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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!) 

Need more help with this topic? Check out Tutorbase!

Our vetted tutor database includes a range of experienced educators who can help you polish an essay for English or explain how derivatives work for Calculus. You can use dozens of filters and search criteria to find the perfect person for your needs.

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.

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30 Tips to Stop Procrastinating and Find Motivation to Do Homework

Updated on June 6, 2023 By Daniel Wong 44 Comments

To stop procrastinating on homework, you need to find motivation to do the homework in the first place.

But first, you have to overcome feeling too overwhelmed to even start.

You know what it feels like when everything hits you at once, right?

You have three tests to study for and a math assignment due tomorrow.

And you’ve got a history report due the day after.

You tell yourself to get down to work. But with so much to do, you feel overwhelmed.

So you procrastinate.

You check your social media feed, watch a few videos, and get yourself a drink. But you know that none of this is bringing you closer to getting the work done.

Does this sound familiar?

Don’t worry – you are not alone. Procrastination is a problem that everyone faces, but there are ways around it.

By following the tips in this article, you’ll be able to overcome procrastination and consistently find the motivation to do the homework .

So read on to discover 30 powerful tips to help you stop procrastinating on your homework.

Enter your email below to download a PDF summary of this article. The PDF contains all the tips found here, plus  3 exclusive bonus tips that you’ll only find in the PDF.

How to stop procrastinating and motivate yourself to do your homework.

Procrastination when it comes to homework isn’t just an issue of laziness or a lack of motivation .

The following tips will help you to first address the root cause of your procrastination and then implement strategies to keep your motivation levels high.

1. Take a quiz to see how much you procrastinate.

The first step to changing your behavior is to become more self-aware.

How often do you procrastinate? What kinds of tasks do you tend to put off? Is procrastination a small or big problem for you?

To answer these questions, I suggest that you take this online quiz designed by Psychology Today .

2. Figure out why you’re procrastinating.

Procrastination is a complex issue that involves multiple factors.

Stop thinking of excuses for not doing your homework , and figure out what’s keeping you from getting started.

Are you procrastinating because:

• You’re not sure you’ll be able to solve all the homework problems?
• You’re subconsciously rebelling against your teachers or parents?
• You’re not interested in the subject or topic?
• You’re physically or mentally tired?
• You’re waiting for the perfect time to start?
• You don’t know where to start?

Once you’ve identified exactly why you’re procrastinating, you can pick out the tips in this article that will get to the root of the problem.

3. Write down what you’re procrastinating on.

Students tend to procrastinate when they’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

But you might be surprised to discover that simply by writing down the specific tasks you’re putting off, the situation will feel more manageable.

It’s a quick solution, and it makes a real difference.

Give it a try and you’ll be less likely to procrastinate.

4. Put your homework on your desk.

Here’s an even simpler idea.

Many times, the hardest part of getting your homework done is getting started.

It doesn’t require a lot of willpower to take out your homework and put it on your desk.

But once it’s sitting there in front of you, you’ll be much closer to actually getting down to work.

5. Break down the task into smaller steps.

This one trick will make any task seem more manageable.

For example, if you have a history report to write, you could break it down into the following steps:

• Read the history textbook
• Do online research
• Organize the information
• Create an outline
• Write the introduction
• Write the body paragraphs
• Write the conclusion
• Edit and proofread the report

Focus on just one step at a time. This way, you won’t need to motivate yourself to write the whole report at one go.

This is an important technique to use if you want to study smart and get more done .

6. Create a detailed timeline with specific deadlines.

As a follow-up to Point #5, you can further combat procrastination by creating a timeline with specific deadlines.

Using the same example above, I’ve added deadlines to each of the steps:

• Jan 30 th : Read the history textbook
• Feb 2 nd : Do online research
• Feb 3 rd : Organize the information
• Feb 5 th : Create an outline
• Feb 8 th : Write the introduction
• Feb 12 th : Write the body paragraphs
• Feb 14 th : Write the conclusion
• Feb 16 th : Edit and proofread the report

Assigning specific dates creates a sense of urgency, which makes it more likely that you’ll keep to the deadlines.

7. Spend time with people who are focused and hardworking.

Jim Rohn famously said that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

If you hang out with people who are motivated and hardworking, you’ll become more like them.

Likewise, if you hang out with people who continually procrastinate, you’ll become more like them too.

Motivation to do homework naturally increases when you surround yourself with the right people.

So choose your friends wisely. Find homework buddies who will influence you positively to become a straight-A student who leads a balanced life.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have any fun! It just means that you and your friends know when it’s time to get down to work and when it’s time to enjoy yourselves.

8. Tell at least two or three people about the tasks you plan to complete.

When you tell others about the tasks you intend to finish, you’ll be more likely to follow through with your plans.

This is called “accountability,” and it kicks in because you want to be seen as someone who keeps your word.

So if you know about this principle, why not use it to your advantage?

You could even ask a friend to be your accountability buddy. At the beginning of each day, you could text each other what you plan to work on that day.

Then at the end of the day, you could check in with each other to see if things went according to plan.

9. Change your environment .

Maybe it’s your environment that’s making you feel sluggish.

When you’re doing your homework, is your super-comfortable bed just two steps away? Or is your distracting computer within easy reach?

If your environment is part of your procrastination problem, then change it.

Sometimes all you need is a simple change of scenery. Bring your work to the dining room table and get it done there. Or head to a nearby café to complete your report.

10. Talk to people who have overcome their procrastination problem.

If you have friends who consistently win the battle with procrastination, learn from their experience.

What was the turning point for them? What tips and strategies do they use? What keeps them motivated?

Find all this out, and then apply the information to your own situation.

11. Decide on a reward to give yourself after you complete your task.

“Planned” rewards are a great way to motivate yourself to do your homework.

The reward doesn’t have to be something huge.

For instance, you might decide that after you finish 10 questions of your math homework, you get to watch your favorite TV show.

Or you might decide that after reading one chapter of your history textbook, you get to spend 10 minutes on Facebook.

By giving yourself a reward, you’ll feel more motivated to get through the task at hand.

12. Decide on a consequence you’ll impose on yourself if you don’t meet the deadline.

It’s important that you decide on what the consequence will be before you start working toward your goal.

As an example, you could tell your younger brother that you’ll give him $1 for every deadline you don’t meet (see Point #6).

Or you could decide that you’ll delete one game from your phone for every late homework submission.

Those consequences would probably be painful enough to help you get down to work, right?

13. Visualize success.

Take 30 seconds and imagine how you’ll feel when you finish your work.

What positive emotions will you experience?

Will you feel a sense of satisfaction from getting all your work done?

Will you relish the extra time on your hands when you get your homework done fast and ahead of time?

This simple exercise of visualizing success may be enough to inspire you to start doing your assignment.

14. Visualize the process it will take to achieve that success.

Even more important than visualizing the outcome is visualizing the process it will take to achieve that outcome.

Research shows that focusing on the process is critical to success. If you’re procrastinating on a task, take a few moments to think about what you’ll need to do to complete it.

Visualize the following:

• What resources you’ll need
• Who you can turn to for help
• How long the task will take
• Where you’ll work on the task
• The joy you’ll experience as you make progress

This kind of visualization is like practice for your mind.

Once you understand what’s necessary to achieve your goal, you’ll find that it’s much easier to get down to work with real focus. This is key to doing well in school .

15. Write down why you want to complete the task.

You’ll be more motivated when you’re clear about why you want to accomplish something.

To motivate yourself to do your homework, think about all the ways in which it’s a meaningful task.

So take a couple of minutes to write down the reasons. Here are some possible ones:

• Learn useful information
• Master the topic
• Enjoy a sense of accomplishment when you’ve completed the task
• Become a more focused student
• Learn to embrace challenges
• Fulfill your responsibility as a student
• Get a good grade on the assignment

16. Write down the negative feelings you’ll have if you don’t complete the task.

If you don’t complete the assignment, you might feel disappointed or discouraged. You might even feel as if you’ve let your parents or your teacher – or even yourself – down.

It isn’t wise to dwell on these negative emotions for too long. But by imagining how you’ll feel if you don’t finish the task, you’ll realize how important it is that you get to work.

17. Do the hardest task first.

Most students will choose to do the easiest task first, rather than the hardest one. But this approach isn’t effective because it leaves the worst for last.

It’s more difficult to find motivation to do homework in less enjoyable subjects.

As Brian Tracy says , “Eat that frog!” By this, he means that you should always get your most difficult task out of the way at the beginning of the day.

If math is your least favorite subject, force yourself to complete your math homework first.

After doing so, you’ll feel a surge of motivation from knowing it’s finished. And you won’t procrastinate on your other homework because it will seem easier in comparison.

(On a separate note, check out these tips on how to get better at math if you’re struggling.)

18. Set a timer when doing your homework.

I recommend that you use a stopwatch for every homework session. (If you prefer, you could also use this online stopwatch or the Tomato Timer .)

Start the timer at the beginning of the session, and work in 30- to 45-minute blocks.

Using a timer creates a sense of urgency, which will help you fight off your urge to procrastinate.

When you know you only have to work for a short session, it will be easier to find motivation to complete your homework.

Tell yourself that you need to work hard until the timer goes off, and then you can take a break. (And then be sure to take that break!)

19. Eliminate distractions.

Here are some suggestions on how you can do this:

• Delete all the games and social media apps on your phone
• Turn off all notifications on your phone
• Mute your group chats
• Archive your inactive chats
• Turn off your phone, or put it on airplane mode
• Put your phone at least 10 feet away from you
• Turn off the Internet access on your computer
• Use an app like Freedom to restrict your Internet usage
• Put any other distractions (like food, magazines and books unrelated to your homework) at the other end of the room
• Unplug the TV
• Use earplugs if your surroundings are noisy

20. At the start of each day, write down the two to three Most Important Tasks (MITs) you want to accomplish.

This will enable you to prioritize your tasks. As Josh Kaufman explains , a Most Important Task (MIT) is a critical task that will help you to get significant results down the road.

Not all tasks are equally important. That’s why it’s vital that you identify your MITs, so that you can complete those as early in the day as possible.

What do you most need to get done today? That’s an MIT.

Get to work on it, then feel the satisfaction that comes from knowing it’s out of the way.

21. Focus on progress instead of perfection.

Perfectionism can destroy your motivation to do homework and keep you from starting important assignments.

Some students procrastinate because they’re waiting for the perfect time to start.

Others do so because they want to get their homework done perfectly. But they know this isn’t really possible – so they put off even getting started.

What’s the solution?

To focus on progress instead of perfection.

There’s never a perfect time for anything. Nor will you ever be able to complete your homework perfectly. But you can do your best, and that’s enough.

So concentrate on learning and improving, and turn this into a habit that you implement whenever you study .

22. Get organized.

Procrastination is common among students who are disorganized.

When you can’t remember which assignment is due when or which tests you have coming up, you’ll naturally feel confused. You’ll experience school- and test-related stress .

This, in turn, will lead to procrastination.

That’s why it’s crucial that you get organized. Here are some tips for doing this:

• Don’t rely on your memory ; write everything down
• Keep a to-do list
• Use a student planner
• Use a calendar and take note of important dates like exams, project due dates, school holidays , birthdays, and family events
• At the end of each day, plan for the following day
• Use one binder or folder for each subject or course
• Do weekly filing of your loose papers, notes, and old homework
• Throw away all the papers and notes you no longer need

23. Stop saying “I have to” and start saying “I choose to.”

When you say things like “I have to write my essay” or “I have to finish my science assignment,” you’ll probably feel annoyed. You might be tempted to complain about your teachers or your school .

What’s the alternative?

To use the phrase “I choose to.”

The truth is, you don’t “have” to do anything.

You can choose not to write your essay; you’ll just run the risk of failing the class.

You can choose not to do your science assignment; you’ll just need to deal with your angry teacher.

When you say “I choose to do my homework,” you’ll feel empowered. This means you’ll be more motivated to study and to do what you ought to.

24. Clear your desk once a week.

Clutter can be demotivating. It also causes stress , which is often at the root of procrastination.

Hard to believe? Give it a try and see for yourself.

By clearing your desk, you’ll reduce stress and make your workspace more organized.

So set a recurring appointment to organize your workspace once a week for just 10 minutes. You’ll receive huge benefits in the long run!

25. If a task takes two minutes or less to complete, do it now.

This is a principle from David Allen’s bestselling book, Getting Things Done .

You may notice that you tend to procrastinate when many tasks pile up. The way to prevent this from happening is to take care of the small but important tasks as soon as you have time.

Here are some examples of small two-minute tasks that you should do once you have a chance:

• Replying to your project group member’s email
• Picking up anything on the floor that doesn’t belong there
• Asking your parents to sign a consent form
• Filing a graded assignment
• Making a quick phone call
• Writing a checklist
• Sending a text to schedule a meeting
• Making an online purchase that doesn’t require further research

26. Finish one task before starting on the next.

You aren’t being productive when you switch between working on your literature essay, social studies report, and physics problem set – while also intermittently checking your phone.

Research shows that multitasking is less effective than doing one thing at a time. Multitasking may even damage your brain !

When it comes to overcoming procrastination, it’s better to stick with one task all the way through before starting on the next one.

You’ll get a sense of accomplishment when you finish the first assignment, which will give you a boost of inspiration as you move on to the next one.

27. Build your focus gradually.

You can’t win the battle against procrastination overnight; it takes time. This means that you need to build your focus progressively.

If you can only focus for 10 minutes at once, that’s fine. Start with three sessions of 10 minutes a day. After a week, increase it to three sessions of 15 minutes a day, and so on.

As the weeks go by, you’ll become far more focused than when you first started. And you’ll soon see how great that makes you feel.

