Homework 101: Tips to Focus on Your College Homework

Homework is one of the most daunting tasks of your college experience. However, be assured that neither your professors are out to get you nor any homework is devised for making your life miserable. Here are some cool and practical tips to focus on your homework and finish it in record time.

Before You Start

1. Choose A Place

Do your homework only in one location and do not do anything else there. Your body and mind should attune to studying when you go there. This can be a separate room if you are at your home or even a separate chair and desk in your small dorm would suffice.

2. Ambiance is Critical

Do not clutter the chosen place with anything not related to your college and studies. Fiction books, family pictures, or any other object unrelated to your homework must be strictly avoided. Do not create any wanton distractions to your focus in your homework place.

3. Hunger Management

Do not have any meals in the middle of your homework time. Schedule it with a minimum of 30-45-minute gap before and after the session and any meal of the day. You must not be overladen with food neither must be hungry while you do your homework.

4. 3 Feet Rule

Keep things like water, stationaries, and books within an arm’s reach from your study table. You must not leave more than 3 feet away from the space you have allotted for doing your homework unless you are consciously taking a break.

5. Schedule & Inform

Your friends and family must know your homework time. Inform them not to call you or disturb you during the session. This may sound a bit over the top at first. However, this is a very useful tip that will help you increase your commitment not to break a session unless absolutely necessary.

6. Plan Ahead, ALWAYS!

Plan and write down the order of the homework you are going to handle for the session. You know very well that just winging it won’t work in an exam. Neither will it work for your homework session. Remember that having a sound plan is work half done.

During the Homework Session

7. Task Listing

Have an equal spread of easy and hard tasks ending with an easy task. Do not bundle all easy tasks or hard tasks together because you will surely quit while you try to complete one hard task after the other. With an alternating list, you will always have an easy task to look forward to when you struggle with the hard ones.

8. My Phone Ate it!

One of the most important objects of distraction is your mobile phone. DO NOT TOUCH IT, Ever! Make a owe or even hand it to someone else if you can. “Just checking a tweet or message” will be all you know before you end up wasting the entire session on your beloved mobile.

9. Splitting Huge Tasks

Some homework answers take more than an hour to complete. Split them into smaller sections and place them based on the difficulty as seen in tip #7. This will ensure you are not overinvesting your energy on one homework and become ineffective for the others.

10. Take Breaks

An average human brain can work tirelessly for a maximum of 40-50 mins. Any amount of time more than that will be practically staring at the book. Be judicious with your 5-10-minute breaks. Just one rule though, NO phones even during that time.

11. Avoid Multi-Tasking

Even if it might sound very tempting to multi-task during your homework session, working on a math problem with a pen and a paper and a marketing essay on your laptop is not a wise decision to take. You will only come to the ground between two stools.

12. Smile a Lot

This may sound crazy. Yet smiling a lot will take the stress away. Smile at hard questions and textbook solutions. Your mind will relate that action to a pleasant situation and will remove any negative or opposing thoughts to the task you are doing.

Once You Finish

13. Tidy It Up

It is a very tempting proposition to just drop your pen on the paper or to leave your laptop open and run the hell away once you complete the last sentence of your college essay or the answer to your last homework problem. However, take your time to put things away properly.

14. Ease Out of It

Do not binge jump into social media or the game you wanted to play on your phone instantly. Immediate changes like that will lead to a mental make-up of “I hate homework!” So coming back will become a harder task for your next session.

15. Reward Yourself

Keep some kind of rewards like a nice bath, a new movie, or episode on Netflix or your favorite food every single time you successfully end a homework session. This is a great motivation and researchers assert that self-rewards are a great way to improve your self-esteem.

16. Celebrate

Dancing, singing, or jumping around for a minute might be a crazy idea. But who cares? Do it if you feel like it to let all the stress out of your body and mind at the end of the session. This will help you to come back easier to the next homework session.

17. Let Others Know

Be a braggart! Inform your family or friends you are successful with the current session. This is a counter check to ensure you do not stop half way. You will actually start looking forward to doing this after every session just like your reward.

18. No Double Checking

Do not worry about the work you have completed. That is for the next session and next schedule. You are committed not to think about anything else during your homework session. The same commitment must be applied in reverse once you are done with it as well.