“At [insert standardized test writing company], we strive to measure student’s cumulative knowledge in quantitative and verbal reasoning. Therefore many students may find the vocabulary and math skills measured on this exam difficult to ‘cram’ for our given the cumulative nature of our test material.”

Improving vocabulary three months or even a year before that standardized test is too late. That’s invigorating for any would-be test-takers, right? How about for their parents? How about for the test prep specialists assigned to help them? The fact of the matter is vocabulary is like investing: 1) no one sees immediate results, 2) consistency is the name of the game, and 3) earnings compound over time. And much like the youth sneer at their elders when told of the prudence of investing young, so too do they sneer at vocabulary’s future value. As parents and educators, we must find a way to rescue these young minds from future verbal destitution by cleverly packaging vocabulary lessons into effective, intriguing habits. Lucky for you, we have a few ideas:

Books, Movies, Short Stories

Ok, this one is the obvious one, but let’s get it out of the way. Most high vocabulary individuals read voraciously. The plethora of words in the English language makes the odds of encountering a new word in even the shortest of well-written texts likely, if not inevitable. Some choose to run for a dictionary every time they encounter a novel term, but this isn’t always the best choice for long-term vocabulary retention. Our brains are fickle and egotistical in many ways. We appreciate and remember new information more if we have to work for it, yes, but also if it spikes dopamine somehow. For instance, if I encounter the word somnolent in an article from The Economist and immediately run a google search to learn its meaning, the new information probably won’t stick. Instead, I should venture a guess as to what the word somnolent means, then confirm. Using the context of the sentence, any apparent root words, or simple intuition gives me a decent chance of guessing a word’s meaning. If my prediction is correct, I get a dopamine spike from correctly guessing an outcome. If I’m wrong, I have some hilarious image in my head combining my prediction with the true definition. I always think somnolent means solemn, like a great orator giving a eulogy. It actually means sleepy or drowsy, so I picture my great orator yawning during his speech or potentially falling asleep, and I haven’t forgotten the true definition. 

Let Their Brains Play Up a Level

Any youth sports coach will tell you that the best way to help a top athlete improve at youth level is to let him or her “play up” an age group or two. The speed of play, physicality, and maturity necessary with older age groups makes the athlete re-evaluate and adapt his or her game, thus boosting potential. Vocabulary works the same way. The youngest child in an average family learns more vocabulary at the dinner table than in the classroom. Why? Because they are forced “to play up.” The child must adapt to understand older siblings and parents, all of whom have different levels of education, word preferences, and interests. One of the best ways to help your child’s vocabulary is to make sure he or she is surrounded by older, eloquent individuals. Furthermore, one must participate in the conversation to glean the vocabulary benefits. As the old Ben Franklin saying goes, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

Be the Change You Wish to See

Parents (and older siblings) vastly underestimate the impact their subconscious actions have on the learning attitudes of impressionable children. I’ll never forget the day when I had an arduous battle to help a student take an interest in Herman Melville’s brilliant albeit lengthy epic Moby Dick. My student excused himself to use the restroom, and I was racing to find a new angle of approach. I was reaching my wit’s end because the student was patently against any century-old story about “a man hunting whales,” as he put it. Then, a moment of kindness (or brilliance) from the student’s father saved me and the student’s interest in English literature. The dad, a well-respected businessperson seemingly disinterested in academic minutia, came over and told me that he’d always heard of this book but never read it. He wanted me to repeat what I had said about Moby Dick being the perfect book for rebellious high schoolers craving adventure but not fully understanding why. He raised a few interesting questions I hadn’t considered, and we launched into a gripping dialogue about the book. When the student came back into the room and saw his father thoroughly invested in this odd, old book, the session turned on its head. The best way to help your student be curious and eloquent, to seek new words and find their meanings is to do so yourself. Set the example, and the child will follow. 

