studying or doing homework

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, how to do homework: 15 expert tips and tricks.

Coursework/GPA

Everyone struggles with homework sometimes, but if getting your homework done has become a chronic issue for you, then you may need a little extra help. That’s why we’ve written this article all about how to do homework. Once you’re finished reading it, you’ll know how to do homework (and have tons of new ways to motivate yourself to do homework)!

We’ve broken this article down into a few major sections. You’ll find:

A diagnostic test to help you figure out why you’re struggling with homework
A discussion of the four major homework problems students face, along with expert tips for addressing them
A bonus section with tips for how to do homework fast

By the end of this article, you’ll be prepared to tackle whatever homework assignments your teachers throw at you .

So let’s get started!

How to Do Homework: Figure Out Your Struggles

Sometimes it feels like everything is standing between you and getting your homework done. But the truth is, most people only have one or two major roadblocks that are keeping them from getting their homework done well and on time.

The best way to figure out how to get motivated to do homework starts with pinpointing the issues that are affecting your ability to get your assignments done. That’s why we’ve developed a short quiz to help you identify the areas where you’re struggling.

Take the quiz below and record your answers on your phone or on a scrap piece of paper. Keep in mind there are no wrong answers!

1. You’ve just been assigned an essay in your English class that’s due at the end of the week. What’s the first thing you do?

A. Keep it in mind, even though you won’t start it until the day before it’s due B. Open up your planner. You’ve got to figure out when you’ll write your paper since you have band practice, a speech tournament, and your little sister’s dance recital this week, too. C. Groan out loud. Another essay? You could barely get yourself to write the last one! D. Start thinking about your essay topic, which makes you think about your art project that’s due the same day, which reminds you that your favorite artist might have just posted to Instagram...so you better check your feed right now.

2. Your mom asked you to pick up your room before she gets home from work. You’ve just gotten home from school. You decide you’ll tackle your chores:

A. Five minutes before your mom walks through the front door. As long as it gets done, who cares when you start? B. As soon as you get home from your shift at the local grocery store. C. After you give yourself a 15-minute pep talk about how you need to get to work. D. You won’t get it done. Between texts from your friends, trying to watch your favorite Netflix show, and playing with your dog, you just lost track of time!

3. You’ve signed up to wash dogs at the Humane Society to help earn money for your senior class trip. You:

A. Show up ten minutes late. You put off leaving your house until the last minute, then got stuck in unexpected traffic on the way to the shelter. B. Have to call and cancel at the last minute. You forgot you’d already agreed to babysit your cousin and bake cupcakes for tomorrow’s bake sale. C. Actually arrive fifteen minutes early with extra brushes and bandanas you picked up at the store. You’re passionate about animals, so you’re excited to help out! D. Show up on time, but only get three dogs washed. You couldn’t help it: you just kept getting distracted by how cute they were!

4. You have an hour of downtime, so you decide you’re going to watch an episode of The Great British Baking Show. You:

A. Scroll through your social media feeds for twenty minutes before hitting play, which means you’re not able to finish the whole episode. Ugh! You really wanted to see who was sent home! B. Watch fifteen minutes until you remember you’re supposed to pick up your sister from band practice before heading to your part-time job. No GBBO for you! C. You finish one episode, then decide to watch another even though you’ve got SAT studying to do. It’s just more fun to watch people make scones. D. Start the episode, but only catch bits and pieces of it because you’re reading Twitter, cleaning out your backpack, and eating a snack at the same time.

5. Your teacher asks you to stay after class because you’ve missed turning in two homework assignments in a row. When she asks you what’s wrong, you say:

A. You planned to do your assignments during lunch, but you ran out of time. You decided it would be better to turn in nothing at all than submit unfinished work. B. You really wanted to get the assignments done, but between your extracurriculars, family commitments, and your part-time job, your homework fell through the cracks. C. You have a hard time psyching yourself to tackle the assignments. You just can’t seem to find the motivation to work on them once you get home. D. You tried to do them, but you had a hard time focusing. By the time you realized you hadn’t gotten anything done, it was already time to turn them in.

Like we said earlier, there are no right or wrong answers to this quiz (though your results will be better if you answered as honestly as possible). Here’s how your answers break down:

If your answers were mostly As, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is procrastination.
If your answers were mostly Bs, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is time management.
If your answers were mostly Cs, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is motivation.
If your answers were mostly Ds, then your biggest struggle with doing homework is getting distracted.

Now that you’ve identified why you’re having a hard time getting your homework done, we can help you figure out how to fix it! Scroll down to find your core problem area to learn more about how you can start to address it.

And one more thing: you’re really struggling with homework, it’s a good idea to read through every section below. You may find some additional tips that will help make homework less intimidating.

How to Do Homework When You’re a Procrastinator

Merriam Webster defines “procrastinate” as “to put off intentionally and habitually.” In other words, procrastination is when you choose to do something at the last minute on a regular basis. If you’ve ever found yourself pulling an all-nighter, trying to finish an assignment between periods, or sprinting to turn in a paper minutes before a deadline, you’ve experienced the effects of procrastination.

If you’re a chronic procrastinator, you’re in good company. In fact, one study found that 70% to 95% of undergraduate students procrastinate when it comes to doing their homework. Unfortunately, procrastination can negatively impact your grades. Researchers have found that procrastination can lower your grade on an assignment by as much as five points ...which might not sound serious until you realize that can mean the difference between a B- and a C+.

Procrastination can also negatively affect your health by increasing your stress levels , which can lead to other health conditions like insomnia, a weakened immune system, and even heart conditions. Getting a handle on procrastination can not only improve your grades, it can make you feel better, too!

The big thing to understand about procrastination is that it’s not the result of laziness. Laziness is defined as being “disinclined to activity or exertion.” In other words, being lazy is all about doing nothing. But a s this Psychology Today article explains , procrastinators don’t put things off because they don’t want to work. Instead, procrastinators tend to postpone tasks they don’t want to do in favor of tasks that they perceive as either more important or more fun. Put another way, procrastinators want to do things...as long as it’s not their homework!

3 Tips f or Conquering Procrastination

Because putting off doing homework is a common problem, there are lots of good tactics for addressing procrastination. Keep reading for our three expert tips that will get your homework habits back on track in no time.

#1: Create a Reward System

Like we mentioned earlier, procrastination happens when you prioritize other activities over getting your homework done. Many times, this happens because homework...well, just isn’t enjoyable. But you can add some fun back into the process by rewarding yourself for getting your work done.

Here’s what we mean: let’s say you decide that every time you get your homework done before the day it’s due, you’ll give yourself a point. For every five points you earn, you’ll treat yourself to your favorite dessert: a chocolate cupcake! Now you have an extra (delicious!) incentive to motivate you to leave procrastination in the dust.

If you’re not into cupcakes, don’t worry. Your reward can be anything that motivates you . Maybe it’s hanging out with your best friend or an extra ten minutes of video game time. As long as you’re choosing something that makes homework worth doing, you’ll be successful.

#2: Have a Homework Accountability Partner

If you’re having trouble getting yourself to start your homework ahead of time, it may be a good idea to call in reinforcements . Find a friend or classmate you can trust and explain to them that you’re trying to change your homework habits. Ask them if they’d be willing to text you to make sure you’re doing your homework and check in with you once a week to see if you’re meeting your anti-procrastination goals.

Sharing your goals can make them feel more real, and an accountability partner can help hold you responsible for your decisions. For example, let’s say you’re tempted to put off your science lab write-up until the morning before it’s due. But you know that your accountability partner is going to text you about it tomorrow...and you don’t want to fess up that you haven’t started your assignment. A homework accountability partner can give you the extra support and incentive you need to keep your homework habits on track.

#3: Create Your Own Due Dates

If you’re a life-long procrastinator, you might find that changing the habit is harder than you expected. In that case, you might try using procrastination to your advantage! If you just can’t seem to stop doing your work at the last minute, try setting your own due dates for assignments that range from a day to a week before the assignment is actually due.

Here’s what we mean. Let’s say you have a math worksheet that’s been assigned on Tuesday and is due on Friday. In your planner, you can write down the due date as Thursday instead. You may still put off your homework assignment until the last minute...but in this case, the “last minute” is a day before the assignment’s real due date . This little hack can trick your procrastination-addicted brain into planning ahead!

If you feel like Kevin Hart in this meme, then our tips for doing homework when you're busy are for you.

How to Do Homework When You’re too Busy

If you’re aiming to go to a top-tier college , you’re going to have a full plate. Because college admissions is getting more competitive, it’s important that you’re maintaining your grades , studying hard for your standardized tests , and participating in extracurriculars so your application stands out. A packed schedule can get even more hectic once you add family obligations or a part-time job to the mix.

If you feel like you’re being pulled in a million directions at once, you’re not alone. Recent research has found that stress—and more severe stress-related conditions like anxiety and depression— are a major problem for high school students . In fact, one study from the American Psychological Association found that during the school year, students’ stress levels are higher than those of the adults around them.

For students, homework is a major contributor to their overall stress levels . Many high schoolers have multiple hours of homework every night , and figuring out how to fit it into an already-packed schedule can seem impossible.

3 Tips for Fitting Homework Into Your Busy Schedule

While it might feel like you have literally no time left in your schedule, there are still ways to make sure you’re able to get your homework done and meet your other commitments. Here are our expert homework tips for even the busiest of students.

#1: Make a Prioritized To-Do List

You probably already have a to-do list to keep yourself on track. The next step is to prioritize the items on your to-do list so you can see what items need your attention right away.

Here’s how it works: at the beginning of each day, sit down and make a list of all the items you need to get done before you go to bed. This includes your homework, but it should also take into account any practices, chores, events, or job shifts you may have. Once you get everything listed out, it’s time to prioritize them using the labels A, B, and C. Here’s what those labels mean:

A Tasks : tasks that have to get done—like showing up at work or turning in an assignment—get an A.
B Tasks : these are tasks that you would like to get done by the end of the day but aren’t as time sensitive. For example, studying for a test you have next week could be a B-level task. It’s still important, but it doesn’t have to be done right away.
C Tasks: these are tasks that aren’t very important and/or have no real consequences if you don’t get them done immediately. For instance, if you’re hoping to clean out your closet but it’s not an assigned chore from your parents, you could label that to-do item with a C.

Prioritizing your to-do list helps you visualize which items need your immediate attention, and which items you can leave for later. A prioritized to-do list ensures that you’re spending your time efficiently and effectively, which helps you make room in your schedule for homework. So even though you might really want to start making decorations for Homecoming (a B task), you’ll know that finishing your reading log (an A task) is more important.

#2: Use a Planner With Time Labels

Your planner is probably packed with notes, events, and assignments already. (And if you’re not using a planner, it’s time to start!) But planners can do more for you than just remind you when an assignment is due. If you’re using a planner with time labels, it can help you visualize how you need to spend your day.

A planner with time labels breaks your day down into chunks, and you assign tasks to each chunk of time. For example, you can make a note of your class schedule with assignments, block out time to study, and make sure you know when you need to be at practice. Once you know which tasks take priority, you can add them to any empty spaces in your day.

Planning out how you spend your time not only helps you use it wisely, it can help you feel less overwhelmed, too . We’re big fans of planners that include a task list ( like this one ) or have room for notes ( like this one ).

#3: Set Reminders on Your Phone

If you need a little extra nudge to make sure you’re getting your homework done on time, it’s a good idea to set some reminders on your phone. You don’t need a fancy app, either. You can use your alarm app to have it go off at specific times throughout the day to remind you to do your homework. This works especially well if you have a set homework time scheduled. So if you’ve decided you’re doing homework at 6:00 pm, you can set an alarm to remind you to bust out your books and get to work.

If you use your phone as your planner, you may have the option to add alerts, emails, or notifications to scheduled events . Many calendar apps, including the one that comes with your phone, have built-in reminders that you can customize to meet your needs. So if you block off time to do your homework from 4:30 to 6:00 pm, you can set a reminder that will pop up on your phone when it’s time to get started.

This dog isn't judging your lack of motivation...but your teacher might. Keep reading for tips to help you motivate yourself to do your homework.

How to Do Homework When You’re Unmotivated

At first glance, it may seem like procrastination and being unmotivated are the same thing. After all, both of these issues usually result in you putting off your homework until the very last minute.

But there’s one key difference: many procrastinators are working, they’re just prioritizing work differently. They know they’re going to start their homework...they’re just going to do it later.

Conversely, people who are unmotivated to do homework just can’t find the willpower to tackle their assignments. Procrastinators know they’ll at least attempt the homework at the last minute, whereas people who are unmotivated struggle with convincing themselves to do it at a ll. For procrastinators, the stress comes from the inevitable time crunch. For unmotivated people, the stress comes from trying to convince themselves to do something they don’t want to do in the first place.

