When the work piles up and all you seem to be doing is studying and writing papers, it can be hard to keep going sometimes. I am someone who finds it really hard to stay motivated and on top of my homework because I would much rather be watching Youtube or reading a good book. It's not even homework that I feel unmotivated to complete sometimes either, it can be keeping my area clean, doing laundry, or even going to the gym (which I am terrible at doing). In fact, you are probably procrastinating on doing something else right now, and if that is the case here are some tips to help you out.

Make a list

This is something that you might hear people always use as a cookie-cutter suggestion, but I found that it really can help. By writing out everything you need to do, you can outline what is a priority and see how much time you might need to complete an assignment. Plus it feels really awesome to cross it off your list.

Put a few easy tasks on your to-do list

With that long paper and that hundred page reading you've got to do, it can be hard to stay encouraged to keep up with all that work. By putting something small and easy to do on your list, like take out the trash, you can get the satisfaction of being productive and it took hardly any work at all.

Reward yourself

You just finished writing five pages of that ten-page paper? Excellent, now take a break. You can't always expect yourself to be able to work without a break. Take a reasonable amount of time to text your best friend about how hard this paper is or to watch a quick video on Youtube. Just don't reward yourself too long and too often because then you allow yourself to lose motivation for completing your work.

Stay away from the distractions

While you are working, turn off your phone and put it as far away from you as possible. Find a quiet spot where you won't see people and be tempted to socialize instead of study. Set yourself up with all the materials you need in one place to avoid having to get up and potentially getting distracted (this happens to me all the time). Just try to avoid all distractions so you can get all of that work done as soon as possible so then you can go do what you actually want to do sooner.

Just do it

Honestly, the worst part about completing a hard task is the anticipation of having to do it. In order to get over that, just jump right into the task and get it over with. The faster you start, the faster you finish.

Find your own methods

There a lot of people who will give you advice about staying motivated (I'm guilty of that now), but you will find somethings that work for you and somethings that don't. You just have to develop your own methods that work for you, then you'll be able to write your own odyssey article about them, and share it with the world. Maybe I'll even come across it one day and use some of them, but whatever happens, go forth into the world now and finish all that homework I know you've been putting off.