The "Best" Study Methods

High school is a rough time, and sometimes the copious amounts of homework start to pile up (literally). If you, like many students at Needham High, don’t understand how you’re supposed to finish your homework and get to sleep at a reasonable hour, don’t worry. You’re not alone! Here are some of the best methods for avoiding stress (and sleep)!

This first one’s an oldie, but a goodie: staying up late (bonus points if you had time to finish your homework in the afternoon, but you just didn’t). There’s nothing like an all nighter to really reinforce your reliance on coffee! Just what this generation needs: a caffeine addiction. Her relentless pattern of naps and homework at 1:00 AM makes Rachel Talcoff call staying up late “an endless cycle.”

Next up we have a twist on the classic staying-up-late: waking up early! Senior Talia Bloom highly recommends this strategy. Getting up at 4:00 AM ensures maximum productivity, especially when you stayed up late the night before. Who doesn’t love already being delirious by the time homeroom rolls around?

You know what’s even better than procrastinating on homework? Straight up not doing it. Says Simon Shoemaker, this strategy “reduces stress and decreases productivity.” It’s not like homework is worth almost twenty percent of your grade in most classes and can only help your grade… *nervous laughter*

Or, you could make a to-do list! But not just any old to-do list. If you want to reach maximum productivity, you must make your to-do list as pretty as possible. Amelie Zosa calls aesthetic to-do lists: “Helpful for my brain.” This might take some time (maybe even more time than your homework would have), but it’s worth it for the Instagram story! …Right?

Aliyah Borskiy proudly finishes her homework thirty minutes before it’s due, because, as she says, “It still gets done!” What an awe-inspiring individual! The ninth grader also recommends putting vocab words on your ceiling, because then you can memorize them through osmosis as you sleep.

And above all, always remember the worst strategy for getting things done: Never, ever, under any circumstance, should you do your homework right after getting home from school. That would be unreasonable, and definitely would never leave anyone with enough time to finish all the other important tasks for the day, like responding to Snapchats. If you want to succeed in high school, it is an absolute necessity to wait until the last minute. Good luck!