Here are some common reasons students are unmotivated in doing homework :

Assignments are too easy, too hard, or seemingly pointless
Students aren’t interested in (or passionate about) the subject matter
Students are intimidated by the work and/or feels like they don’t understand the assignment
Homework isn’t fun, and students would rather spend their time on things that they enjoy

To sum it up: people who lack motivation to do their homework are more likely to not do it at all, or to spend more time worrying about doing their homework than...well, actually doing it.

3 Tips for How to Get Motivated to Do Homework

The key to getting homework done when you’re unmotivated is to figure out what does motivate you, then apply those things to homework. It sounds tricky...but it’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it! Here are our three expert tips for motivating yourself to do your homework.

#1: Use Incremental Incentives

When you’re not motivated, it’s important to give yourself small rewards to stay focused on finishing the task at hand. The trick is to keep the incentives small and to reward yourself often. For example, maybe you’re reading a good book in your free time. For every ten minutes you spend on your homework, you get to read five pages of your book. Like we mentioned earlier, make sure you’re choosing a reward that works for you!

So why does this technique work? Using small rewards more often allows you to experience small wins for getting your work done. Every time you make it to one of your tiny reward points, you get to celebrate your success, which gives your brain a boost of dopamine . Dopamine helps you stay motivated and also creates a feeling of satisfaction when you complete your homework !

#2: Form a Homework Group

If you’re having trouble motivating yourself, it’s okay to turn to others for support. Creating a homework group can help with this. Bring together a group of your friends or classmates, and pick one time a week where you meet and work on homework together. You don’t have to be in the same class, or even taking the same subjects— the goal is to encourage one another to start (and finish!) your assignments.

Another added benefit of a homework group is that you can help one another if you’re struggling to understand the material covered in your classes. This is especially helpful if your lack of motivation comes from being intimidated by your assignments. Asking your friends for help may feel less scary than talking to your teacher...and once you get a handle on the material, your homework may become less frightening, too.

#3: Change Up Your Environment

If you find that you’re totally unmotivated, it may help if you find a new place to do your homework. For example, if you’ve been struggling to get your homework done at home, try spending an extra hour in the library after school instead. The change of scenery can limit your distractions and give you the energy you need to get your work done.

If you’re stuck doing homework at home, you can still use this tip. For instance, maybe you’ve always done your homework sitting on your bed. Try relocating somewhere else, like your kitchen table, for a few weeks. You may find that setting up a new “homework spot” in your house gives you a motivational lift and helps you get your work done.

Social media can be a huge problem when it comes to doing homework. We have advice for helping you unplug and regain focus.

How to Do Homework When You’re Easily Distracted

We live in an always-on world, and there are tons of things clamoring for our attention. From friends and family to pop culture and social media, it seems like there’s always something (or someone!) distracting us from the things we need to do.

The 24/7 world we live in has affected our ability to focus on tasks for prolonged periods of time. Research has shown that over the past decade, an average person’s attention span has gone from 12 seconds to eight seconds . And when we do lose focus, i t takes people a long time to get back on task . One study found that it can take as long as 23 minutes to get back to work once we’ve been distracte d. No wonder it can take hours to get your homework done!

3 Tips to Improve Your Focus

If you have a hard time focusing when you’re doing your homework, it’s a good idea to try and eliminate as many distractions as possible. Here are three expert tips for blocking out the noise so you can focus on getting your homework done.

#1: Create a Distraction-Free Environment

Pick a place where you’ll do your homework every day, and make it as distraction-free as possible. Try to find a location where there won’t be tons of noise, and limit your access to screens while you’re doing your homework. Put together a focus-oriented playlist (or choose one on your favorite streaming service), and put your headphones on while you work.

You may find that other people, like your friends and family, are your biggest distraction. If that’s the case, try setting up some homework boundaries. Let them know when you’ll be working on homework every day, and ask them if they’ll help you keep a quiet environment. They’ll be happy to lend a hand!

#2: Limit Your Access to Technology

We know, we know...this tip isn’t fun, but it does work. For homework that doesn’t require a computer, like handouts or worksheets, it’s best to put all your technology away . Turn off your television, put your phone and laptop in your backpack, and silence notifications on any wearable tech you may be sporting. If you listen to music while you work, that’s fine...but make sure you have a playlist set up so you’re not shuffling through songs once you get started on your homework.

If your homework requires your laptop or tablet, it can be harder to limit your access to distractions. But it’s not impossible! T here are apps you can download that will block certain websites while you’re working so that you’re not tempted to scroll through Twitter or check your Facebook feed. Silence notifications and text messages on your computer, and don’t open your email account unless you absolutely have to. And if you don’t need access to the internet to complete your assignments, turn off your WiFi. Cutting out the online chatter is a great way to make sure you’re getting your homework done.

#3: Set a Timer (the Pomodoro Technique)

Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro technique ? It’s a productivity hack that uses a timer to help you focus!

Here’s how it works: first, set a timer for 25 minutes. This is going to be your work time. During this 25 minutes, all you can do is work on whatever homework assignment you have in front of you. No email, no text messaging, no phone calls—just homework. When that timer goes off, you get to take a 5 minute break. Every time you go through one of these cycles, it’s called a “pomodoro.” For every four pomodoros you complete, you can take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes.

The pomodoro technique works through a combination of boundary setting and rewards. First, it gives you a finite amount of time to focus, so you know that you only have to work really hard for 25 minutes. Once you’ve done that, you’re rewarded with a short break where you can do whatever you want. Additionally, tracking how many pomodoros you complete can help you see how long you’re really working on your homework. (Once you start using our focus tips, you may find it doesn’t take as long as you thought!)

Two Bonus Tips for How to Do Homework Fast

Even if you’re doing everything right, there will be times when you just need to get your homework done as fast as possible. (Why do teachers always have projects due in the same week? The world may never know.)

The problem with speeding through homework is that it’s easy to make mistakes. While turning in an assignment is always better than not submitting anything at all, you want to make sure that you’re not compromising quality for speed. Simply put, the goal is to get your homework done quickly and still make a good grade on the assignment!

Here are our two bonus tips for getting a decent grade on your homework assignments , even when you’re in a time crunch.

#1: Do the Easy Parts First

This is especially true if you’re working on a handout with multiple questions. Before you start working on the assignment, read through all the questions and problems. As you do, make a mark beside the questions you think are “easy” to answer .

Once you’ve finished going through the whole assignment, you can answer these questions first. Getting the easy questions out of the way as quickly as possible lets you spend more time on the trickier portions of your homework, which will maximize your assignment grade.

(Quick note: this is also a good strategy to use on timed assignments and tests, like the SAT and the ACT !)

#2: Pay Attention in Class

Homework gets a lot easier when you’re actively learning the material. Teachers aren’t giving you homework because they’re mean or trying to ruin your weekend... it’s because they want you to really understand the course material. Homework is designed to reinforce what you’re already learning in class so you’ll be ready to tackle harder concepts later.

When you pay attention in class, ask questions, and take good notes, you’re absorbing the information you’ll need to succeed on your homework assignments. (You’re stuck in class anyway, so you might as well make the most of it!) Not only will paying attention in class make your homework less confusing, it will also help it go much faster, too.

What’s Next?

If you’re looking to improve your productivity beyond homework, a good place to begin is with time management. After all, we only have so much time in a day...so it’s important to get the most out of it! To get you started, check out this list of the 12 best time management techniques that you can start using today.

You may have read this article because homework struggles have been affecting your GPA. Now that you’re on the path to homework success, it’s time to start being proactive about raising your grades. This article teaches you everything you need to know about raising your GPA so you can

Now you know how to get motivated to do homework...but what about your study habits? Studying is just as critical to getting good grades, and ultimately getting into a good college . We can teach you how to study bette r in high school. (We’ve also got tons of resources to help you study for your ACT and SAT exams , too!)

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

Student and Parent Forum

Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com , allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

Services for education institutions
Academic subject areas
Peer connection
Evidence of Studiosity impact
Case studies from our partners
Research Hub
The Tracey Bretag Integrity Prize
The Studiosity Symposium
Studiosity for English learners
Video case studies
Meet the online team

Academic Advisory Board

Meet the board.

Social responsibility
Meet the team
Join the team

Homework vs Study: Everything You Need To Know

Fiach Smyth

Oct 28, 2016

Homework and study. The two things that all students have in common, no matter where they live, or what school they go to. But what is the real difference between homework and study, and how is a regular routine going to help you do well? Studiosity's Fiach Smyth has the answers.

Why is homework important?

Most nights you are going to have homework set by your teachers. Although we don’t usually think of homework as being study, it’s actually a key part of the learning process. Homework has two purposes: to give you a chance to identify gaps in your knowledge so that you can raise them with your teacher; and to help embed class learnings in your head by making a second pass over the key concepts you covered that day.

What about study?

Now that we know what homework is, what is study? Study is exactly the same as homework, except that you nominate for yourself what work to do, and you do it at a time that’s removed from the class in which you learned the content.

Let’s take a typical maths class as an example. In class the teacher shows you a concept, and then asks you to do a few exercises in class so that they can make sure you’ve understood. They set you some more exercises as homework, so later that night you have to remember what you learned in class, and apply it to those homework exercises. A month later you’ve moved on to another topic in class, but you decide one night to just spend 40 minutes going over those exercises again, to make sure you still remember how to do them, and to keep the learnings fresh in your mind. That’s study.

How much study should I do?

This is going to depend on a lot of things: how much time you have, which subjects you find challenging, where you are in your academic career. For most students from Years 7 to 10, you should be able to manage one block of study at least four nights a week. One block is about 40 - 60 minutes (we’ll discuss why in a moment). Maybe you want to do one block each night Monday to Thursday; maybe it’s easier for you to make Friday a study day where you do all your study. It’s up to you.

It’s important to remember that study is a very personal thing , it’s different for everyone. This approach of four subjects a week isn’t necessarily the best way for you to study; rather it’s the best way to start studying, to get into the habit and to be able to determine for yourself how to change things up to suit your own needs and your available time. Maybe you want to, or have time to do more than four blocks a week – if so, that’s great, as every extra block of time spent studying helps!

What exactly is a 'study block'?

A study block is a set amount of time you set aside for the purpose of studying a particular subject. Although there are exceptions, an average study block should be around 45 minutes long. This is not an arbitrary amount of time. You’ll notice that most classes at school are between 45-50 minutes in length. We know a lot about how people learn, and one thing we know is that after about 45 minutes of working on a particular topic our brains are less able to take in new information.

At school we put a break every 45 minutes or so, allowing students to change classes, change locations and topics, to keep their minds fresh and able to learn, and this is the same with your study. Even if you still feel like you’re fresh and good to keep going, in most cases pushing much past 45 minutes on a block of study will return much less benefit than the first 45 minutes did. Generally you would be better breaking and doing something else and then coming back to study a second time, rather than studying two blocks back-to-back.

At the same time, very short study blocks aren’t as effective as blocks of around 45 minutes (with a few exceptions we’ll discuss below). As you study your brain organises and reorganises information, solidifying it for later recall, and building links between the different things you are jamming into it. It takes a little time for your brain to start building these links, so you need to give your brain time. If you only spend ten minutes reading through your notes that’s not study, that’s revision. Revision is certainly something to work into your overall approach to study, but if that’s all you do then you don’t give your brain the time it needs to start building these information connections. Study blocks should be at least 30 minutes long, but 40-45 is best.

How do I balance homework and study?

Now that we know that homework and study work together, we can see why balancing both is important. You can’t skip homework in order to study, but at the same time you can’t let your homework load become so great that you have no time to study. Teachers are good at knowing how much homework is a reasonable amount to give the maximum chance to bed down class learning without taking all of your available time. However, if you work or have important extra-curricular responsibilities you may find your time being squeezed and that’s something you need to resolve.

Let’s use another example, from maths again. You have maths four days a week, and your teacher sets about 20 exercises for the class each night. These exercises take you two hours to complete, and that’s making it hard to study. First, ask your friends how long it takes them. Is it taking you a lot longer than them? If so, talk to your teacher. Your teacher may be able to identify why the problems take you longer to complete, or may reduce the number of questions they expect you to complete, focusing on the most important questions.

Or maybe it’s just that you have a lot of other commitments. Figure out how much time you can afford to spend on your maths homework , and then stop when you reach that time.

If the reality is that doing all your homework means that you can’t study, it is generally better that you take a few short cuts with your homework rather than just not studying. As we said above, study refreshes what you bedded down doing your homework, so you need both.

Remember, take a break

An essential component of good study is knowing when to take a break from study. If you sit yourself down and do four subjects worth of homework and then power through two study blocks, that study is not going to be nearly as effective as it could have been had you taken some breaks.

