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Tips for Forcing Oneself to Do Homework
clearsimpleplain
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
For the purposes of this conversation, I live in a small apartment with roommates and share my PC which is in the living room. I can access it whenever I want but there will be distractions all around me.
I have a hard time staying motivated. It's easiest when everyone is asleep or no one is home; I can typically type/review/complete approximately a page an hour in an essay by using a reward system where I get to leave the computer and play video games for 10m every time my head of steam goes away. What's harder is when there's people around and stuff to do/being done, but other than avoiding distraction, any tips for pounding the thing out and not procrastinating by surfing the net/posting on the H/A forums?
I have a hard time staying motivated. It's easiest when everyone is asleep or no one is home; I can typically type/review/complete approximately a page an hour in an essay by using a reward system where I get to leave the computer and play video games for 10m every time my head of steam goes away. What's harder is when there's people around and stuff to do/being done, but other than avoiding distraction, any tips for pounding the thing out and not procrastinating by surfing the net/posting on the H/A forums?
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Get a set of headphones and play some music that won't distract you from your homework so you can block out the sound of roomies and/or TV.
Get a water bottle or something at your PC so you don't have to get up when you are thirsty.
I usually think music hurts but Im starting to think it would help in my situation. Water is probably a good idea. Thanks see317.
What you're experiencing is why people have a "home office" and don't just do their work on the kitchen table.
Go early or stay late after your classes and do work at school. Bring a meal with you so you have no excuses.
Your roommate was either way more scrupulous, or less clever, than any of mine were.
Just gonna quote and supplement here. There is NO SECRET to studying. I like this quote from Toph when talking to Aang about Earthbending. It helps me get to work.
Aang: Maybe there's another way. What if I came at the boulder from a different angle.
Toph: No! That's the problem. You've got to stop thinking like an airbender. There's no different angle, no clever solution, trickety-trick that's going to move that rock. You've got to face it head on. And when I say head on, I mean like THIS!
You want motivation. Go and write out the downsides of not studying. Then write out what you would do if you were not studying. Does what you want to do instead of studying help you at all? Compare and contrast the results of each course of action. Then buck up.
I do the same thing with my work. If I have an illustration due soon, I will just go ahead and play a couple hours of minecraft or startcraft then do my work. Then after that, I have more fun with those things!
Works every time.
That's an interesting way to look at it. Fortunately you have the will power to actually stop playing your game and actually do your "homework" (I put quotations around "homework" because I think you actually enjoy doing your illustrations and whatnot). Sounds like the OP is having trouble just getting through the grind. On that basis, I wouldn't recommend this advice.
It might be more beneficial to have a reward system. Such as, "once I do my homework I can <do activity you enjoy here>!". It is a form of positive re-enforcement and it will help establish good habits in completing required tasks, something you seem to be lacking, OP.
If I had to write an essay, I'd get all kinds of drunk, write the whole thing, then edit it into something in English the next morning.
If I was doing something that required a bit more focus, I'd set milestones and require that I meet so many of them before having lunch or hanging out with friends. This still usually made something that looked awful, so editing was required, but for me 90% of the effort is just getting words on a page. Editing it into something nice was never too bad.
If I have 50 problems to do, I can break it up into doing 10 or so a day. Worst case scenario it takes five days, best case I hit a stride and work through more than the allotted 10.
If I have an essay, I start by doing an outline. I then add more detail to the outline, maybe even full sentences. Then I add supporting sentences and evidence. I then add more detail. Sooner or later I've written a paper from "the inside out" and I just have to edit it so it all works.
My motivation is that I've been in a situation where my grades have suffered because I put things off and too much came due at once and I couldn't keep my head above water. Seeing C's on my transcript is enough to keep me from saying "Well, maybe I'll take a TF2 break. This book isn't goin' anywhere."
You can't force yourself to do work, you have to motivate yourself to do it.
should take my own advice. closing laptop now
Seriously. Separating your work space from your play space does wonders. Additionally, going to an environment where everybody is focused on work will help you remain focused.
