To create a good homework environment, it is essential to create a distraction-free space away from distractions such as siblings, pets, televisions, and loud noises. The space should be comfortable, organized, and well lit, including a desk and comfortable chair. Allow for breaks, be well-fed, and be available for help.
Choose the right location for your child’s homework spot and create a plan of action for what homework they need or are missing. Encourage them to use boxes, drawers, organizers, or hang a bulletin board or wall calendar to help them stay organized.
There are four ways to build an excellent homework environment for high school students: choose the right location, create consistency, and minimize distractions. A quiet, distraction-free area is essential for focusing and tackling homework. For older students, a phone zone is not recommended. A well-lit, comfortable space is also essential for studying and homework.
Creating a separate station for homework can be beneficial, as it might need to be different spaces for older and younger children. By following these tips, you can create a study environment that is effective and helpful for your child’s individual needs.
📹 How to Create an Organized, Productive Study Space
Where should you study? Your environment can have a huge amount of influence over your ability to focus on what you’re …
📹 Managing and Organizing the Homework Environment
This is one of a series of videos from the Afterschool Training Toolkit, which can be accessed for free at …
One bonus tip: Experiment with the level and type of noise in your study environment. I can’t study/work with silence because my brain can’t help but pick up on small noises in the background (and from what I’ve read those TRULY silent rooms make you go crazy). Typically I work with music, and I’ve been building a study playlist for a couple years that I use quite often: collegeinfogeek.com/playlist/ I’ve also linked to some other sources on that page, including a white noise generator if that’s more your speed 🙂
I think this might actually be my first comment on your website ever, but Thomas – your content saved my lazy ass in the past 3 semesters! I discovered your website during one of my famous procrastination sessions and since then everything changed for me and now I’m finally done with all my essays and just have my bachelors thesis left to write. Your articles helped me to find motivation and sometimes even be excited about my studying sessions. Keep up the good work, it really meant a lot to me! 🙂
I’ve spent weeks being unproductive because my room was too hot and bright that I couldn’t even see my laptop screen. I couldn’t just close the curtains because the wind will just blow it all over the place. I can’t close the window ’cause it’ll get too hot. As a solution, I took my blanket and hung it on my curtain rod as a makeshift half-curtain. I can now enjoy a nice breeze with an infinitely better lighting. Just sharing because this small change made me more willing and motivated to do work 🙂
Seriously. That part about laundry being distracting. We had our finals week two weeks ago (since we have a different school calendar), and weeks prior to the finals week had been HECTIC. The laundry had piled up to astronomical heights, and I kept telling myself that I had to finish all my submissions before I should tackle them, since the deadlines were coming up. So I sat in front of my desk for two hours trying to work with no dice. I did the laundry and after that I could concentrate better. Bottom line is: a clean working environment should also be a factor in concentration. XD
That’s why I always show up to my next class 15-30 minutes early. If I’m at home and have my perfect tea, The Moody Blues—-the perfect study music, no televisions or laptops to distract i can still derail easily and each task will take an hour. Yet if I’m in a cold laminate lecture hall with just my head phones, the 20oz of Iced black coffee i’m always carrying to class and my notebook I can get done an entire class’ worth of turning notes into questions, and questions into flashcards done in 13 minutes, leaving 2 minutes where I can get almost all the way through studying the new cards. Thats the same with my workplace, I use my coffee breaks for the same task because it’s easier to motivate myself there than home.
I’m Brazilian, and I have been studying English for almost 5 years. I try to study every day and keep with a good routine, especially in these times I have many things to do. With all these things, creating a routine and organizing my stuff for sure was a great idea, even with this not being a desperate task at the moment for me, I like to be always studying and looking for new things to go through and improve my language skills. Thank you for the article man, helped me a lot!
Context is amazing, my brain actually changes when I get to my study space now. Amazing article, excellent points Thomas!! Something that helped me too, I’ve added a few small procrastination busters to my desk – toothpicks, a nail file and lip balm, so I can quickly sort the problem out and not have to get up and go hunt for the item and break my flow. It’s made a big difference.
Great article, Tom. You have talked about how important it is to have an effective study space before and I have found that paying attention to where I was studying prepped me for deep working sessions. But the biggest thing that affects my attention is my phone. I have noticed that regardless of where I studied this is ultimately the biggest factor to how distracted I will be. When my phone is away from me I was able to do amazing work sessions.