As a good rule of thumb, if you study for a block of 45 minutes take the next fifteen minutes off. Get away from wherever you were sitting, go walk around, or talk to people, or grab a yummy study snack .

Both homework and study are equally as important, and both need to be scheduled into your study time. See how you go with the study blocks, and if you have any feedback, let us know in the comments below!

We wish you all the best.

Find out if you have free access to Studiosity here.

Topics: Students , Homework , Study

About Studiosity

Asking for feedback on your work is an essential part of learning. So when you want to better understand a concept or check you're on the right track, we're here for you.

Find out if you have free access through your institution here .

ABN 41 114 279 668

Student zone, assignment calculator, calendars and organisers, study survival guides, free practice tests, student faqs, download our mobile app, student sign in, success stories.

Student Reviews & Testimonials

Specialist Sign In

Meet our specialists

Meet the team, media and research, student reviews.

About the author

How to Focus on Homework and Actually Get Things Done: 12 Hacks for Busy Students

September 15, 2022

A teen using his laptop and learning how to focus on homework

Chances are, you’ve had some days when you felt overwhelmed after a long day at school. You couldn’t imagine doing anything other than plopping down in front of the television, let alone finding out how to focus on your homework.

How can you overcome the resistance and get it done? How do you get your mind to include this task in your day as well?

With just a few adjustments, you will be able to expand your capacity to concentrate.

Why Can’t I Focus on My Homework?

Countless factors constantly fight for your attention : social media, people, overthinking, and anxiety. All of this can make you feel as though you have little control over your mind.

If you want to start to focus better on your homework, you’ll need to set your mind up for success. Remove all distractions .

Here are two key principles that can help you be more successful in your studies:

1. Identify the distractions in your surroundings

What are the things in your daily life that take your mind away from your studies? Clearly identifying these distractions can help you understand both the problem and what causes it.

Among our environmental distractions, digital distractions are one of the worst kinds, and according to a number of studies , their effect is on the rise in the classroom.

If you’re looking to gain more concentration and, thus, form better study habits, question your online behavior first and foremost.

2. Limit the use of technology to find focus

What’s the role of social media in your daily life? Have you ever sat down to calculate how social media distracts you from doing the things you should be doing?

When you are wondering how to focus on homework long after you’ve put your phone away, you’re still thinking about the last posts you saw on Instagram. The sound of new notifications can be enough to reroute our attention from the task at hand.

And then comes the information overload, the fear of missing out, and the all-too-common signs of addictive behavior. Technology is affecting your mind more than ever, and it’s taking your focus away.

A teenager learning how to focus on homework

How to Focus on Homework: 12 Things You Can Do to Be More Indistractible

Here are 12 tips on how to stay focused while completing your homework, taught by superbrain coach Jim Kwik and habit transformation expert Nir Eyal .

Make a routine
Set up a study-friendly environment
Avoid heavy meals
Organize your study notes
Tell others to stay away
Listen to study music
Set deadlines
Take brain breaks
Use discomfort as motivation for productivity
Use time blocking
Let go of thoughts that distract you
Reimagine your task

Let’s look at each study hack in more detail.

1. Make a routine

Routines help you be productive without exerting as much effort. When you have homework to do, a study routine can be the reason you actually sit down, set enough time aside, concentrate, and stay focused until you complete the project.

This process doesn’t need to be complicated: just tell yourself that you will sit at your desk at home once you’re back from school. Put your phone on silent, make an outline of the work that needs to get done, and simply begin with what’s most important.

2. Set up a study-friendly environment

A place for everything and everything in its place. That applies to studying, too.

Lying in bed with your notebook is considered a distraction, as is being in the living room with your laptop while others are doing their activities.

You need an isolated place when you decide to focus on your homework. Make it feel comfortable, keep it organized, keep it clean, and consider putting up some motivational posters or positive affirmations .

3. Avoid heavy meals

It’s not advisable to have a big meal beforehand. Big meals can ruin your focus and make you feel sluggish and lazy because it takes a big amount of time and energy for your body to digest. A snack is okay.

There are also some foods , though, that are just plain bad for your productivity. For example, soda, candy, and fried foods are all full of sugar and have no nutritional value. They make your insulin spike up, but then it crashes very fast, which makes you feel depleted of energy.

4. Organize your study notes

Prioritize your work. Keep lists and place the most important items on top. Then work on the items that you should get done first.

It helps to outline what you need to do, breaking it down into smaller, more manageable steps. Use colors to highlight the essentials .

This makes it all look much simpler and you’re more likely to actually get started. The brain loves organization and it won’t be so likely to procrastinate when it knows you have a structure set in place.

5. Tell others to stay away

Don’t be afraid to let others know that you’re studying and require some time and space to get your work done. Decide on fixed hours for studying and tell your friends and family members that you won’t be available during that time of the day.

If others respect your study time, you’ll be more inclined to respect it as well.

6. Listen to study music

There are many tracks out there designed to help your mind focus. Whether you use binaural beats or just instrumental music, the right sounds can really help to tune your brain into a productive frequency.

This meditation is also great to listen to; it puts your mind in a clear, concise, and ready-to-take-on-the-world mode:

7. Set deadlines

Even if your teacher has already given you deadlines for each assignment, set new ones yourself at earlier dates.

This helps you build discipline, learn how to focus on studying, and prioritize every day.

8. Take brain breaks

Frequent breaks actually increase your productivity and focus. You’ll see that after each study session, the brain needs to be engaged with something different — you need to activate other parts of your brain before going back to your studies so that you can reach top performance.

You can also use the Superbrain Yoga Technique. In the Superbrain Quest, Jim talks about implementing it during your breaks. It goes as follows:

Massage the left lobe of your ear with your right hand, and the right one with your left hand
Inhale and squat down
Exhale and come back up while continuing massaging your opposite ear with the opposite hand
Keep going for a few minutes

As your body moves, your brain grooves. — Jim Kwik, trainer of Mindvalley’s Superbrain Quest

9. Use discomfort as motivation for productivity

The brain is wired to protect us from danger, and our ancestors needed this function of the psyche to survive. Discomfort is associated with danger, and whenever they felt it, they knew it was time to run away or protect themselves in one way or another.

In today’s world, danger isn’t so imminent. However, discomfort is, and the brain still works to protect us in the same way.

So why not use it to your advantage?

Once you have this mindset shift, you can see the discomfort that comes with doing your homework as fuel for moving forward, from pain to pleasure. So instead of procrastinating and avoiding the discomfort, just use it as motivation to get things done.

And maybe you can even save yourself a fun activity to do later in the day, so you have something to look forward to.

10. Use time blocking

You can use time blocking and set a specific amount of time for parts of your homework that needs to be done. For example, you block 30 minutes of reading, then another 30 minutes of writing down highlights from the text.

This method will give you more structure and support you when you need to focus on school work, as you will have a dedicated structured time to do so.

11. Let go of thoughts that distract you

When you need more concentration, but your thoughts keep getting in the way, here’s a fun visualization exercise you can use:

Before you start working on your homework, close down your eyes and imagine a flowing river in front of you.
Now, place every thought on a leaf and let it run down the river while watching it move away from you.

Do this repeatedly for 5-10 minutes and see how your mind becomes clearer, more productive, and more inspired.

12. Reimagine your task

How can you make the process of doing your homework more fun? Is there any way you can think of to make it more exciting and engaging?

As you introduce play and fun into any task, your capacity to stay focused will increase. So just try out different methods to engage more in your homework.

For example, what if you made a trivia quest about your history lesson homework? Or what about riddles to make you remember all the characters from the novel you have to read?

Once you play around with these kinds of games, you might find that focusing on your homework isn’t as boring as you thought it would be.

Unleash the Power of Your Focus

Discovering how to focus on your homework can go beyond schoolwork and actually support you in many other activities you want to do. Concentration is one of the best skills to nurture for your growth.

If you need a little guidance at the beginning of your focusing journey, Mindvalley has it in store for you.

By unlocking your FREE Mindvalley access , you can check out sample classes from quests that help you develop better focus and study habits, such as Becoming Focused and Indistractable by Nir Eyal and Superbrain by Jim Kwik. You can also immerse yourself in beautiful sounds and guided meditations designed to improve concentration and help you enter the flow state.

The earlier you start, the greater your journey of self-discovery will be. Welcome in.

— Images generated on Midjourney.

Recommended Free Masterclass For You

Discover Powerful Hacks to Unlock Your Superbrain to Learn Faster, Comprehend More and Forget Less

Join the foremost expert in memory improvement and brain performance, Jim Kwik, in a free masterclass that will dive into the one skill you will ever need — learning how to learn Reserve My Free Spot Now

Alexandra Tudor

Jim Kwik is the trainer of Mindvalley’s Superbrain and Super Reading quests. He’s a brain coach and a world expert in speed reading, memory improvement, and optimal brain performance. Known as the “boy with the broken brain” due to a childhood injury, Jim discovered strategies to dramatically enhance his mental performance. He is now committed to helping people improve their memory, learn to speed-read, increase their decision-making skills, and turn on their superbrain. He has shared his techniques with Hollywood actors, Fortune 500 companies, and trailblazing entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Richard Branson to reach their highest level of mental performance. He is also one of the most sought-after trainers for top organizations like Harvard University, Nike, Virgin, and GE.

How we reviewed this article:

Study: digital distraction in class is on the rise, you might also like.

A person sitting at the edge of a tall building and learning how to overcome fear

How to Overcome Fear: 3 No-Fail Strategies to Take Back Control

How to Take Notes: 5 Methods to Help Turbocharge Your Learning

Can You REALLY Develop a Spidey Sense? Science Says Yes (And Here’s How)

A woman looking in the mirror to self-praise

The Power of Praise: Here’s Why You Should Compliment Yourself

Woman standing on top of a mountain with her arms in the air

The Secret Sauce to Unshakeable Confidence? How to Believe in Yourself and Spark That Inner Fire

Two men outdoors showing examples of virtues

What Makes Us Morally Good: 80 Examples of Virtues

Get started.

Try Mindvalley for Free
Free Masterclasses
Coaching Certifications
Vishen Lakhiani
The Mindvalley Show
Partnerships
In English 🇺🇸
En Español 🇪🇸
Mindvalley Events
Mindvalley Coach
Mindvalley For Business

Fact-Checking: Our Process

Mindvalley is committed to providing reliable and trustworthy content.

We rely heavily on evidence-based sources, including peer-reviewed studies and insights from recognized experts in various personal growth fields. Our goal is to keep the information we share both current and factual.

The Mindvalley fact-checking guidelines are based on:

Content Foundation: Our articles build upon Mindvalley’s quest content, which are meticulously crafted and vetted by industry experts to ensure foundational credibility and reliability.
Research and Sources: Our team delves into credible research, ensuring every piece is grounded in facts and evidence, offering a holistic view on personal growth topics.
Continuous Updates: In the dynamic landscape of personal development, we are committed to keeping our content fresh. We often revisit and update our resources to stay abreast of the latest developments.
External Contributions: We welcome insights from external contributors who share our passion for personal transformation and consciousness elevation.
Product Recommendations and Affiliations: Recommendations come after thoughtful consideration and alignment with Mindvalley’s ethos, grounded in ethical choices.

To learn more about our dedication to reliable reporting, you can read our detailed editorial standards .

Our Mission

How to Help Students Develop the Skills They Need to Complete Homework

Middle and high school students can learn to work more efficiently by using strategies that improve their executive function skills.

The effects of homework are mixed. While adolescents across middle and high school have an array of life situations that can make doing homework easier or harder, it’s well known that homework magnifies inequity . However, we also know that learning how to manage time and work independently outside of the school day is valuable for lifelong learning. From the homework wars to students who have little time for homework to students who don’t even know where to begin, everyone can agree that kids who can self-regulate and engage in independent rehearsal are better positioned for whatever the future holds.

How can we empower students to overcome barriers to doing homework well?

Executive Functioning

Homework is partially an assessment of executive functioning. Executive functioning and self-regulation take time to develop. They depend on three types of critical brain function: working memory, mental flexibility, and self-regulation .

Let’s break this down to consider how to improve their efficiency.

Working memory: Don’t hold everything in your head; it is not possible. When doing homework, students should write down their ideas, whether they are notes while reading, numbers when working through a math problem, or non-school-related reminders about chores, such as remembering to take the dog for a walk. Clearing working memory for the immediate task at hand allows the brain to focus as the strain is reduced.

Mental flexibility: As students build their independence and grow their homework routines, seeing an array of strategies, or more than one way to solve a problem, is important. Consider the results when a child gets stuck and doesn’t know what to do to get unstuck or when one keeps trying the same failed approach. Chunking homework helps simplify the process. When stuck, a student looks at a smaller piece, which makes it easier to see other solutions. More practice with mental flexibility happens when others model thinking in different ways, and students practice flexible thinking with partners by asking them: What is another way? Use this bubble map to chart out multiple ways.