The topic of vocabulary comes up every year when we teach test prep, but also in our one-on-one executive function coaching program. We help students become well-rounded, curious learners. Vocabulary is just one piece of the puzzle. To learn more about our programs or to find your son or daughter’s academic coach, reach out today. If you’re interested in more content like this, head over to our blog. 

There’s a Warm-Up Phase

First things first, students (and people in general) are too impatient when it comes to focusing. We sit down geared up to write that English paper but give up after ten minutes of watching the cursor blink because we “just can’t focus right now.” That’s a poor excuse. I’ve never seen an athlete walk out of practice because he or she wasn’t primed for physical competition after five minutes of being on the field. Learning works the same way. There’s a warm-up phase, and the length of this warm-up phase varies from individual to individual. However, students can shorten this warm-up phase through a myriad of techniques posted on our blog. Interestingly enough, many of the best ways to reduce “warm-up time” have to do with our eyes. The sections below outline the best ways to go from 0 to 60 in terms of focus, productivity, and learning. 

Brighter is Better 

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but studying in bright spaces works better. Lighting is a fundamental variable of workspace optimization. Although we have discussed it in our other posts on study spaces and the 5-minute prep, we’re taking a deep dive into the subject of lighting today. In essence, vision and light are vital triggers for the brain to move into a state of high alertness. Being in a well-lit environment, meaning quality and quantity of light, can help stave off boredom, grogginess, and lethargy. Lighting is incredibly fundamental to triggering alert brain states early in the morning, and students should expose themselves to bright natural light as early in the morning as possible. However, configuring bright lights into one’s workspace can also be a productive plus later in the day. When it comes to workspace lighting, we want overhead light that mimics the sun’s brightness. Working under an abundance of overhead light helps facilitate the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and cortisol, all of which aid focus and learning. 

Convergent vs. Divergent Vision

Lighting is just the tip of the visual iceberg, though. Let’s talk about visual focus and range of vision, particularly divergent and convergent vision. As you may recall from our post on the different modes of thinking, divergent and convergent are often seen as antagonistic when they are actually quite complimentary. Divergent thinking, which lends itself to creative work, has its place, and so too does convergent thinking, which aids with more analytical work. The same goes for vision in both vertical and horizontal dimensions. 

Where a student focuses his or her gaze plays a vital role in alertness, creativity, and stamina. Whether the student is focusing on a book, laptop, or worksheet, the visual field produces different physiological effects. For instance, when someone is looking down toward the ground, the brain tends to activate neurons related to sleepiness and tranquility, while looking slightly upward has the opposite effect. Standing or sitting erect while focusing on a book or laptop that is slightly elevated produces the optimum visual field for alertness. Now that we have discussed the vertical range of visual perception, let’s discuss the horizontal range. Students can create maximum alertness, focus, and cognition when they bring their eyes to a narrow point in space, which is typically referred to as convergent vision. Thus, we want to keep the visual stimuli to the left and right of our focal point to a minimum when studying. But there’s a twist. 

It is crucial to note that convergent vision is more draining than divergent vision on the eyes and brain. Ophthalmologists and neurologists now recommend students practice divergent thinking for five minutes per hour of convergent vision, which helps improve long-term focus and reduce eye strain. In practice, students can take a walk outside or simply look out a window to experience this benefit. The panoramic view of the outdoors and the horizon serves as a reprieve for our eyes. So, students who use study breaks to stare at their cell phones (tiny screen = convergent thinking on steroids) often tire themselves out without realizing it. 

