I’ll just say it: at heart, I’m a procrastinator. Being an IB student will do that to you (that’s my excuse, anyway). Normally I come home after practice and plop down on the couch to watch television for at least an hour before I start my homework. And when I do start working, I always have my email and Twitter and about fifty million other tabs open, not to mention my phone only an arm’s reach away. Probably not the best work habits, I know. But I still get my work done.
Nonetheless, I decided to see what it was like to be a diligent student. For one week, as soon as I came home (and in the mornings on weekends), I did my homework, with no distractions other than music. This included any assignments due the next day, as well as breaking up parts of long-term assignments to work on gradually, the latter being something I never do. In true form, I even procrastinated starting this week of diligence.
The first day was difficult. My hand itched to check my texts and switch to other open tabs. I also just really wanted to take a nap. I had to study for a history EK, do part of a physics packet and work on my Spanish project. Studying for my EK in the early evening made me slightly uneasy. I have always been sort of a cram-at-the-last-minute kind of gal. But sure enough, I remembered everything the next day.
Not having any homework to do in the evening makes you feel you’ve forgotten something (possibly because you may have—use your planner, people). But once you get over that, it’s really relaxing. If I had wanted, to I could have gone to bed at 9.
Making myself do homework first thing on the weekend was even more bizarre. All I can say is: don’t do any boring assignments while lying down in a comfortable position. But once you get your work done, you have the whole rest of the day to yourself, and it’s worry-free.
I’m not suggesting that you should sit down and try to do all your homework in one sitting every single day. It’s okay to take breaks and put it off for an hour or two if you’ve had a particularly rough day at school. But if you want more relaxing and stress-free evenings, make yourself sit down after you get home and accomplish something. It’ll be worth the suffering.