Top 10 Steps to take to overcome your laziness upon Study

1. Make a study plan 

One of the best ways to increase study motivation is to create a simple plan that outlines exactly what you should be working on at any time. Although some people like to claim that the man who does not know his final destination always travels further, when it comes to studying you are far better served to have a defined plan.

If you’ve got a smart phone then you can use an app such as iStudyPlan, or even something as simple as a piece of paper with timeframes and subjects will help you out.

2. Break up study into manageable chunks

So you’ve got a study plan ready to go… and first on your list is five hours’ straight of Roman Republican poetry. Good luck, you’re gonna need it.

By breaking up your study into very manageable chunks – between 20-30 minutes – you’ll make it infinitely easier to manage your workload. It also appears much less daunting to sit down and study for 20 minutes than it does to study for two hours.

3. Micro study

This technique of overcoming study procrastination is straight from the pages of the pros (in fact, it’s so powerful that I might even have to create some proper training on it). “Micro studying” involves using short periods of daily downtime to cram in additional bits of study.

When you go to the bathroom each day, instead of taking a magazine in there, why not use a flash card app on your iPhone to boost your confidence on a subject that you’re struggling with.

One of my favorite applications of micro-studying has been doing quick revisions of key concepts during ad breaks on TV, or between rounds of online games.

4. Find another methods of studying.

I’ll touch on this now, and again towards the end of this blog post, because I’m so enthusiastic about the importance of this point. If you’re finding it hard to get motivated to study, then try using an alternative method to study. For example, if you have been assigned a book to read, then try finding its audiobook and listening to that instead. If you’re studying a famous historical event, then there is a probably a documentary about it that you can watch somewhere.

5. Eat food that enhance your brain

It goes without saying that if your diet is crap. If you aren’t eating the right types of foods, then you will really struggle when it comes to focusing on a task and being motivated (as I have blogged about here, here, and here).

Make sure you are fueling your mind to be in a good study zone. Cut down on processed carbohydrates and fuel up with low-GI foods instead. Increase your intake of Omega 3 fatty acids by consuming more oily fish; this is a renowned brain food that can really supercharge your mind!

6. Be hydrated 

Hydration, alongside diet, is crucial for getting you in the right mental state to study. Make sure your body is ready and willing to study by avoiding dehydration (it’s a real risk, especially if you exercise frequently or, like most students, enjoy getting on the drink a bit too much).

4. Cycle fully focused work with small breaks of rest/lazy time.

To lighten up your daily work inject small breaks between doing short but focused burst of work. Say to yourself: I’ll do 20 minutes of work on this task now and then I can take 5 or 10 minutes of lazy time.

 By breaking down your hours like this the work seems less daunting. And you’ll feel energetic and motivated longer and do work of better quality if you allow yourself these pauses of rest and time to lazy around on Facebook, with a game or with just relaxing in the grass or with short walk in the park.Then, after some time, you may want to work for 40 minutes before you take a 10 minute break. But go easy on yourself at first.And if you have trouble with sticking to your time-limits then use an app on your phone or a simple egg-timer from your kitchen.

8. Keep Away Distractions

Many people fall into the trap of confusing perpetual distraction, especially by sites like Facebook and Twitter, with feeling too lazy to do any study. If you find yourself creeping onto social networking sites or online shopping stores when you are supposed to be studying, then you are probably just suffering from a bit of “digital distraction”.

Try blocking these distractions and then see how dramatically your study focus improves. You can use software like I AM STUDYING on your computer to prevent you from accessing certain sites for a period of time. When it comes to your cell phone, I suggest switching it off and leaving it in another place during the duration of your study.

9. Let the enthusiasm, energy and motivation of others in.

Whatever you let into your mind and life will influence you. If the people you hang out the most with are generally a bit lazy about work or school then it’s easy to just adapt to that mood and way of thinking and go with it.
But if you spend more time with motivated people in real life and via books, the internet, podcasts and audio books then that will start to influence your thinking and mood too.
So think about what you let into your mind on a daily and weekly basis and if you want make a few changes to that.

10. Try to have fun

One of the most powerful things you’ll ever do to enhance your study and actually find the motivation to get it done is to try and have a bit of fun. Things you enjoy are naturally easy to avoid procrastinating.

But how do you bring fun in to study?

Firstly, by rewarding yourself (as was mentioned in point seven) you’ll automatically make things more enjoyable.

Another winning tactic is to study using a method you actually find engaging. For example, not everybody likes reading books to study. If you prefer watching videos, then find documentaries or tutorials on YouTube about your subject. Maybe you like video games? More often than not there will be interactive quizzes to help make study more engaging for you.

By following the above tips and tricks you’ll never again be too lazy to get your study on! 

Why we feel Lazy and Tired

A person is being lazy if he is able to carry out some activity that he ought to carry out, but is disinclined to do so because of the effort involved. Instead, he carries out the activity perfunctorily; or engages in some other, less strenuous or less boring activity; or remains idle. In short, he is being lazy if his motivation to spare himself effort trumps his motivation to do the right or expected thing.

Synonyms for laziness are indolence and sloth. Indolence derives from the Latin indolentia, ‘without pain’ or ‘without taking trouble’. Sloth has more moral and spiritual overtones than laziness or indolence. In the Christian tradition, sloth is one of the seven deadly sins because it undermines society and God’s plan, and because it invites sin. The Bible inveighs against slothfulness, for example, in the Book of Ecclesiastes: 'By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through. A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.'

Evolutionary theories of laziness                                          Our nomadic ancestors had to conserve energy to compete for scarce resources and to fight or flee enemies and predators. Expending effort on anything other than short-term advantage could jeopardize their very survival. In any case, in the absence of conveniences such as antibiotics, banks, roads, or refrigeration, it made little sense to think long term. Desire led to action, and action led to immediate gratification, without much need for proposing, planning, preparing, and so forth.

Today, mere survival has fallen off the agenda, and it is long-term strategic activity that leads to the best outcomes. Yet, our instinct is still to conserve energy, making us reluctant to expend effort on abstract projects with delayed and uncertain payoffs.

Intelligence and perspective can override instinct, and some people are more future-oriented than others, whom, from the heights of their success, they deride as 'lazy'. Indeed, laziness has become so closely connected with poverty and failure that a poor person is often presumed lazy, no matter how hard he might actually work.