The Cathedral Effect & Its Converse

Another aspect of vision students must consider is the cathedral effect. Simply put, the height of the ceiling, or the upper limit of our visual field, impacts how we think. Cool, right? This fascinating study on the effect ceiling height has on visual processing tells us that high ceiling rooms elicit better-creating work. In contrast, low ceiling work produces better brain states for analytical thinking. High ceiling rooms or the outdoors tend to produce abstract thoughts and creative ideas more readily than low ceiling rooms. So, students struggling to come up with an idea for their end of the year physics project or brainstorm topics for their English paper should spend some time in high ceiling environments. Low ceiling environments, on the other hand, work best for analytical work laced with concrete details and single-answer questions. Students working through demanding math homework or chemistry worksheets should find a low-ceiling room to complete this kind of work. What if your school or home environment has a relatively uniform ceiling height? There are two tricks to circumvent this dilemma. First, use the great outdoors for creative thinking. Secondly, use a hoodie or a baseball hat to restrict your visual field during analytical work. The awareness of this clever optical truth should help any student get the job done. 

Want more academic coaching and tutoring content to help your child thrive in the modern education environment? Head over to our blog page to view nearly one hundred prior posts. Better yet, reach out today to learn about our flagship one-on-one coaching program. 

After our coach overheard us complaining about the new practice conditions, he solemnly announced, “too much space makes weakness look like strength.” These simple words from a Brazilian soccer coach who didn’t finish high school are a vital lesson for young writers and their teachers. In soccer, a massive field can hide technical deficiencies. A player might look like a world-class forward when he’s just fast. A goalkeeper might seem destined for greatness when she’s really just tall. Longer writing assignments have a similar effect. A student might find it easy to complete a five or six-page assignment because the urge to hit the page count keeps the words flowing, but reducing the length requirement of the essay flips the script. Just like a soccer player learning to play quickly in tight spaces improves his or her long-term potential, young writers learn how to write when they must think about the economy of words. 

Teaching students to write a single paragraph well is no easy feat. A skillful teacher must guide students through the organizational, stylistic, and grammatical aspects of clear, compelling writing. Every word must be meticulously crafted. Every sentence must be placed intentionally to maintain the flow throughout the paragraph. In a short paragraph, writing deficiencies are easy to spot because there isn’t anywhere to hide. The driving force is quality, not quantity, forcing the student to draft, edit, and draft again. Quotations and other forms of evidence must be used sparingly and strategically, accompanied by an analysis that explains the evidence’s purpose. Concluding sentences must be cogent assessments of the broader significance of the topic at hand rather than a bland restatement of prior ideas. 

Longer essays, on the other hand, are driven by quantity, not quality. Students are consciously or subconsciously encouraged to ramble, vying to hit the page count rather than express ideas with clarity. Shoddy writing can be obscured over six pages, as the paragraphs don’t need to fit perfectly together. Students need only express some ideas that link together to remain unscathed by the teacher’s red pen because anyone can hide a poorly-crafted sentence or five in 1200 words. In other words, the space masks the weaknesses. 

As we have explained time and time again, writing well is vital to academic and overall success. In fact, writing a paragraph or an essay is perhaps the most significant intellectual challenge students face, not only from an academic standpoint but also from an executive function skills standpoint. To write well, students must create an idea, gather evidence to support it, find a starting point that makes the most sense, learn to overcome obstacles, know when to pause, know when to edit, sequence those steps properly, and ultimately, have the discipline to finish the task. It’s a perfect microcosm for executive function inside and outside the classroom, as the steps above apply to almost every other subject and area of life. 

Learning how to write well improves executive function one paragraph at a time. So, please, encourage your students and their teachers to pursue shorter writing assignments more often. The executive function benefits will astound you. 

So, as a parent, how can you help your child glean the writing (and overall communication) benefits of shorter assignments? After all, you can’t dictate the length of the papers your student’s English teacher assigns. The answer is to look for short “writing assignments” everywhere. Here are a few ideas:

Miscellaneous Emails

At least a dozen times a year, a student must email his or her teacher, coach, or principal. Whether the student needs to reschedule a test because of a school absence or request for verification of enrollment for a learner’s permit, these are golden opportunities to practice short writing skills. Next time your child needs to email a school, have them draft something first, then revise it with you. Help them eliminate vague language, correct grammar, and manage tone—these tiny practice sessions compound to produce significant writing gains.