OMG!!!! I was beating myself up because i’m not studying well when its so cold and no sunlight at all. i thought something is wrong with me and gosh u dont know how much of help this is.this is 2yrs old article and i watch so amny articles of u but i have no clue how i have missed this… however its never too late!! Thanks a LOTTTTTTTTTT
This is my second comment to count but I’ve watched almost every articles uploaded by you. And I must say, it has been a great help. It made me more productive and made me want to study more and love what I study. Thank you, really. And oh, belated Happy Teacher’s Day! I’ve learned a lot from you so I feel the need to say that. From the Philippines.
Thank you for this article! Very timely indeed! I’ve been contemplating whether or not to write outside my house. I’m dealing with a bad case of writer’s block and I find that I’m more inspired and productive when I write somewhere other than my desk (e.g. the public library, coffee shops, etc). Thanks for the interesting tips! I’ll definitely try #7 👍
I hope this doesn’t get lost in the comments, but for ambient noise to work with: USE COFFITIVITY! It simulates environment noises that resemble cafés, university libraries etc. (you can pick whichever you prefer) without having actual intelligible conversations in them that could distract you. And the best part? IT’S FREE! This website (there’s an app too) has given me the ability to get so many hours of concentrated work done I CANNOT RECOMMEND IT ENOUGH. You can also use it in combination with any music of your choice, they give you recommendations how how to mix them on their website. This is all based on studies and how your brain functions best in relation to background/ambient sounds. So in short: Coffitivify is your friend!
2:50 And the thing is that simply not seeing something distracting, doesnt take much and changes everything! Taking pages, icons, pics out of sight, like putting at the top or bottom of a list or taking from your first page can be enough and do WONDERS. Especially if you see and use the other side of the coin which is surrounding you with stimuli of who you want to become, it’s very hard for me to slack off or think “poor me” when Musashi or Guts is staring at me through my wallpaper. I also listen to songs that inspire me a lot (usually anime osts). This is because you don’t keep this things in at the top of your mind all the time, humans are easily forgetful but if you remember that you forget that can used this to you advantage by surrounding yourself with good reminders or reciting to yourself, forgetting and digressing can be a cue in and of itself, and you can count on forgetting bad cues.
I have tried setting up my own area before and finally what got me to do my work was to approach assignments like Ray Bradbury. By setting up a study place or what it really is a “work” place, I created this area in my house that I avoided because it was “Uh, work”. The crazy thing is that I enjoy the process of studying. I know it is slow and steady and as long as I do it, well, it gets done. But by creating this study place or “work” place, I turned my assignments into that: work. Not the fun processes that their actually were. So now I work wherever. And it has been life changing. I changed my assignments in my head from “work” to “play” like Bradbury. And actually by changing the scenery, it has created the assignments to be more fun because they didn’t hinder my true passion: travel. When I “travel” around my town (ot world) I will do some homework wherever I am — just tinker away at it. So even though this is the opposite of what you proposed, I suggest to people to try the Bradbury method and just treat your work like play.
I always found myself unable to study from home since I only had one big desk where I had my stationary computer. The desk was big enough to set up my school laptop as well and thus have 3 screens which might be good whilst working but the urge to “just play one more game of X” always got the better of me so what I did was going to coffee shops where I sometimes had 10-12 hour sessions. However, I wanted to find a way to study from home those days where I felt lazy and did not want to leave the house so I decided to buy another “study-desk” and it worked wonders. The one I got is Micke from Ikea which really is amazing; it got nice storage and most importantly, it has got a magnetic whiteboard as the background “slab” and after some customizations this study space really does its job.
If I were to be a student taking his class and I have to write something relevant to A letter grade, the most distracted place would be the most productive place to study or do homework, why thats, peace and quiet isn’t possible or achievable these day, even if those were the case, you don’t maximize your brain out put unless it running in a chaostic war zone…forcing yourself to act like you behave and smart is very good, its the first piece to solving the lazy millennium disease puzzle, act fake to myself, I’m loving this, its not that difficult
My weird little way of study space layout is this. I just turned my desk around so that it was in a place where i could see my door. One, i struggled working when my space infront of me was a wall. And two its nice be in the corner of your room. And also my tv hides my bed so that im not tempted to think about sleeping. And another great thing is that i can put my feet up on my bed while i sit. Just abit of thinking helped me alot. Praise God
Being a grad school student getting a degree online, I have to find a place outside of academia. This is rough. Being married, pets and a house filled with distractions, studying anywhere is challenging. My office isn’t comfortable enough to read for long durations, but is fine for writing. I love my standing desk for my online classes as it makes me focus on the discussion vs screwing around on the computer. I find reading significantly easier at Starbucks. Too quiet is an issue too. Libraries make me more distracted than less. As you said. It’s a work in progress.
