Homework Procrastination

[nolongeractive]

Hey guys, I have a question! When I have a lot of reading homework to do (which I unfortunately do this quarter), I have a LOT of trouble making myself do it. Sometimes I won't even do it at all. If it's a short reading assignment I will get it done, but when there's a lot it somehow becomes too overwhelming to even try to tackle it. These are especially in my History of Modern India and Contemporary Chinese Art classes. We have about 50 pages of articles in the art history class and 50 to 100 pages in the India class per week (which to some people is not a lot but I struggle with it).

I take low dosages of ADD and anxiety medication, which does help my focus and make me less fearful of getting these things done, but the difficulty is still there. I'm also working with a tutor on this but we've just begun, and I could use any tips I can get because this is gonna be a tricky quarter at the university. Thanks for any help I receive!

[DogLover]

Ah, the great problem of homework procrastination which has stopped me from getting any of my vacation work done so far

I try to accomplish it in small pieces every day, like telling myself that tomorrow I have to read twenty pages of history stuff (yawn) and write at least one more page of my super long and important civics paper. And get some more math done.

I also reward myself for my troubles by not doing the stuff I want to do, like practicing guitar and eating ice cream, until I've gotten something done. Like "You can eat that chocolate Ben & Jerry's in the freezer after you do your history reading." It sounds really stupid, but it works for me.

You may have also noticed that I talk to myself a lot about it. Not sure why, but it helps me stay focused and avoid distractions.

Hope this helps!

[Anonymouse]

DogLover's suggestions are all good! I was going to say the same, to read a number of pages every day, though I know personally that hasn't worked for me and before I graduated I had the same issues you had. If I broke them up over days like that I would have a hard time remembering it all. I'm a fan of 9gag, so what I would do is read a few pages, then come to a reasonable break point and reward myself with a page or two of memes. Then repeat. It breaks up the monotony and gives you an incentive to get through it. Sometimes I wouldn't even be able to force myself to finish a reading all the way, and if that happens then so be it. Chances are you'll go over the same information in class, which will also help reinforce what you did read.

Most importantly, don't sweat it! Try to get it done as soon as you can so you don't have it looming over you for the rest of the week. Jot down little notes or highlight the important stuff so that you can refer back to the important information later on without having to re-read the entire thing.

Just out of curiosity, do you have to memorize slides for the art history class? Because that used to be a huge pain in the ass for me, but I have some advice on how to memorize those little suckers.

[happybunny]

I take a Survey of Art history class too. (1 and 2) and i know how much reading it is.. it's A LOT. And you simply CANNOT procrastonate, or your head WILL be skrewed, and you'll end up swimming in mounds of work on Sunday. But my advice- go to a room without your laptop or a TV. because they will; distract you. Tackle the reading and take notes for like an hour straight. Then you can take a 5 minuete break or so, and repeat. But as soon as your teacher goes over something in class, go over it again at home. (Or in your dorm. (?) ) and take advantage of like, online resources.. a lot of the time the textbooks have a link to an online study site, that helps you study.

Good luck it's spring break here and i have like loads of art history work to prepare for the exams next month. not fun..

[Hawkeye]

One thing that I find helps me stay motivated to do homework is to write a to do list of all my assignments, broken down into small increments. So I wouldn't just write "Work on such and such project" or "Do this reading," I'll write "Read this section" and then "Read next section," etc. I find that being able to steadily cross stuff off my to-do list as I complete small tasks is really helpful in motivating me to keep going.