Serious Requests

A few years ago, one of my students wanted a car for his sixteenth birthday. He brazenly made the request to his parents toward the end of one of our sessions, and the mother’s reaction was brilliant. The mom, a highly educated corporate lawyer, told her son to write his argument for a car in writing by the following Tuesday. She finished with, “He can help you edit it for writing practice once you’re done,” as she nodded in my direction. What a move! Students usually don’t get a taste for high-stakes persuasive writing until college or sometimes longer. This brilliant mom gave her son the ultimate short writing assignment, which combined a new writing style with a significant incentive. 

Thank You Notes

Many parents require their children to write thank-you notes for every gift received. These short (often five sentences or fewer) writing assignments are the perfect way to practice tone and clarity. Is your child’s birthday coming up? Break out the stationary!

Want more academic coaching and tutoring content to help your child thrive in the modern education environment? Head over to our blog page to view nearly one hundred prior posts. Better yet, reach out today to learn about our flagship one-on-one coaching program. 

Secondly, the academic environment students are accustomed to gets flipped on its head. Gone are the days of one class after another with bells to announce the interlude, with lunch, physical activity, and social time built into the routine. Instead, students need to balance their time independently, and learning to say no arguably becomes a more critical skill than note-taking. Students also go from forty hours of classroom time per week to slightly over fifteen hours. That makes a huge difference. Time is one factor, teachers are another. The college professor is a different breed from the helpful high school teacher. Where high school teachers provide near-constant feedback and encouragement, college professors are often aloof and unapproachable. Students go from daily feedback in the form of homework and quiz grades to intermittent glances are their performances with two exams and a paper each semester. 

Lastly, if a student falls behind, which is likely given the feedback issue mentioned above, the high school safety nets and self-advocacy pipelines are nowhere to be found. Colleges don’t send academic progress reports home to parents, and rarely does a professor or school official arrange a meeting with a struggling student. Self-advocacy thus becomes a two-part battle: 1) knowing when to ask for help and 2) knowing how to ask for help. 

Succeeding in college is hard, but it is not impossible. Millions of students do it every year because they intentionally manage the forgotten aspects of the college transition enumerated above. Although the trapdoors are plentiful, forward-thinking students can stay the course by following these principles. 

Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail 

Students don’t do enough research about their new school. More so, students don’t do enough research on their new city. Think about it. If students only spend twelve to eighteen hours per week in the classroom, where do they spend the 150 or so hours? 

Outside of the dorm room and the library, students must make time and make plans for the other factors of adult life. That means planning for haircuts, groceries, places to eat at different price points, pharmacies, transportation, and more. Solving these problems on the fly is stressful. Whether the school is in a college town, a suburb, or a major city, some research beforehand or during the first week is crucial to success.

The Plan is Nothing, but Planning Is Everything

Successful students make time for planning, meaning “Plan the Day” is on the calendar. The art of time management often boils down to momentum and perceived control. It is impossible to control every second of the day, despite what some productivity gurus claim. However, if students don’t make an effort to plan at least some of their time, chaotic days turn into chaotic weeks and so on. On the other hand, students who plan their day every day notice small wins and keep their momentum through the challenges of the college semester. 

The practice can be simple. Throw a few items on the calendar around the structure explained in the preceding paragraph. Add some extra study time because midterms are coming up, or schedule time to meet your professor. These daily goals don’t have to be academic, though. Go ahead and schedule time to meet a friend for coffee or play video games in your dorm room. The key is the act of planning. Students who succeed in college are intentional with their time.

Find A Bunker and Use It

Where a student studies is often just as crucial as how or what he or she studies. In high school, students usually have class time to work or scheduled study halls throughout the day in a pristine academic environment void of distractions. College is different. Professors lecture for 98% of the class time, meaning the work put in outside the classroom is vital. The problem is that students, at least initially, don’t put in enough independent work because they are not used to this new academic paradigm. As a rule of thumb, students should spend two hours studying independently for every hour of classroom instruction.  