28. Before you start work, write down three things you’re thankful for.

Gratitude improves your psychological health and increases your mental strength .

These factors are linked to motivation. The more you practice gratitude, the easier it will be to find motivation to do your homework. As such, it’s less likely that you’ll be a serial procrastinator.

Before you get down to work for the day, write down three things you’re thankful for. These could be simple things like good health, fine weather, or a loving family.

You could even do this in a “gratitude journal,” which you can then look back on whenever you need a shot of fresh appreciation for the good things in your life.

Either way, this short exercise will get you in the right mindset to be productive.

29. Get enough sleep.

For most people, this means getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night. And teenagers need 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night to function optimally.

What does sleep have to do with procrastination?

More than you might realize.

It’s almost impossible to feel motivated when you’re tired. And when you’re low on energy, your willpower is depleted too.

That’s why you give in to the temptation of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube videos more easily when you’re sleep-deprived.

Here are ways to get more sleep , and sleep better too:

• Create a bedtime routine
• Go to sleep at around the same time every night
• Set a daily alarm as a reminder to go to bed
• Exercise regularly (but not within a few hours of bedtime)
• Make your bedroom as dark as possible
• Remove or switch off all electronic devices before bedtime
• Avoid caffeine at least six hours before bedtime
• Use an eye mask and earplugs

30. Schedule appointments with yourself to complete your homework.

These appointments are specific blocks of time reserved for working on a report, assignment, or project. Scheduling appointments is effective because it makes the task more “official,” so you’re more likely to keep the appointment.

For example, you could schedule appointments such as:

• Jan 25 th , 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Math assignment
• Jan 27 th , 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Online research for social studies project
• Jan 28 th , 4:30 pm – 5:00 pm: Write introduction for English essay

Transform homework procrastination into homework motivation

Procrastination is a problem we all face.

But given that you’ve read all the way to here, I know you’re committed to overcoming this problem.

And now that you’re armed with these tips, you have all the tools you need to become more disciplined and focused .

By the way, please don’t feel as if you need to implement all the tips at once, because that would be too overwhelming.

Instead, I recommend that you focus on just a couple of tips a week, and make gradual progress. No rush!

Over time, you’ll realize that your habit of procrastination has been replaced by the habit of getting things done.

Now’s the time to get started on that process of transformation. 🙂

Like this article? Please share it with your friends.

Images: Student and books , Homework , Group of students , Consequences , Why , Writing a list , Organized desk , Gratitude

January 19, 2016 at 11:53 am

Ur tips are rlly helpful. Thnkyou ! 🙂

January 19, 2016 at 1:43 pm

You’re welcome 🙂

August 29, 2018 at 11:21 am

Thanks very much

February 19, 2019 at 1:38 pm

The funny thing is while I was reading the first few steps of this article I was procrastinating on my homework….

November 12, 2019 at 12:44 pm

same here! but now I actually want to get my stuff done… huh

December 4, 2022 at 11:35 pm

May 30, 2023 at 6:26 am

October 25, 2023 at 11:35 am

fr tho i totally was but now I’m actually going to get started haha

June 6, 2020 at 6:04 am

I love your articles

January 21, 2016 at 7:07 pm

Thanks soo much. It’s almost like you could read my mind- when I felt so overwhelmed with the workload heap I had created for myself by procrastination, I know feel very motivated to tackle it out completely and replace that bad habit with the wonderful tips mentioned here! 🙂

January 21, 2016 at 8:04 pm

I’m glad to help 🙂

January 25, 2016 at 3:09 pm

You have shared great tips here. I especially like the point “Write down why you want to complete the task” because it is helpful to make us more motivated when we are clear about our goals

January 25, 2016 at 4:51 pm

Glad that you found the tips useful, John!

January 29, 2016 at 1:22 am

Thank you very much for your wonderful tips!!! ☺☺☺

January 29, 2016 at 10:41 am

It’s my joy to help, Kabir 🙂

February 3, 2016 at 12:57 pm

Always love your articles. Keep them up 🙂

February 3, 2016 at 1:21 pm

Thanks, Matthew 🙂

February 4, 2016 at 1:40 pm

There are quite a lot of things that you need to do in order to come out with flying colors while studying in a university away from your homeland. Procrastinating on homework is one of the major mistakes committed by students and these tips will help you to avoid them all and make yourself more efficient during your student life.

February 4, 2016 at 1:58 pm

Completely agreed, Leong Siew.

October 5, 2018 at 12:52 am

Wow! thank you very much, I love it .

November 2, 2018 at 10:45 am

You are helping me a lot.. thank you very much….😊

November 6, 2018 at 5:19 pm

I’m procrastinating by reading this

November 29, 2018 at 10:21 am

January 8, 2021 at 3:38 am

March 3, 2019 at 9:12 am

Daniel, your amazing information and advice, has been very useful! Please keep up your excellent work!

April 12, 2019 at 11:12 am

We should stop procrastinating.

September 28, 2019 at 5:19 pm

Thank you so much for the tips:) i’ve been procrastinating since i started high schools and my grades were really bad “F” but the tips have made me a straight A student again.

January 23, 2020 at 7:43 pm

Thanks for the tips, Daniel! They’re really useful! 😁

April 10, 2020 at 2:15 pm

I have always stood first in my class. But procrastination has always been a very bad habit of mine which is why I lost marks for late submission .As an excuse for finding motivation for studying I would spend hours on the phone and I would eventually procrastinate. So I tried your tips and tricks today and they really worked.i am so glad and thankful for your help. 🇮🇳Love from India🇮🇳

April 15, 2020 at 11:16 am

Well I’m gonna give this a shot it looks and sounds very helpful thank you guys I really needed this

April 16, 2020 at 9:48 pm

Daniel, your amazing information and advice, has been very useful! keep up your excellent work! May you give more useful content to us.

May 6, 2020 at 5:03 pm

nice article thanks for your sharing.

May 20, 2020 at 4:49 am

Thank you so much this helped me so much but I was wondering about like what if you just like being lazy and stuff and don’t feel like doing anything and you don’t want to tell anyone because you might annoy them and you just don’t want to add your problems and put another burden on theirs

July 12, 2020 at 1:55 am

I’ve read many short procrastination tip articles and always thought they were stupid or overlooking the actual problem. ‘do this and this’ or that and that, and I sit there thinking I CAN’T. This article had some nice original tips that I actually followed and really did make me feel a bit better. Cheers, diving into what will probably be a 3 hour case study.

August 22, 2020 at 10:14 pm

Nicely explain each tips and those are practical thanks for sharing. Dr.Achyut More

November 11, 2020 at 12:34 pm

Thanks a lot! It was very helpful!

November 15, 2020 at 9:11 am

I keep catching myself procrastinating today. I started reading this yesterday, but then I realized I was procrastinating, so I stopped to finish it today. Thank you for all the great tips.

November 30, 2020 at 5:15 pm

Woow this is so great. Thanks so much Daniel

December 3, 2020 at 3:13 am

These tips were very helpful!

December 18, 2020 at 11:54 am

Procrastination is a major problem of mine, and this, this is very helpful. It is very motivational, now I think I can complete my work.

December 28, 2020 at 2:44 pm

Daniel Wong: When you’re doing your homework, is your super-comfortable bed just two steps away? Me: Nope, my super-comfortable bed is one step away. (But I seriously can’t study anywhere else. If I go to the dining table, my mum would be right in front of me talking loudly on the phone with colleagues and other rooms is an absolute no. My mum doesn’t allow me to go outside. Please give me some suggestions. )

September 19, 2022 at 12:14 pm

I would try and find some noise cancelling headphones to play some classical music or get some earbuds to ignore you mum lol

March 1, 2021 at 5:46 pm

Thank you very much. I highly appreciate it.

May 12, 2023 at 3:38 am

This is great advice. My little niece is now six years old and I like to use those nice cheap child friendly workbooks with her. This is done in order to help her to learn things completely on her own. I however prefer to test her on her own knowledge however. After a rather quick demonstration in the lesson I then tend to give her two simple questions to start off with. And it works a treat. Seriously. I love it. She loves it. The exam questions are for her to answer on her own on a notepad. If she can, she will receive a gold medal and a box of sweets. If not she only gets a plastic toy. We do this all the time to help her understand. Once a week we spend up to thirty minutes in a math lesson on this technique for recalling the basic facts. I have had a lot of great success with this new age technique. So I’m going to carry on with it for now.

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How to Find Motivation to Do Math Homework

Almost every student has their own issues when it comes to doing homework. Even brilliant students who are always excited about learning sometimes want to escape the practice. But like any other thing, finding your inspiration and setting goals is critical in achieving success.  The following guide takes you through how to motivate yourself when doing math homework.

• Reward yourself

Rewarding yourself after successfully completing a task is one of the best ways to motivate yourself. So, whenever you have a marathon of homework to complete, set a reasonable time to complete it, and promise yourself something special when you meet that deadline. Rewarding yourself can be relative depending on the person involved and the volume of the task. However, it can be as simple as taking 30 minutes off to play your favorite game, getting a drink with friends, or watching your favorite movie/series.

• Give yourself a nice treat before work

Don’t wait until accomplishment before you reward yourself; before the start of work, be in the best of mood. You can get inspired by enjoying nice music, eating well, or probably watch some funny videos. But don’t allow these activities to eat into your working time. According to research in Japan, watching pictures or videos of newly born animals can inspire you much before every work.

• Get a study buddy

To prevent getting bored or loneliness from eating you up, it is advisable to get a study buddy with is at your level or above you. Keeping each other company enhances efficiency and even quality of work, as you can share ideas along the line. Note: always look for a serious person who is ambitious and focused to prevent adding salts to injury. If the person you choose to study with is not serious, he will cause distraction or even talk you out from doing your mathemthics homework.

• Choose a study environment

Many students usually overlook the importance of having to choose a befitting place for doing your homework. Find the best study environment free from distractions and serene enough to keep you going. For example, instead of sitting at your desk for several hours being bored by your math homework, form a study group and make studying math a fun process.

• Work on your most productive time

Everyone has a particular time they become productive. Some work best in the dawn or morning, while others prefer working in the afternoon or evening. Which is yours? Knowing your most productive period enhances your ability to stay focus and become self-motivated to complete a task.

• Remind yourself why you are in school

You are in s school for a purpose. Apart from kids who attend school because their parents say so, every adult has an ambition and aim for schooling. Different people pursue education for various purposes, so what is yours? Is it for career advancement? Better career opportunity? Broaden your knowledge? Or you help the society you are living in. Always remind yourself of that ambition to keep you going.

• Listen to music

You may be wondering why music, and wouldn’t it distract you? Well, the answer is, it depends on the type of music you listen to. When working on your assignments, you can listen to classical or motivational music. It keeps you internally motivated as you do your task.

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Recent Posts

Tips on how to get better grades in math, how to stay motivated at the end of the school year, contact info.

Studying Math: Get Motivated!

As fall approaches, and the beginning of a new school year for many, let’s take a look at some of our past discussions of how to study math. We’ll start with some perspectives on being motivated to study, since you are not likely to do well if you hate math (as so many students tell us when they write to us). How can you get interested in the subject?

Find out how interesting math really is

Doctor Ian has often answered these questions. The following is a very long answer, in which he put together many of his thoughts on it; I will only excerpt a few parts to get the flavor of what he has to say. You will want to read the whole thing!

The question, in 2001, was a simple one:

I suppose that could be answered as it stands, but it wouldn’t be as helpful as turning it on its head, as indicated by the title. Doctor Ian took that challenge:

Some students, given this request, have written back in response, which led to some good interactions. We still welcome such discussions.

Take charge of your own education

He gives advice about finding books that work for you — not everyone benefits from the same kind of teaching.

Play the game!

Almost two years later, another student asked for an explanation of the last sentence. Here is a small part of Doctor Ian’s answer:

Here are some other answers to related questions of motivation:

After writing this post, I ran across an article that may be important for you if you think your interests are what they are, and you can’t change them:  Instead of ‘finding your passion,’ try developing it . This is another aspect of the “growth mindset” concept, which we have discussed in  my post on avoiding careless mistakes .

Why should I care about math?

A common question along the same lines is, Why do I need to learn this? A good answer can help motivate you. Here is a question from 2007:

We have given specific answers relating to particular topics in math, but I answered the bigger question:

You never know

It’s a great achievement of humanity, it teaches you to think.

Sometimes when a student in one of my college’s “social” majors asks me why they need to learn math, I tell them that their math course may be the one course they take in which there are right and wrong answers; they need the experience of being required to think carefully.

Advice for teachers

Let’s close with another question answered by Doctor Ian, this one from a teacher in 2008:

As he often does, Doctor Ian turned the question around:

This is why specific answers to such questions are so hard. We all know that higher-level math is not needed by most people in most of the things they do.

So why study it? Because of the bigger picture:

These techniques are things we try to demonstrate frequently in our answers, modeling for students how to think logically and creatively.

I should add that for many students, the particulars of what they learn are very important in their future. We’ve had many people write and say, “I wish I’d paid attention back in algebra class, because I need it now!”

For detailed answers about the uses of math, see our FAQ,

On the other hand, much of what is commonly taught is not what should be taught. For some personal thoughts on changing the curriculum to better match up with real needs, see

2 thoughts on “Studying Math: Get Motivated!”

I don´t have the drive to do my algebra homework and because of that I have been failing that class for 9 months. I need help

Hi, Clayton.

The best way we can help is with a private conversation. Please use the link Ask a Question , and tell us more about your situation.

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How to Motivate Yourself to Do Homework

How to Get Motivated to Do Schoolwork to Achieve Stellar Results

To motivate yourself to do homework, set clear, achievable goals, create a distraction-free study space, and establish a regular routine. Use a timer for focused work sessions, reward yourself after completing tasks, and maintain a positive mindset. Remember to take care of your health and seek help if needed.