Self-regulation: Learning how to prioritize work and stick with it by not giving in to impulses is a skill that students develop over time . One way to teach self-regulation is to have students practice control by concentrating for short periods of time with the goal of building up to longer, more sustained periods of time as the year progresses. For a child who struggles with reading for an extended time, start with five minutes and then build from there.

Another self-regulation tip is creating a plan to overcome distractions. What happens when the child stumbles? Three minutes into reading and a student is reaching for their cell phone. Recommend that they practice moving the cell phone away from the homework area, and summarize before returning to the reading. Stops and starts are frustrating and often result in lost homework time. Have students practice responses to distraction, and make this part of their homework. When a student struggles to stay on task, they should be encouraged to remove any distraction in order to regain focus.

Use classroom assessment as a tool to plan for and support student homework. Record the following information for students:

Do they write, read, and/or solve problems in class? For how many minutes independently?
What is the quality of their work? Are they actually learning, or are they just going through the motions?
Do they know how to strategize on their own or get help from a peer when they’re stuck? Observe them and take notes, and/or have them reflect on this question.

We cannot expect that students will independently practice a skill they don’t engage with during class. If it doesn't happen in the classroom, it's not going to happen at home. The teacher should be able to realistically gauge how much and what students might achieve at home. A suggestion to build independence is to use task analysis . Here is a model . For students who struggle with getting homework done, at first they may not actually do homework; rather, they practice the routines of setting up and getting started.

Direct Instruction

The following are some techniques that help students with homework:

Mindful meditation to gain focus
Prioritizing and estimating time
Filtering out distractions

Peers as Partners

Class partnership routines need practice. With strong partnerships, kids learn how to support and learn from each other. Access to teachers will never match the unlimited access to peers. The hours that students who achieve at high levels put in after class are often spent alone rehearsing the content or with peers who push each other to improve.

Class-to-Home Connection

While some students struggle with executive functioning, others rush through their homework. The most important step in having homework count is to make it seamless, not separate from class. Homework flows from classwork. Especially with a mix of synchronous and asynchronous work, now there is no homework, just work done for our classes. Consistent instructional goals with engaging and meaningful tasks help students see the value in working beyond the last bell.

Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

Explore Related Topics:

Share this story

Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

Latest from Bostonia

Alum has traveled the world to witness total solar eclipses, opening doors: rhonda harrison (eng’98,’04, grs’04), campus reacts and responds to israel-hamas war, reading list: what the pandemic revealed, remembering com’s david anable, cas’ john stone, “intellectual brilliance and brilliant kindness”, one good deed: christine kannler (cas’96, sph’00, camed’00), william fairfield warren society inducts new members, spreading art appreciation, restoring the “black angels” to medical history, in the kitchen with jacques pépin, feedback: readers weigh in on bu’s new president, com’s new expert on misinformation, and what’s really dividing the nation, the gifts of great teaching, sth’s walter fluker honored by roosevelt institute, alum’s debut book is a ramadan story for children, my big idea: covering construction sites with art, former terriers power new professional women’s hockey league, five trailblazing alums to celebrate during women’s history month, alum beata coloyan is boston mayor michelle wu’s “eyes and ears” in boston neighborhoods, bu alum nina yoshida nelsen (cfa’01,’03) named artistic director of boston lyric opera.

Doing Homework: Ins and Outs for Students

Difficulties in doing homework.

Have you ever thought about the most trouble-free period of your life? Most people would say “nursery school”. No wonder, as all you had to do was play and have fun. If you had an idea about your future responsibilities, did you have a desire to grow up?

However, nobody can stop time, and here you are, a student who has little time to play but many duties to fulfill. Being a student means studying, doing homework, going to the library, and dealing with many other things that can sometimes be annoying. It’s really tough, especially in the first year of college or university. The new reality and surroundings require much mental and physical effort: new professors, new classmates, more disciplines, and more homework assignments as well.

Doing homework at college can often be a challenge, as its complexity level differs from that of school. The dilemma becomes more apparent when you apply for sports and have training. Another obstacle arises when you’ve accumulated assignments with short deadlines for submission. It’s understandable if the question is, Can I pay money for someone to get homework assistance? MyPaperDone.com , and the website mentioned above, can be of great use in this situation. Your assignments will be completed within the required time limit. Difficulties with doing homework can appear at any moment and for any student.

Can Someone Do Your Homework?

The huge amount of written academic papers to compose and theory to learn need a lot of time. Moreover, some personal circumstances can contribute to being overwhelmed with homework. In these moments, causing you some distress and anxiety, how many times have you thought, “Can someone do your homework?” instead of doing it yourself

Actually, the answer to this question is affirmative, and you can refer to different websites on the Internet. Such a service was invented with the purpose of assisting students with their homework. As a rule, these companies have hired a team of specialists from various fields. Personnel working in these companies includes teachers, professors, and last year students as well. There is an option to read the reviews of completed works, students’ opinions, and general feedback about the provided service.

By registering on one of these websites, you can rely on experts to do your homework as fast as you need. Over the years of studying at college or university, you will face tasks of different types, from the most important to the least significant. However, the less significant doesn’t mean the fastest. Sometimes, it can happen to spend hours writing academic work that, in reality, doesn’t have much research value.

Useful Homework Helper App

Using technology in the right way can help you to solve many problems. The Internet is an enormous digital library, a well of knowledge to use correctly. If you learn how to effectively utilize its sources, you will definitely simplify your life. For example, the use of some homework helper apps can facilitate the process of completing assignments:

Khan Academy: it was created by an engineer with the purpose of offering services and study materials for free, and it has become one of the most valuable sources. You can find playlists of exercises and problems, lessons in various subjects, videos, and other educational content.
Photomath: this app helps you solve math problems instantaneously just by taking a photo with your tablet or smartphone. Moreover, it recognizes even handwritten tasks and provides step-by-step solutions.
Quizlet: by creating an account, you’re able to generate tests, quizzes, and other games, using available lexical items or creating your own study tools. It allows you to personalize the way you study according to the required level of difficulty.
The list of other useful and effective online platforms is very long, and you are able to examine them on this page . The ability to combine various accessible tools plays an important role in achieving successful results. Many platforms are free, and some of them are for payment. Based on your necessities, you may choose the most suitable for you.

Unfortunately, learning in the classroom is not enough. By mixing traditional tools such as books, textbooks, and classroom learning with digital ones, your chances of becoming an excellent specialist are great.

Help Doing Your Homework

The study schedules and other commitments often leave you little time for rest. As you can imagine, homework help with school subjects differs from help with college or university materials. The Internet provides many solutions for all types of students, including school, college, or university students.

In the case of school, it’s not indispensable to have in-depth knowledge, unlike at the college level. When you need help doing your homework, take into consideration the person’s experience that counts a lot. When visiting websites that offer this service, examine the reviews and feedback. It will help you understand if their services suit you or not. Each reputable company has a skillful crew with knowledge in different fields of science.

Don’t forget, therefore, to not exaggerate and ask for assistance when you really need it. On this website , you will discover interesting information that can be useful regarding homework. You learn from your mistakes, and trying to do your assignments alone is an effective method of learning. Nevertheless, having the possibility to ask for help with your homework gives you an assurance that it will be done in any case. So, if after several attempts, you fail to complete an assignment and don’t have time to retry, visit a website and ask for help.

The post Doing Homework: Ins and Outs for Students appeared first on Mom and More .

Difficulties In Doing Homework Have you ever thought about the most trouble-free period of your life? Most people would say “nursery school”. No wonder, as all you had to do was play and have fun. If you had an idea about your future responsibilities, did you have a desire to grow up? However, nobody can […]

Studying Tips
How to Focus on School Work & Stay Concentrated: 18 Tips to Follow
Speech Topics
Basics of Essay Writing
Essay Topics
Other Essays
Main Academic Essays
Research Paper Topics
Basics of Research Paper Writing
Miscellaneous
Chicago/ Turabian
Data & Statistics
Methodology
Admission Writing Tips
Admission Advice
Other Guides
Student Life
Understanding Plagiarism
Academic Writing Tips
Basics of Dissertation & Thesis Writing

Essay Guides
Research Paper Guides
Formatting Guides
Basics of Research Process
Admission Guides
Dissertation & Thesis Guides

How to Focus on School Work & Stay Concentrated: 18 Tips to Follow

Table of contents

Use our free Readability checker

Every new academic year has unique challenges that make students ask questions like, "Why can't I focus on school work?" It is more complicated than ever to maintain optimum concentration. Some people struggle because they are juggling family time, social activities, and media platforms. Nevertheless, you can focus on homework and finish your tasks efficiently by adopting interest-focusing strategies. These techniques will be helpful in overcoming diversions and concentrating on your schoolwork. You can achieve this by making simple schedule adjustments. In this blog post, we will discuss 18 tips on how to stay focused on homework in a clear and detailed manner. In case you have any questions or need expert assistance, contact StudyCrumb. Our academic writing team will be glad to solve any homework task you are dealing with. Say ‘ help with my assignment ’ and get top-notch assistance.

Why Can't I Focus on My Homework?

The question "why can't I focus on homework?" is popular among students, as numerous things can be distracting when doing assignments. Several hindrances like social networking sites, overthinking and watching digital content continuously demand concentration. As a result, you have little or no control over your thoughts. You must ensure your brain is dedicated to completing the task at hand. Focusing on an assignment may be challenging for many reasons. From my perspective, one of the reasons why I can't focus on school work is experiencing stress or exhaustion. Of course, being bored with the subject itself could also be the cause of why you are not concentrating. Many people find that figuring out the obstacle is the best way of understanding how to get focused on school work. Similarly, eating well and leading a healthy lifestyle is what helps you focus on homework.

Can't Focus on Homework? Find Out All Distracting Facts

Why can't I concentrate on my homework? Is paying attention to my assignments so crucial? Welcome to the new era where distractions are everywhere, and you can't concentrate on homework. How can you possibly finish your schoolwork and focus on it without being interrupted? Something minor, like social media browsing, may not seem harmful initially, but it can hinder studying. Students must learn how to stay focused while doing homework so that they can perform well. Many factors may contribute to these distractions and make you feel like you have limited power over your thoughts. These elements of distraction include the following:

Fear of failure.
Electronic devices.

Lack of interest is a common reason why students experience difficulties with concentration. If you aren’t interested in your subject and are looking for an expert to pay for homework , StudyCrumb is the best place to seek for academic help. Let us know the details and we will match you with the best writer in your field.

Tips for Focusing on Homework

You may struggle with focus occasionally as a freshman or a graduate student. One of the obstacles is the question of how to concentrate on homework. It can be challenging when you are thinking about something else. For example, your mind is constantly shifting focus onto your phone, your stomach is grumbling, or you want to lie down and nap. Start by learning how to focus on schoolwork in general by adopting technology as a core part of making you creative. However, technology is responsible for a never-ending stream of diversions that can weaken the will toward education. Check a few tips below on how to focus better on homework while avoiding interference.

1. Provide Quiet and Comfortable Environment

Students should learn how to focus on school at home as a core part of achieving academic success. Using a computer to do your homework staying in a noisy living room environment may affect concentration. To focus on school work, move to a quiet area where you can listen to helpful videos and read books. Make the space cozy, ensure it is also tidy, and maybe use inspirational banners in the room. You will probably have an easier understanding if you minimize distractions when studying. A quiet and conducive environment can optimize the quality of time spent on schoolwork and spare enough hours for free time. This is one of the crucial ways how to stop getting distracted from homework.

2. Prepare Snacks and Water Beforehand

This is another critical method and a sure way how to focus when doing homework. Here, you can learn how to focus on school by consuming water and healthy snacks, including low-fat yogurt, whole-grain bread, and dried fruits. It is not a good idea to eat a substantial meal prior to starting to work on the homework since it takes a lot of energy and time to digest the food. Thus, large meals can make you unproductive. Instead, preparing snacks and water beforehand is one of the easy-to-implement tips to help focus on homework. Water prevents dehydration and helps in digestion. Healthy snacks are a crucial element of a well-balanced diet, particularly when studying for long periods. Easy meals for college students play a critical role in curbing overeating. They also boost energy levels and metabolism and reduce hunger pangs, allowing you to concentrate better on your schoolwork.

3. Provide Silence to Concentrate on Homework

People often need silence when contemplating how to not get distracted while doing homework. Most students wonder why it is so hard to focus on school work in a loud environment. This is because it shifts your mind to what is happening around you rather than concentrating on your homework. Maintaining silence when focusing on school work enables you to absorb information better, remember it, and formulate new questions. You can assess the significance of alternative viewpoints and internalize different emotions and facts. Furthermore, silence allows you to practice deliberate and purposeful communication. It is also necessary to ensure effective use of the time allocated for schoolwork.

