Students with learning, attention, and executive functioning challenges are more successful when they use a set of proven time and task management strategies. Try these strategies to reduce distractions, get more done, and reduce the “homework hassles!”
This is a sample of what students learn in Student Success!
Establish Time to Do Your Assignments and Study
It can be helpful to establish both a beginning time and an ending time to complete your work. If you don’t have a beginning time, you could put-off homework all night. Similarly, if you don’t have an ending time in mind, it is easier to get distracted and you could find yourself doing homework all night.
Plan to reward yourself with “free-time.” Freedom to do what you want to do after your work is completed can be a great motivator to focus and get things done!
Get Ready to Work
First, drop off your backpack in your study area so you don’t have to go find it. Then, take a 15 to 30-minute break to have a healthy snack, unwind from the day, and get ready to work. Avoid getting caught up in any activity that will hard to break free of.
Next, spend 5 to 10 minutes updating your monthly calendar or whiteboard to record any upcoming project deadlines, tests, or quizzes. If your school uses a reliable on-line homework assignment system, check this system during this time.
Clear Your Work Area of Distracters
Clear any distracters from your study area. Put homework “to do” in a pile on the left side of your work area and put a “homework completed” folder on the right side. Work from left to right. Just seeing the assignments move from “to do” to “done” can motivate you to keep going when the going gets tough.
Use a Timer to Stay on Task
During this time, try using an interval timer set to beep or buzz every 10 to 15 minutes. When the timer beeps, look at your list or stack of work and ask yourself, “Am I still on task, or do I need to get back to it?”
Structure Your Homework Time for Success
Once you get started, try this routine to build and maintain your motivation.
-
Spend 15 minutes doing everything you can complete quickly. As these items are completed, check them off your list and put them in your “homework completed” folder. This produces chemicals in your brain that are important for motivation and focus. This process gets you ready to focus on more difficult tasks you don’t want to do.
-
Spend the next 30 minutes completing difficult work that you don’t want to do or work that requires your best attention. Now that your brain is ready for these tasks, turn off all electronics and stay away from all distracters. If you are “on-a-roll” completing these tasks, it’s okay to go over this 30-minute limit.
-
Take a 15-minute break. Get up and move. Do some sort of exercise and/or have a snack. You may use distracters as rewards but be sure and limit your time with these.
-
Repeat these steps as many times as necessary to complete all your tasks.
These amounts of time are not “set in stone.” If they don’t work for you, feel free to adjust them to fit your specific needs. The main point is to maintain this structure. When you are tired, bored, overwhelmed, or just don’t want to do your work, your brain needs this type of structure to get going.
This structured routine originally developed at Harvard Business School has helped overwhelmed adults get more work done, and I’ve seen the same with struggling and overwhelmed students.
Stay Organized!
As part of your homework routine, put all your completed work in your backpack, folders, or notebooks you’ll take back to school tomorrow.
At least once each week, plan to clean out your backpack and/or notebooks during homework time. Put all graded papers in a file box organized by subject so you can easily retrieve them later when it’s time to study for finals. For more suggestions about staying organized, see my post on Organization.
Consider a Planner Alternative
Students who struggle to use school-provided and store-bought planners are encouraged to consider my post Planner Alternatives for Students who Hate to Plan.
Prioritize Your Tasks and Get Started!
If it’s hard for you to prioritize, plan, start and complete your tasks, consider these previous posts.
-
Getting Your Priorities Straight
-
Steps to Planning a Project
-
Six Steps to Planning a Written Report
-
Planning for Tests
-
Dealing with Procrastination
Need Help Applying these Concepts?
This is a sample of what your student can learn in Student Success!
Contact us to make an appointment.
(c) 2010-2019, Monte W. Davenport, Ph.D.