• Make a Plan: Break tasks into chunks, set realistic goals.
• Seek Help: Find a mentor or use assignment services.
• Set Small Goals: Break homework into smaller, manageable objectives.
• Stay Organized: Keep workspace tidy and schedule organized.
• Take Breaks: Regular breaks to recharge.
• Give Rewards: Treat yourself for completing tasks.
• Stay Positive: Maintain an optimistic mindset.
• Get Specialized Help: Seek assistance for challenging subjects.
• Hang Out With Like-Minded Peers: Surround yourself with motivated friends.
• Eat Nutritiously: Maintain a balanced diet for focus and energy.

Are you wondering how to motivate yourself to do homework? Transform your study routine with actionable tips like staying organized, taking breaks, making a plan, etc. Read this article to help you foster focus and productivity.

Gain insight on tackling assignments and confidently turning your challenges into triumphs. Find out how to embrace the power of positive habits and witness your motivation soar. Let's break the cycle of boredom and ignite your passion for learning.

Instead of letting deadlines overwhelm you, let's turn them into milestones. With our proven methods, you can easily elevate your academic journey and conquer schoolwork. 

Motivation to Do Homework: Learn Why It Matters

Finding motivation for homework can sometimes feel impossible, especially when you're tired and overwhelmed with many responsibilities. But homework was not given by your teachers or professors as a form of torture.

It's a vital element in your academic journey, and staying motivated is the compass guiding the way to complete them. Consider motivation as the fuel propelling you through your seemingly impossible tasks.

Maintaining inspiration is crucial because it transforms routine assignments into valuable learning opportunities.

When you enthusiastically approach your homework, the benefits extend beyond completion—it fosters a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Embrace motivation as a tool for getting things done and fostering a positive and productive mindset. In the academic realm, staying inspired is the key to unlocking the doors to knowledge and answering the question of how to get motivated to do schoolwork.

Make a Plan to Help Jump-start Everything

Every student knows the feeling of being overwhelmed by homework. Sometimes, students can't help but scratch their heads, wondering how to get motivated to do schoolwork. It is indeed easy to drag your feet and procrastinate. The secret to conquering that mountain of assignments?

Make a plan! Start by breaking tasks into manageable chunks and set realistic goals. The key is finding what inspires you—a cozy study spot, a reward system, or a study playlist. Having a plan helps organize your workload and gives you a roadmap to success.

So, take a deep breath, make that plan, and watch as motivation for homework becomes your trusty sidekick on your academic journey! 

Seek Help and Find a Mentor

When wondering how to get motivated to do homework, seeking help and finding a mentor becomes a game-changer. The benefits are profound, whether it's reaching out to an alumna, a high-achieving peer, or even considering a professional online "do my assignment" service.

A mentor provides guidance, shares insights, and instills motivation by offering a fresh perspective. Alumnae brings real-world experience which may help you understand. Your peers offer relatability and can also help explain concepts.

Finally, assignment services provide expert support to ensure you can beat your deadlines.

Guidance not only eases your academic load but also fosters a collaborative spirit. Seeking help makes your assignments less daunting. Instead of feeling as if you're drowning in tasks, your mind becomes more prepared for learning and growth.

Break Things Down and Set Small Goals for Homework Assignments

When wondering how to force yourself to do homework, the secret lies in breaking homework assignments down into smaller chunks. Transform your daunting mountain of tasks into manageable molehills. Start with bite-sized objectives that feel achievable, gradually building momentum.

It's like turning homework into a series of mini-victories, making your workload more digestible. Small goals and specific tasks not only boost motivation but also promote a sense of accomplishment.

So, rather than overwhelming yourself, slice your assignments into manageable portions and check your to-do list.

Then, watch as each completed task propels you forward. It's a strategy that helps you stop procrastinating and makes you spend time working on relevant current and future assignments.

Stay Organized to Help You Crush Those Goals

Are you curious how to get motivation to do homework? The answer lies in staying organized to help you crush your goals. Picture your workspace as a battleground—clutter is the enemy, and order is your ally. It's challenging to stay focused amid chaos.

Studies show that a tidy environment fosters mental clarity. So, organize your tasks, create a schedule, and tidy up your space. As you conquer the clutter, you'll find motivation thriving. A well-ordered work area reflects a well-ordered mind, making your homework journey smoother and the path to your goals clearer.

Get organized and watch your motivation, propelling you to academic excellence! And start expecting good grades, and not just in your favorite subject.

Take Breaks to Help You Recharge and Achieve Homework Fun

Wondering how to get motivated for homework? Embrace the power of breaks to help you recharge and do my homework . Picture your brilliant mind as a battery! Continuous work drains your brain of energy needed for motivation.

Breaks act as the charger, replenishing your mental reserves. It's not about procrastination. Instead, think of these planned breaks as strategic rejuvenation. Step away, stretch, take a walk, or indulge in a quick hobby. Spend some time alone and rest for a few hours.

You'll find renewed focus and energy as you return, making your assignments more sustainable.

Strategic breaks aren't like other distractions.

In fact, they are essential tools for maintaining motivation. So, intersperse your study sessions with short breaks and witness how recharging catalyzes academic success. 

Give Yourself Rewards

Are you thinking how to motivate yourself to do school work, especially when feeling sluggish and tired? The answer lies in giving yourself rewards when hitting milestones. Consider it a pat on your back for a job well done.

Rewards don't have to be grand. Even simple treats can work wonders! When you associate completing tasks with positive reinforcement, it creates a sense of accomplishment. This becomes a powerful motivator, especially during slumps.

Whether it's a brief break, a favorite snack, or a small celebration, these rewards are energy boosts. They will help you inject enthusiasm into your schoolwork grind. Whether you're working on social studies, classical music, or any focused course, there are many reasons why a reward in the first place will make any assignment progress much faster.

Celebrate your victories, big or small. With each celebration, watch motivation become your constant companion. 

Stay Positive and Optimistic

Maintaining an optimistic mindset is the cornerstone of tackling any challenge, including homework. Want to figure out how to stay motivated to do homework?

It starts with cultivating a positive outlook. Embrace each of your assignments as an opportunity to learn and grow. Positivity breeds motivation! When faced with difficulties, view them as stepping stones, not stumbling blocks.

Surround yourself with an optimistic atmosphere—whether it's a neat study space or the support of encouraging friends.

Celebrate small victories and approach each task believing you can conquer it. Positivity makes the homework journey more enjoyable and transforms obstacles into opportunities for success. 

Get Specialized Help When You Need It

Pondering how to be motivated to do homework, especially when facing challenging subjects like math problems or drafting an English essay?

The key is getting specialized help when you need it. College encompasses a spectrum of subjects, from English and humanities to math and statistics.

Seeking math homework help for calculus or essay assistance from experts isn't a sign of weakness. You can think of this as a strategic move. Recognizing when to ask for specialized support is a strength. It alleviates your struggles and fosters a proactive approach to learning.

So, don't hesitate to reach out when faced with academic hurdles.

Specialized help ensures you conquer the complexities and stay motivated on your educational journey. 

Hang Out With Like-Minded Peers

If you're figuring out how to get motivation to do school work, one of the answers could be in the company you keep. Imagine being with friends who party hard and ditch deadlines. Uh-oh, that spells trouble!

Instead, surround yourself with like-minded peers who share your academic goals and enthusiasm. Studying with friends who are equally driven creates a supportive environment that fuels motivation. Exchange ideas and share strategies for work-life balance.

Celebrate your successes together. The collective energy of a group with a common purpose can be contagious, making your academic journey more enjoyable.

When you're in the company of peers who are passionate about learning, the motivation to excel becomes a shared experience, propelling everyone toward success. 

Fuel Your Brain and Body with Nutritious Food 

Listen up! Eat well to stay motivated. Why does your diet play an important role in how to make yourself do homework? What you fuel your brain and body matters!

A balanced diet is the secret weapon for sustained focus and energy. Incorporate brain-boosting foods like fruits, nuts, and whole grains into your meals. Skipping meals leads to fatigue, affecting your concentration.

By nourishing your body, you're investing in your academic success. So, make your plate a palette of productivity. Then, watch how your well-fed body becomes the foundation for a motivated mind. 

Students Tend to Forget Water Intake - Will You?

Hydration is critical when figuring out how to get motivation for homework. Dehydration can significantly impact concentration and focus, putting you in a study slump.

So, as a busy student, it's vital to stay hydrated. Water is not just a refreshing beverage to quench thirst. It's also an amazing cognitive enhancer. Many studies show that even mild dehydration can lead to reduced cognitive performance.

Therefore, keep your water bottle within arm's reach while tackling assignments. And drink before you feel thirsty because you're already mildly dehydrated by then. Water helps with mental sharpness. A well-hydrated brain is focused and ready to take on the challenges of homework. 

Use an Inspiring Music Playlist

Fill your study area with an inspiring music playlist—especially if you're wondering how to become motivated to do school work or contemplating how to do my assignment excellently. Music has a magical quality that can ignite motivation.

Create a playlist filled with fave tunes that uplift your spirits and set the tone for productivity. The right soundtrack can turn mundane tasks into engaging activities.

Whether you need a boost to start your assignments or a rhythm to carry you through to ace a test, music is a powerful ally.

So, put on those headphones, hit play, and let the motivational beats become the backdrop to your academic triumphs. 

How to Get Motivation for Homework - FAQs

How to get motivated to do school work .

Do you wish to unlock how to be motivated to do schoolwork? Think of this as like finding the perfect rhythm for a dance. Start small—break tasks into manageable steps. Surround yourself with a supportive study environment.

Use inspiring music as your soundtrack. Stay positive and celebrate victories. Your academic journey is a dance of determination. 

What can I do when I have no motivation to do homework? 

Feeling the homework blues? When you have no motivation to do homework, start small—break your tasks into bite-sized chunks. Change your scenery, create a dedicated study space, and consider incorporating inspiring music.

Seek support from mentors. Remember, every small effort counts, turning your homework struggle into achievable victories.

Where to find motivation in a few hours for schoolwork when I'm lazy?  

Curious how to do homework when you don't want to? Your journey from laziness to productivity is manageable by breaking tasks into small steps.

Then, create a motivating study environment and consider help. For example, seeking physics homework help or essay writing assistance from professionals when needed.

Every small effort counts because you'll find inspiration in every completed task. 

Is seeking professional help online acceptable? 

Absolutely! When figuring out how to get the motivation to do homework, seeking professional help online is a smart move. Online assistance provides valuable support, guidance, and resources, empowering you to tackle assignments confidently. It's a proactive step towards academic success in the digital age.

If I seek online help, how much will I pay? 

The cost of online help varies based on subject, complexity, and deadline, but consider it an investment in your academic success when exploring how to motivate to do homework. Our platform offers flexible pricing, ensuring accessibility to resources and assistance tailored to your needs and budget. 

Where can I find homework help? 

When wondering how to get yourself to do homework, remember that you're in the digital age and finding homework help is a click away. Explore our online platform for personalized assistance. We provide valuable support, making your homework journey more manageable and efficient. 

Is an online assignment platform legal?

Yes, seeking Python homework help , essay writing assistance, or any other service from an online assignment platform like ours is legal. We are a legitimate resource that aligns with the quest to answer how to get motivated for school work, providing valuable assistance and support to enhance your learning experience.

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How to Motivate Yourself to Do Homework

We all know the drill: homework can be a real drag sometimes. It’s tough staring down a mountain of assignments and not knowing where to even start. And let’s not even talk about those last minute all-nighters just to hit ‘submit’ right before class starts.

Feeling stuck and uninspired to do your homework? Get scrolling for quick and easy strategies to motivate yourself to do homework!

Looking for more student productivity tips? Subscribe to The Flow — our free quick, snappy, value-packed focus and recharge newsletter:

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1. Break It Down

If your to-do list seems too large, try breaking it down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

Have 10 chapters of your textbook to read? Try reading the first paragraph only. Need to write a 1000-word paper? Start by writing the first sentence. Treat each chunk as a mini-goal that can be easily achieved. Soon enough, you’ll be surprised by how much work you’re able to accomplish already, and the momentum will keep you going.

Looking for a way to stay on top of your workload? Here are some of the best Notion assignment trackers to help you out.

2. Develop Routine & Structure

When motivation fails, discipline takes over. By making doing homework a habit, it’s easier to jump back into your study routine and get your tasks done. Start by creating a daily schedule that works for you and do your best to stick with it. Make use of digital planners, grade calculators, and assignment trackers to make doing homework streamlined and more efficient.

Check out some of the best Notion templates for students that you can incorporate into your work routine!

3. Elevate Your Study Space with Aesthetic Tools

The right visuals can be game-changers for your work sessions. A captivating background or well-designed tool can make the difference between slogging through your work and truly enjoying it. When your workspace is a feast for the eyes, you’re naturally more inclined to hunker down and get things done.

Whether it’s a Pomodoro timer set against a Parisian café backdrop or a virtual escape to Mount Fuji, aesthetics can turn your study grind into something you actually look forward to.

If you’re on the hunt for a one-stop-shop for all your study aesthetics, give Flocus a try. It’s a free browser-based productivity dashboard with customizable Pomodoro timers, inspiring quotes, and personalized greetings. Flocus brings a bit of romance to your daily grind. For more options, check out our full round-up of aesthetic study websites .

4. Form a Study Group

Sometimes, all we need is that extra push from our classmates who are doing the same thing to keep us motivated to finish our homework. Share your concerns, bounce ideas off each other, and lean on one another for support. That said, forming a strong support group early on in your school life can really make all the difference.