That time needs to go on the calendar, but it needs to have a location attached. There are countless options when choosing a college study location: libraries, dorm rooms, coffee shops, etc. The key is to pick a spot that works well for you. Do you need silence or a bit of background noise? Do you need to be somewhere convenient and close by or far from possible distractions? These are questions best answered before the semester begins. Some introspection and research can yield the perfect study “bunker” for a successful semester. 

Looking for Additional Support?

Succeeding as a modern student is about much more than raw intelligence. Executive Functioning skills like organization, time management, study skills, impulse control, impression management, and prioritization separate good students from great students. The good news is that these foundational EF skills can be taught. 

Want more academic coaching and tutoring content to help your child thrive in the modern education environment? Head over to our blog page to view nearly one hundred prior posts. Better yet, reach out today to learn about our flagship one-on-one coaching program. 

I disagree. In fact, most neuroscientists, productive performers, and teachers do too. Boredom is vital to a growing mind, particularly in its relation to executive function. We often make the analogy of executive function as the air traffic control tower of the brain. Rather than managing arriving and departing planes to avoid collisions and ensure on-time arrivals/departures, our brain’s EF control center manages the plethora of stimuli we interact with daily. The EF center performs a broad range of functions that can be sorted into three categories: working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility. Our flagship executive function program helps students improve these three dimensions to ensure academic and long-term success. While the needs vary from child to child, one overarching executive function skill that every man, woman, and child should improve has to do with our misunderstood friend, boredom. 

When was the last time your child was bored? I don’t mean for a few seconds. When was the last time your child was bored for several minutes to an hour? You might say “yesterday,” but let’s think through that. Was your child actually unstimulated? The truth is most children haven’t experienced a period of boredom lasting longer than five minutes, and that’s a huge problem. 

In a world of perpetual motion, instant gratification, and an army of screens vying for our attention, boredom has become a relative luxury. In some ways, it’s really cool that humanity has invented so many technologies to make information and entertainment so painstakingly prevalent. However, this exclusion of boredom from our days destroys our ability to focus. The option to avoid boredom at every turn makes it difficult to do focused work, which is often excruciatingly dull at first. 

For example, your son wakes up on an average school day and goes to brush his teeth. For those two minutes, he scrolls through Instagram. Then, he walks downstairs to wait until it’s time to leave for school. While he munches on breakfast, ESPN’s SportsCenter keeps him entertained. In the car on the way to school, he’s either in conversation or back on Instagram. For the eight-hour school day, if he is not occupied or supervised, he reverts to any number of stimulations: socializing, homework, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, emailing teachers, etc. After school, it’s much of the same with the addition of soccer practice. But then it’s time to study, and herein lies the problem with eliminating boredom: the student begins to read his history textbook, a chapter on the American Revolution, but quickly becomes bored with the dry material, back to the cellphone!

Fleeing boredom rewires our brain for distracted work. In essence, people who multi-task or seek constant entertainment cannot filter out irrelevant information. They can’t sit with one item at a time. In other words, they struggle with working memory, inhibitive control, and cognitive flexibility. Therefore, one of the best ways to improve a child’s executive function is to help them see the value of boredom. 

This is easier said than done, as boredom aversion is a deeply ingrained habit. Start small with simple rules or challenges. Ask your son or daughter to focus on one task at a time rather than multi-tasking during mundane activities: brushing teeth, riding in the car, walking to class, etc. The simple act of leaning into boredom makes a huge difference when it comes time to study. Next, push the envelope a bit by relegating highly stimulating activities (social media, videogames, and Netflix) to specific time periods each week. Don’t let your child watch Netflix while they study or respond to Snapchat while doing math homework. It’s destructive in the long run. Lastly, encourage your child to become more comfortable with stillness and mindfulness training. A few deep breaths to start a long bout of studying is a great way to put this idea into practice. 