4. Organize Your Study Place

Taking an hour or more to arrange your space is helpful when figuring out how to focus on doing homework. If you study in your room, ensure the windows are open for the flow of fresh air. However, remain mindful of outside noise that may become even more distracting. One of the things to help you focus on homework is adequate illumination to help with reading and writing and clearing your mind. Both these preparations can be achieved using music and easy hygiene procedures. If you enjoy classical music, turn it on for the smooth sounds that will help you relax. Spend a few minutes removing dirty things on the desk, table, and study space, including your sitting position. The whole idea of organizing your study space is made to avoid time wastage. Furthermore, great organization boosts concentration and output and helps you avoid distraction.

5. Block Apps and Websites That Can Distract From Doing Homework

Another incredible tip on how to concentrate on school work is by blocking apps and websites that cause distraction. Focusing is undoubtedly tricky if you are completing homework on a laptop. Some apps are beneficial while others are not, especially when you think of what helps you focus on homework and ensure effective use of allocated time. For instance, Screen Time is an app that assists you in avoiding frequent distractions. Avoid apps like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to focus on homework and close any notifications like text messages not to get distracted. By blocking these apps, you will concentrate more on your studies and enhance your workflow. You can run a few applications that support your efficiency in handling schoolwork.

6. Avoid Multitasking to Be Focused on School Work

If you are unsure about how to focus on homework at home, you are in the right place. You should identify different methods so you can concentrate thoughts on schoolwork and optimize the learning process. Focusing on one assignment at a time is another way how to stay focused on school work. Multitasking will reduce your productivity. Avoid watching a video lesson on science while completing your math assignment because you might be losing more than you gain. Before beginning a new task, finish the previous one and concentrate on homework. This enables you to take part in the activity more deeply and stay attentive. In addition, you will retain more knowledge and have less trouble applying the information in the real world if you can focus more on your schoolwork.

7. Choose the Best Time for Homework

As the saying goes, to everything, there is a time and place , and with homework, you need to set the appropriate time and place to work it out. You need to choose designated periods to make yourself focus on homework. Attentiveness to schoolwork may be difficult if the event is not scheduled correctly. Therefore, choosing the most appropriate time to focus on your homework without many distractions is key. The correct perspective in handling assignment deadlines would entail the selection of a timeframe that is best for you. In other words, the time allocation should be uneventful yet scheduled at an appropriate time for maximum efficiency. This means you will consider periods when your mind is fresh and there are minimal distractions to remain productive while focusing on schoolwork.

8. Put Aside All Gadgets

When researching how to do homework without getting distracted, gadgets are considered to be some of the most distracting elements that you can have. Having gadgets around, such as phones, leaves you vulnerable to shifting attention. This entails calls and messages from friends in social media or online interactions. Although gadgets are essential in helping you study, switch them off in order to not get distracted when doing homework. Accordingly, managing screen time must be a central topic when developing ways how to focus on your homework. You will find that without distractions, you can easily set attention to the tasks that matter. Putting off your gadgets often results in higher efficiency and productivity, especially when handling academic tasks.

9. Prioritize Your Homework

As with many other things, priorities are central when getting work done. Schoolwork at home can easily fall into events that are of lower importance. However, eliminating this perspective may be critical when considering how to focus while doing homework. Prioritization is the most effective when planning and scheduling events. Tasks like doing homework should, in this case, be set as the most important and high up on the schedule compared to other events. More time should also be allocated to more urgent events. This allows you to organize your thoughts and ideas while doing your homework without feeling rushed.

10. Plan Your Schedule to Be Concentrated

Students often wonder how to focus more on school work, especially when dealing with time-critical events or when they have a lot on their plate. I have, in several instances, successfully used scheduling when strategizing how to make myself focus on homework. The trick lies in developing a schedule that works for you. The plan, in this case, should operate around all your daily events and take advantage of the free periods. You can therefore complete the tasks that are typically overlooked. Keeping time will be easier with the correct approach to scheduling. You will also make more time for the things that previously fell between the cracks and remain undone.

11. Divide Your Task Into Parts

Undertaking large volumes of work that cannot be well-tracked may seem overwhelming. Being compelled can then make it hard to stay focused. In my experience, the practice of dividing work into parts has been able to help me focus on homework. Breaking down large volumes of tasks enables you to easily keep track of the progress you make and avoid the feeling of being overwhelmed. You can use this as a tip when figuring out what to do when you can't focus on homework. Also, scheduling periodic breaks after completing a stressful section will be helpful.

12. Make To-Do Lists to Focus on Homework

Lists are a common way of tracking the important events that should be done throughout the day. They can also be helpful when thinking of how to stay focused on homework in college or even in your personal engagements. You may wonder how to stop getting distracted while doing homework using lists, and here is how. Listing all the day's tasks in order of how you would like to undertake them keeps you focused on your goals. The order will help you tackle things individually and shape your focus on the next item you need to work on. Setting goals for each step can also lead to exceptional results in completing homework and minimizing distractions.

13. Use Tools and Apps for Studying

As a student, you must leverage technologies and all available ways to focus on homework. The advantage of studying in the modern schooling environment is that you have a wide array of tools and resources. For instance, mobile apps and games can help you meet the objectivity tasks you may require. They will also help you to get useful time management skills . Many free apps and tools help you to focus on school work at home. For example, scheduling apps offer time management and planning resources that help you get that extra edge in keeping focused. These tools provide alerts to inform you of your tasks and even help manage your progress. In addition to scheduling applications, using PDF annotating apps and tools can be very helpful for studying. Apps like PDF Reader Pro allow you to open, edit, annotate and share PDFs with ease. You can highlight important textbook passages, add notes and bookmark pages to better focus on your homework.

14. Set a Timer While Doing Homework

Using timers is a great option when you are not able to concentrate on homework. Students who can't focus on school work may benefit from using them to manage their engagement in different daily activities. Timers are mainly instrumental in keeping your attention focused on a specific goal. Productivity timers, for instance, may help keep your focus by holding you accountable for every minute that passes. You know you need to finish a set number of tasks based on the time spent on these tasks. This can be beneficial if you are prone to procrastination or are too busy with other things. Older students wondering how to stay focused on homework in college or tertiary institutions may also use timers to manage their efficiencies. Timing yourself can also help keep pressure on the mind and focus your thoughts. Therefore, make timed tasks a habit.

15. Come Up With Motivation

Motivation greatly helps when you wonder what to do when you can't focus on homework. Sometimes, simple inspiration and goal realignment may be all you need to restore your attention. Motivation comes in many forms and shapes. For instance, using reward systems or adjusting your school goals with personal interests may go a long way. Other options include joining group work discussions that match these objectives and engaging in an exercise that may help keep you motivated. So next time you think of how to focus on schoolwork at home, consider what benefits you may get from developing motivation for your goals.

16. Make Breaks for Better Concentration on Homework

Concentration is part of what can help me focus on homework, and there is a chance you may be severely affected by fatigue. Exhaustion is to be expected, especially when handling challenging course materials. I mostly find that I can't focus on my homework when I am tired. It becomes complicated to focus on homework without getting distracted when exhausted, and the solution I have found so far is taking a break. This helps rejuvenate the mind and generate new energy. Scheduling periodic intervals minimizes stress and allows you to refocus your thoughts. Nevertheless, be mindful and do not take a break that extends for too long.

17. Change Study Spot

You may be curious how a change in the environment affects your ability to concentrate or how to make yourself focus on homework with so many distractions at home. Fortunately, there are standard solutions to these questions as well. If you are wondering how to focus on school work at home, you should move to a different study spot. In a spacious house, you can find a quiet, designated space to set up and do your homework. Having a fixed location with the right environment for concentration may increase your creativity significantly. In smaller houses, getting a place that is secluded from direct distractions may also help minimize the impact these distractions have on your attentiveness.

18. Listen to Music

Changing approach to studying may also be needed to stay focused on homework. Listening to your favorite music can be a great option. This is particularly true if you have considered most of the options shared above and are still wondering how to do your homework without getting distracted. Music to study to is a great way to keep you focused, especially when using headphones to prevent external noise. It is exceptionally effective in stress management. There is a higher chance you may get distracted when doing challenging homework assignments. Music is one of the things that can be used to clear the mind when you are curious about what to do if you can't focus on homework. Symphonies and upbeat music, for instance, help manage stress by boosting the thinking process. It is, however, important to avoid listening to songs playing in the background with lyrics that may be distracting. Instrumentals are, in most cases, the more practical option.

Final Thoughts on How to Focus on Schoolwork

Beyond education, learning to concentrate on your schoolwork might also help you in other pursuits in your life. Among the best abilities for fostering your development is concentration. Various tips are practical when you spend all day and night working on school or college papers and cannot concentrate on your assignment. Stick to these 18 strategies if you want to try and work out how to focus on homework without getting distracted. We have all been through the "how do I focus on my homework" moment occasionally. However, listening to music, organizing your study place, and setting a timer will help you stay focused when doing homework. Make it a routine to read and utilize these tips; you will not regret a single day in your life.

Forget about piles of books and endless assignments! Turn to our professional writing service and buy assignment from an academic pro who can complete any task for you.

FAQ About Focusing on Homework at Home

1. why can't i focus on homework for more than 10 minutes.

Gaining strict concentration may be one of the most challenging issues affecting students. Many learners find that they can't focus on homework even when they want. Distractions, exhaustion, and a general lack of interest in the subject are to blame for their lack of focus. In some cases, stress and other emotional distractions may affect a person's ability to focus.

2. How can I train my brain to concentrate on homework?

Fortunately, this problem can be solved by simple discipline routines and habits that enable students to concentrate on homework. Working past the undisciplined mind can be achieved by simply following a strict routine. Scheduling tasks and timelines are some of the ways that can be used to keep your mind set on targeted goals. Turning off all distractions, such as the television and background music, may also help improve concentration levels.

3. How to get my child to focus on homework?

Parents or guardians are often a great source in helping their children stay focused when doing homework. Creating an enabling environment and assisting in doing homework are ways that parents can improve their child's concentration and remain involved in their learning process. Other options, such as helping develop workable schedules for children, are also plausible ways that parents can use.

Rachel R. Hill is a real educational devotee. She prides in writing exceptional general guides while listening to every need of students.

6 Tips for a Homework & Studying Schedule That Actually Works

Waiting until the last minute to cram for a test or to write an essay isn’t just going to make your life more stressful. It’s also less likely to produce the results you want.

Studies have shown that the most effective way to retain new material is with spaced repetition . This means engaging with the concepts consistently over a longer span of time.

If you want to cut down on the all-nighters, try these six easy tips to create a homework and studying schedule that actually works.

1. Review Your Homework in Advance

First, set some time aside at the beginning of your semester or school term to look over your assignments. Make sure you understand:

What each one entails
How much time each task will take
Its due date

Then, check to see if you need any additional resources. For example, you may need a library book to complete an assignment. Nothing will throw off your schedule more than sitting down at your desk only to find out that you don’t have what you need to do the work. Reviewing your assignments before they’re due will help with efficiency once you start working.

2. Make Your Schedule as Specific as Possible

Once you have a list of everything you need to do, turn it into a daily or weekly schedule. Decide which tasks you want to do first and when. Then, you can write it in a planner or use an Excel template to create a printable homework chart.

Avoid generalized terms like “study Spanish for two hours.” Otherwise, you’ll be tempted to fill the time with the easiest task that falls into that category.

Instead, list specific items like, “write book report” or “study flash cards.” This way, you know exactly what you need to do and are less likely to put it off.

3. Find Your Preferred Study Routine

Sometimes you have to do homework when you’re tired or aren’t feeling well, but that doesn’t mean you should totally ignore what your body’s telling you.

According to the latest research , multiple 40-minute study sessions can be more productive than three-hour chunks. Experiment with studying at different times of day and for varying lengths of time.

Take notes about which sessions were productive and which ones weren’t to help you figure out your ideal study routine.

4. Download a Studying App

There’s no denying that phones can be distracting while studying. But if you use them wisely they can be a lot of help.

Use flashcard apps to create your own flashcards and gamify your study experience. These apps help you study in small bits throughout the day plus you won’t have to carry physical flashcards around with you.

There are other apps to help you learn a language, practice math, or take better notes . You can also use a homework scheduling app and color-code your assignments by subject.

5. Create a Productive Workspace

Using the same workspace every day can help you stick to your homework schedule. Avoid distracting places like the living room or kitchen, and try not to work on your bed or in front of the TV. Even small things, like making sure your laptop is charged or putting on your favorite study playlist, can make a big difference in your productivity.