This is the desk lamp I purchased a couple months ago: amazon.com/TaoTronics-Eye-caring-Dimmable-Charging-Control/dp/B00VUTAFR8 You can have multiple light temperatures and brightness, both independently controlled from the lamp. It’s helped me a lot and that way you can change its options depending on what you want to do and when you want to do it.
When I was a kid, I was able to do my homework (and yes, get good grades) with music, TV and people noise going on all at once. Now, I can’t even listen to instrumental music while reading! I like the tip of making your space purposeful. I will have to try that. I’d give anything to have natural light. I live in a basement. I barely get any light at all. And I hate fake light in general. My dream is to one day have a proper standing desk. My back has problems. I didn’t know the prices had come down so much!
I’ve struggled on and off about studying in my room/apartment, but what brings me back every time is food. The easiness of grabbing a snack or meal once I’m hungry is too much for me to bother going somewhere else (especially since I don’t need to spend money). Whenever I go to the library, my downfall + reason to go back home 90% of the time is that I get hungry and can’t focus. Just,,, having a food selection nearby, without having to worry about carrying it around,,,, is too tempting
Once again, a great and useful article! All the tips were interesting and it was great seeing other study spaces. I have seen lots of good ideas from your viewers. And you just gave me motivation to add the last pieces to my desk: I’m buying a wireless keyboard tomorrow! I’m working with my laptop and a computer screen and it’s so uncomfortable typing on my laptop while perusal the other screen.
Really enjoying the articles and found a lot of useful tools and techniques for getting my work done, the pomodoro technique being a particular favourite. Idea for a future article maybe… how to make the most of agile and mobile working, and setting up a flexible work environment, like somewhere you can use for multiple purposes but make subtle changes to fit the current need. For example i’ve not got a lot of space to set up a home office, but like to utilise the dinning table in my livingroom as a desk when working or studying. Any other techniques / suggestions for maximising this would be great!
Good advice Thomas! I don’t know why other people have problems with studying and concentrating. In my case back in the day, I just obeyed my mother to avoid TV during weekdays and go play outside when I am done with my studies and household chores. Things are much simpler back then. I guess younger people are better at getting distracted.
This article was insanely helpful. Love that you think like I do, the research phase isn’t the only phase of learning as my stupid husband thinks it is. Unfortunately, also because of that nitwit, I’m stuck in tiny spaces for life that don’t allow for a dedicated study space. We are currently in 600sf, our computers are sharing our first kitchen table, so making a dedicated space to study at and only for study right now is impossible. We are moving into 1123sf soon, which also won’t have anything for me.im disparate enough right now that I’m considering taking up the handicap, wait to die in event of a fire space for study, since 99pct of the time nobody uses it for anything.
Also if you can’t control the temperature in your study environment, change up your study clothes. My college’s library has tons of great study spots, other than the fact that they keep it like a walk-in freezer in there. So I just bring a sweatshirt and a hat in my backpack (even though it’s 90 degrees outside) so I can study in comfort.
My room is mainly filled with studying stuff, board games, book, iPad and laptop. My iPad is what I bring to school but Its the main distraction because my school requires internet but then I find myself on YouTube, social media etc. Another distraction is drawing. I find myself drawing when I should be studying. There’s a place in my dining room, where it has nice natural lighting, cool temperature, and plants outside but the internet doesn’t work in the kitchen so I can’t work there. My room has a big problem of lighting. The sun always flashes my eyes and distracts me soo much so I have to use artificial lighting but it’s pretty hot. I wish the internet would work in my dining room cause I feel most concentrated when I do my offline hw but now there is more online hw than offline.
I am way more comfortable and cool but bright like I also prefer the temperature closer to 60 Anything over 70 I feel sick and just want to sleep Dim lights just don’t help I went and got light bulbs for my living room which I could offer a year cleaning and organizing no it’s not like dirty but I mean like it’s got crafting supplies in it that ought not to be in it and every time I go to clean it as soon as it got dark I would lose my will to clean well got some new lights and it is 7:15 p.m. and will after Dark and I am currently cleaning listening to you talking hands-free and actually rolling up some ribbon with my hands so
Hi Thomas! Keep up the great work, I love perusal your articles 🙂 I wonder, could you do a article about managing the right habits (studying, sleeping, keeping a healthy way of life: basically the content of your other articles) for people changing environment in a middle-term basis ? I am traveling to different areas of the world quite frequently and I find myself in troubles to keep up the right habits when I change environment. Basically, I struggle with migration: I don’t belong anywhere, keeping up the sport in China is difficult because of pollution, etc. It’s not psychologically troubling, but it’s hard keeping the same habits when changing environment and I wonder if there are studies talking about that, or some famous writers who found thereselves at east in every countries they went, and what are their experiences. Anyway, thanks for your article!