We hope you enjoyed these candid thoughts on boredom and its vital role in improving executive function. For more ideas like this, please check out our blog. If your child could benefit from one-on-one academic coaching, please reach out today to learn more about our services. 

Yes, procrastination is the one thing we can’t get students to put off until tomorrow. As commonplace as procrastination might be, its antidote is hard to find. Words of encouragement, incentivizing, or threat of consequence often fail to overturn the pull of procrastination. This phenomenon leaves parents, teachers, and educational support staff begging the question, well, why do students procrastinate anyway?

Firstly, students don’t procrastinate because they are lazy… or unorganized… or because they are stressed out. That’s a harmful myth because it creates the illusion of procrastination as an identity. On the contrary, most students procrastinate because they cannot effectively regulate their own emotions. While challenging, this skill can be learned, which is good news for us growth-minded folks. This is not a wild, new theory; it is the finding from multiple research projects dedicated to studying procrastination. Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at DePaul, who obsesses over our ever-present friend, procrastination, explains the harm of that telling a “chronic procrastinator just do it is like telling a person with a clinical mood disorder to cheer up.” It’s ineffective and often makes matters worse by evoking a common emotional reaction in teenagers: anger. 

According to the latest research, procrastination actually stems from one’s ability to self-regulate emotions and moods. According to Fuschia Sirois, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield, in England, “People engage in chronic procrastination because of an inability to manage negative moods around a task.” Furthermore, “The basic notion of procrastination as a self-regulation failure is pretty clear,” says Tim Pychyl, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Carleton University. Procrastination due to poor emotional regulation affects all of us, but it affects students more than most. That pesky pre-frontal cortex combined with hormonal overload makes teens especially susceptible to procrastination. Add a learning difference like ADHD into the mix, and it’s not hard to see why procrastination bats .300 (easy). 

So, how do we get better at this whole emotional regulation thing (asking for a friend)? Moreover, how on earth do we teach teenagers how to regulate their emotions? Most students are text or a Snapchat away from either end of the emotional spectrum: elation or despair. The first step, as usual, is boosting awareness. 

Next time you or your student gives into avoidance, analyze the situation. What’s the root cause of the delay? Some students are burned out from intense emotions that have nothing to do with homework. They just don’t have enough gas in the tank because they’ve spent all their energy regulating emotions elsewhere. Others are angry about or anxious about some alternative event like a sports game or a hard conversation. Still more procrastinate out of fear of imperfection or fear of not finishing; therefore, they refuse to make an attempt. In any case, drawing a student’s attention to the emotion behind the steering wheel is the first step. As always, clarity creates velocity. 

Next, choose a method to regulate that emotion. Naming the emotion often turns it into something silly, like the ridiculous charm in Harry Potter. Another technique for dealing with overwhelm (a likely culprit in the procrastination game) is to list everything the student actually has to do. Then, see how many of these items are urgent; most are not. Alternatively, help the student find a why for the assignment in front of them. Try to get them excited about the bigger picture. In essence, we want to replace the intense emotion with a helpful emotion: excitement. 

For more information on habit change and other executive function topics, please check out our other resources. If you want to learn more about our flagship academic coaching and tutoring program, reach out today!

So, what does burnout look like? Although most movies portray sad music, aimless wandering, and lots of heavy sighing, burnout in real life is slightly more subtle. The latest research on burnout points to two main signs. First, students with burnout show declining adaptive energy, meaning they become less and less capable in the face of novel problems. In other words, they seem to lose the ability to bounce back. Like a soccer ball with a microscopic hole, they just don’t rebound the same when confronted with a hard surface. The second tell-tale sign of burnout is a graying out of moments of joy. You really have to listen for this one. Students fighting burnout might not be as excited about the Astros playoff win as they were a few weeks ago. They might not fist pump voraciously when they get a good test grade back, or they might seem disinterested in small social gatherings and the other subtle joys of high school. 