Not in the mood to meet up with friends at the library? Join the Flocus Discord server with thousands of productivity lovers and students to help you stay accountable and motivated.

5. Connect to Your “Why”

If you’re feeling unmotivated while sitting on a pile of math problems, why not try thinking about the bigger picture? Reflect on how mastering this specific topic can contribute to larger goals that you might have. The homework you’re doing might seem insignificant right now, but it’s slowly building the way for future successes in life.

6. Progress over Perfection

One of the main reasons why students usually procrastinate doing homework is the desire to do it perfectly — but this unhealthy need for perfection might be what’s killing your productivity and motivation. If you’ve spent the last three hours trying to curate the perfect plan to do your assignment, you’re probably doing it wrong. Just get started, and let the momentum guide you! You can always come back and improve later on.

7. Look for Inspiration

Reading self help books, watching study vlogs, or listening to podcasts are all effective means to learn how to stay motivated and boost your productivity. Don’t worry, motivation also often comes from the most unexpected places — a random sticky note, an unexpected text message, or a line from your favorite TV show character.

Check out our curated list of the best study motivation movies to get going with a dose of inspiration!

8. Rest When Needed

Knowing you have loads of schoolwork coming is stressful enough. Maximize the long breaks between Pomodoro sessions by grabbing a snack, doing breathing exercises , stretching, or taking a nap. Having a good amount of rest is a part of being productive and staying motivated.

That wraps up some of our best homework motivation strategies! With these techniques at your disposal, we can only hope that those long overdue assignments will become a thing of the past.

Did we miss any strategies to stay motivated while doing homework? Which strategy is your favorite to use? Let us know in the comments below!

Gridfiti is supported by its audience – when you buy something using the retail links in our posts, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.  Read more  about our affiliate disclaimer.

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How to find motivation to do homework

How to find motivation to do homework ? Struggling to motivate yourself to finish homework? You’re not alone! This article has strategies to help you stay motivated and reach goals. Create a positive atmosphere and set realistic expectations . Learn how to motivate yourself and find happiness in studying.

Why is Homework Motivation Important?

Strong Homework Motivation is key for academic success. Parents and teachers must foster the right mindset and goal-setting skills . Create a supportive environment at home and engage students in class through group work and quizzes.

Homework should be viewed as an opportunity , not an obstacle. Incorporate positive reinforcement such as regular study sessions and breaks in between. With work ethic and repetition, success will come with time! Plus, you’ll be able to brag to your parents and teachers.

The benefits of being motivated to do homework

Kicking off the article, motivating oneself for doing homework brings loads of advantages. Productivity increases, thus saving time and creating extra leisure. Plus, understanding becomes easier due to the release of positive hormones.

Apart from good grades, essential life skills are acquired such as setting goals and perseverance. Awards and incentives for excellent performance become attractive too, building character and preparing for future endeavors.

It’s key to have a positive outlook towards schoolwork, rather than seeing it as dull or a chore. This will help to pursue education, rather than just doing it out of obligation.

Evidence shows that completing homework has advantages apart from just following assignments. This could be getting accepted to a university or even a promotion. So, it’s vital to never ignore coursework and work on each learning opportunity.

Not doing your homework is like forgetting your parachute on a skydiving trip.

The consequences of not being motivated to do homework

Procrastination can result in unfortunate consequences for students. Poor grades, missed assignments, and deadline delays cause disappointment and anxiety, leading to a downward spiral of bad academic performance. Not being motivated to do homework can also lead to inconsistent learning outcomes and have a negative effect on career goals. To combat this, setting achievable goals and breaking tasks into smaller steps is essential.

Seeking support, collaborating with peers, keeping a study journal, practicing time management skills, and creating an appropriate learning environment can help boost motivation. Studies have shown that poor academic performance is linked to increased stress levels, leading to anxiety and depression.

Educators should provide conducive learning environments, offer resources such as counseling services, and develop positive relationships with students. Promoting self-reflection and goal-setting activities during student-teacher interactions can effectively support students’ motivation to complete their homework tasks successfully.

Understanding the Challenges: Common Obstacles to Homework Motivation

Homework tasks can seem intimidating for students. Finding motivation is tough. Common roadblocks like distractions, disinterest, and low energy can make students unmotivated to finish their homework. This leads to procrastination, bad grades, and poor academic performance.

To keep motivated for homework, focus on time management, setting goals, and staying focused . Ban distractions for effective studying. Set specific goals for each task; this will help you stay motivated throughout the assignment. Ask teachers or peers for guidance if you struggle.

Emotional distress and cognitive constraints are other obstacles to motivation. Stressful life events can affect schoolwork. Counseling services can help ease the burden.

Pro Tip: Plan rewards after completing homework tasks. This creates a positive feedback loop for future assignments. Without goals, your motivation is lost.

Setting Clear Goals: The First Step to Finding Motivation

To boost motivation for homework, set SMART goals . These should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound . Write them down and keep track of progress. Acknowledge what it would feel like when completed and recognize the reasons behind doing the work.

Incentives are key to increasing overall motivation. Edward Deci and Richard Ryan of Rochester University found that extrinsic motivators such as praise don’t motivate intrinsically. So incentives are important for students to foster intrinsic motivation and achieve success.

Who needs a five-star hotel? Transform your study space into a motivational spa retreat!

Creating a Positive Study Environment: Enhancing Motivation through Space

To boost motivation in building a homework routine, create an ideal study space. It should be uplifting and inspiring. A good study area helps maintain focus, increase productivity, and reduce stress.

Motivational posters and fresh flowers make for an aesthetically pleasing space. Plus, a clean and organized workspace aids concentration and decreases distractions. Clutter causes uneasiness and hinders interest.

Personalize your workspace for comfortability and engagement. Dim lights or soft music can make studying easier.

Pro Tip: Add personal touches or rearrange furniture to shift from boring monotony to an encouraging atmosphere. Need some motivation? Look at your grades and let it spark your enthusiasm!

Finding Your Motivation Triggers: Discovering What Inspires You

Discovering what inspires you is essential to stay motivated and productive when doing homework. Unearth the factors inhibiting motivation. Find Your Inspiration Incentives: Uncover What Revs You Up!

Here are some tips to help you:

• Set clear objectives. Think about why a course was chosen, what interests or people drew attention? Create daily goal checklists for priority tasks.
• Identify intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Understand learning style via self-assessment surveys. Tailor study approach, don’t use common methods subjectively chosen.
• A fellow student shared their experience of struggling with homework motivation. Various online strategies used without reflecting on suitability. Reflect on psychological needs, tailor rewarding activities. Going for runs to release endorphins, happier moods to work hard! Motivation for homework is like a unicorn, hard to find!

Tips for finding homework motivation

Struggling to find motivation for homework? Here are effective techniques:

• Create a routine . Set aside the same time each day and use it solely to focus on work.
• Break assignments into smaller tasks .
• Find an accountability partner . Share progress with someone who cares.
• Use positive reinforcement . Reward yourself after completing each task.
• Remind yourself of your goals and stay motivated .
• Parents, nagging won’t help . Promise ice cream after they finish!

The role of parents in homework motivation

Parents: to enhance your child’s enthusiasm for homework, motivate them! You have an influential role in boosting motivation. Encouragement, structure and interest in their academic progress can all help.

Set a routine for daily assignments and offer rewards or incentives when they finish on time or get good grades. Use positive reinforcement such as praise instead of criticism.

Each day, ask your child about schoolwork. This promotes diligence and shows education is important to the family.

Show them different ways homework is beneficial. Ask them to contribute ideas on topics they want to learn more about. Create a deeper passion for learning.

Establish healthy routines. Demonstrate enthusiasm for academic mastery, not strictness and punishment. Improve the chances of preventing missing out on future opportunities that higher education offers.

A Call-to-action technique like “fear of being left behind” demands immediate attention from parents to incentivize kids passionately towards successful completion of homework tasks. Teachers can’t always motivate us, but at least they can provide plenty of material for procrastination.

The role of teachers in homework motivation

Teachers have a big part to play in motivating students to do their homework. By offering clear explanations, feedback and a positive classroom environment, they can inspire kids to tackle their assignments with excitement.

Personal help like one-on-one consultations or mentorship can help those who are having trouble, building their confidence and making them view schoolwork more positively.

To make sure learning sticks and to avoid frustration, teachers should use different strategies that suit individual students. For instance, interactive methods such as group conversations or project-based tasks create interesting learning experiences which help with homework beyond just memorizing.

Frequent communication between teachers and parents is also key in holding people accountable and getting parents involved in inspiring their children.

It’s important to take into account that each student is different, and this means adjusting the curriculum to fit varying abilities, as well as social and emotional factors like mental health or external pressures.

Research has shown that parent support is a must for successful student achievements. The National Education Association (NEA) reported that when parents get involved, it can bring many advantages, from an improved school climate and attendance to a higher motivation towards homework.

The role of peers in homework motivation

Peer influence is hugely important for homework motivation. It changes students’ values, attitudes, and behaviors towards their work. Peers can be role models or distractions, depending on the impact.

By watching their friends’ study habits, involvement, and grades, students can become motivated to copy or even exceed these standards. Working together helps share knowledge and get feedback. So, both teachers and peers need to create an environment that encourages learning.

Peer pressure can be a blessing or a curse. Research shows it can cause anxiety and bad performance, if it is negative.

A great example of peer influence in action is high school football players. Poor performers were paired with successful ones. This led to improved grades, thanks to the model behavior and social support from their high-achieving peers.

Managing Distractions: Techniques for Staying Focused on Homework

Maintaining Concentance: Strategies to Keep Your Focus on Coursework.

Stay productive and successful in completing homework by managing distractions. Here are five tactics to help you stay on track:

• Make a work area without interruptions.
• Organize your study materials before starting.
• Set reasonable goals and take breaks when needed.
• Stay away from tech distractions like social media notifications.
• Do the hard stuff first when your mind is sharp.

Good habits and limiting disruptions boost motivation and reduce procrastination. Listen to instrumental music or white noise to stay focused. Self-care is important for concentration.

My friend had ADHD in high school. Medication and other treatments didn’t help. So she got an academic coach. The coach gave her techniques like mindfulness, accountability with peers, and time management. That helped her coursework.

Take a break sometimes. Have ice cream and Netflix. Reset!

Dealing with Homework Burnout: Strategies for Recharging Your Motivation

Feeling burnt out or unmotivated with homework? Combat this! Strategies can help recharge your inspiration. Implement a study schedule that suits your goals, and rest . Break down tough assignments into smaller tasks. This will build momentum and confidence. Incorporate positive affirmations & rewards systems . Utilize these strategies to stay motivated and successful in academics. Recharge your motivation – it’s possible!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why is it important to find motivation to do homework?

A: Homework is a crucial part of the learning process as it helps reinforce the lessons taught in class and prepare students for exams.

Q: How can I motivate myself to do homework?

A: Setting goals, breaking tasks into smaller chunks, creating a schedule, and using positive self-talk are effective ways to motivate yourself to do homework.

Q: What if I still can’t find motivation to do homework?

A: Sometimes, it can be difficult to find motivation to do homework. In such cases, talking to a teacher, tutor, or counselor can help identify underlying issues and find solutions that work for you.

Q: How can I make homework more enjoyable?

A: Trying different study techniques, incorporating rewards, and studying with friends or classmates can make homework more enjoyable.

Q: What should I do if I am constantly distracted while doing homework?

A: It’s important to identify distractions and remove them as much as possible. This can include turning off electronic devices, finding a quiet study space, and taking periodic breaks.

Q: How can I avoid procrastinating when it comes to homework?

A: Procrastination can be avoided by setting deadlines, breaking tasks into smaller portions, avoiding multitasking, and prioritizing your work.

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How to find motivation to do your homework

Homework is an ordinary routine for all students and usually there is no need to spend a lot of time to carry out all tasks. All you need is the desire to work hard. However, there are so many situations, when I am so busy that I do not have enough time to write my homework ideally. Moreover, I can even try to avoid doing these tasks because I am just too lazy to do my homework. So, what do you have to do in these situations? There are two variants. First of all, you can just order the homework help online. Just try to find the best homework help service and make an order. The team of professional writers will do homework online and will send you the result as quickly as possible to please the client. It is the easiest way to do homework, but there is also another one. You can look for motivation on the Internet. That is why we prepared a special list of tips for daredevils, who want to do all tasks solely. It will increase their desire to work. So, are you ready? Let us start!

Tips to do excellent homework

Of course, when you are looking for some amusements, you will primarily refer to the Internet and try to find something interesting and exciting there. However, when you feel a lack of motivation, you usually don’t try to find some online tools, services or mobile applications, which will save your time and increase desire to get new knowledge. Do not forget that there are so many cool things on the Internet for studying. For example, homework help service, online resources, which provide special music for productive studying (Focus@will, Noisli), apps and programs for gadgets, which control your actions on the Internet (they usually block some websites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on) during studying. There are many other possible variants to increase productivity. Just try to google “homework help” or “tools for productivity” and you will be pleasantly surprised.

• Three basic elements of good studying

All students know about these elements, but never use them. I am talking about healthy sleep, proper nutrition and regular physical training. You should do all possible to maintain stable work of your body, because your success at school or in the university directly depends on your lifestyle.

• Do not try to carry out all tasks on your own

Some students lose their productivity because of the desire to be more independent. They do not even think about the possibility to transfer some tasks to someone else. They always try to do homework without additional help and as the result do not have enough time to do that. You have to try to cooperate with your classmates to have more time to focus on other activities. So, do not be too independent!

• Do not forget to relax

Some students try to exhaust themselves and that is why they lose productivity and cannot carry out all tasks perfectly. You should take breaks sometimes to relax. Most scientists declare that students who work 40 hours a week and 20 hours have similar results at the end. Therefore, you should not be so hard working, try to relax more.

