Every year, I find myself excited and driven to do well in school until that first week passes and the rush disappears, leaving me with piles of overdue work that I just can’t find the motivation to get to. That is, until I spent a whole semester following advice I’ve been giving all four years of high school, and noticed a huge improvement in my grades. My stress levels went down, I didn’t mind doing school work as much anymore, and my my friendships ended up stronger than they were before. I completely transformed my mindset when it comes to learning and getting work done by following these tips:

Allow yourself to de-stress

Celebrating your accomplishments, big and small, is the key to staying motivated to achieve your next goal. If you’ve been studying for a few hours or if you aced your last test, treat yourself to some Chipotle, or get together with your friends and do something that lets you relax. After all, you earned it!

Take things day by day

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you look down at your planner and see the next few days filled up with assignments and due dates. Sure, you’ll have to put in some extra effort that week to stay afloat, but reaching that finish line gets way easier when you set reasonable goals and break the workload into smaller portions. The easiest way to do this is by making to-do lists for each day of the week. However, if making lists isn’t your thing, find a way that suits your learning style! Which leads me to my next point…

Find out what works for you and do it

While one way of learning can work wonders for some people, it might be useless to others, so get to know your strengths and weaknesses and find a way to study that fits your style. What works for me is watching videos of other people explaining the material to me, so Khan Academy has been my best friend throughout high school. Experiment with different ways to absorb information until you find one that doesn’t make studying a more boring chore than it already is.

Form a study group

Your friends should want to see you succeed along with them, so don’t hesitate to reach out when you need other people to do work with, especially ones that will join you on your caffeine breaks between study sessions. Studying in groups allows you to bounce ideas and learn from each other, resulting in not only a better grade, but also a potential new way of thinking. Not to mention, studying with your friends is a lot more fun than cramming alone.

Don’t give up when things don’t go your way

We’ve all been there. You study for hours, make charts, take notes, put off sleeping for as long as possible, only to get a lower score than you had hoped for. Sometimes your efforts don’t pay off exactly how you wanted them to, but that doesn’t change the fact that you learned new material and expanded your knowledge, which, after all, is the whole point of going to school. Don’t let one misstep tear you and your system down, because there will always be another quiz, test, or assignment that you can ace.