This is why people recommend you not read or watch TV in bed, for example. If you get in the habit of reading in bed, you are "mixing" two mutually exclusive habits in a way that's detrimental to both. (Either you'll fall asleep more while reading, or you'll develop insomnia because your brain associates the bed more with leisure than sleep).
Same problem with your living room and computer. You're working in the same space that you spend your leisure time and on a device you use primarily to play computer games.
You have two options:
1) Work consciously to change and plan out your habits. Use one chair ONLY for reading/working, and another ONLY for watching TV and playing video games. Use one table as your "eating" table, and another table as your "workdesk." Create two separate accounts on your computer: one that's you "leisure" account (has shortcuts for internet and computer games), and one that's your "work" account (distracting programs disabled/locked if possible, more professional/neutral background, word processing programs and documents more prominent).
If you give yourself about two weeks to settle into these habits -- that's about the amount of time you need before they become subconscious and routine -- you'll find it much easier to maintain willpower. When I was writing my thesis in college I had an office chair/desk (workspace), a cheap dish chair (reading), a bed (sleeping), and a futon facing the TV (leisure). Worked pretty well for me... if I knew I needed to read, I'd just plop down in the dish chair and get to it.
2) Like other people said, get out of the house. The library is an excellent idea because, culturally, your brain knows that this is a reading and workspace and you won't need to make any extra effort to train yourself. It doesn't hurt that there are REALLY no distractions in a library.
But you don't need to go to the library to change your location. Other places you can go include coffeeshops, teahouses, parks, offices (if one's available), your department building (if on a college campus). Changing your environment up will get you away from your home, which you and your friends have obviously turned into a place of many distracting habits.
libraries are depressing and i couldn't work in them, but people are right, change your scenery
and yes, feeling guilty is the worst thing, and i had a problem with it when i procrastinated, but all guilt did was make me procrastinate more
you waste some time, ok, forget about it, just do your shit
Is this why I discuss math when I drink?
I just finished my homework. I am the procrastinatiest. Here is how I did it:
I told myself no drawing, no Fallout, no forums, no email - no nothing - until my homework is done. And on top of that, I told myself that if it took less than 3 hours, I would study for whatever time was left in that.
And now, on top of having my homework done, I can read the forums, regret-free, guilt-free. Everything in life is so much better when you don't have something in the back of your head saying "AH HELL I NEED TO DO THAT, AUGH."
Be strict. Be your own army Dad. Set a time limit, get into a spot, and do not move. Reward yourself with a 2 minute stretch once an hour, but otherwise, just do it.
First off, most people absorb material best in 20-minute increments. It also takes about 5 minutes to 'build up steam' on any given mental task. So 25 minutes is usually the chunk of time you want to spend studying.
If you have more than 25 minutes of material, break it up with 15 minute breaks.
Second, if you really feel like you need to procrastinate a little before doing your work, that's usually fine, just keep in under control. I can't concentrate on anything immediately when I get home.
So, when you get home, and you want to play some video games, promise yourself one hour. Then set a timer for one hour. (You can use a kitchen timer, or set it on your phone.) When the alarm goes off and the hour comes up, immediately stop what you're doing, set the timer for 25 minutes, and then study or do homework. Then when the alarm goes off again, finish the problem you're on (or the section you're reading), set the timer for 15 minutes, and take a break.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
So I've taken it upon myself to teach discipline. My schedule works conveniently since I do IT for the school, all my classes and work are typically done by five, so after work, I grab a snack and some coffee, take my laptop and head the library. Usually I spend some time reading reddit of the forums, but then I pop in some headphones to act as a sort of white noise to lose myself in, and just start, and I find once I start, I often find the motivation to finish.
today for example, I sat down, messed around on the internet for a bit, started to get to work, and ende dup staring at the website my math homework was on, then stareing at my paper, thinking how much I didn't want to do it, but then I just started. Jumped right in, within a minute or two I had forgotten how much I didn't want to do it, and was chugging away.
Also, I've put a post it note on my monitor at home and work that says "Nothing to it but to do it"
This is genius. Seriously, I wish I'd thought of that when I was in college.
I wish my friends had thought of that when I was in college