how I finally stopped mixing up ています situations

Not a question, just sharing a habit that helped me at N5: whenever I hit a ている sentence in a drama subtitle, I'd pause and ask myself "is this happening right now, or is this describing someone's ongoing habit/state?" Both readings are valid uses of ています so you don't need to force one meaning — 勉強しています can mean "studying right now" in one context and "has been studying (as a routine)" in another. Stopped fighting the ambiguity and just let context do the work, and it got a lot easier after that.