You learn a lot of information in high school and college. However, perhaps the most important thing that you learn is how to study. Studying is not always about the facts and figures that you pick up; it’s about teaching you how to take control of your life, learn self-control and practice self-discipline.
But if you don’t have parents, a coach or a mentor around encouraging you to do the work that’s necessary to build your skills, you have to persuade yourself to do it. Ultimately, no one is going to follow you around in life, making sure that you achieve your goals.
Learning healthy study habits now can help you get motivated to do anything that you might otherwise put off in life, such as working on your taxes, writing a press release for a new business, sending out a newsletter or formatting your resume.
Here are some tips to motivate yourself to study.
Do You Procrastinate?
Have you ever waited until the last minute to study for a test or complete an assignment? Procrastination is a double-edged sword. You might work more efficiently when you have the pressure of a looming deadline, getting more done in less time and opening up your schedule to complete other tasks.
But if you scramble to finish your work in a limited time frame, the quality might suffer. You might experience anxiety. You probably end up putting off some other things, contributing to a constant cycle of rushing.
You might feel guilty about your procrastination habit. In fact, many people assume that it means that they’re lazy. But if you avoid studying by doing other productive things, like reorganizing your sock drawer, you’re not lazy—you’re just putting off the tasks that you know must get accomplished.
The term “procrastination” comes from two words:
- Procrastinare – Latin for “to put off until tomorrow”
- Akrasia – Greek for “to do something against your better judgment”
That’s why procrastination doesn’t feel good. You aren’t just prioritizing your time so that you get more done; you’re consciously avoiding doing something that you know you should be doing.
Some psychologists say that procrastination isn’t a time-management problem at all. Instead, it’s caused by an inability to regulate your mood. When certain tasks elicit feelings of boredom, frustration, insecurity, and worry, we get uncomfortable. For many, the go-to coping mechanism is avoidance—procrastination in a nutshell.
Evading the work feels good for a moment. It’s a relief. Our stress dissipates, and we feel balanced. These positive emotions that come with the respite trigger the reward pathways in our central nervous system. Our brain tells us that we should keep doing that behavior to keep getting the reward.
So we keep procrastinating.
Like anything in life, if we avoid our uncomfortable feelings, they don’t just go away. They rear their ugly heads when you finally address the problem or start working on the project. The negative associations that are linked to the task at hand will still be there when you start studying.
Only by that point, you’ll probably add self-blame to the mix, making the activity feel even harder. All of those negative emotions exacerbate your stress, causing the cycle of procrastination to continue.
Is Procrastination Really So Bad?
What’s the problem with procrastination if we eventually get our work done just in time for the deadline? In a group setting, procrastination messes with morale. It creates friction and conflict between people. The emotional upheaval that comes from delaying a project can stress everyone out, diminishing their productivity.
But what if it’s just you trying to study for an exam and you work better under pressure? Some argue that procrastination can make you more productive. Delaying studying can be productive if:
- You’re prioritizing other important tasks instead
- You work more efficiently when you know that you don’t have a time buffer
- You tend to be a perfectionist and go over your work several times before you feel comfortable turning it in
- You are so stressed out that you need a break
Approximately 95 percent of American college students procrastinate. In fact, the prevalence of procrastination goes up during the four years of undergraduate studies, peaking in the mid-20s. But most students who procrastinate aren’t taking on other productive tasks while they put off studying. They’re engaging in unproductive tasks that detract from their performance.
Plus, procrastinating can take a toll on your health. This is a tricky subject, because people who procrastinate may have better health early on than individuals who work hard from the beginning. But students who delay their work often suffer from colds and flu symptoms toward the end of each semester, whereas more consistent students don’t.
Procrastination isn’t so bad at the moment. The short-term effects are rewarding and pleasurable, actually. But procrastination sets you up to feel worse in the long run.
Before you feel bad about your procrastination habit, you should know that humans are wired to work this way. We prioritize our short-term needs because they’re ultimately more important for our survival than our long-term needs are.
