Tips and Tricks on How to Focus on Homework

Being tired and annoyed after a long day in school or college is absolutely normal. In such a mood, it’s hard to motivate and force yourself to start working on your assignments for the next day. Many students can’t cope with procrastination looking for the answer to the question “How to focus better?” and end up using study drugs which is not recommended.

Fortunately, we have a few tips that will help you to stop procrastinating, increase your productivity and get to work. Keep reading our article to know more.

Find a Comfortable Place

It’s easy to feel distracted and unfocused when your setting doesn’t match the task that you have to complete. That’s why setting the right atmosphere is the first thing you should do when starting working on your assignments.

Here are a few things that you need to take care of before you actually start doing your homework:

1. Your working place has to be a desk (or a table) with a comfortable chair. Now, many of you would say “What’s wrong with doing your homework while lying in bed?” Actually, everything. When you sit or lay on the couch or bed, it relaxes you too much and makes you sleepy. A comfortable table and a chair will be the best option for sitting straight and keeping yourself toned.
2. Open your window to get fresh air. When your brain lacks oxygen, it can’t work correctly, so it makes you a slower thinker. Fresh air and deep breathing will help you to keep your mind sharp and avoid headaches.
3. Bring some snacks to your working place. You will probably want to have a snack during this study session, so grab them beforehand. Otherwise, you will have to walk outside the room to grab something to eat, and it will negatively impact your concentration. Staying in the room where you are studying is the best tip on how to concentrate on study continuously for long hours.
4. Find a place where the rest of your family or your mates won’t bother you to study. The best option would be a separate room with a door closed. If you have someone at home, ask for privacy and silence. Try to avoid doing your homework in the living room, because it will be much harder to focus with a talk show on TV or chatting family members in the background.

The atmosphere and the place you are studying at are very important for setting up the right mood for a cram session and keeping yourself focused.

Eliminate Distractions

This is the most important and the hardest step. When you need to focus on your assignments – which can be quite boring, let’s face it – it’s hard to keep away from the temptation of using your phone, checking social media and watching TV shows. But you can do that, you just need to follow easy steps:

1. Block your phone or give it to someone while you are learning. It is a simple rule for anyone who wants to succeed in studying – not using your cell phone. To make it easier for you, you can log out of your social media accounts, to turn off the Wi-Fi on your phone or to switch to the airplane mode. This way you won’t receive messages, calls or annoying notifications and will be able to stay focused. If you know that you won’t be able to keep yourself away from your phone, give it to a parent, a friend or use an app that blocks your screen for a preset time – Flipd, Offtime, etc.
2. Avoid listening to music with lyrics. When you are trying to understand information that you are reading or to formulate a thought that you need to write down, the side noises can hinder. Especially when someone is talking or singing. It happens because your brain is trying to process the information it receives by hearing. If you need some background music, choose some tracks without lyrics. Classical music will do the best.
3. Don’t watch TV. It distracts you just like music. Avoid watching it; otherwise, your productivity will severely decrease.

All of these tips are great for school and college students who get distracted easily. The less you interrupt your studying process, the more focused you will be while completing homework.

Organize Your Time

Time management is one of the most essential college skills. If you can productively organize the time you spend on doing your homework, you can change your studying routine and spend less time every day working on another assignment.

What does it mean? Time management in studying means that you need to create an action plan first and then follow it without messing the time limits you established.

For example, your plan for the evening might be:

3.00 PM – 4.00 PM – Math assignment
4.00 PM – 4.30 PM – Rest
4.30 PM – 5.30 PM – Science assignment
5.30 PM – 6.00 PM – Rest
6.00 PM – 7.00 PM – Literature assignment
7.00 PM – 8.00 PM – Dinner
8.00 PM – 9.00 PM – Art assignment

As you can see this plan implies an alteration of studying and small 30 minutes breaks to help your brain rest and get ready for the next assignment. You can have snacks, use your phone, listen to music or do some exercises during these breaks. Just give yourself some reward for the amount of work that you completed. You would also be surprised how easily you can manage your time in college.

• If you set up the schedule for studying at home, it will be easier for you to get to work faster. The mind gets used to certain actions that repeat from day to day. So, just like you are used to going to school in the morning, you will be used to getting to work when the homework time comes. Not everyone can establish such a schedule. But you surely ought to try it.
• Start with the most time-consuming and challenging assignments. As soon as you get to work, your concentration is much stronger than at the end of studying session. Dedicate the time when you are focused the most to the assignments that require more time and effort.
• Establish the priority of each assignment that you have to complete. Give the main priority to the assignments that are urgent or value more and start with these tasks. If all of your tasks are important and you don’t have enough time to finish all of them, consider turning to a professional service for help.
• Cross out finished assignments from the plan – you will see your progress and feel more satisfied with your productivity. Moreover, such a tactic helps boost your motivation to do homework.
• Don’t try to be multitasking. When you try to complete a few assignments at the same time, your concentration gets worse due to the variety of information that your brain needs to process. Focus on one assignment at a time. After finishing it, you can have a break and then start a new assignment.

As you can see, the time that you spend on your assignments is as important as the time you give yourself to relax between your study sessions. Such breaks not only help your brain to keep concentration for a long time but also provide you with an opportunity to avoid the temptation as you know that after completing another assignment you can enjoy the things you like – music, social networks, etc.

We hope that you found our pieces of advice useful and will feel more focused the next time you have to start your homework assignment.