A rut is when you feel stuck and can’t move on with something you previously had no issue doing. It involves feeling stagnant and unable to concentrate on your studies. Whatever your major might be, experiencing a learning rut can be a frustrating and painful experience, especially when you have exams around the corner.

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Before understanding how to come out of a learning rut, notice the factors responsible for pushing you into one. Although these can vary, accounting majors commonly feel stuck when they haven’t been putting effort into planning their study tasks effectively. It’s all about the right calculations and formulae, after all.

Your learning block might be due to the chapters or concepts seeming too dry, or you might be leaving things for the last minute.

Studying doesn’t have to feel boring or burdensome for an accounting student. If you find yourself spiraling into a learning rut and unable to grasp information, then take a step back and see what you can do to recover from this burnout.

This guide will introduce you to various ways to get out of a study rut as an accounting student. These tips are also applicable to other students.

Create your study plan

Not having a study plan and going with the flow is not efficient learning. This will not only negatively affect your grades but also impact your health. Many students struggle with deciding where they should begin when preparing for an exam or test. Others find it difficult to divide their time between high and low-priority study tasks. If you’re one of such people, making a study plan before would be highly beneficial for your academic performance and future.

To create your study plan, make a list of all the tasks due and assignments, quizzes, revision, or additional study. Then, schedule a time and day for each task regarding its deadline and priority.

Don’t try to multi-task

Try to be lenient with your time management to not have to multi-task. Multi-tasking would only shift your focus and bring down productivity levels. This is not helpful, particularly when you’re learning a new concept that might overlap with another, like the revenue recognition principle and the matching principle.

Try to take it slow, one concept at a time.

Quiz yourself

Reading and revising concepts is fine. However, have you ever thought if you didn’t solve a single costing question or learn how to make a cash flow statement, you would have been able to score well on your exams? Certainly not.

Testing your knowledge once you’ve thoroughly gone through all of the resources is called quizzing yourself, and this is how you gauge whether you’ve acquired the practicality of the concept or not.

If you feel that you haven’t understood the concept fully, try explaining what you’ve learned to someone without an accounting background. If they understand, it shows that you’ve grasped the concept well enough to simplify it.

Give yourself a pep talk

If you’ve been feeling down in the doldrums about your accounting degree and second-guessing whether it is the best fit for you, then you need to pucker up and remind yourself why you started this in the first place.

Sure, accounting is a prestigious major, but why did you choose it? Because everyone was doing it? No.

You chose accounting because of the prestige and admiration of an accounting job or role. Using your financial expertise and accounting acumen to help organizations make better decisions is why you started. Think about when you would have earned certification to the likes of a CFA, CMA, or even a CPA. To witness that growth, you need to get your act together now, and that is why you chose this academic path.

Create actionable goals

To achieve anything in life, whether a high-value accounting certification or building habits, you need to set goals. Nothing too gaudy that it seems performative or unachievable. Instead, try baby steps. Enlist all the study-related plans and goals you might have.

For example, getting a CFA certification, setting targets for your goal, the number of hours you should allocate for studying every day, and what extra learning you need to do.

Try to be flexible when setting these targets and goals; keep room for any changes you might have to make along the way.

Give yourself a break

As an accounting major, you might think every hour of your life, other than sleeping and eating, must be spent scribbling numbers and fiddling with a calculator, but that’s not it. There’s more to life than just studying, even if you’re preparing to become a CPA

Especially when you’re experiencing burnout or find yourself in a rut, try to take frequent breaks and spend time doing things other than studying. You could spend time with people whose company you enjoy, take a walk or make time for any hobbies like reading or playing the guitar.

It is better to take care of your mental and emotional health before it transforms into physical health problems. There is also a chance you might experience irritability or mood swings when experiencing a rut. This is because you could not fulfill any study-related goals you had set for yourself, or maybe you tried cramming everything into one night or week.

Learning is not supposed to be a stressful task; therefore, the minute you think you’re spiraling into a learning block, take a step back. Try to bring things into perspective – beginning from why you chose accounting as a major, what difficulties you’re currently facing and what you can do to fix the mess.