You can also spot burnout by its effects. Burnout is more than a lack of motivation. It has trackable consequences. Burnout often yields a higher rate of error. Is your child making simple calculation errors in chemistry class or leaving typos in his or her English essay? Burnout might be to blame. When burnout strikes, we become less vigilant about our work, and we’re also less likely to double-check. The only goal is to get the project finished as we search for a brief moment of respite. 

Students facing burnout also lack the ability to distinguish between real threats and potential ones. For instance, your child might become a tad bit vitriolic around the house, picking fights with older siblings over perceived slights. This filial tet-a-tets seemed infrequent before, but now they occur rhythmically because the burned-out student perceives every stray comment as a threat to the ego. This dangerous by-product of burnout quickly becomes a negative feedback loop, as supportive relationships become strained and the student becomes isolated, increasing the impact of burnout. 

Lastly, students might experience a physical manifestation of “symbolic threats.” In other words, students work themselves up so much that their burnout stress produces physical symptoms of increased illness, lethargy, and headaches. These physical manifestations can be crippling to any student’s quest for academic success. 

Once we recognize burnout, we must take action to correct it. The solutions combat the signs discussed above. First, help your students find a way again. Academic success for its own sake is hollow. Help students figure out why they want to succeed in the classroom. A strong why is a great way to combat burnout. Second, encourage your student to seek social support. Retreating into the upstairs bedroom to binge-watch Netflix is counterproductive. Encourage social ties before and during burnout. Lastly, track gratitude and joy to combat the grey effect we discussed earlier. Ask your students to produce three things they are grateful for or to write a “win list” every day to recognize achievements. Following these simple steps will eradicate even the worst cases of burnout. 

For more information on habit change and other executive function topics, please check out our other resources. If you want to learn more about our flagship academic coaching and tutoring program, reach out today!

Willpower is fickle for several reasons. First, it is one of the first brain functions to go when we are stressed or sleep-deprived. Second, the will is heavily influenced by environmental factors. In other words, the presence of better alternatives depletes our precious willpower reserves. Please see the infamous marshmallow experiment if you don’t believe me. Lastly, willpower works like a gas tank, meaning we only have a finite amount to use throughout the day. Spend all your reserves during your first-period math test, and you might find it challenging to focus for the next few classes.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. Like many skills in our executive function repertoire, willpower can be improved through awareness, environmental design, and habitual action. For ideas on environmental design, please see our blog on how the environment influences behavior or the danger of always on. For habits and routines, see our posts on tiny habits and the power of momentum. Today’s post, however, will focus on improving willpower through awareness. Here are our three principles to follow:

Analyze Urges

The emotions behind an urge can tell us a lot about our physical and emotional states. For instance, a student finishes the last body paragraph of her English essay, and it is time to start the conclusion, but suddenly, almost unconsciously, she picks up her cell phone to go through social media apps. Another student, grinding through his homework, bolts from the room to the kitchen, suddenly feeling peckish when he reaches the analysis section of his lab report. When students suddenly pick up their phones to check TikTok or grab a handful of chips from the pantry, what might they be avoiding?

Awareness increases with stillness. In these moments of seemingly instinctual action, we encourage students to pause. Although it seems counterproductive, one of the best ways to improve willpower and get back to work is simply sitting with the urge, and examining it for what it’s worth. This is why coaching is so effective for many students with ADHD. Initially, a good coach simply holds up a mirror, allowing the student to see his or her habits and routines in all their glory. Awareness is the first step toward getting ahead and staying ahead. Parents can play this role, too. Next time your student chooses the shallows of social media over the task at hand, simply and calmly, ask them to think about the feeling behind the urge.