Ideally, you should set aside a desk in a quiet room that’s comfortable enough to sit at for a few hours at a time. The more you use it for studying, the more you’ll associate it with productivity and be in the right headspace to get work done.

For some tips on how to get started, check out our guide on how to create the perfect homework environment .

6. Ask for Help if You Need it

Finally, don’t be afraid to reach out for support. Even if you have a good grasp on the material, sometimes studying alone can be isolating.

From joining an online study group to hiring a professional tutor for your SATs, there are plenty of ways to get outside support. You can ask a friend or parent to check in on your progress or proofread your assignments before you submit them.

Whether you’re in middle school, high school, or college, homework never really goes away. But you can make it more manageable with these six helpful homework and studying schedule tips.

Have You Tried a Smart Bag? Now’s the Time.

6 Heated Blankets to Keep You Warm

Do You Own a Paper Shredder? If Not, You Should.

Analyzing ‘the homework gap’ among high school students

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, michael hansen and michael hansen senior fellow - brown center on education policy , the herman and george r. brown chair - governance studies @drmikehansen diana quintero diana quintero former senior research analyst, brown center on education policy - the brookings institution, ph.d. student - vanderbilt university @quintero05diana.

August 10, 2017

Researchers have struggled for decades to identify a causal, or even correlational, relationship between time spent in school and improved learning outcomes for students. Some studies have focused on the length of a school year while others have focused on hours in a day and others on hours in the week .

In this blog post, we will look at time spent outside of school–specifically time spent doing homework–among different racial and socio-economic groups. We will use data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to shed light on those differences and then attempt to explain those gaps, using ATUS data and other evidence.

What we know about out-of-school time

Measuring the relationship between out-of-school time and outcomes like test scores can be difficult. Researchers are primarily confounded by an inability to determine what compels students to choose homework during their time off over other activities. Are those who spend more time on homework just extra motivated? Or are they struggling students who need to work harder to keep up? What role do social expectations from parents or peers play?

Previous studies have examined the impact of this outside time use on educational outcomes for students. A 2007 study using data from Berea College in Kentucky identified a causal relationship between hours spent studying and a student’s academic performance through an interesting measure. The researchers took advantage of randomly assigned college roommates, paying attention to those who came to campus with a video game console in tow. They hypothesized students randomly assigned to a roommate without a video game console would study more, since all other factors remained equal. That hypothesis held up, and that group also received significantly higher grades, demonstrating the causal relationship.

Other research has relied on data collected through the American Time Use Survey, a study of how Americans spend their time, and shown the existence of a gender gap and a parental education gap in homework time. Other studies have looked at the relationship between holding a job and student’s time use in discretionary activities , like sleep, media consumption, and time spent on homework. We are curious about out-of-school differences in homework time by race and income.

Descriptive statistics of time use

We began with a general sample of 2,575 full-time high school students between the ages of 15 and 18 from the ATUS, restricting the sample to their answers about time spent on homework during weekdays and school months (September to May). Among all high school students surveyed (those that reported completing their homework and those that did not), the time allocated to complete homework amounted to less than an hour per day, despite the fact that high school teachers report they assign an average of 3.5 hours of homework per day.

To explore racial or income-based differences, in Figure 1, we plot the minutes that students reporting spending on homework separately by their racial/ethnic group and family income. We observed a time gap between racial groups, with Asian students spending the most time on homework (nearly two hours a day). Similarly, we observe a time gap by the students’ family income.

Time high school students spend on homework by race and parents' income

We can also use ATUS data to isolate when students do homework by race and by income. In Figure 2, we plot the percentage of high school students in each racial and income group doing homework by the time of day. Percentages remain low during the school day and then expectedly increase when students get home, with more Asian students doing more homework and working later into the night than other racial groups. Low-income students reported doing less homework per hour than their non-low-income peers.

Percentage of high school students doing homework by time of day, race, and income

Initial attempts to explain the homework gap

We hypothesized that these racial and income-based time gaps could potentially be explained by other factors, like work, time spent caring for others, and parental education. We tested these hypotheses by separating groups based on particular characteristics and comparing the average number of minutes per day spent on homework amongst the comparison groups.

Students who work predictably reported spending less time on educational activities, so if working disproportionately affected particular racial or income groups, then work could help explain the time gap. Students who worked allocated on average 20 minutes less for homework than their counterparts who did not work. Though low-income students worked more hours than their peers, they largely maintained a similar level of homework time by reducing their leisure or extracurricular activities. Therefore, the time gap on homework changed only slightly with the inclusion of work as a factor.

We also incorporated time spent taking care of others in the household. Though a greater percentage of low-income students take care of other household members, we found that this does not have a statistically significant effect on homework because students reduce leisure, rather than homework, in an attempt to help their families. Therefore, this variable again does not explain the time gaps.

Finally, we considered parental education, since parents with more education have been shown to encourage their children to value school more and have the resources to ensure homework is completed more easily. Our analysis showed students with at least one parent with any post-secondary degree (associate or above) reported spending more time on homework than their counterparts whose parents do not hold a degree; however, gaps by race still existed, even holding parental education constant. Turning to income levels, we found that parental education is more correlated with homework time among low-income students, reducing the time gap between income groups to only eight minutes.

Societal explanations

Our analysis of ATUS could not fully explain this gap in time spent on homework, especially among racial groups. Instead, we believe that viewing homework as an outcome of the culture of the school and the expectations of teachers, rather than an outcome of a student’s effort, may provide some reasons for its persistence.

Many studies, including recent research , have shown that teachers perceive students of color as academically inferior to their white peers. A 2016 study by Seth Gershenson et al. showed that this expectations gap can also depend on the race of the teacher. In a country where minority students make up nearly half of all public school students, yet minority teachers comprise just 18 percent of the teacher workforce, these differences in expectations matter.

Students of color are also less likely to attend high schools that offer advanced courses (including Advanced Placement courses) that would likely assign more homework, and thus access to rigorous courses may partially explain the gaps as well.

Research shows a similar, if less well-documented, gap by income, with teachers reporting lower expectations and dimmer futures for their low-income students. Low-income students and students of color may be assigned less homework based on lower expectations for their success, thus preventing them from learning as much and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy .

In conclusion, these analyses of time use revealed a substantial gap in homework by race and by income group that could not be entirely explained by work, taking care of others, or parental education. Additionally, differences in educational achievement, especially as measured on standardized tests, have been well-documented by race and by income . These gaps deserve our attention, but we should be wary of blaming disadvantaged groups. Time use is an outcome reflecting multiple factors, not simply motivation, and a greater understanding of that should help raise expectations–and therefore, educational achievement–all around.

Sarah Novicoff contributed to this post.

You’ll Never Learn!

Students can’t resist multitasking, and it’s impairing their memory..

Photo by Louisa Goulimaki/AFP/Getty Images

Living rooms, dens, kitchens, even bedrooms: Investigators followed students into the spaces where homework gets done. Pens poised over their “study observation forms,” the observers watched intently as the students—in middle school, high school, and college, 263 in all—opened their books and turned on their computers.

For a quarter of an hour, the investigators from the lab of Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University–Dominguez Hills, marked down once a minute what the students were doing as they studied. A checklist on the form included: reading a book, writing on paper, typing on the computer—and also using email, looking at Facebook, engaging in instant messaging, texting, talking on the phone, watching television, listening to music, surfing the Web. Sitting unobtrusively at the back of the room, the observers counted the number of windows open on the students’ screens and noted whether the students were wearing earbuds.

Although the students had been told at the outset that they should “study something important, including homework, an upcoming examination or project, or reading a book for a course,” it wasn’t long before their attention drifted: Students’ “on-task behavior” started declining around the two-minute mark as they began responding to arriving texts or checking their Facebook feeds. By the time the 15 minutes were up, they had spent only about 65 percent of the observation period actually doing their schoolwork.

“We were amazed at how frequently they multitasked, even though they knew someone was watching,” Rosen says. “It really seems that they could not go for 15 minutes without engaging their devices,” adding, “It was kind of scary, actually.”

Concern about young people’s use of technology is nothing new, of course. But Rosen’s study , published in the May issue of Computers in Human Behavior , is part of a growing body of research focused on a very particular use of technology: media multitasking while learning . Attending to multiple streams of information and entertainment while studying, doing homework, or even sitting in class has become common behavior among young people—so common that many of them rarely write a paper or complete a problem set any other way.

But evidence from psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience suggests that when students multitask while doing schoolwork, their learning is far spottier and shallower than if the work had their full attention. They understand and remember less, and they have greater difficulty transferring their learning to new contexts. So detrimental is this practice that some researchers are proposing that a new prerequisite for academic and even professional success—the new marshmallow test of self-discipline—is the ability to resist a blinking inbox or a buzzing phone.

The media multitasking habit starts early. In “ Generation M 2 : Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds ,” a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and published in 2010, almost a third of those surveyed said that when they were doing homework, “most of the time” they were also watching TV, texting, listening to music, or using some other medium. The lead author of the study was Victoria Rideout, then a vice president at Kaiser and now an independent research and policy consultant. Although the study looked at all aspects of kids’ media use, Rideout told me she was particularly troubled by its findings regarding media multitasking while doing schoolwork.

“This is a concern we should have distinct from worrying about how much kids are online or how much kids are media multitasking overall. It’s multitasking while learning that has the biggest potential downside,” she says. “I don’t care if a kid wants to tweet while she’s watching American Idol , or have music on while he plays a video game. But when students are doing serious work with their minds, they have to have focus.”

For older students, the media multitasking habit extends into the classroom. While most middle and high school students don’t have the opportunity to text, email, and surf the Internet during class, studies show the practice is nearly universal among students in college and professional school. One large survey found that 80 percent of college students admit to texting during class; 15 percent say they send 11 or more texts in a single class period.

During the first meeting of his courses, Rosen makes a practice of calling on a student who is busy with his phone. “I ask him, ‘What was on the slide I just showed to the class?’ The student always pulls a blank,” Rosen reports. “Young people have a wildly inflated idea of how many things they can attend to at once, and this demonstration helps drive the point home: If you’re paying attention to your phone, you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in class.” Other professors have taken a more surreptitious approach, installing electronic spyware or planting human observers to record whether students are taking notes on their laptops or using them for other, unauthorized purposes.

Such steps may seem excessive, even paranoid: After all, isn’t technology increasingly becoming an intentional part of classroom activities and homework assignments? Educators are using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as social sites created just for schools, such as Edmodo, to communicate with students, take class polls, assign homework, and have students collaborate on projects. But researchers are concerned about the use of laptops, tablets, cellphones, and other technology for purposes quite apart from schoolwork. Now that these devices have been admitted into classrooms and study spaces, it has proven difficult to police the line between their approved and illicit uses by students.

In the study involving spyware , for example, two professors of business administration at the University of Vermont found that “students engage in substantial multitasking behavior with their laptops and have non-course-related software applications open and active about 42 percent of the time.” The professors, James Kraushaar and David Novak , obtained students’ permission before installing the monitoring software on their computers—so, as in Rosen’s study, the students were engaging in flagrant multitasking even though they knew their actions were being recorded.

Another study , carried out at St. John’s University in New York, used human observers stationed at the back of the classroom to record the technological activities of law students. The spies reported that 58 percent of second- and third-year law students who had laptops in class were using them for “non-class purposes” more than half the time. (First-year students were far more likely to use their computers for taking notes, although an observer did note one first-year student texting just 17 minutes into her very first class—the beginning of her law school career.)

Texting, emailing, and posting on Facebook and other social media sites are by far the most common digital activities students undertake while learning, according to Rosen. That’s a problem, because these operations are actually quite mentally complex, and they draw on the same mental resources—using language, parsing meaning—demanded by schoolwork.

David Meyer , a psychology professor at the University of Michigan who’s studied the effects of divided attention on learning, takes a firm line on the brain’s ability to multitask: “Under most conditions, the brain simply cannot do two complex tasks at the same time. It can happen only when the two tasks are both very simple and when they don’t compete with each other for the same mental resources. An example would be folding laundry and listening to the weather report on the radio. That’s fine. But listening to a lecture while texting, or doing homework and being on Facebook—each of these tasks is very demanding, and each of them uses the same area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex.”

Young people think they can perform two challenging tasks at once, Meyer acknowledges, but “they are deluded,” he declares. It’s difficult for anyone to properly evaluate how well his or her own mental processes are operating, he points out, because most of these processes are unconscious. And, Meyer adds, “there’s nothing magical about the brains of so-called ‘digital natives’ that keeps them from suffering the inefficiencies of multitasking. They may like to do it, they may even be addicted to it, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s far better to focus on one task from start to finish.”

Researchers have documented a cascade of negative outcomes that occurs when students multitask while doing schoolwork. First, the assignment takes longer to complete, because of the time spent on distracting activities and because, upon returning to the assignment, the student has to refamiliarize himself with the material.