Our future selves are like strangers to us. Psychologists say that we don’t associate with the future as part of our identity. Therefore, putting off studying tricks our minds into thinking that it’s someone else’s problem. But eventually, we catch up with the future. It becomes the present, at which time we face a stressful issue.
Stop Procrastinating by Managing Your Emotions
The stress that procrastination produces makes it harder for us to accomplish our objectives. Therefore, you need to learn how to cope with your emotions more effectively if you want to break the procrastination loop.
That may come as a surprise to you. Much of the literature about how to stop procrastinating discusses time management and self-control strategies. We’ll cover those in this article too.
However, you have to start with your emotions if you want to change your habits for good and motivate yourself to study on a regular basis.
Your brain is always seeking out rewards. When it discovers a behavior that activates its reward center, it tells you to keep doing that behavior until you do something that produces an even bigger reward. If you want to change your procrastination habit, you have to give your brain something that psychiatrist Judson Brewer calls a bigger, better offer.
In other words, when we have uncomfortable emotions, we need to relieve them with something more rewarding than procrastination. The problem is that most activities that we would find rewarding would contribute to our procrastination.
The 90-Second Rule
When most people have distressing emotions, they choke them off. They distract themselves with other activities and relegate their problematic feelings to their subconscious. What if you practiced being more aware of your uncomfortable emotions?
You can do this by using the 90-second rule. Developed by neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, this rule states that your emotions are just chemical signals that are produced by our thoughts. If you pay attention to the emotions that arise from a distressing trigger, the chemical process flushes out of your body within 90 seconds.
If you continue to feel the distressing emotion after 90 seconds, you need to bring awareness to your thoughts. You’re probably experiencing mental processes that re-trigger the negative emotion.
When you’re trying to study and you’re overwhelmed by feelings of boredom, stress or anxiety, stop what you’re doing. Take a moment to pinpoint the location of those emotions in the body. They may show up in a variety of ways, including the following:
- A queasy stomach
- Tightness in your chest
- Restriction in your throat
- Shallow breathing
- Jittery sensations in your extremities
Trace the emotions as they leave your body. Then, go back to work. Doing this will likely trigger another emotional response. That’s ok.
It feels so uncomfortable because most of us are taught to ignore our emotions and stuff them away. When we do, we just leave the chemicals inside of ourselves to fester instead of flushing them out.
But practicing bringing your attention to your emotions for 90 seconds over and over again will make this process even easier. It will start to happen automatically and won’t feel like so much of an effort.
If getting back to studying continues to trigger negative emotions, you might want to try getting curious about those feelings. Curiosity is inherently free of judgment. Instead of evaluating an emotion as positive or negative, you’re saying, “That’s interesting. I wonder why I feel this way?”
Removing the judgment can break the cycle of shame and distress that comes with procrastination. You can also try forgiving yourself if you do choose to procrastinate. In one study, students who forgave themselves for delaying studying for an exam procrastinated less on the next test. A 2012 study found that procrastinators tend to have less self-compassion than non-procrastinators.
Other Ways to Motivate Yourself to Study
If you’ve looked at your procrastination habit and practiced bringing attention to your emotions, you might still feel unenthusiastic about studying. Keep observing your feelings as you try some of the following tricks to motivate yourself to study.
Get Some Exercise
It’s easy to feel like stepping away from your assignment is a waste of time. Especially if you have time constraints, should you really focus on exercising instead of studying?
Moving your body can help you concentrate. Being out in nature also helps to raise your motivation levels. Working out can also make you think better. In his book “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain,” John J. Ratey discusses a study that demonstrated that 35 minutes of walking improves cognitive flexibility.
You don’t have to choose walking as your activity, but it’s preferable because it’s so easy. You can take a quick walk almost anywhere and in any weather. If you can’t get outside, try doing jumping jacks, squats, pushups and burpees to elevate your mental energy before starting a study session.
Break Down the Assignment
It’s understandable that you might avoid a lengthy assignment if it’s complex or overwhelming. Breaking it down into multiple steps can make it seem easier to manage.
