Homework. It’s the bane of our existence, yet always a part of it. It’s really hard to come back from a long day at school, just to think about the hours more you’ll have to spend on the homework you have to finish as well. Everyday you think, “how could I finish homework fast?”.
And hey, I’m not any different. It’s always tiring for me to come back from school and spend 3:00 PM to 12:00 AM doing homework, with small breaks for extracurriculars. But I fixed that, and I’m going to tell you exactly how. So, without any more delay, here is everything you need to do to get your homework done faster.
Set a Schedule
It’s incredibly essential that you set a schedule with anything you do. No matter how you function, structured or spontaneous, you need a guideline to keep you from wandering away from what really needs to get done. In this study, it was found that keeping regular and sustainable schedules helped improve the health of chronic illness patients. Even without those chronic illnesses, setting schedules will benefit your health, as well as your overall productivity.
What you need in your schedule
Take into account everything that you are doing. Everything. It includes your snack right after school, and the dinner you eat later on. It includes all your sports, clubs, and whatnot. You need to plan it out in a way that helps you get the most out of your study time and finish everything else you have to do in your day.
You also need to make sure you are finishing homework in intervals. Why? Because your brain physically cannot process that information for such a long time. You will end up burnt out and distracted. Instead of finishing your homework all in one sitting, split your homework time in 30 minute intervals, with small breaks in between. Like I mentioned in my study tips article, take these breaks seriously as well. Don’t go on your phone, or take a long nap. Do something that energizes you, like a walk around the block or a small snack.
What I did for me
Now, you have everything you need to know about scheduling so I’ll give you myself as an example of these tips coming into play. I keep all this in mind when I plan out my days. As a preface, I am not an extremely structured person, so well-blocked and rigid schedules don’t work for me. However, I am not extremely free-flowing either, so there is still some outline within my own schedule planning.
My Schedule :
I first set myself a time to wake up, and it’s pretty much always regular. Every weekday, I wake up at 6:30 AM, and every weekend I wake up at 8:00 AM. And every week, I do my best not to change that, so that nothing else that needs to be changed throughout my days gets disturbed. I give myself 20 minutes to get ready and dressed for the day. A small amount of time is there for breakfast on weekdays, but I set aside around 40 minutes on weekdays.
On weekdays, I spend another 6 hours at school, coming back at 3 PM. After a small 30 minute break, I immediately get to my work. What do I do first? Write for you guys! Yes, I set aside an hour right after school to write my articles on Diary of the Mind.
Here’s where the actual homework and studying plans come in. It changes day after day, but I like to keep a “to-do” list of what classes I have to finish work for. Then I give myself 1 or 2 blocks of 30 minute sections for homework, taking breaks in between to play with my dog or just stretch. Sometimes, I’ll give a subject a longer time, especially if I need to study. I also make sure to block out time to practice my other extracurriculars.
So essentially, anyone can schedule themselves properly, and you can easily do it to finish your homework faster. As an unstructured person myself, I can confidently say that this form of scheduling can help everyone with their productivity. You’ll see more and more check marks on that “to-do” list and those study sessions moving faster and faster.
Keep Up With Healthy Habits
Healthy habits are important for productivity, more than you think. To even just finish your homework faster, you need your brain to be working at the lightning speed that’ll get everything done quickly. For that, you need to fuel yourself with the energy necessary to work out your brain. That is why keeping up with healthy habits is an incredibly important part of how to finish homework faster. What habits are those? Well here they are.
#1 : Sleep
Sleep is incredibly important, for both overall health and productivity. It is a well-known fact that adolescents should be getting at least 8 hours of sleep daily. It’s a necessity to keep yourself energetic and not lethargic or sleep-deprived. Being sleep-deprived greatly affects your ability to work and your productivity, so getting that rest is incredibly important for you.
How to do it? Well, it goes back up to tip #1, scheduling. Keep that schedule that runs throughout your entire day, and make sure you stick with it. It is important to stay routine in your sleep schedule, because your body needs routine to operate.
That’s why jet lag is so confusing for your body and mind. The timezones break its timely sleep routine, which completely throws off its internal clock. You want your internal clock to be running smoothly, so you need to keep your sleep schedule regular as much as you possibly can.
#2 : Screen time
Managing your screen time and technology usage is also an incredibly important part of being able to finish homework efficiently. The truth is, we all love our phones more than everything, even if we don’t admit it. If your phone is on one side and your homework on the other, I know the homework will not be completed anytime soon.
