How to Survive in School When You Forget Your Homework Regularly

Creating an Environment Conducive to Your Success

Ask for help. Your first priority should be figuring out why you forget your homework. Are you too busy or just short on motivation? Start by asking your yourself and then move to people who know you well. Ask your parents. They know you well enough to diagnose the issue. They also might be able to help you organize your time and remind you of homework assignments. You should however, refrain from getting them involved in actually completing your homework. For more perspectives, ask friends who know you well or people close to you at school who have experience with your study habits. If you are involved in extracurricular activities, ask peers in the same groups if they have trouble with homework and how they manage it.

Minimize distractions. You should allot a specific time every day to homework. For some, this might be the first hour after return home. Others, who need a break, might want to plan to work for about an hour or hour and a half starting at 7:00 p.m. Tell your parents about your schedule, so that they can check up on you before you start working and leave you alone to focus on your work. If you set aside this time and you find yourself constantly distracted by your computer or a video game, your problem might be a bad habit. Focus your energy on trying to break the habit. If you find it impossible to set aside this time, the problem might be your schedule. Take some time to make a schedule. You might find that you will need to drop some of your activities to make time for homework. Try to get your parents involved in homework time. Encourage them to be quiet to minimize distractions. Ask them for help, but don’t get them to do your homework for you.

Find your motivation. Take some time to consider what you want to do with your life. Consider what bad grades might mean for your goals. Talk to counselors, teachers, and parents about what it takes to realize your life goals. Try to make learning a priority and remember that sometimes boring repetition is important to fully mastering an idea. If this does not work, try set up some sort of external motivation. Ask your parents to reward—or punish—you according to your performance in school.

Work with your teachers. Remember your attitude counts! Try to maintain a good teacher-student relationship. Don’t cause trouble in class and stay focused. Your teacher might be more likely to forgive some of your mistakes if they believe you are doing your best. If you are forgetting homework, try to participate in class and do well on quizzes to bring up your grade.

Talk to a professional. If nothing seems to make it easier for you to concentrate, talk to a counselor or psychiatrist. ADHD can make it harder for you to remember homework assignments. They would be able to tell you whether or not you ought to consider medication to improve your focus.

Organizing Your Homework

Create a planner. Purchase a day planner that allows you to write down your assignments. Write down assignments as soon as they are mentioned in class. Write down all details, including the due date, page numbers, and requirements for the assignment. Review your planner every day before you sit down for your daily homework time.

Break up large assignments. Don’t wait until the last second to finish big assignments. Set goals in your planner, like when you want to complete research, an outline, and a draft of your paper. Try to arrange your schedule so that you complete drafts for papers several days before they are due. That way, you can go back and edit them with fresh eyes. The stress of completing a paper at the last second can also be debilitating. Sometimes we procrastinate because we are afraid of failure. You need to conquer these fears. Even great writers have terrible first drafts. The process of editing is how bad writing becomes good. If you are too afraid of failure to start early, failure is precisely what you will get. If procrastination is a problem, consider creating a designated work space, free of distractions. Leave your books and other work material around. If your environment is telling you to work, your brain might just get the message.

Create a homework folder. So that you don’t lose your assignments, keep a separate homework binder for all of your completed assignments. Keep notes and other course materials in their own binders for their respective subjects.