For example, if you have a 5,000-page paper due, you can split up your work into segments such as:
- Research and take notes on the subject
- Use your notes to write an outline
- Write the introduction and conclusion paragraphs
- Write 500 words until you’ve finished the draft
- Reread and edit the draft
- Write and format the list of sources
- Print the paper and title page
Make sure that you set a deadline for each task. Self-imposed deadlines can help you maintain momentum and stay motivated even when your project isn’t due for a while. Doing this can also help you avoid procrastinating.
Your deadlines should be realistic. If they’re not, you’re only going to feel more overwhelmed when you don’t accomplish your tasks by the self-imposed due date.
Motivate yourself to stick to your deadlines by rewarding yourself when you meet them. Choose a reward that won’t totally derail you but makes you feel great. You might choose to get together with a friend or spend the afternoon at the park when you’ve finished a project.
You can also try setting micro-deadlines throughout the day. If you know that you’ll be spending several hours studying for a test, try timing yourself in 25-minute increments. During those 25 minutes, work diligently without distractions.
At the end of the period, let yourself relax and do something enjoyable for five minutes. You might play a game, check social media or grab a delicious treat. After completing four 25-minute periods, you can take a 20-minute break. This is called the Pomodoro Technique, and it can be adjusted to work with your specific time frames and projects.
You could also try punishing yourself—gently, of course. Putting money on the line can help you get your studying done.
You can give a friend or your parents a post-dated check and tell them that they can cash it if you don’t adhere to your deadlines. You might also consider using a website such as StickK, which allows you to write a commitment contract, get accountability and donate your hard-earned cash to charity if you don’t meet your goal.
Eat the Frog
If you’re feeling really unmotivated to work on a particularly unenticing task, you’ll probably stay that way as long as the project is hanging over your head. Get inspired to do more by tackling the hardest thing first. Some people refer to this as “eating the frog.”
On the other hand, if you have a large number of tasks to do, try taking care of the ones that will take the least amount of time first. Telling yourself that you’ll work for just 10 or 20 minutes takes the pressure off. You don’t have to commit to spending your whole day studying.
But the reward that you’ll feel when you’ve accomplished the small tasks will feel good. You may get ambitious after crossing a few things off of your to-do list and continue to work on some other assignments before calling it quits for the day.
Be Consistent
Don’t wait until you’re in the mood to study. Unless you’re incredibly passionate about the assignment, you can probably convince yourself that you’d rather be doing anything else.
You might just have to get disciplined about your study habits. Scheduling a certain time of day during which you’ll always study is a good way to make it a routine.
When you establish a habit, you spend less time thinking about doing the activity. You just do it. It doesn’t feel like it takes as much energy when it’s automated.
Try making time to study every day. Do it on the weekends even if it’s just for 20 minutes. You’ll generate momentum, and it won’t feel so hard to get back to work when Monday comes around.
Just remember that this might not come easily right away. It takes time to rewire your brain and solidify a pattern. Although many people believe that it takes 21 days to establish a habit, research indicates that the sweet spot might be closer to 66 days.
Stick with your routine even if it feels hard. It’s going to get easier over time.
Use Visualization
Many experts recommend using visualization to achieve your goals and improve your performance. Athletes do this all the time. The benefits of visualization include:
- Improved performance
- Enhanced motivation
- Better concentration
- Fear reduction
- Diminished anxiety
- Increased confidence
Seeing is believing. If you envision yourself studying, you may dredge up the motivation to do it. One trick to making this technique work for you is to imagine yourself starting to study.
Take time to follow every step, including setting up your study space, gathering your notes and opening your textbook. Picturing the beginnings of a study session won’t overwhelm you. It may encourage you to open a book.
Create an Enticing Study Space
Your environment is crucial to your study habits. It’s also highly personal.
Some people do better when they’re in the corner of a quiet library, while others study best when they’re surrounded by other students who are working on their own assignments.