Second, the mental fatigue caused by repeatedly dropping and picking up a mental thread leads to more mistakes. The cognitive cost of such task-switching is especially high when students alternate between tasks that call for different sets of expressive “rules”—the formal, precise language required for an English essay, for example, and the casual, friendly tone of an email to a friend.

Third, students’ subsequent memory of what they’re working on will be impaired if their attention is divided. Although we often assume that our memories fail at the moment we can’t recall a fact or concept, the failure may actually have occurred earlier, at the time we originally saved, or encoded, the memory. The moment of encoding is what matters most for retention, and dozens of laboratory studies have demonstrated that when our attention is divided during encoding , we remember that piece of information less well—or not at all. As the unlucky student spotlighted by Rosen can attest, we can’t remember something that never really entered our consciousness in the first place. And a study last month showed that students who multitask on laptops in class distract not just themselves but also their peers who see what they’re doing.

Fourth, some research has suggested that when we’re distracted, our brains actually process and store information in different, less useful ways. In a 2006 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , Russell Poldrack of the University of Texas–Austin and two colleagues asked participants to engage in a learning activity on a computer while also carrying out a second task, counting musical tones that sounded while they worked. Study subjects who did both tasks at once appeared to learn just as well as subjects who did the first task by itself. But upon further probing, the former group proved much less adept at extending and extrapolating their new knowledge to novel contexts—a key capacity that psychologists call transfer.

Brain scans taken during Poldrack’s experiment revealed that different regions of the brain were active under the two conditions, indicating that the brain engages in a different form of memory when forced to pay attention to two streams of information at once. The results suggest, the scientists wrote, that “even if distraction does not decrease the overall level of learning, it can result in the acquisition of knowledge that can be applied less flexibly in new situations.”

Finally, researchers are beginning to demonstrate that media multitasking while learning is negatively associated with students’ grades. In Rosen’s study, students who used Facebook during the 15-minute observation period had lower grade-point averages than those who didn’t go on the site. And two recent studies by Reynol Junco , a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society , found that texting and using Facebook—in class and while doing homework—were negatively correlated with college students’ GPAs. “Engaging in Facebook use or texting while trying to complete schoolwork may tax students’ capacity for cognitive processing and preclude deeper learning,” write Junco and a co-author. (Of course, it’s also plausible that the texting and Facebooking students are those with less willpower or motivation, and thus likely to have lower GPAs even aside from their use of technology.)

Meyer, of the University of Michigan, worries that the problem goes beyond poor grades. “There’s a definite possibility that we are raising a generation that is learning more shallowly than young people in the past,” he says. “The depth of their processing of information is considerably less, because of all the distractions available to them as they learn.”

Given that these distractions aren’t going away, academic and even professional achievement may depend on the ability to ignore digital temptations while learning—a feat akin to the famous marshmallow test. In a series of experiments conducted more than 40 years ago, psychologist Walter Mischel tempted young children with a marshmallow, telling them they could have two of the treats if they put off eating one right away. Follow-up studies performed years later found that the kids who were better able to delay gratification not only achieved higher grades and test scores but were also more likely to succeed in school and their careers.

Two years ago, Rosen and his colleagues conducted an information-age version of the marshmallow test. College students who participated in the study were asked to watch a 30-minute videotaped lecture, during which some were sent eight text messages while others were sent four or zero text messages. Those who were interrupted more often scored worse on a test of the lecture’s content; more interestingly, those who responded to the experimenters’ texts right away scored significantly worse than those participants who waited to reply until the lecture was over.

This ability to resist the lure of technology can be consciously cultivated, Rosen maintains. He advises students to take “tech breaks” to satisfy their cravings for electronic communication: After they’ve labored on their schoolwork uninterrupted for 15 minutes, they can allow themselves two minutes to text, check websites, and post to their hearts’ content. Then the devices get turned off for another 15 minutes of academics.

Over time, Rosen says, students are able extend their working time to 20, 30, even 45 minutes, as long as they know that an opportunity to get online awaits. “Young people’s technology use is really about quelling anxiety,” he contends. “They don’t want to miss out. They don’t want to be the last person to hear some news, or the ninth person to ‘like’ someone’s post.” Device-checking is a compulsive behavior that must be managed, he says, if young people are to learn and perform at their best.

Rideout, director of the Kaiser study on kids and media use, sees an upside for parents in the new focus on multitasking while learning. “The good thing about this phenomenon is that it’s a relatively discrete behavior that parents actually can do something about,” she says. “It would be hard to enforce a total ban on media multitasking, but parents can draw a line when it comes to homework and studying—telling their kids, ‘This is a time when you will concentrate on just one thing.’ ”

Parents shouldn’t feel like ogres when they do so, she adds. “It’s important to remember that while a lot of kids do media multitask while doing homework, a lot of them don’t. One out of five kids in our study said they ‘never’ engage in other media while doing homework, and another one in five said they do so only ‘a little bit.’ This is not some universal norm that students and parents can’t buck. This is not an unreasonable thing to ask of your kid.”

So here’s the takeaway for parents of Generation M: Stop fretting about how much they’re on Facebook. Don’t harass them about how much they play video games. The digital native boosters are right that this is the social and emotional world in which young people live. Just make sure when they’re doing schoolwork, the cellphones are silent, the video screens are dark, and that every last window is closed but one.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University, and MindShift , a news website focusing on innovations in education and new trends in teaching and learning.

PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
EDIT Edit this Article
EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
Browse Articles
Learn Something New
Quizzes Hot
This Or That Game New
Train Your Brain
Explore More
Support wikiHow
About wikiHow
Log in / Sign up
Education and Communications
Study Skills
Homework Skills

How to Stay Awake While Studying

Last Updated: March 21, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Jennifer Kaifesh . Jennifer Kaifesh is the Founder of Great Expectations College Prep, a tutoring and counseling service based in Southern California. Jennifer has over 15 years of experience managing and facilitating academic tutoring and standardized test prep as it relates to the college application process. She takes a personal approach to her tutoring, and focuses on working with students to find their specific mix of pursuits that they both enjoy and excel at. She is a graduate of Northwestern University. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 374,356 times.

Studying is hard work, and all that work often makes you tired! Sometimes, studying through your fatigue is part of the road to success and getting good grades in school. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help increase your energy and focus .

Here are 16 tricks to help you stay awake while you’re studying.

Study somewhere that’s not too comfortable.

Feeling too comfortable makes you more drowsy.

If you like to study at home, make yourself a dedicated study space . This could be a corner of your room with a desk and a chair or a kitchen table. Wherever you can concentrate without being too comfortable is great!

Change your study spot every day to boost your memory.

This keeps you out of a single comfort zone that can make you tired.

Choose locations that fit your studying style and personality. For example, if you study best in silence, pick a library or quiet room, whereas if you prefer background noise, opt for a cafe or common area.

Turn on bright lights if you’re studying late at night.

The right lighting helps your brain focus on the data it’s absorbing.

If your space doesn’t have much lighting, relocate to a brighter area, if possible.

Eliminate outside distractions if you can’t concentrate.

You can also turn your phone off, leave it in a different room, or put it on “Do Not Disturb” mode, so you don’t receive any texts or notifications.
If you’re easily distracted by surfing the Internet, use an app or Internet browser extension that lets you set controls to block certain websites for a set period of time so you aren’t tempted.

Listen to upbeat music to keep your brain alert.

The right music can help your brain process and retain new info.

If you’re in a public place, use headphones to listen to the music of your choice.
Look for upbeat playlists online or on a music app. You can also find premade playlists with music specifically for studying.

Read out loud to engage your brain.

You’re less likely to fall asleep if you listen to your own voice.

If you don’t want to read everything out loud, you can also try talking to yourself when you study. For example, when you finish studying a topic, say out loud: “Okay, I finished studying for my history test, now I can study for the English exam!”

Chew mint gum while you study to wake up your brain.

Mint is linked to enhanced cognitive function.

Keep a pack of mint-flavored gum in your backpack or pencil case so you always have it with you when you’re studying.

Eat foods that are high in protein for longer-lasting energy.

Protein gives you energy without making you sleepy like carbs do.

Avoid sugary foods or drinks, like cookies or soda, along with carb-heavy foods, like potato chips. These might give you a quick boost, but you’ll crash later on.
Try to eat every 2 to 3 hours, even if it’s just something small, to avoid low blood sugar, which makes you feel sleepy.

Drink lots of water to fight fatigue.

Avoid alcohol, particularly on days when you're studying or the day before. Drinking alcohol regularly can negatively affect your brain function along with dehydrating you.

Drink a caffeinated beverage if you want an instant boost.

Be aware that coffee and other caffeinated drinks can actually be dehydrating, so you should drink water with them, too.
Avoid drinking coffee or consuming anything with caffeine, like chocolate, soda, or tea, within 6 hours of when you plan to go to bed or you may have trouble falling asleep.
Don’t consume more than 200 mg of caffeine in a day. Too much caffeine can be very dangerous for your heart and can also worsen existing conditions, like anxiety or depression.
Avoid energy drinks and pills that contain caffeine and/or chemicals. While quick fixes are tempting, they can have dangerous side effects, like increased anxiety or even heart problems. [9] X Research source

Study in 25-minute intervals if you like having scheduled breaks.

Try what’s known as the Pomodoro technique to keep yourself on track.

Use your 5-minute breaks to relax and recharge your brain. Do something unrelated to what you’re studying, like stretching out your body or watching a funny YouTube video.
Take a longer 30-minute break after you complete 4 intervals.
Try to keep each total study session to no more than 5 hours long. If you study for longer than that, you’ll likely get burnt out.

Take a 10- to 20-minute nap if you’re really tired.

If possible, choose a spot that’s quiet and dark to take your nap, which will help you get better quality sleep.
Make sure you're getting at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, too. Naps are a good boost but they aren't a substitute for uninterrupted sleep.

Exercise for 15 to 20 minutes to get your blood flowing.

This improves your concentration and mood.

If you can, do your exercise outside for even more benefits. Fresh air is an instant energy boost. Instead, you can meditate for 10 minutes.
You can also find ways to incorporate exercise into your studying. For instance, swap your chair for a stability ball to work your core while you sit, or do stretches at your desk while you read.
If you’re studying in intervals, try taking an exercise break after each one. For example, after studying for 25 minutes, do 5 minutes of bodyweight exercises like pushups and jumping jacks.

Switch topics every 30-60 minutes to stay focused.

The variety helps your brain refocus on the new subject.

If you’re studying in timed intervals, switch the topic you’re studying after each interval.
If you're only studying for 1 class, like English, change the specific material you're reviewing if possible. For instance, start with Shakespeare, then move to Chaucer.

Organize a study group if you get tired of working alone.

This makes studying less boring and monotonous.

Keep your study group to 3 to 6 people. Too many people can become distracting or difficult to manage.
Stay on task by setting group goals for each study session, like finishing 2 chapters of a textbook or covering 1 topic. Otherwise, it may be tempting to just waste time talking or goofing off.You can also do meditation for 10minutes

Try to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night.

If you’re not sleeping well, it’s harder to stay awake while you study.

Note that this is how much sleep the average person needs. Some people need a few more hours to feel rested and others do fine with less. The most important thing is to be consistent with your sleep. If you feel good with 6 hours of sleep a night or need up to 9, that’s fine too.

Supercharge Your Studying with this Expert Series

Expert Q&A

Reader Videos

↑ https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/how-does-the-brain-learn-best-10-smart-studying-strategies/
↑ https://www.aiuniv.edu/blog/2016/may/stay-energized-for-late-night-studying
↑ https://success.oregonstate.edu/learning/ready-set-concentrate
↑ https://www.fastcompany.com/3022942/the-surprising-science-behind-what-music-does-to-our-brains
↑ https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/how-to-stop-falling-asleep-while-studying-17-tips-to-keep-you-awake-for-board-exam-preparation-1648066-2020-02-19
↑ https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/17/does-chewing-gum-while-studying-help-you-remember/
↑ https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/26/health/energy-drinks-health-concerns-explainer/index.html
↑ https://learningcommons.ubc.ca/the-pomodoro-technique-study-more-efficiently-take-more-breaks/
↑ https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/how-take-nap-will-actually-boost-your-energy-ncna793681
↑ https://www.auamed.org/blog/12-ways-exercise-study/
↑ https://news.fiu.edu/2013/12/8-study-tips-that-will-help-you-overcome-finals-week/70573
↑ https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-experience/college-life/how-to-organize-use-study-groups/

About This Article

Medical Disclaimer

The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment. You should always contact your doctor or other qualified healthcare professional before starting, changing, or stopping any kind of health treatment.