You need to take the initiative and limit your own screen time. You need to keep the discipline knowing that your priorities are your homework, not scrolling on your phone. If keeping a screen time limit on your phone works, then so be it. If keeping the phone locked up in an entirely different room is the most effective, then do just that.
You know yourself best. You know what you need to do, and you know what works on keeping those electronic distractions. I’ve mentioned in my other articles, like how to be a productive student and study tips for students how to go about keeping the electronic distractions out in specific ways. They work for each specific situation, and are very effective for a productive study time.
Stop “Multitasking”
This, in all honesty, is a big problem that many can’t even see. Multitasking is always seen as something incredibly productive. Killing two birds with one stone, right? You’re getting more done in the amount of time…right? Wrong.
Multitasking actually worsens your productivity and ability to finish tasks quickly. In this study, for example, it was shown how much worse people performed when forced to multitask in comparison to those forced to do things one at a time. It was also shown that those who freely completed the task with no structure, performed terribly in comparison. Both proper scheduling and ridding yourself of multitasking is essential for your increase in productivity.
Examples of multitasking
What might multitasking be in your homework session? Well, it can be many things, and it’s not always going to be something “productive”. These are a few, common examples of multitasking so that you can see if it is something that you are doing yourself.
Doing multiple subjects at a time
This is the main type of multitasking that might make you feel like you’re doing everything faster, even when you aren’t. Are you split-screening between your English essay and math worksheet? Are you studying for a chemistry test while memorizing Spanish vocabulary? Well, that’s a sign of multitasking that you want to stop.
Watching videos on the side
I’m going to be completely honest with you, I do this all the time. I love watching TV shows and YouTube videos, but always want to watch while doing homework, so I feel like I’m doing something productive. The truth is, I end up just watching the video and not finishing any work. Whether it’s a reality show or an ASMR video, they are both contributing to the multitasking that is preventing you from finishing your work faster.
Doing laundry along with homework
This is also an activity that might seem productive. The laundry needs to get done too, right? Well, when you do both your homework and laundry at the same time, it is impossible to properly focus on one. Neither your homework nor your laundry will end up being finished properly or efficiently.
Emailing or messaging people
It’s easy to get distracted by your phone when you see a message notification. You want to just quickly message them and get back to your work, or do both at the same time. However, you will not get your homework done quickly nor efficiently. Your split attention on contacting others and your work will not help your productivity as a student.
Talking to your friends
This one is probably one of the most evident examples for all of us. In class, we talk to our friends, but we talk to them out of class too. Many of us have study groups where we study together, which can be great. However, once we begin conversing with our friends, it’s near impossible to finish the work at hand.
How to stop multitasking
It might be hard to stop, especially since you’ve built it in yourself that it’s a good thing, but it needs to stop. Multitasking, as you know, is no good to finish homework quickly, so here’s what you do instead.
When you’re doing your homework, get rid of all electronic devices around you. Keep the phones, tablets, and airpods in another room or cabinet, to keep them out of arm’s reach. Keep all those devices on silent as well, so that no notifications will take your attention away from homework.
Make sure no other tabs, other than the one you need, is open so no videos will be playing when you’re doing your homework. Keep headphones out of the way as well, to reduce the desire to watch something else. When your homework is on paper, keep your laptop aside as well. It’ll keep the distractions on that device out of your line of sight as well.
But of course, watching a TV show or YouTube video and scrolling on your phone is something you want to do. You want to have time to just purely entertain yourself. When you stop multitasking, your homework will be done faster, giving you more time to yourself. Then, instead of staying up late into the night doing homework, you can have some entertainment and go to bed at a reasonable time.
Conclusion
These are all incredible tips that you should definitely start applying if you want to finish that homework faster. Trust me, they are not just some willy-nilly tips I thought of off the top of my head. These are all tips I have experimented with and used myself to get my own work done faster. Trust me, they work.
Not only do these tips tell you how to finish homework faster, but they also help you cultivate healthy habits for your overall productivity and wellbeing. When you’re past high school and start working, these tips will still help you make sure your work is done on time so you have the rest of the day for whatever else you want. They’ll help you have a good routine so that you can take care of your household properly, maybe even with a family. They’ll keep your body and mind running as smoothly as possible, to keep you energetic and full of life well into your old age.
You see, these tips on how to finish homework faster aren’t just for homework. It’s for your life. None of it is about grinding your way through high school to make money or be the best. It’s about keeping yourself at your own peak health and happiness, so that you can live your life the way you want to live it.
So, what are you waiting for? Start that “perfect” homework session now!