• Avoid distractions

The most similar problem for students, who are not productive enough, is lack of concentration. You should always remember your goals and try to avoid distractions. Ask your relatives and friends to maintain the relative silence, when you are studying. You should avoid such distractions as social media (especially Facebook and YouTube, which steal a lot of time). You should also turn off your mobile phone and a computer if it is possible.

• Keep cleanness

You should keep your table and workplace clear. When you are organized, it is easier to manage productive work.

• The right mood

You should understand the fact that you will be free, when you will carry out all the tasks. To surf on the Internet, chat with friends, go to for a walk or just go to bed, you need only to do your homework as qualitatively as possible. Just do it and you will be free. Keep this info in mind during your studying. Such types of thoughts will increase your desire to work and productivity as the result.

• Try to find “appropriate” friends

Many scientists also mention in their work that surrounding people strongly affect us. If you maintain a good relationship with people, who try to study carefully and to be the best students in the class, who are worried about their marks and do not lazy to do homework at the highest level, you will try to match them. However, if your friends do not even think about their future and remember about the homework only 5 minutes before the lesson, you will not care about studying too. That is why you should try to cooperate only with responsible and diligent students.

• Set your goals

You should set some of the most important goals, which you have to try to gain every day. It will be easier to find motivation to work when you have the goal. In addition, try to reward yourself for each completed task. It will be like an additional motivation to work more.

• Challenge yourself

You can also challenge yourself and bet with someone that you will be able to do all homework perfectly for a month. You can bet with your relatives (mom, dad or someone else) or with your friends. This motivator will stimulate you to work every day. This trick will help to increase productivity.

Therefore, if you are one of the students, who don’t want to share their duties with someone and don’t want to look for homework help on the Internet, you should follow some basic tips, which will help you to motivate yourself to work. Believe me! These abovementioned tips will help you to increase productivity. Just use them and you will succeed at school or in the university in the nearest future.

helping you explore homework every day

How to Motivate Yourself to Do Homework & Stop Procrastinating

Have you been procrastinating on homework recently? You are not alone. Homework is perhaps the least favoured undertaking for students across the academic spectrum. Often, students tend to push homework to the last date and submit a rushed half-hearted paper that barely earns them good scores.

Here, we’ll discuss tips on how to make yourself do homework and overcome procrastination. 

Why can’t I do my homework?

Before discussing the fix to homework procrastination, it’s great that we establish the reasons why students procrastinate on handling their assignments. Some of the common reasons why students procrastinate include:

• A negative attitude towards a tutor or a subject. If you have an aversion towards a subject, you tend to prioritize other commitments at the expense of your disfavoured subject. 
• Mental exhaustion owing to handling too many assignments over long durations.
• The lack of pressure due to a long duration before the due date
• A fear that you cannot do your homework perfectly
• The boring nature of an assignment
• Lack of motivation
• Fear of failure

Often, students fail to do their assignments as a result of one or a combination of the above reasons. When you are looking to overcome procrastination, you should first start by identifying your reason, therefore finding the optimum fix. 

How to get the motivation to do homework

Why would a learner that feels worn out to do homework find it easy to read a novel or binge-watch a series without dozing off? Often, the tiredness you experience when you try to do homework is a result of a lack of motivation for homework. 

The lethargic reaction towards homework often results in a downward spiral of putting your homework off for later until you are exposed to the pressure of a fast-approaching deadline. Some of the tips to motivate yourself to do homework include:

• Employ a reward system

Huge assignments often feel like an unproductive rut considering the hard work you put in without noticeable results. One way to fix this is by planning a reward after the attainment of various goals within your schedule.

The reward serves as a positive stimulus, giving you the drive to put your effort into the assignment. Ideally, employ incremental rewards to maintain the joy to unlock the next reward tier, therefore, pushing yourself to complete larger assignments.

• Form a study group

At first, you may struggle with holding yourself accountable for how you spend your time. Group study ensures that you adhere to your schedule, keeping you on par with various assignments.

Groups also bring together individuals with different capabilities, reducing the likelihood of getting stuck with various aspects of your assignments.

• Set daily goals

The lack of focus is often a cause for procrastination among students. when tasks are not defined, you may focus on your strengths and neglect challenging subjects.

Ideally, have a schedule and describe the tasks for each day. This will allow you to prioritize urgent assignments and pay equal attention to all assignments.

• Keep the benefits and consequences in mind

Our guess is that you do not enjoy getting failed and berated for poor-quality assignments and late submissions. When going about your assignments, list the consequences and benefits associated with completing your assignment.

This list will serve as a driving force to do your assignments to avoid the negative consequences of pushing your assignment for later.

How to stop procrastinating on homework

• Remove any distractions  that may compete for attention with your assignment. These distractions can easily compromise your focus, leading you towards more entertaining activities.
• Take regular breaks  to recharge your focus and overcome mental exhaustion associated with too many assignments. These breaks can be spent on a fun activity, helping you let off the stress associated with the study.
• Try it for five minutes . This ingenious approach is a common solution to overcoming procrastination. Five minutes seem like a second in comparison to a two-hour study session. If you feel drained just by thinking about the assignment, consider handling it for five minutes. 
• Put your assignment on the desk . It is easy to ignore your assignment when it’s out of your sight. As such, put your assignments on the desk to remind yourself of the commitments you are neglecting. This will help you to remember the repercussions of putting your assignment off for a later date and gradually, get you to focus on your assignment. 
• Chunk your assignment into smaller portions and set reasonable goals. If you are still bored after the five-minute session, you can throw in the towel and divert your focus to other commitments. Often, this push will get your gears running, helping you overcome the drained state you were previously experiencing. 

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How to Get Motivated to Study

Last Updated: February 29, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jai Flicker . Jai Flicker is an Academic Tutor and the CEO and Founder of Lifeworks Learning Center, a San Francisco Bay Area-based business focused on providing tutoring, parental support, test preparation, college essay writing help, and psychoeducational evaluations to help students transform their attitude toward learning. Jai has over 20 years of experience in the education management industry. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego. There are 24 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 2,603,266 times.

When you have mountains of homework and studying ahead, getting started can seem like an impossible task. We’ll teach you how to get into the right frame of mind before you start studying and shake yourself out of a motivation slump. Read on to learn how to stop procrastinating on studying, focus even when you're tired, and get motivated to do your schoolwork!

Start with your easiest task to get the ball rolling.

• If you write a quick list of your tasks, it’ll lower the effort of making decisions, and you’ll find it easier to shift from one task to the next.

Try the Pomodoro Technique.

• With the Pomodoro Technique, each 25-minute block is called a Pomodoro, and you can set another 5-minute timer for a quick break in between Pomodoros.
• If 25 minutes seems too short, feel free to keep working past the timer; the point is to get you started.

Break down your work into smaller pieces.

• It’s easy to get overwhelmed by a huge amount of homework and seemingly endless assignments. But rather than worrying, “How will I ever finish this assignment?” ask yourself, “How much of this assignment can I accomplish in 2 hours?”
• Instead of trying to read a whole book, set a goal you can accomplish in one sitting. For instance, read 1 chapter or 50 pages at a time. [6] X Trustworthy Source Harvard Business Review Online and print journal covering topics related to business management practices Go to source
• When prepping for a test, review your lecture notes from just the first week of the semester today, then focus your notes from the second week tomorrow.

Tidy up your workspace.

• Consider making your study space warm and inviting so you look forward to spending time there. Decorate the walls with photos of you and your friends, place a cheerful house plant on your desk, and choose a comfy chair to sit in.

Reward yourself when you complete a task.

• Have a snack, but shy away from snacking on too many sugary treats early on. Nobody likes a sugar crash! Save sweet treats until the last leg of your study marathon to give you a boost.
• If you decide to reward yourself with a quick break from studying, remember that you will eventually have to get back to work. Set a time limit for your break and don't listen to the voice in your head pleading for "just a few more minutes."

Take a break to move around.

• These activities will give you a burst of energy and will improve your mood. Plus they’ll help get your brain into a receptive state, which will make your studying more effective. [10] X Research source
• A little movement can help you build momentum that’ll lead you into a productive study session.

Look up podcasts or videos to shake up your studying.

• Set time limits to help yourself stay on track, and reward yourself by exploring interesting tangents after you’ve met your study goals.

Crank up your favorite study tunes.

• The right music will help relax your mind and sharpen your focus. [12] X Research source
• Try modern takes on classical piano or solo guitar or tune into your favorite movie soundtrack.
• Speed things up with an electro-swing playlist or chill out with a mix of lo-fi beats.
• Search your favorite music app for playlists designed to help you focus on your work, like “Songs for Studying” or “Study Beats.” You can also try "body-doubling" (working alongside someone else who is also working & letting their presence calm you) with the Lo-Fi Girl YouTube stream.

Freshen up and put on some comfortable clothing.

• Make sure your study outfits don’t feel too much like your sleepwear or you might start to doze off.

Work with your friends or a tutor.

• Look for a tutor at your school or consult a private tutoring agency.
• In a study group, each person could volunteer to tackle a different sub-topic, then you could all share your study materials with each other. [14] X Research source
• Reserve a study room, bring snacks, or gamify your studying to make the work more enjoyable.
• Start working well ahead of time in case your peers fail to meet the group goals and to make sure you have time to brush up on certain subjects independently.

Create visual aids for a fun, efficient study tool.

• Rather than skimming vocab words from a PDF or textbook, rewriting the words and definitions in your own handwriting with a fun-colored pen might help you retain the information better.

Use classic study tricks to memorize facts.

Focus on your long-term goals.

• If you’re hoping to attend college or earn a scholarship, think about how each small study session will get you 1 step closer to your dreams.
• Use your long-term goals as motivation to keep pushing yourself.

Set up your computer.

• If you’re easily distracted but need to use a computer as a reading or research tool, consider printing out the material to help you stay on task. [20] X Research source
• If you need to use the computer solely as a word processor or PDF viewer, disconnect it from Wi-Fi or station yourself in a no-Wi-Fi zone so you’re not tempted to go online.
• When computer use isn’t necessary for your studies, turn yours off and stow it away.

Silence or shut off your cell phone.

• Keep your phone out of sight so you won't be tempted to keep taking a sneak peek.

Stay hydrated and keep a snack on hand.

• Avoid studying right after a big meal; you’ll just feel drowsy and will want to relax.
• Don’t put off a meal as a reward, as your aching stomach will be distracting. Make sure you have a snack on hand to fend off your hunger.
• Avoid sugary vending machine snacks, fast food, and pastries; these foods will give you a short energy rush that quickly turns into sleepiness.

Figure out your ideal study environment and methods.

• Think back to past study sessions that went especially well, and others that didn’t go well at all, to assess which factors help and hinder your progress.
• If you’re able to develop a personalized study system, studying will be a lot less stressful for you.

Design a study guide that works for you.

• If the textbook’s section heading reads, “Anthropomorphic Themes in Fairy Tales,” your study question could be, “Can I describe the use of anthropomorphic themes in fairy tales?”
• Look online for study guide templates and examples as a starting point.

Try freewriting or journaling to identify why you procrastinate.

• If it helps to vent to a friend, just make sure they’re willing to listen and you’re not going to distract them from their own studies.

Be kind to yourself about your procrastination habits.

• Avoid comparing yourself to other classmates who seem to be doing well. Everyone learns and works differently, so focus on your own needs and capabilities!
• Using positive self-talk helps create a growth mindset that can help you overcome difficulties.

Give yourself time limits.

• Telling yourself, "I'll have to study sometime this week" will encourage procrastination, but “I’m going to study from 6 PM to 9 PM on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday” will help you stick to your plan. [32] X Research source
• Try sticking to a regular schedule, but feel free to break your usual routine if you need to shake things up. For instance, get a good night’s sleep and set your alarm for 7:00 AM to study on Sunday morning. It might be easier to get up and get started right away since you’ve planned it in advance.
• The more specific and intentional you can be about scheduling out your study tasks, the more success you’ll have with your studies and time management .

Study Schedule Template

Supercharge Your Studying with this Expert Series

Expert Q&A

Reader Videos

• Make an effort to take good notes during class and keep them in an organized notebook or binder. Use these to help you with homework, projects, and upcoming exams. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0
• Be sure to get a good night's sleep to help you retain the information you’ve studied. Aim to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 1
• If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask your teacher or professor. Visit during their office hours or ask if you can set up a time to speak with them about the subject. Make sure you ask questions in-class, too. If you ask questions, it will show that you’re motivated and want to do well in their class. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://graduate.rice.edu/news/six-strategies-staying-motivated-during-covid-19-pandemic
• ↑ Jai Flicker. Academic Tutor. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.
• ↑ https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901
• ↑ https://www.educationcorner.com/habits-of-successful-students.html
• ↑ https://help.open.ac.uk/study-goals
• ↑ ​​ https://hbr.org/2020/08/your-to-do-list-is-in-fact-too-long
• ↑ https://www.edology.com/blog/study-and-careers-advice/effective-study-space/
• ↑ https://health.cornell.edu/about/news/study-breaks-stress-busters
• ↑ https://healthybrains.org/pillar-physical/
• ↑ https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/tips-studying-motivation.html
• ↑ https://www.vaughn.edu/blog/best-study-music-and-benefits/
• ↑ https://www.imc.edu.au/news-archive/8-benefits-of-studying-with-friends
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5256450/
• ↑ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02522/full
• ↑ https://opentextbc.ca/studentsuccess/chapter/memory-techniques/
• ↑ https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/why-wait-the-science-behind-procrastination
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/rewired-the-psychology-technology/201204/attention-alert-study-distraction-reveals-some
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5648953/
• ↑ https://share.upmc.com/2019/08/healthy-snacks-to-power-studying/
• ↑ https://www.educationcorner.com/study-location.html
• ↑ https://www.herzing.edu/blog/how-create-successful-study-guide
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/procrastination/
• ↑ https://www.stetson.edu/administration/academic-success/media/STUDY%20SCHEDULE.pdf
• ↑ http://faculty.bucks.edu/specpop/time-manage.htm

About This Article

If you’re having trouble getting motivated to study, find a quiet place where you won’t be distracted, and turn your phone on silent or place it out of sight so you won’t be tempted to look at it. Set concrete goals for each study session, like learning how to solve a specific math problem or reading and comprehending a complete chapter in your textbook. Reward yourself with a snack or a break when you meet your goal. For tips on making a study schedule, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Get Motivated to Do Homework: Tips and Tricks From Experts

Students all around the world are facing a serious problem almost every day. They need to complete their homework. And in many cases, they need to complete quite a few assignments every day. Many students don’t manage to complete their school assignments on time, even if these assignments are interesting. These people would probably really enjoy working on their homework if they were motivated.