Reader Success Stories

Hemani Tikoo

Aug 19, 2021

Did this article help you?

Feb 14, 2020

Featured Articles

Watch Articles

Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Do Not Sell or Share My Info
Not Selling Info

Get all the best how-tos!

Subscribe or renew today

Every print subscription comes with full digital access

Science News

Your last-minute guide to the 2024 total solar eclipse.

Millions of people are inside the path of totality in the United States for the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse. Cities in the path are making plans to celebrate the event, like erecting giant eclipse glasses.

SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images

When and where can I watch the eclipse?

The sun’s shadow is scheduled to enter North America via the west coast of Mexico around 12 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. The path of totality then continues diagonally across the continental United States, hitting states such as Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio and New York, Vermont and Maine. It creeps into Canada via Ontario and Quebec, before finally exiting through Newfoundland and Labrador at about 5:15 p.m. Newfoundland Daylight Time.

This interactive map from NASA can help you prepare for your eclipse viewing. Search and click on your location, and a pop-up panel will inform you of the spot’s weather and the exact times of the solar eclipse’s progression.

What are eclipse glasses and where can I get them?

Wearing proper eyewear is essential. Regular sunglasses will not protect you when you look directly at the sun ( SNE: 4/27/17 ). And you do not want to stare at the sun with naked eyes; that can damage your eyes. Therefore, you need to get your hands on eclipse glasses if you have not already done so.

It might be too late for you to order a pair from an online retailer. Plus, the American Astronomical Society issued a warning on counterfeit and fake eclipse glasses that are sold on the internet. It posted lists of trusted manufacturers and vendors that sell pairs that are ISO certified, which ensures safety. Both webpages can also be helpful when checking the validity of the glasses that you already own.

Fear not if you have not secured eclipse glasses. Big-box stores such as Lowe’s Home Improvement might still have some in stock. You might also be able to pick up a free pair of eclipse glasses at a library, museum or Warby Parker store .

What if I don’t get a pair of eclipse glasses in time?

There are still several ways to observe the eclipse. One of the easiest ways is to use a strainer or a colander — or any object with holes , really — to observe the object’s shadow. You can also cross your fingers so they look like a waffle to create holes if you’re in a pinch. It might feel less exciting than watching the sun itself, but it is still pretty cool to see the shadows going from their original shapes to crescents as the moon overtakes the sun. You can also devise your own pinhole camera if you are feeling crafty.

There will also be plenty of livestreams. U.S. National Science Foundation will stream one from Dallas . NASA will offer several , including one in Spanish and another with a telescope feed. The agency will also broadcast the launch of three rockets during the eclipse to study how the dimming of the sun affects Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Other science projects will also offer live feeds. One example is the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project , which will send weather balloons to observe the atmospheric perturbations during the eclipse. Participating teams plan to stream the views from the edge of space .

Are there cool science phenomena to watch out for?

If you happen to look away from the sun, you may notice a perceived shift in color occurring on Earth ( SN: 4/1/24 ). Blues and green will become more noticeable, while reds become dark or even black. And because the sun will be close to its solar maximum, people might be able to see petal-like streams or a large puff of gas shooting away from the star’s surface ( SN: 1/4/24 ).

For more eclipse stories, our student magazine Science News Explores prepared a special issue for young eclipse watchers, and our publisher Society for Science collected resources , ready for you to browse.

How can I take good pictures of the solar eclipse using a smartphone?

You can place a solar filter or an extra pair of eclipse glasses in front of the smartphone’s lens to photograph the partial eclipse. But make sure to remove the filter during the totality. Also, don’t forget to turn of the camera’s flash. Space.com has an eight-step guide for acing the shots.

Are there any cool citizen science projects that I can participate in?

There are a few that are still taking volunteers. One is SunSketcher. Using the SunSketcher app to capture images of the sun will help scientists to study the bright spots called Baily’s beads that appear before and after totality. Download the app on your phone and start running it at least five minutes before the total eclipse to contribute.

The Eclipse Soundscapes Project will collect sound data to study how eclipses affect life on Earth. It might be too late to sign up to become a data collector, but you can still participate by becoming a data analyst .

When is the next total solar eclipse?

There will not be a total eclipse in the United States and Canada for another 20 years. But if you’re up for travel, other countries will experience totality before 2044 ( SN: 4/4/24 ) . For example, Spain will be on the path of totality in 2026 and 2027, China and Japan in 2035, and Australia in 2028, 2030, 2037 and 2038.

And stay tuned for coverage from our astronomy writer Adam Mann, who will be on-site near Dallas with some scientists studying — and experiencing the wonder — of this total solar eclipse.

What Science News saw during the solar eclipse

During the awe of totality, scientists studied our planet’s reactions

A photograph of Oluwatoyin Asojo who's faintly smiling while standing in an empty white hallway by large panels of windows. She is wearing a dress with black, white, brown and red geometric patterns, black coat, black and brown knee-high boots, green scarf with patterns, and brown and orange necklace.

Protein whisperer Oluwatoyin Asojo fights neglected diseases

A chromolithograph of the sun during the total solar eclipse in 1878

How a 19th century astronomer can help you watch the total solar eclipse

Timbre can affect what harmony is music to our ears

Not all cultures value happiness over other aspects of well-being

Cady Coleman looks through a circular window on the ISS.

‘Space: The Longest Goodbye’ explores astronauts’ mental health

a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile in a silo

‘Countdown’ takes stock of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile

Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions.

Not a subscriber? Become one now .

IMAGES

Homework Help: Tips From Teachers
How To Encourage Kids To Do Homework
Setting up a Study Area with Unlimited Space
10 Homework & Study Tips For Kids With ADD/ADHD
Focused children doing homework at table · Free Stock Photo
File:Boy doing homework (4596604619).jpg

VIDEO

Trying to do your homework be like
УЧИТЬ, УЧИТЬСЯ, ИЗУЧАТЬ, ЗАНИМАТЬСЯ (elementary)
Doing my Homework
🧷✧˚🎀 full week STUDY VLOG *intense*
Is Doing Homework in the Hallways the Secret to Academic Success? 📚🏫
Make studying fun with this method!

COMMENTS

How to Do Homework: 15 Expert Tips and Tricks
You finish one episode, then decide to watch another even though you've got SAT studying to do. It's just more fun to watch people make scones. D. Start the episode, but only catch bits and pieces of it because you're reading Twitter, cleaning out your backpack, and eating a snack at the same time. 5.
Homework vs Study: Everything You Need To Know
Study is exactly the same as homework, except that you nominate for yourself what work to do, and you do it at a time that's removed from the class in which you learned the content. Let's take a typical maths class as an example. In class the teacher shows you a concept, and then asks you to do a few exercises in class so that they can make ...
Studying vs Homework: 8 Things Your Child (and You) Should Know
The terms 'studying' and 'doing homework' are often used synonymously. Especially in upper level education, they both mean essentially the same thing -- learning and preparing for school done outside of class time. But there are some important differences in what they mean to your child and how they should be approached.
16 Ways to Concentrate on Your Homework
Get up and walk or stretch occasionally, or even do jumping jacks or run in place for a couple of minutes. Standing up while you work is also a great way to boost your focus. [1] Try sitting on an exercise ball or wobbly chair when you're doing your homework. The movement may help you stay focused.
How to Do Homework (with Pictures)
The best way to do homework is in a quiet space without distractions, where you'll be able to spend however much time you need to do your homework comfortably. Whether at home or elsewhere, a quiet spot is necessary for a good homework session. ... In public, the library is a great place to study and do homework. At all libraries, it's a rule ...
Homework & Study Distraction Tips From The Experts
How to Study Without Distractions - 10 Tips From the Experts. Keep distractions to a minimum. Q: Sometimes homework and studying time can be right in the middle of other family member activities. What are some ways students can concentrate and avoid being distracted when doing homework or studying in a high-traffic area like the kitchen or ...
How to Focus on Homework: 12 Hacks for Busy Students
Decide on fixed hours for studying and tell your friends and family members that you won't be available during that time of the day. If others respect your study time, you'll be more inclined to respect it as well. 6. Listen to study music. There are many tracks out there designed to help your mind focus.
Key Lessons: What Research Says About the Value of Homework
Asian American students may benefit more from homework than do students from other ethnic groups. A national study of the influence of homework on student grades across five ethnic groups found that homework had a stronger impact on Asian American students than on students of other ethnicities (Keith and Benson, 1992).
Homework Help: Everything You Need to Know
Study groups allow for discussions, sharing of ideas, and clarifying doubts, enhancing the overall understanding of the material. Find a Tutor: Tutoring can significantly help students when they are having difficulty studying or doing homework alone. A tutor can solely be there as support for your child when they need help, and they can also ...
How to Help Students Develop the Skills They Need to Complete Homework
When doing homework, students should write down their ideas, whether they are notes while reading, numbers when working through a math problem, or non-school-related reminders about chores, such as remembering to take the dog for a walk. Clearing working memory for the immediate task at hand allows the brain to focus as the strain is reduced.
STUDYING VS. HOMEWORK
Homework carries a point or grade value toward the final grade. There is always studying that can be done. When there is no homework there is nothing the student must do. Most of what takes place in college is studying, with "assignments" (the college word for "homework") scattered throughout in various forms, such as papers, projects ...
Homework challenges and strategies
Try creating a homework schedule and set a specific time and place for your child to get homework done. Use a timer to help your child stay on track and get a better sense of time. Learn about trouble with planning. The challenge: Studying effectively. Many kids need to be taught how to study effectively. But some may need concrete strategies.
3 Ways to Get Your Homework Done Fast
Every 25 minutes or so, take about 5 minutes to stretch and walk around to give your brain and body a quick rest. [11] 2. Eat snacks and drink water. Drink plenty of water and eat light, healthy, tasty snacks while you work to enjoy foods that you like, enhance your memory, and revitalize your brain and body.
Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?
Bempechat: I can't imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.. Ardizzone: Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you're being listened to—that's such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County.It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she ...
Doing Homework: Ins and Outs for Students
Being a student means studying, doing homework, going to the library, and dealing with many other things that can sometimes be annoying. It's really tough, especially in the first year of ...
Is Multitasking Bad For Students?
A study by Common Sense Media found that half of teens say they often watch TV or use social media while doing homework, and 60% say they text while doing homework. Of the students who multitask, two-thirds say they don't think watching TV, texting, or using social media while doing homework makes any difference in the quality of their ...
How to Focus on Homework:18 Specific Tips to Use
Thus, large meals can make you unproductive. Instead, preparing snacks and water beforehand is one of the easy-to-implement tips to help focus on homework. Water prevents dehydration and helps in digestion. Healthy snacks are a crucial element of a well-balanced diet, particularly when studying for long periods.
10 tips for staying focused when learning from home
Making to-do lists for school, work, and other goals is a must for me. I'm much less likely to miss pesky homework deadlines when they're all stored in one place. 6. Play around with sound. Some of my friends like to listen to classical music while they study. When I'm taking an online quiz, I turn on a fan to cover noise from my neighbors.
6 Tips for a Homework & Studying Schedule That Actually Works
This means engaging with the concepts consistently over a longer span of time. If you want to cut down on the all-nighters, try these six easy tips to create a homework and studying schedule that actually works. 1. Review Your Homework in Advance. First, set some time aside at the beginning of your semester or school term to look over your ...
Analyzing 'the homework gap' among high school students
A 2007 study using data from Berea College in Kentucky identified a causal relationship between hours spent studying and a student's academic performance through an interesting measure. The ...
Multitasking while studying: Divided attention and technological
Attending to multiple streams of information and entertainment while studying, doing homework, or even sitting in class has become common behavior among young people—so common that many of them ...
Does doing your homework count as a form of study? : r/study
If you do it as a means to test yourself and study the questions/theory - I'd say yes. An argument may be there for - regardless of any of the above, if you interact with it, you subconsciously are more familiar with it, I suppose. But that's more using 'hope' as a tactic to learn, which will not profit. So use homework as a means to learn!
Math Homework Can End Up Doing More Harm Than Good, Study Shows
Giving pupils math homework can sometimes do more harm than good, according to a new study - particularly when the tasks involved in the work are too complex for kids to complete even with the help of their parents. ... The issues identified by the study included homework being too difficult - even with parental help - as well as the work ...
16 Ways to Stay Awake While Studying
Pick your favorite mint flavor like spearmint, peppermint, or wintermint. Pop a piece of gum in your mouth while you study to increase blood flow to your brain and increase your mental arousal. [6] Keep a pack of mint-flavored gum in your backpack or pencil case so you always have it with you when you're studying. 8.
Your last-minute guide to the 2024 total solar eclipse
For many living in North America, April 8 will be a day to remember for years to come. The sun's shadow is scheduled to enter North America via the west coast of Mexico around 12 p.m. Mountain ...