Homework

I'm also a college student. My most difficult tasks tend to be essays. I believe that in order to efficiently complete homework without getting burnt out, involves breaking up an assignments or group of assignments into smaller tasks. So either you can base it on time (for example work x minutes, take a break for y minutes) or base it on task completion (for example complete assignment x, take a break for y minutes).

To be honest though, in my experience the best way to not get burnt out, is to start assignments well ahead of the assigned due dates. It might be hard to break the habit of procrastination, but in my opinion it is well worth it.

 

_Cam_,

I agree that starting assignments well in advance is the best way to accomplish not getting burnt out.

 

Cam's got it; one hour's a standard working period before you take a break!

 

When I was at University, I lived pretty close to this pretty incredible library that I found really inspirational. You could go online beforehand, reserve a desk space with a nice leather arm chair and a reading lamp and work in peace and total silence - the staff prepared your book reservations for you in advance and when I looked around the place, all you could see in all directions were students, or professor-looking-types, deeply submerged in their studies.

I know that when I used to sit down on the computer at home, I found it too easy to get distracted (and I'm actually not even talking about porn here!) but rather that there's just too many 'other things' to do, go and make a coffee, tidy up a bit, quickly go to the shop, check a few websites, lunch break.... and then all of a sudden it's "oh hold on... I've got no work done..." Or if I take my laptop to Starbucks, for example, it's a bit too noisy or a bit too chaotic and I can't really focus for more than half an hour.

So my number one tip for you my friend is to try and uncover a local library where you feel inspired and can let yourself get totally absorbed in your work until you finally check the time and see "oh wow, five hours have gone past!"

 

This helped me a lot. Check it out ;-)