So, to be more productive and more efficient, you need to learn how to get motivated to do homework in college. In fact, learning how to get motivated is important for students of any age. With the right state of mind, a few tips and tricks, and a bit of planning, you will quickly be able to greatly increase your productivity even on less interesting projects.

Table of Contents

How do you do homework when you don’t want to, a good state of mind – how to make yourself do homework and love it, how do i regain motivation for school, how do you do homework fast and fun, tips and tricks on how to motivate yourself to do homework, how do you do homework when you can’t focus, does it really work, what is the best time to do homework.

“Every kid goes through puberty. They wonder what to do about girls and struggling with homework, and every adult has been through that.” Tom Holland

Here is what to do in case you feel unmotivated in school to do your homework:

• Recall all the past embarrassments as a result of your failure. Let that act as a motivation to get down and do your homework.
• Keep yourself busy with reading motivation to do homework quotes. It will boost your morale and compel you to do it.
• Associate yourself with people who love to do their homework. You will be challenged to get motivated to study.
• Develop a positive mindset towards homework. The mentality you have towards something will determine whether you do it or not.

As with all things, it is important to be in a good state of mind when you start doing your homework. In fact, the right state of mind is the first thing you need to learn if you are wondering how to motivate yourself to do homework quickly and efficiently. When you have a good state of mind – when you think positive – you immediately become a lot more productive. You start liking what you do and don’t consider the homework a chore anymore.

Think of it this way; is there anything you would do with pleasure when you are sad and depressed? Probably not; and this applies to homework as well. Also, it really helps to not consider the homework a chore you need to do because you would get punished otherwise. If you want to learn how to motivate yourself to do homework, you need to be able to think about homework as a necessary thing that will help you advance and that will help you become better in class and in life.

“You don’t drown by simply falling in the water. You drown by staying there.” Louis Cole.

One can, therefore, get motivated for school once again by:

• Loving your teachers or tutors . It is a determinant of the coziness of students in school.
• Getting involved in school activities . You will be able to feel a sense of belonging to the school and therefore feel an urge to stand by it.
• Relating well with other students . A school is like a community in which peaceful coexistence is necessary for the motivation to study.
• Finding pride in everything about your school .

As you may already know, most students hate homework because they associate it with a chore. Why don’t you associate homework with something interesting? You love interesting projects and would love to work with your fellow students on them. Why don’t you think about homework as an interesting project? Yes, you work alone on your school assignments, but nobody says you can’t call a friend or two and collaborate with them. One or two “colleagues” may be all the motivation to do homework you need. There are also a few tips and tricks that will help you with this quite a bit.

Everybody wants to get done with that homework fast and tune in to that favorite TV show as soon as possible. The trick is simple:

• Gather all you need for your homework
• Ensure the internet is at its best
• Get rid of any distractions
• Turn off your phone (for just that little while)

Here are some of the best tips and tricks you need to know when you want to learn how to make yourself do homework:

• Listen to music, but not just any music . Calming, relaxing music is recommended for students who are working on their homework. Keep the volume low so that the music doesn’t bother you or those around you. Of course, you are free to use headphones if you wish. Instrumental music works best because there are no lyrics to pay attention to. Symphonies from Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Bach are great choices.
• Set goals and establish a reward system. Write the goals down so you don’t forget about them. Split complex assignments into smaller parts and set a goal for each part. Give yourself a reward after you finish every part, like 10 minutes off, a cookie, or even a quick video game. You will quickly learn how to be motivated to do homework with rewards.
• Take regular breaks. If you work several hours without taking any breaks, you will quickly tire and your motivation will dwindle away. You should take a 10- to 15-minute break every hour or so. Stretch for a bit, drink some water and disconnect from your work. You’ll return to the homework refreshed and a lot more motivated.
• Keep the consequences in mind. If you want to learn how to get motivated to do homework, you need to learn how to think about the consequences of your actions. Do you want a couple of low grades? Do you want your classmates to make jokes about you? Do you want to lose your self-esteem? Probably not; this is why you need to dedicate some time and effort to doing your homework every day. You’ll get plenty of free time after you finish it.
• Get some rest, if needed. You won’t be in the right state of mind to do your homework with pleasure if you are tired. This means that it is a very good idea to get a good night’s sleep before you start on a complex assignment. If you feel tired, get one or two hours of rest (also known as a power nap) and you will instantly feel refreshed and ready to tackle even the most difficult project. It doesn’t take much to get motivation to do homework.

If you can’t focus , you will keep on asking yourself, “why am I bad at doing homework?” Nevertheless, this shouldn’t be the case at all. The solution lies herein:

• Take a cup of coffee to stimulate your mind.
• Have a change of environment for a moment.
• A cold shower would do some good (really)
• Listen to that favorite song for a while then get back to the homework.
• A rest, probably 30-minute nap is recommended
• Go to a quiet room and settle there

Yes, you can learn how to get motivated to do homework. There is no question about it that the tips listed above work for most students. However, you also need to be able to put yourself into the right state of mind to work on your school assignments. It’s never a good idea to work on them when you are depressed or very tired. Get a bit of rest instead of struggling with the homework; it will help you a lot in the long run. Also, making sure you organize your workload and plan ahead is very important. Start working on more complex project early to avoid having to rush the assignment. As you already know, rush jobs will never get you the good grades you need and deserve.

I remember one thing that motivated me to finish my homework on time ; the fact that I would never do it again as I advanced. Every day I would say to myself, “just a little bit more; everything has an end.” Verily I say to you, the trick worked, and never did I see homework as an enemy, but rather, a best friend. One with whom I knew would guarantee a bright future for me.

Another interesting tip is to enlist the support of your friends and family. Ask your friends about how they manage to do their homework on time every day. Ask your parents about how difficult homework was in their college days. You will get the motivation you need to finish all your school assignments quickly and get a lot more spare time.

How do you see it waking up at dawn when your mind is fresh and alert and then doing all your homework? Wouldn’t it augur well if you just did your homework after refreshing your mind from all the day’s work in a school?

Still can’t find enough motivation to deal with homework? Good news! Enter promo “ homework20 ” and grab your writing assignment with 20% discount!

2 comments on “ How to Get Motivated to Do Homework: Tips and Tricks From Experts ”

THX so much for this!!!

This was a simple, short, and sweet article. On this note, you may want to include how to not get distracted while working on a computer or laptop or any other electronic device for that matter. I am guilty of this myself; whenever I have been assigned to do homework on my laptop, I like to play games and open other tabs on Google.If you could add this bit to this article, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for all the useful tips you have provided, and I can’t wait to see this portion in your article that I have suggested above!

Kaelyn Wilkins <3

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Tips on How to Get Motivated to Do Homework

Maintaining a regular homework schedule and stay abreast of school or college assignments is a tough task for all students. Yet there are some who are able to find ample motivation to do homework, helping them finish all tasks in time and produce quality work repeatedly. Ever wondered how do they do it?

How to Find Motivation to Do Homework – Tips to Get Started

There has to be something that inspires and drives you to do your homework and who knows it better than you. So, find that inspiration and use it as a reward for finishing your homework.

• If starting the homework is an issue, gain motivation by simply rewarding yourself to start at the decided time. Have your favorite snack while you assemble your stuff and start with a fresh mind.
• Set small milestones for a big assignment. Reward yourself at every milestone. It could be a 5-minute break, listening to one song, and then get back to work for the next milestone.
• If you feel you are not determined enough to finish an assignment in one go, sit with a friend who is good with homework. That works to keep you from giving up mid-way. It is also a great way to exchange ideas.
• Find the right place and time when you are your productive best.  Some people are early risers are work best in the mornings, while others are night owls. For some, the coffee shop or the library is the best place to study and for others, it is the park or a corner of their room.

Set SMART Goals for You to Do Your Homework

For anyone wondering how to get motivated to do homework, SMART homework goals is an excellent technique. It not only aids to stay focused but is also a great tool to help get your work done fast.

• S – Specific goals – set targets that are defined. E.g. – I have to finish one sample paper in two hours.
• M – Measurable – set targets that you can later measure. E.g. – I must finish three pages of the assignment in half an hour.
• A – Attainable – set small goals that you can genuinely achieve, not some high targets that bog you down midway. E.g. – Write five answers in one hour instead of 25 questions in 12 hours. That way you get to take a break and start all over again with a fresh attainable target.
• R – Relevant – In order for motivations to work goals and rewards have to be relevant. E.g. – If you have to submit your English assignment the next day and you set the goal to finish your math work today, then the goals are irrelevant and will never be motivating enough.
• T – Time-bound – Every goal no matter how small, must be set within a time frame. When you achieve it at the decided time, make sure to reward yourself.

In addition to setting short term goals, you must also have long term overall goals. Set short-term, every day goals and never lose sight primary goal for which you are working. It could be a good college, or a specific career eventually which can be your motivation for doing homework today.

Common Distractions That Tear Apart Homework Motivation

If you are wondering how to get motivated to do homework, maybe you should start by identifying the distractions first. Take a look:

• Social media updates
• The television running in the background
• Hunger pangs
• Thirst pangs
• Washroom visits
• Uncomfortable clothes
• Poorly stocked stationary
• Cluttered desk space
• Constricted workspace
• Dimly lit room
• Noisy surroundings

How to Motivate Yourself to Do Homework – Tips to Build Focus

You can find the motivation to do homework through ways that help you systematically cut down the distractions and create an environment perfect to achieve your target for the day.

• When you are trying to build motivation to do homework understand that a quiet place tops the list. Make sure the spot has ample light and space for you to work comfortably.
• Ensure that your desk or work area is clean and clutter-free and is one that houses all the little things which you will need to do your homework. This way you will not have to get up frequently to fetch items.
• For those wondering how to get motivated to do homework, it is good to remember that a calm mind is a must before you start. Yoga and meditation if practiced regularly help one to de-stress and cleanse the mind of multiple thoughts.
• If your study time is also the time when you get hunger pangs, first address your physical needs so that your mind can focus without the distractions of a rumbling stomach, thirst, or the need to use the washroom.
• Wear comfortable clothes that do not limit your movement, make you uncomfortable, or distract you frequently with an urge to pull and scratch while you are working. Put away your phone and switch off all gadgets that may distract you while you are working.

How to Be Motivated to Do Homework – Tips to Stay Organized and On Schedule

If you are finding ideas on how to motivate yourself to do homework, remember that staying on schedule is highly rewarding. Here are some great ways to get motivated to do your homework by using tools and techniques that will keep you better organized and on schedule with your assignments.

• Prioritize your work as per the submission schedule, the time required, and importance. Make a list of urgent tasks and the subsequent ones to stay organized. Having a daily and weekly timetable will help.
• Divide your work into smaller parts so that it is manageable. Do not get up until you have reached a milestone.
• Take frequent breaks. But remember that you must get up for a break only once you have finished one part of the work and not before that. Stretch your legs, have some water, eat some nuts, do some eye exercises, and then get back to work.
• Shift between taxing and lighter tasks to remain focused and interested.
• Set alerts and reminders. These help you stay on track with your work and never let you forget pending tasks.

Still No Motivation to Do Homework? Delve Deeper

If you have taken all steps to build your motivation for homework and yet are lacking the drive, delve deeper to find out certain underlying factors affecting your performance:

• Are you eating right? Analyze your diet and check if you are eating foods that make you lethargic. Avoid excessive intake of carbs. Instead shift your focus to nuts, berries, fish, beans, leafy greens, and whole grains. They help build focus and brainpower.
• Are you hydrated enough? A dehydrated body does not let the mind concentrate. Have at least 8-12 glasses of water a day to maintain body metabolism and alertness.
• Are you sleeping enough? Most students who seek help on how to get motivated to do homework find a solution in their sleep patterns. Lack of sleep, irregular sleep patterns, or prolonged sleeping hours wreak havoc with our bodies and hormones. Stressed, distractions, and fatigue are common side effects. Make sure you have a fixed sleep and wake-up time with at least 7-8 hours of sleep daily.

If you feel that you are overworked and have very little time for your homework, you can also seek professional homework help from us. Our writers are subject experts with years of experience in their fields. Get in touch with us to find grade-appropriate assignments and more to ease you out.

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQ

How to get motivated to do homework.

One of the best ways to find motivation for doing homework is to do it when your productivity is the highest in the day. You can do yoga and meditation to help you stay focused. Break up your work into sections and treat yourself every time you finish a job.

How to get a child motivated to do homework?

You can help a child find motivation for homework by dividing up their work into parts and alternating easy and difficult tasks. Make sure they are fed, hydrated, and comfortable and they are working in a well-lit, clean place free of noise.

