Homework can turn into misery if you do not know the right approach to it. To help your child or yourself, if you have decided to learn something new or are a student, you need to find a proper method to organize the process. Together with the Essay Bulls essay writing service, we’ve put together eight life hacks to cope with your home assignments faster.
Set an alarm
You don’t wake up in the morning to school from insomnia; you wake up to your “beloved” alarm clock. You have to devote time just for lessons and set an alarm clock. This way, you’ll know when to start doing your homework and when to finish.
When you hear the alarm ringing, you’ll start to tune-up for work. Otherwise, we all know how it happens — “I’m going to talk to my BFF just for five more minutes and go do my homework,” “oh, new video on YouTube, I’ll just check it and then get back to work.”
The alarm clock will also help you take breaks. Set the timer for 45-60 minutes and take 10-minute breaks in between. After even such a short pause, you will feel that your mind has become refreshed, and the material will be remembered more quickly and easily.
Set priorities
You have to take this step at the very beginning of your studying — look at the curriculum and make a list of priorities. This will determine your motivation and help you solve even tricky tasks when it comes to homework — the goals are always in front of your eyes, and you will feel satisfied every time you complete them.
It is useful to set priorities not only in the global sense, for the whole period of school, but also before each homework. It is vital to understand what you want to get out of the process.
Split the big tasks into small ones
If the task is so large that it is not clear how to approach it, divide it into several smaller tasks. This will make it easier to start, and a sense of accomplishment at each step will add a desire to learn more.
Create something new as you learn
Any theoretical knowledge will settle in your head better if you apply it in practice. For example, if you are learning a foreign language, you can write short notes with the application of grammatical rules or an essay using new vocabulary after one topic. This is called the evidence of learning.
Complicated tasks come first
Every time you start your homework, you should take on challenging tasks in the beginning. At the start, you’re not so tired yet, and you can concentrate and make the most of your energy. And it will be a real relief to cope with easy assignments at the end.
Draw conclusions
Before you start studying, you have made a list of goals and set priorities. In the end, look at this list and analyze it — which of the tasks have caused difficulties, and what has been unexpectedly easy. You may learn a lot and review the learning process. Analyzing your own work will help you plan your time in the future more efficiently. What’s more, it’s so nice to cross everything you’ve done off your to-do list at the end and praise yourself for your hard work.
Put away all your distractions
Put aside any devices that might distract you. The more concentrated you are, the faster you can deal with the assignments. If you study at your computer, close all the tabs in your browser that you don’t need while doing your homework (even your favorite TV series in the background or a new single of your beloved artist).
Enhance your skill of taking notes
The better your notes are, the faster you’ll learn. The ability to make detailed and precise outlines will help you memorize the main idea and understand the topic better. So before you proceed with a new topic, check out if you are familiar with different note-taking strategies. For example, the Cornell method teaches you how to make short summaries that are easy to understand.
Whichever approach you use, there are a few basic rules for keeping notes:
- process what you hear or read and write it down in your own words;
- leave a few blank lines between the main ideas to come back to them later and add new information;
- develop your own system of abbreviations and special characters to save time;
- write in separate phrases rather than in whole sentences;
- learn how to highlight the main points and discard the irrelevant ones.
It’s vital to know that there is no miracle cure to have everything done just by reading this article. You need to put some efforts and create new habits that will help you in the future.