You should take some time to become aware of the best studying atmosphere for you. To get a sense of the kind of space that would help you focus, think about:
- Whether you like to listen to music while studying
- How you respond to background noise and visual distractions
- Whether smells are distracting
- What kind of lighting you prefer
- If you feel more energetic when it’s hot or cold
- How likely you are to be distracted by other electronics
- Whether you like to study with a group
Once you have an idea of what motivates you to study, create an environment that you can return to every time you need to concentrate. You might keep a chair and blanket handy if you like to work outside, or you may hole up in a booth at your favorite restaurant.
Perhaps you need to clean off the desk in your room so that it’s always available when you have work to do. Otherwise, clearing the surface might be another excuse that you use to procrastinate.
If you’re going to be working late into the night, try to stay as far away from your bed as possible. When it takes more effort to go to bed than it does to finish your assignment, you’ll be more likely to get all of your work done. Sitting in an upright position or using a standing desk might be preferable to lounging. Some students find that they study better when they’re relaxed or reclining, though.
Once you know what works for you, just putting yourself in the environment can get you in the mood to study.
Do One Thing at a Time
Do you think that you’re good at managing several tasks at a time? Multitasking isn’t getting you anywhere. In truth, it’s impossible for humans to multitask.
Although you may think that you’re doing more than one activity at a time, you’re actually jumping back and forth from one task to the other. This impairs your productivity by up to 40 percent. It also damages your cognitive ability, making it harder for you to study in the future.
Think about all of the tasks that you do automatically while you’re studying. These might include:
- Switching back and forth between tabs on your computer
- Checking and responding to texts
- Checking social media or emails
- Listening to the TV
- Talking to a study partner
This relentless onslaught of stimulation is exhausting. Plus, studies show that it impacts the brain.
People who multitask all the time may have a hard time differentiating relevant and irrelevant details. That can make it hard for you to research and write a term paper or decide what to include on your flashcards when studying for a test.
You might think that heavy multitaskers would have an easier time switching from one activity to another. However, research shows that they’re less mentally organized and have trouble with transitions. Their minds also work less efficiently when they’re focusing on a single task.
If you want to set yourself up for success, do one thing at a time. Making a to-do list or scheduling your study sessions in your planner allows you to do this. You can even use the Pomodoro Technique that we described above to stay on track.
Make Studying Quantifiable
One of the hardest parts about studying for a test is that you can never be sure that you’ve studied long and hard enough. When you don’t know what material will be included in the exam, you can’t be certain about what to study. But reflecting on everything that you learned in the past weeks isn’t efficient.
Creating solid study habits throughout the semester can make it easier for you to prepare for exams. Some suggestions include:
- Always take notes while you’re reading.
- Keep the notes for each class in a separate binder or notebook.
- Every week, make flashcards from the notes that you took.
- Before your test, go through the flashcards.
- When you know that you’ve learned a particular piece of information, put that flashcard aside.
Using this technique, you’ll end up with two piles of flashcards: those that contain information that you’ve absorbed and those that you need to go back to. When you do this, you can quantify how much more learning you need to do before the test.
When you see that you only have half a stack of flashcards to memorize, you may be more motivated to get to studying instead of procrastinating.
Remind Yourself that it Won’t Last Forever
Studying can be so tedious and boring that it seems to last a lifetime. But it won’t. It will be over before you know it. Reminding yourself of this can give you the motivation to get moving and get it over with.
When you’ve waited until the last minute and are burning the candle at both ends to prepare for an exam or write a paper, this reminder might not help. All you want at that point is to sleep. You can avoid that frustration by taking the steps that we have already suggested in this article. If you’ve stayed motivated along the way, you won’t have to dredge up as much inspiration when you’re under the gun.
But if you are in a time crunch, you may have to pull together all of these resources to get the job done. After you take the test or turn in the assignment, pat yourself on the back. Then, remind yourself that you’ll be much less stressed if you’re more disciplined about studying next time.
Although discipline sounds boring, it’s actually motivating. Self-motivation drives you even when your willpower has disappeared. But it also takes discipline to overcome the nagging voice that tells you that studying is boring. Following the steps that we’ve outlined in this article helps you balance discipline and inspiration so that you can motivate yourself to study even when you really just want to take a nap.