Why do I lack the motivation to do homework?

Finding the motivation for doing homework can be difficult if you are distracted by physical needs, background noise, social media, uncomfortable work settings, and conditions, or because you keep needing things you forgot. Even unhealthy lifestyle habits can be a cause for the lack of motivation and concentration.

How to avoid homework procrastination?

If your motivation to do homework is low even before starting, it can lead to procrastination. You can prevent this by giving yourself a reward for starting on time. You should set goals and milestones for different tasks. Set rewards for each and don’t get up before reaching the milestone.

Alexa Donne is an exceptional online writer who is skilled and passionate about her work. She creates high-quality content that captivates the readers’ attention and ensures you get the best grade in your research papers and essays.

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11 Real World Math Activities That Engage Students

Bridging the gap between abstract math concepts and real life experiences can make the subject accessible and relevant for kids.

During a unit on slope, José Vilson’s students just weren’t getting it, and their frustration was growing. The former middle school math teacher began brainstorming creative ways to illustrate the concept. “I kept thinking, ‘My students already understand how this works—they just don’t know that they know,’” Vilson writes in a recent article for Teacher2Teacher . “How can I activate knowledge they don’t believe they have?”

Then he thought about a hill a couple of blocks from school that his students “walk up every day to get to the subway.” He tacked up paper and began sketching stick figures on the hill. “One was at the top of the hill, one was halfway up, one was near the bottom skating on flat ground, and one was on a cliff,” writes Vilson, now the executive director of EduColor. “Which of these figures will go faster and why?” he asked his students. “That got my kids laughing because, of course, my stick figures weren’t going to hang in the MoMA.” Still, his sketch got them thinking and talking, and it provided a simple stepping stone that “gave that math relevance and belonging in their own lives,” Vilson concludes. 

“It’s not unusual for students to walk into our classrooms thinking that math belongs to people who are smarter, who are older, or who aren’t in their immediate circle,” Vilson writes. “But every time I teach math in a way that’s accessible and real for my students, I’m teaching them: ‘The math is yours.’”

To build on Vilson’s idea, we posted on our social channels asking teachers to share their favorite strategies for connecting math to students’ experiences and lives outside of school. We received hundreds of responses from math educators across grade levels. Here are 11 teacher-tested ideas that get students seeing and interacting with the math that surrounds them each day.

Hunt for clues

Coordinate systems can feel abstract to some students—but using coordinates to navigate a familiar space can solidify the concept in a relevant and fun way. “Before starting a unit on coordinates, I make gridded maps of the school—I make them look old using tea staining —and send my students off on a treasure hunt using the grid references to locate clues,” says Kolbe Burgoyne, an educator in Australia. “It’s meaningful, it’s fun, and definitely gets them engaged.”

Budget a trip

Students enjoy planning and budgeting for imaginary trips, teachers tell us, offering ample opportunities to practice adding, subtracting, and multiplying large numbers. In Miranda Henry’s resource classroom, for example, students are assigned a budget for a fictional spring break trip; then they find flights, hotels, food, and whatever else they’ll need, while staying within budget.

Math teacher Alicia Wimberley has her Texas students plan and budget a hypothetical trip to the Grand Canyon. “They love the real world context of it and start to see the relevance of the digits after the decimal—including how the .00 at the end of a price was relevant when adding.” One of Wimberley’s students, she writes, mixed up his decimals and nearly planned a $25,000 trip, but found his mistake and dialed back his expenses to under $3,000.

Tap into pizza love

Educators in our audience are big fans of “pizza math”—that is, any kind of math problem that involves pizza. “Pizza math was always a favorite when teaching area of a circle,” notes Shane Capps. If a store is selling a 10-inch pizza, for example, and we know that’s referring to its diameter, what is its total area? “Pizza math is a great tool for addition, subtraction, multiplication, word problems, fractions, and geometry,” another educator writes on our Instagram. There are endless pizza-based word problems online. Here’s a simple one to start, from Jump2Math : “The medium pizza had six slices. Mom and Dad each ate one slice. How much pizza is left?”

Break out the measuring cups

Lindsey Allan has her third-grade students break into pairs, find a recipe they like online, and use multiplication to calculate how much of each ingredient they’d need in order to feed the whole class. The class then votes on a favorite recipe, and they write up a shopping list—“which involves more math, because we have to decide, ‘OK, if we need this much butter for the doubled recipe, will we need three or four sticks, and then how much will be left over?’” Allan writes. “And then it turns out students were also doing division without even realizing!” 

Sometimes, a cooking mistake teaches students about proportions the hard way. “Nobody wants a sad chocolate chip cookie where you doubled the dough but not the chocolate chips,” adds teacher Holly Satter.

Heading outdoors is good for kids’ bodies , of course, but it can also be a rich mathematical experience. In second grade, kids can head out to measure perimeters, teacher Jenna McCann suggests—perhaps of the flower boxes in the school garden. If outdoors isn’t an option, there’s plenty of math to be found by walking around inside school—like measuring the perimeter of the tables in the cafeteria or the diameters of circles taped off on the gym floor.

In Maricris Lamigo’s eighth-grade geometry class, “I let [students] roam around the school and take photos of things where congruent triangles were applied,” says Lamigo. “I have students find distances in our indoor courtyard between two stickers that I place on the floor using the Pythagorean theorem,” adds Christopher Morrone, another eighth-grade teacher. In trigonometry, Cathee Cullison sends students outside “with tape measures and homemade clinometers to find heights, lengths, and areas using learned formulas for right and non-right triangles.” Students can make their own clinometers , devices that measure angles of elevation, using protractors and a few other household items.

Plan for adult life

To keep her math lessons both rigorous and engaging, Pamela Kranz runs a monthlong project-based learning activity where her middle school students choose an occupation and receive a salary based on government data. Then they have to budget their earnings to “pay rent, figure out transportation, buy groceries,” and navigate any number of unexpected financial dilemmas, such as medical expenses or car repairs. While learning about personal finance, they develop their mathematical understanding of fractions, decimals, and percents, Kranz writes.

Dig into sports stats

To help students learn how to draw conclusions from data and boost their comfort with decimals and percentages, fourth-grade teacher Kyle Pisselmyer has his students compare the win-loss ratio of the local sports team to that of Pisselmyer’s hometown team. While students can struggle to grasp the relevance of decimals—or to care about how 0.3 differs from 0.305—the details snap into place when they look at baseball players’ stats, educator Maggierose Bennion says.

March Madness is a great source of real world data for students to analyze in math class, says sixth-grade math teacher Jeff Norris. Last March, Norris decorated his classroom like a basketball court, then had his students do basic statistical analysis—like calculating mean, median, and mode—using March Madness data, including individual game scores and the total win rate of each team. “We also did some data collection through our own basketball stations to make it personally relevant,” Norris says; students lined up in teams to shoot paper balls into a basket in a set amount of time, recorded their scores in a worksheet, and then examined the scoring data of the entire class to answer questions about mean, median, mode, range, and outliers.

Go on a (pretend) shopping spree

“My students love any activities that include SHOPPING!” says Jessie, a sixth-grade teacher who creates shopping-related problems using fake (or sometimes real) store ads and receipts. Her students practice solving percentage problems, and the exercise includes opportunities to work with fractions and decimals.

To get students more engaged with the work, math educator Rachel Aleo-Cha zeroes in on objects she knows students are excited about. “I make questions that incorporate items like AirPods, Nike shoes, makeup, etc.,” Aleo-Cha says. She also has students calculate sales tax and prompts them to figure out “what a 50% off plus 20% off discount is—it’s not 70% off.”

Capture math on the fly

Math is everywhere, and whipping out a smartphone when opportunities arise can lead to excellent content for math class. At the foot of Mount Elbert in Colorado, for example, math teacher Ryan Walker recorded a short word problem for his fourth- and fifth-grade students. In the video, he revealed that it was 4:42 a.m., and it would probably take him 249 minutes to reach the summit. What time would he reach the summit, he asked his students—and, assuming it took two-thirds as long to descend, what time would he get back down?

Everyday examples can be especially relatable. At the gas station, “I record a video that tells the size of my gas tank, shows the current price of gas per gallon, and shows how empty my gas tank is,” says Walker. “Students then use a variety of skills (estimation, division, multiplying fractions, multiplying decimals, etc.) to make their estimate on how much money it will cost to fill my tank.”

Connect to social issues

It can be a powerful exercise to connect math to compelling social issues that students care about. In a unit on ratios and proportions, middle school teacher Jennifer Schmerler starts by having students design the “most unfair and unjust city”—where resources and public services like fire departments are distributed extremely unevenly. Using tables and graphs that reflect the distribution of the city’s population and the distribution of its resources, students then design a more equitable city.

Play entrepreneur

Each year, educator Karen Hanson has her fourth- and fifth-grade students brainstorm a list of potential business ideas and survey the school about which venture is most popular. Then the math begins: “We graph the survey results and explore all sorts of questions,” Hanson writes, like whether student preferences vary with age. Winning ideas in the past included selling T-shirts and wallets made of duct tape.

Next, students develop a resource list for the business, research prices, and tally everything up. They calculate a fair price point for the good they’re selling and the sales quantity needed to turn a profit. As a wrap-up, they generate financial statements examining how their profits stack up against the sales figures they had projected.

HELP OTHER TEACHERS OUT!

We’d love this article to be an evolving document of lesson ideas that make math relevant to kids. So, teachers, please tell us about your go-to activities that connect math to kids’ real world experiences.

Self Motivation: How to Inspire Yourself to Reach Your Goals

Updated: March 11, 2024

Published: September 22, 2022

Take a moment and think about what gets you out of bed and working hard every morning. If it’s a strict boss, your successful friends, or the desire for praise, it might be time to focus on the most important, long-lasting source of motivation: yourself. 

In psychology, motivation is broken into two main categories: intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is behavior motivated by external factors, while intrinsic motivation is driven by internal desires. 

While both methods are effective in the short term, self-motivation is the most sustainable and can help you turn long-term goals into reality. Though tapping into that inner drive might not be easy, there are concrete steps you can take to master the technique.

Self-motivation definition 

“Self-motivation comes from feeling motivated by factors that are important to you rather than factors that are important to others,” says career coach and consultant Jess Wass . 

Self-motivation is our internal drive, whether it’s focused on climbing the ranks in your career or training for a marathon. 

Behavioral science professor Ayelet Fishbach says research shows that people experience some form of desire about half the time they’re awake. However, half of that desire conflicts with their goals (e.g., staying awake for work when you desire a nap). 

“You basically need self-motivation all the time,” Fishbach says. “Obvious examples include pushing through some difficult tasks at work, navigating interpersonal conflicts, controlling what you eat, exercising, managing your finances, and more.”

Examples of self-motivation:

• You’re working on a six-month project at your job. After assigning it to you, your boss has not checked in and has let you work autonomously. Even though you are not being measured on your progress, you set weekly goals over the six-month period to keep yourself on track and accountable. 
• You take a walk outside every day. You go alone, and don’t post it on social media, but continue to do so each day because you know it’s healthy mentally and physically. 
• You started a newsletter in your free time, and have to work nights and weekends to get it done. It’s an independent project, so there are no consequences if you skip an issue, but you haven’t because you’re passionate about the newsletter and its subject matter. 

Why is self-motivation important? 

“Self-motivation is important because other people are not always around to hold us accountable,” says professor Scott Geller , who teaches a course in the psychology of self-motivation.

Relying on others to motivate you isn’t sustainable: teachers, parents, or bosses cannot continuously follow you around. The only long-term, dependable source of motivation is yourself. 

And while mastering self-motivation can benefit your career, productivity, health, and more, the biggest benefit to implementing the habit may be your outlook on life. 

“When we’re doing something because we want to do it, rather than because somebody is telling us to do it — that’s happiness, right?” says Geller. 

Luckily, self-motivation is a skill that can be honed, and there are concrete techniques you can implement in order to achieve it.

Self-motivation techniques

• Find your why: If you’re feeling listless or downright unhappy at your job, it can be helpful to remember why you do what you do, whether it’s a paycheck, a career move, or simply stability. Evaluate what you’re getting out of a certain situation and refocus your attention on the positives to increase your self-motivation.
• Take learning opportunities: Even in the worst situations, there’s often a lesson or skill to be learned, whether it’s a soft skill such as time management or a hard skill such as coding. Focusing on bettering yourself can boost drive and provide you with an intrinsic motivator.
• Record your wins: Wass asks her clients to list three wins at the end of each week. This habit helps you tap into positivity and build a sense of pride. Feeling accomplished feeds self-motivation and gets you out of a rut.
• Set goals: Find goals that fulfill you personally — the more you care about something, the easier it will be to reach your target. (For example, if you don’t want to run a marathon, training for it will likely be unsuccessful). Also try to add fun whenever possible in the goal-setting process: Enjoying the journey will naturally bring about self-motivation. This could mean bringing friends along for the ride or giving yourself a designated award at completion. 
• Exchange advice: Use social support to give and get advice. Giving advice helps you step into the role of a mentor, which can motivate you to continue advancing toward your desired goals. Getting advice can teach you something new and inspire you to keep up with the hard work.
• Set long-term goals: Setting goals in increments of weeks or months rather than days can help you stick to the bigger picture and prioritize tasks more easily.

How to increase self-motivation

Once you’ve identified the techniques that can be used to boost self-motivation, it’s time to get to work. 

“The first step to adopting a new habit or behavior is to understand why you want that new behavior and how it aligns with your needs and values,” says entrepreneur coach Kristyna Zapletal . Zapletal cautions that many fall into a trap of making decisions that benefit their career path, but don’t align with their deeper values or needs. 