Be Okay with Boredom

Too many students aren’t okay with boredom. As we discuss in our post about the danger of being always on, the modern student lives in a world of constant stimuli, robbing them of the willpower muscle. It’s kind of like the movie Wall-E, where the humans get so comfortable that they forget how to walk around or converse with one another. With screens around every corner, we never have to be bored; we never have to wait. That’s a huge problem though, because we lose the ability to wait, the ability to be bored when we need it most (studying).

Therefore, one of the best ways to improve willpower is to practice being bored. In other words, the act of intentionally waiting is a great workout for your brain. Encourage students to give themselves thirty minutes before streaming that new Netflix show or 24 hours before making an online purchase. Often, they will notice that the act of waiting, even just for a few minutes, makes an activity less appealing and exciting. Like sitting with an urge, pausing before giving in to an impulse may seem downright impossible. So, start with just one or two small impulses a day, especially those that hit you most frequently. Willpower gains will soon follow.

Hit the (Willpower) Gym

Last but not least, hit the willpower gym often. Willpower is a muscle that needs to be trained like any other. Continuing on the Wall-E allusion from the preceding paragraph, many screen-wielding teenagers (and adults) have let their willpower muscles atrophy in the land of always on. It’s time to hit the gym.

We recommend students pick one activity each day to treat as willpower training: something that requires attention, focus, and patience. Or, to quote psychologist William James, Any activity that “arrests the attention and satisfies the soul,” will do. The possibilities are endless here. Some students go the zen route with breath-work or meditation, while others prefer running or weightlifting—any activity with less stimulation than the everyday.

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For example, a student learns the polygon interior angle sum theorem, which states, “the sum of the angles of any polygon is equal two less the number of sides of that polygon multiplied by a factor of one hundred and eighty degrees.” That’s a mouthful, but students will memorize and regurgitate that concept all day long, hoping for some semblance of understanding. Why not just say the number of sides minus two, multiplied by 180, is the total degree measure of the shape? A much more effective method of learning this theorem exists if the student applies the converse of Einstein’s quote, which is named after another famous scientist: Richard Feynman.

Theoretical physicist, amateur artist, Brazilian carnival enthusiast, and Manhattan Project participant, Richard Feynman followed a very simple maxim to learn as deeply as broadly as he did: if you want to understand something well, try to explain it simply. By attempting to explain a concept in simple terms, students can quickly assess their mastery over the broader topic and its component parts. This allows them to instantly pinpoint problem areas because they will be the areas where students either get stuck or resort to using complex language and terminology. Furthermore, students can use the Feynman Technique to condense and store information for future review. It’s a brilliant concept devised by a truly brilliant man. So how do you actually use it?

How to Use the Feynman Method

There are a few variations to the Feynman method, but the easiest way to use it is to grab a friend or younger sibling and explain the complex topic into they understand it. However, if a willing listener is unavailable, encourage the student to apply this variation:

Step 1: Grab a sheet of paper and write the name of the concept at the top. You can use pretty much any concept or idea – even though the technique is named after Feynman, it’s not limited solely to math and science.

Step 2: Explain the concept in your own words as if you were teaching it to someone else. Focus on using plain, simple language. Don’t limit your explanation to a simple definition or a broad overview; challenge yourself to work through an example or two as well to ensure you can put the concept into action.

Step 3: Review your explanation and identify the areas where you didn’t know something or where you feel your explanation is shaky. Once you’ve pinpointed them, go back to the source material, your notes, or any examples you can find to shore up your understanding.

Step 4: If there are any areas in your explanation where you’ve used lots of technical terms or complex language, challenge yourself to re-write these sections in simpler words. Make sure your explanation could be understood by someone without the knowledge base you believe you already have.

We are firm believers that successful learners use many days and many ways to understand class material. The Feynman Technique is just one of many learning weapons in a capable student’s arsenal. Please visit our resource page for more learning tips or information about one of the other pillars of our executive functioning skill curriculum.

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