Hello Thomas, first of all I’d like to congratulate you on hitting 850 000+ subscribers, I have been a massive fan of your content through highschool and continue to be now through college! To add to that, I would also like to thank you on your articles, some of which have helped immensely on being more efficient with schoolwork. I do have a article request that I think you would cover very well, it’s a article about choosing the best options in terms of productivity apps, websites, morning rituals, notebooks, after school activities etc. Also I would like to know how to incorporate that into your everyday life. I for one found myself in many situations, especially since moving to a bigger city now because of college, where I am basically ‘flooded’ with options of new and exciting activities, which overwhelmed me at first, but I managed to successfully organize myself…until I found a “new and better” way of organizing my day, my notes, having a better morning ritual, or a better app for making to-do lists and similar things. My productivity suddenly drops because of this. I get into this sort of procrastination mode where I go through multiple articles on new ways of bettering myrself or websites about any activity or field of interest I may have, and especially troublesome is the ammount of online courses I immediately like to take from various sites such as Coursera, FutureLearn, Skillshare, Allison…, add to that the amount of college work I have and it’s not a great recipe! I guess what I’m getting at is, how to stay consistent and how to know the system you have (in terms of organization) is good enough and that there is no need to change it or to start adding unnecessary new activities.
Hey Thomas,I am loveing the articles, but lately i have been geting boared and exhausted juist about thinking of the things i have to do and when its time to actualy get stuff done im supper hesitant and instead go kill another raid boss on my phone :p.Hope you will mace a article about it. Keep the good work up.
Hey I’m in my freshman year of college here at the Missouri University of Science & Technology and its been a little rough so far. I was a pretty good student in high school and rarely needed to study. Now in college it is the complete opposite. I find a lot of articles and websites that have study tips about how to prioritize time and stuff like that, but I can never find any with different study techniques. I am currently in Chem I and Calc I. What sorts of effective and efficient study techniques would you recommend?
Thomas, I was thinking about just using Google drive as my personal note taking tool, since docs, files, sheets, and mores, can easily be made and organized in folders as I see fit (plus I can upgrade for more space if needed). Can you think of a negative reason(s) why I shouldn’t do this, or why Evernote or OneNote might be a smarter option? Please respond if you can. PS: Love the website, and the podcast. 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾
So im a truck driver trying to better himself and get out of the industry. I was always a terrible student so I have no idea how I study best at all. I spend 90% of my waking hours in a switch truck which is impossible to make into a ‘study only’ zone. Im wondering if you have any tips that might help? I know it’s an odd situation.
Can you help me with my problem? I have “only” 1 computer, and I need a very powerful one for university because I study animation and game design. Therefor, my study place and my gaming place are the same. Has someone any tip that can help me keep me focused on 1 computer. Every thought is welcome, since the problem really bothers me.
Hey Tom I have a dilemna tho I like to play article games on my PC but I also need to do solidworks (engineering design) on the same PC as it is much faster than the school computers. But like you said it’s easy to default into turning on my article games and wasting 2-3 hours. Barring buying anothe PC you have any tips ?
Please advice me, it’s urgent ! My exams are just like memory based theory questions where I need to answer just as given in 1500 page material but concept should be learnt from 750 material. My main problem is time I got 8 months and I need to prepare 8 subjects. In exams I need to answer exactly as given in 1500 page material or else they wont award marks even if answer is right. I need to replicate as it is or atleast 3/4th answer. suggest me study plan and revision strategy.
What’s the point of buying a 200€ pen when at the end of the day it’s just a glorified BIC? I’ve for my notes in class the 4-colours so I can quick swap between black-blue-green and red and when I’m rewriting my notes I used separate classical BICs with the same colour scheme. 50 pens costed me around 10€, so I’m good for years and years to come.
If your guitar learning was academic you will feel a bit less inclined to play it. I am a classically trained pianist and i have been doing it for the last 11.5 years and let me tell you, some days I just feel like NO. I love it with all my heart but because I always feel like omg exams and I have to keep up and whatever, i feel less inclined to do it.