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Home > Surveys Explained > Maximize Your Spare Time: 6 Helpful Tips to Complete Online Surveys Fast

Maximize Your Spare Time: 6 Helpful Tips to Complete Online Surveys Fast

editUpdated on: December 5, 2019 by anvitalis

Want to know how to take surveys faster without cheating the system and getting yourself banned? In this article, we offer 6 helpful, legit tips that will boost your productivity when taking surveys to help you spend less time on each one and make the same amount of cash!One of the most common complaints I’ve heard about online surveys is that they can take a long time to get through.

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Some ask repetitive questions, some load slowly, and some just seem to have a never-ending supply of questions to answer.

Is there a way to work through them faster?

Actually, there are a few ways you might be able to boost your productivity when taking surveys to get paid more for the time you spend on them, and this post is going to explain just how to do it.

Why Should I Learn How to Get Through Surveys Quickly?

You’re probably here because you’ve taken online surveys in the past and know how lengthy they can be.

Although surveys can be fun to take, some of them are long.

I’ve taken studies that have gone over an hour before.

Yes, I complete these surveys in my spare time, so it’s not like I’m losing out on anything important by spending my time answering questions.

The problem is that some of these time-consuming surveys don’t necessarily pay what they should considering how much time they take to finish.

If you’re spending an hour taking a survey, you should expect to get paid a fair hourly wage, right?

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However, some hour-long surveys pay $5 or less, which is hardly worth the time it takes you to fill out your answers to each question.

In that amount of time, you could be doing other things that net more earnings.

Therefore, it’s not unreasonable for anyone to consider how they might get through surveys quicker so that they can maximize their spare time and earn more cash each hour they participate in online studies.

Think about it.

If a survey that pays $5 is expected to last an hour but you’re able to complete it in 30 minutes, then you’re getting the equivalent of $10 an hour instead of $5.

That frees up time for you to find other high-paying surveys to take to fill in your free time slots.

The trick is to develop tactics that help you get through surveys faster without seeming like you’re cheating the system, an action that will get you banned quickly.

Problems with Taking Surveys Too Fast

Wait – you can get banned from taking surveys too fast?

Absolutely.

I’ve heard of it happening to several people, actually.

The thing is, surveys exist to find people like you who want to share their opinions.

Because survey panels work with clients who want to learn more about consumers who might use their products and services, each study is designed to capture your honest responses and authentic thoughts.

Survey companies expect you to read each question thoroughly so that you can come up with an answer that accurately represents how you feel.

If you’re rushing through questions without thoroughly reading them, that’s not going to happen.

How Do Survey Sites Know If I’m Rushing?

Survey sites are smart; they’re going to catch you if you’re not paying attention to each question simply to get to the end and get paid.

Most sites use what’s known as an algorithm, which is basically coding that helps it determine if people are cheating the system.

The algorithm looks for things like:

  • Not spending enough time on each question
  • Not being consistent with responses
  • Moving through the full survey faster than expected
  • Not giving a chance for images or videos to load before answering questions
  • Giving answers that don’t match the information in your profile

All of the above indicate that you might not be giving your full attention to each question in the survey.

What happens when the algorithm picks up the potential of fraud?

For starters, you’ll get booted from the survey.

The site might give you a warning first, letting you know you’re moving much too fast to be able to respond to each question appropriately.

If it has to warn you again, it’ll just kick you out.

Most survey sites will let this happen only one or two times before it finally bans you for good, meaning that you won’t be able to rejoin, and you probably won’t have access to anything you’ve earned thus far.

So, while you can learn ways to pick up the pace with surveys while still being honest and giving thoughtful responses, you definitely don’t want to rush.

It’s an important difference you’ll need to understand before diving into our tips below.

How to Take Surveys Quickly…the Right Way

Now we’ll dig into a few tips that’ll help you get a little faster with your survey taking so you can boost your earnings during whatever amount of time you have to spare for online studies.

First, check your internet speeds.

Your internet could be what’s slowing you down, believe it or not!

If you have very affordable internet, chances are you have a low-speed service that may not be very helpful in zipping you through online studies.

Slow speeds can cause long breaks between each question, make it difficult for images and video to load, and even randomly kick you out of surveys while you’re trying to complete them.

Some survey sites list the minimum recommended speeds for their surveys in their Help sections, so this area is always good to browse before getting started.

If you’re unsure of your current internet speeds, you can check them for free using Speedtest.net and compare those speeds with the recommended speeds on the survey site.

Clear your browser’s cache regularly.

Your browser could also be slowing you down!

A browser’s cache is intended to save important information to your browser for future use.

In other words, the cache is designed to help speed things up when you visit the same websites over and over.

