does not matter when I would actually view the material.

[ScienceBitch!]

In my previous post I mainly meant books from the Personal Development section. There are so many great out there. At least one for each struggle you currently go through, but by jumping to every book that dealt with a present struggle of mine, I never finished a single one of them. That's no good either.
I'm on the same page with you concerning novels. Why waste your time with a book you don't enjoy.

Be sure to not make the mistake of being a "one day..." dude.
One day I'm going to learn french... One day I'm learning piano... One day I'm going to learn how to do yoga...

You know what? These people rarely ever accomplish those dreams.
I like to quote Brendon Burchard on this one: "A dream is a dead dream, if it is not in your agenda"

Be sure to set a date when you start (and finish) your downloaded MOOC. Otherwise you spent time picking your courses, downloading the content and then never look at them again. Would be a pity.

[Primmulla]

In my previous post I mainly meant books from the Personal Development section. There are so many great out there. At least one for each struggle you currently go through, but by jumping to every book that dealt with a present struggle of mine, I never finished a single one of them. That's no good either.
I'm on the same page with you concerning novels. Why waste your time with a book you don't enjoy.

Be sure to not make the mistake of being a "one day..." dude.
One day I'm going to learn french... One day I'm learning piano... One day I'm going to learn how to do yoga...

You know what? These people rarely ever accomplish those dreams.
I like to quote Brendon Burchard on this one: "A dream is a dead dream, if it is not in your agenda"

Be sure to set a date when you start (and finish) your downloaded MOOC. Otherwise you spent time picking your courses, downloading the content and then never look at them again. Would be a pity.

Thanks, that is sound advice The best time to study these courses would be when there are no "live" courses in which I am very interested or when there are not many personal or professional duties. Courses are only a hobby and they should not take precedent over "real life."

As for self-help books, I am not a big fan of them, I tried several through the service Blinkist, which is described here on the forum, and most of them turned out to be rather disappointing, there was really nothing "revolutionary" or life-changing there, nothing which I could not have come up with on my own or heard from friends or family. It seems to me that some of them may be the authors' attempt to get famous and earn some money. If they helped you, that's OK and it is understandable to like them. But I believe I can actually get better advice from people around me, who know me unlike the authors of these books. Anyway, people are different and what worked for the authors of these books may not work for you, and if it doesn't, it does not mean that there is something wrong with you. I believe you should not follow blindly any advice these books (as well as Internet gurus) give. Personally, I prefer reading academic or scholarly books from which I can derive factual knowledge rather than self-help ones, which may or may not work.