Most of us really struggle at some point (if not most of the time) with motivation. Every winter break Jan Allen from Columbia University sends out break writing tips to help you with writing your thesis.The most recent one is on finding motivation to actually write during break. Many of these ideas translate over to getting motivation in general, so I’ll modify a few.
1. Set a daily goal. My personal new years resolution was to do homework for at least 2 hours everyday. While this often won’t be enough to complete all of the homework I am assigned, just starting in those two hours is key. Even if I don’t push myself beyond two hours, I will have accomplished something.
2. Do your work early in the day. While I realize that it’s completely unreasonable for most of us to get up at 8am to do work, I find that working in the morning or early afternoon leaves me feeling good about doing other things in the evening.
3. Reward progress. Pretty self-explanatory.
4. An interesting idea – donate $5 to your favorite U.S. presidential candidate’s opponent for everyday you do not study or work on research. If you aren’t very political this may not apply, but most people can perhaps cut the $5 out of their beer budget or their hobbies outside of school.
Just something to keep in mind as we start a new semester with a clean slate.