However, over time, the cache will continue to store a ton of information from different websites, some of which can become outdated eventually.

When this happens, you’ll get a bunch of useless information stored that ends up just bogging your browser down as it tries to sift through everything to find the important stuff.

It’s a good idea, then, to clean your browser’s cache at least every couple of months, just to keep everything fresh and relevant.

You might also consider cleaning your browser’s cookies, browsing history, temporary files, and other saved data at the same time to give it a fresh start and allow it to run a little more smoothly.

If you’re not sure how to do this, you can visit the official website for your browser or see if it has a Help link in its settings.

Streamline your process.

One of the best things you can do if you’re into taking online surveys is to come up with a process that helps you keep track of each of your accounts and new survey invites and gets you through each survey quicker.

This is what I do, just as an example:

  • Set up an email account solely for surveys. This is the account I use to sign up so all survey invites go straight to this inbox. It makes it much easier to find new invites without having to dig through my other emails.
  • I set aside at least one hour each day to organize this inbox (check new emails, respond to invites, delete read emails) and take surveys.
  • I check the information of each invitation email to see what emails will help me maximize my earnings. For example, I’ll choose a 10-minute survey that pays $2 over a 15-minute survey that pays $1.

I’ve found that having a separate email address for all invitations completely transforms my whole survey-taking process.

I can focus just on those emails when it’s time to take surveys, so all the time I have to spare on surveys goes only toward taking surveys and not getting distracted by anything else.

Check and update your profiles each month.

Keeping your survey panel profiles up to date is extremely important.

Your information may not change each month, but survey panels can always update their profiles for members, which could mess yours up along the way.

That’s why I suggest making it a monthly habit.

Look at your personal information and any questions you had to fill out for your profile.

Make sure your answers are still correct and change them if not.

The reason I suggest doing this is because survey panels will pull information from your profile to pre-qualify you for surveys.

The more complete and correct your profile is, the higher your chances of qualifying for the surveys for which you were pre-chosen rather than wasting time qualifying for a survey you can’t take.

Learn to speed read.

This might sound silly to you, but it’s a worthy tip to help you get through surveys faster without seeming like a scammer.

Reading doesn’t come naturally to everyone.

Some people are slow at reading and others have a difficult time absorbing the information they read.

Neither situation is good for survey takers who want to get through each question fast to finish a survey.

Speed reading can help with both of these problems though.

The techniques you’ll learn will not only help you read faster by picking up on important words and clues as you read, but it can also help you learn to absorb what you read better.

Some colleges offer speed reading as a course, especially for college freshmen who can use the tactics throughout their college career.

But you can also find free and affordable online courses and information about speed reading that could help you boost your earnings on survey sites.

Remain active in survey panels.

The more active you are on your favorite survey panels, the more opportunities you’ll have from them to keep earning.

Even more importantly, the more you’ll learn about each panel!

You’ll discover the types of surveys they offer and the best ones to take that give you the most cash for the time you spend on them.

Basically, you’ll learn the ins and outs of each panel and how you can use your time wisely on them.

I like to stick to about 5 panels that I use daily and just keep a few others as backups.

I think this gives me the chance to become an expert in my favorites and then use my backups when there are dry spells at my top sites or I just have some extra time to spare.

Should I Use Survey Completion Tools?

If you’ve been researching how to get faster at taking online surveys, you’ve probably come across forum posts or websites that talk about using a survey completer online, also known as an automatic survey taker.

One word: Don’t!

These tools seem like the perfect way to get your surveys done and over with.

Basically, they’ll fill in information for you and answer the survey’s questions in record speeds.

People think they can use these programs or bots to move through online surveys quickly without ever having to read a question or give an answer.

Yes, surveys can be lengthy and time-consuming.

But these bots will certainly get you banned from survey sites just about as quickly as you can complete a survey.

Even worse is that the majority of these programs are scams.

They usually end up leaving your computer loaded with viruses or spyware that can harm the data you have on your PC and even steal your information.

Therefore, your best bet is to not even attempt to use them.

The last thing you want to have happen is your survey accounts getting banned – and risking losing everything you’ve earned thus far – plus ending up with a bunch of harmful gunk on your computer.

Surveys exist to get honest, thoughtful responses from people like you, so survey panels simply aren’t going to stand for people trying to cheat the system in any way.

How to Complete Online Surveys Fast: Final Thoughts

See! It is possible to get faster at taking surveys without violating a panel’s terms of service or coming across like a robot trying to fraud the system.

Once you learn the tricks that work best for you, you can still complete surveys thoughtfully and honestly while also spending less time on each one.

If you found any of these tips to be helpful for you, I’d love it if you shared this post on your favorite social media channels to help other survey takers, too!

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