Once you set sights on what you really want, Zapletal advises clients to make specific plans for how they are going to accomplish a task, regardless of how simple it is. 

If your goal is to run each morning, dig into what that means and plan around it. How many times per week will you run? Which days of the week? How many miles? She also recommends coming up with a plan B: If you can’t hit your mileage goal one morning, set a second, easier goal to hit.

“The more specific the plan, the higher the chance that you will succeed,” says Zapletal. 

Goal-setting and self-motivation go hand in hand, and the more purposeful you are with your goals, the more likely you are to meet them. 

Geller says in order to boost your self-motivation, you need to make sure your goals are not only  specific but also measurable, achievable, relevant, trackable, and shareable (his play on the SMART goal-setting method). 

Breaking down large, daunting goals into smaller steps increases your self-motivation and helps you stick with the task at hand. If your dream is to start a daily newsletter, don’t pressure yourself to write a smart, lengthy newsletter from day one. Instead, outline tasks for each week: one week can be spent reading other newsletters you find inspiring, the next can be used to outline information for the first issues, the next you can find an interview subject, etc. 

Self-motivation at work 

Self-motivation plays a crucial role in the workplace as it can dictate how driven employees are (or aren’t) to meet company goals. 

“Motivation is an important topic to understand, especially as you move into management and need to understand what motivates different people,” says Wass. “We can start to apply these principles to create better relationships between leaders and employees.”

Wass points out that many times when employers attempt to motivate workers, they do so using external motivation tools like promotions and pay raises. While these extrinsic motivators can be effective, they are not long-term solutions for keeping employees happy and satisfied.

“Even if you pay people, there are other factors that make them feel disconnected from their work: like if they don’t feel there’s impact or purpose,” says Wass. 

Employers can motivate workers by tapping into their intrinsic motivations. Ideas include starting philanthropic initiatives that allow employees to engage with causes they care about, allowing workers the freedom to pursue their passions (e.g., hosting ideas contests or social activities), and giving opportunities for mentorship and personal development. 

All these avenues can lead to long-term, sustainable motivation and overall career satisfaction. 

But if and when companies fail to provide fulfilling motivation for their employees, it falls on individuals to use self-motivation techniques to avoid unhappiness at work.

“More and more people are realizing that they want to want to go to work, and they’re asking themselves what they need to do to get there,” says Wass. 

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The numbers do not add up for mathematics homework, according to a new study

by University of South Australia

Supporting kids with math homework is a common afterschool activity. But beyond the basics, new curricula and teaching strategies are making it harder for parents to help and it's taking a serious toll on children's confidence and learning.

In a study from the University of South Australia, researchers have found that mathematics homework can sometimes cause more harm than good.

Exploring how homework policies and practices affect families, researchers found that mathematics homework could inadvertently affect a child when it often:

• was too difficult for a child to complete independently, and/or with the support of a parent
• required significant support from parents and seeped into family time
• resulted in a negative experience for the child and their parent, leading to negative associations with mathematics and potentially students' disengagement from the subject
• generated feelings of despair, stress, and negativity among parents who were unable to help
• made students feel inadequate when they struggled with the work.

UniSA researcher Associate Professor Lisa O'Keeffe says such negativity around mathematics has broad implications.

"Homework has long been accepted as a practice that reinforces children's learning and improves academic success," Assoc. Prof. O'Keeffe says.

"But when it is too complex for a student to complete even with parent support, it raises the question as to why it was set as a homework task in the first place. We know that parents play a key role in supporting their children with schooling and homework. When children need help, their parents are often the first people they turn to.

"But many parents are unsure of the current mathematics strategies and approaches that their children are learning as these have changed a lot since they were at school. Like many things, mathematics teaching has evolved over time. But when parents realize that their tried-and-true methods are different to those which their children are learning, it can be hard to adapt, and this can add undue pressure. When children see their parents struggle with mathematics homework, or where mathematics homework becomes a shared site of frustration for families, it can lead to negativity across generations.

"For example, we might hear adults saying things like, 'I wasn't very good at math, so my child won't be either.' Negative interactions with mathematics, and negative discourses like these can lead to reduced confidence, reduced self-efficacy, and can negatively affect children's resilience, persistence, and ultimately their inclination to continue with mathematics."

Any decline in STEM subjects such as math can have long-term impacts for Australia's future. Statistics show that fewer than 10% of students are studying a higher level of math, with math capabilities declining more than 25 points (15-year-olds in 2022 scored at a level that would have been expected of 14-year-olds, 20 years earlier).

Co-researcher, UniSA's Dr. Sarah McDonald, says the research also identified gendered biases.

"Our research showed that it was overwhelmingly mothers who were responsible for managing children's homework. And they often experience frustration or despair when they were unable to understand the math problems," Dr. McDonald says. "When mothers find math hard, there is concern that this may demonstrate to their children , especially their girls, that this is not an area in which they would naturally excel.

"The last thing teachers want to do is disadvantage girls in developing potentially strong mathematical identities. We need a greater understanding of homework policies and expectations.

"The experiences of the families in our study do not support the often-quoted claim by researchers that that homework has potential non-academic benefits such as fostering independence, creating positive character traits, developing good organizational skills, or virtues such as self-discipline and responsibility."

Provided by University of South Australia

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How to Motivate Yourself to Work Out Even When Life Gets Hectic

Posted: September 30, 2023 | Last updated: October 4, 2023

Sometimes, finding the motivation to work out can be just as hard - if not harder - as doing the workout itself. That's why learning how to stay motivated is an essential part of any fitness routine, whether you've been working out for years or you're just beginning a new health journey. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to encourage yourself to get moving and motivate yourself to work out.

Ahead, you'll find 15 tips for finding the workout motivation you may be sorely lacking right now. Some have worked for me personally, others are backed by research, and a number are directly from an expert: Kelly Froelich, an NASM- and ACE-certified trainer and cofounder of the digital fitness platform Balanced , who was kind enough to share how she keeps herself (and her clients) motivated.

As you read through them, remember that it doesn't reflect on your character; no fitness journey is linear, and even the most dedicated gym-goers, athletes, and trainers experience dips in motivation at one point or another, too. If you're not feeling motivated to work out, also consider what might be causing those feelings in the first place: are you exhausted, burnt out , stressed out by work, or feeling pressured to do other things instead of taking time for yourself? Addressing the root cause of your lack of motivation could help you prevent tough moments where you rely on sheer willpower alone to get a workout in.

In the meantime, though, these tips for finding workout motivation can help. Keep reading for some inspiration, and keep in mind that one of these motivational strategies could work for you today, and another might work for you tomorrow. Keep them all in your arsenal so you're always ready to find some energy to make a workout happen.

- Additional reporting by Lauren Mazzo

Just Get Dressed

As someone who deals with depression and anxiety, I find that breaking tasks down into small steps can help me build the momentum needed to get stuff done. In my experience, this tactic works with exercise as well. When I'm not feeling motivated to work out but I know exercising will make me feel better, I tell myself: You don't have to exercise. Just get dressed. More often than not, simply getting dressed helps me feel motivated enough to get out the door and on the trail. It might work for you, too.

Stick With Workouts You Actually Enjoy

For me, this is key to staying motivated to exercise on a regular basis. I used to work out nearly daily, spending hours in the gym each week. I looked forward to intense cardio and strength training - but for the last couple of years, I've only been interested in exercising outdoors and stretching in my house. Hikes, long walks, bike rides, and kayaking trips are my workouts of choice these days. Currently, I'm working out less than I did for most of my 20s and my workouts are easier, but I wouldn't be exercising at all if I only allowed myself to do HIIT.

This isn't only true for me. Experts say , time and time again, that the best workout is the one you enjoy doing, because it means you'll stick with it since you'll want to do it again.

Find a Workout Buddy

"For extroverts or people who like being around people, I think accountability buddies or simply workout buddies are great. Sometimes, it is easier to let yourself down by skipping a workout than letting a friend down by missing it," Froelich tells POPSUGAR. "My favorite go-to activity to catch up with a friend is a workout and a meal afterwards."

Research confirms this benefit, showing that working out with a partner (even a virtual or simulated one) encourages people to work out harder. You don't need to do every workout with a friend , but having a standing weekly workout date for a yoga class or run can become a regular thing you look forward to - and you're much less likely to cancel on a friend than you are to cancel on a workout with yourself.

Try "Habit Stacking"

This term was coined by SJ Scott, author of "Habit Stacking: 127 Small Changes to Improve Your Health, Wealth, and Happiness" ($16). In the book, Scott suggests "stacking" new habits into a single routine, so that the new behavior you're trying to encourage is tied to something you already do. "I like to start my day with a coffee, a workout, and a meditation," Froelich explains. "That coffee, which I love, puts into motion the rest of my day, as I know after the coffee, I work out, and then meditate." Here's more on why habit stacking works , and how to try it yourself.

Pair Long Walks With Your Favorite Podcasts

I habitually listen to podcasts on walks, because it's a surefire way to get me moving and keep me moving, even when all I want to do is sit on my couch and watch "Insecure". Try it! A good podcast can make even hour-long walks fly by, and you'll probably learn something to boot. For a double dose of health and wellness, consider listening to one of these mental health podcasts the next time you take a stroll.

This workout motivation technique works so well, it's the entire impetus behind the viral hot girl walk - though with that trend, feel-good music playlists are fair game as well as podcasts.

Pay For a Workout Class

If paying for a workout class simply isn't in your budget right now, don't do it - you can work out outdoors, or at home , for free. If it is possible for you to pay for a workout class, however, doing so might be a good way to motivate yourself to exercise. If you're anything like me, you won't waste that money by skipping out.

Join a Challenge (or Create One For Yourself) and Pick a Prize For Following Through

"Challenges are a great way to self-motivate, as well. A 30-day challenge with a significant prize at the end - a massage or a dinner out with friends - is a great way to stay motivated," Froelich says. "Intrinsic motivation, such as an internal desire to do something, is great to stick to something in the long run, but sometimes you need a bit of extrinsic motivation, such as a prize, to start you off."

That challenge can totally depend on your goals and interests. It could be deciding to follow a workout plan , signing up for and completing a 5K, or working out three times a week for a month straight. Many workout apps have built-in challenges or training programs you can easily sign up for, and are often affordable, if not free.

Take Your Workout Outdoors

Exercise is medicine, no matter where you do it. But research shows that spending time in nature can be especially beneficial for overall health and wellness. (It's also just more fun, in my opinion.) So if you're struggling to find the motivation to work out, take your workout outdoors. Whether you walk, bike, hike, roller blade, play pickleball , or run, knowing your workout will double as quality time with nature might help you feel more motivated to get it done.

Remember Why You Started Working Out

"I also think it's important to come back to why you started," Froelich says. "When I train for a marathon, there are many, many times when I simply do not want to go on a long run for whatever reason - it could be too cold, too hot, too late in the day, not enough sleep. But, I always come back to the reason I was going on a run."

Signing up for a race or training for a specific event - whether that's a big hike or activity you want to do on vacation - can put the pressure on, but in a good way: if gives you a concrete "why."

If your "why" is simpler (for exmaple, that it feels good or leaves you with a clearer head) that's not any less valuable. Try to remind yourself of that post-workout feeling, and it could be the thing that helps you find some workout motivation.

Consider Fostering or Adopting a Dog

This one is certainly not a quick fix, and fostering or adopting a dog is no small feat. You definitely shouldn't take it on if you know you don't have the disposable income, emotional capacity, or bandwidth to provide a dog with the care they deserve. That said, if it's possible for you, fostering or adopting a dog would give you built-in motivation to stay physically active. Research shows that people with dogs tend to exercise more, just by nature of being good pet parents.

Think of Your Sleep Routine

Research supports a link between exercise and better sleep - so if nothing else motivates you to work out, think about how much faster you're likely to fall asleep , and how much more satisfying your sleep routine is likely be, if you don't skip your workout.

Set Goals You Can Realistically Achieve

Froelich encourages her clients to set realistic goals, such as working out three times a week for 30 minutes. "The key is that the goal isn't 'work out Monday, Wednesday, Friday' and, if you miss a day, you miss the goal. The goal should be flexible to how you are feeling and what times work for your schedule," Froelich explains. When your workout goal feels atainable vs. intimidating, that removes one more blockade that could mentally stand between you and getting to your workout.

Don't Compare Your Body or Fitness Journey to Others

Froelich says she's happiest and most likely to stick to her workout routine when she turns off Instagram during the week. "There are amazing communities and positive inspiration on Instagram, but there is also a lot of comparison. Comparison can be the enemy of happiness," Froelich says. And it can also very quickly zap your motivation.

"Instead of comparative 'body inspiration,' use your own body as inspiration," Froelich adds. "It can already do so many incredible things, and working out is a way to push your body in a safe way to do even more." Instead of thinking about how many push-ups someone else can do, pride yourself on getting in two more reps today.

Create a Workout Motivation Playlist

For much of my adult life, I've worked remotely as a writer. Over the years, I've discovered having a few designated writing playlists helps me switch into "writing mode," even when I have to work in the same room where I sleep and watch TV. It's a simple tactic that can be applied to finding workout motivation, too, and one I've relied on in the past. Creating a "workout motivation" playlist or two might help you find the will to exercise as well. Here's a list of the best workout songs for 2023 - with an entire playlist, ready to go - to get you started.

Say Kind Things to Yourself, Even When You Miss a Work Out

Tearing yourself down won't make you want to get up and do better tomorrow. "Be gentle with yourself. You are setting new goals for challenging things," Froelich says. "Progress is not a straight line, but it does tilt upwards. If you have a bad workout or miss a workout day, say motivating things like you are talking to your best friend. Sometimes, we can be our own worst critic."

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