Ask Jigsaw: Online learning has been so hard

Friday, 19 March 2021

I get good grades in school but I can’t bring myself to continue schoolwork at home. Online learning has been so hard and unmotivating and I’ve stopped going to most classes, lying about my internet cutting out or my camera not working or my headphones breaking. I don’t want to do it and I want to be as good as I know I can be if I put my mind to it but I just don’t have the motivation to do anything related to school anymore.

Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out today. It might be helpful to know that you are not on your own with this. Many of the young people we speak with are having a similar experience with online learning and schoolwork.

Kevin

Jigsaw clinician

We want to wait until we feel like studying before we can do it. In fact, motivation mostly works the other way around. So we feel motivated only after we start and complete something.

Motivation and study

Sometimes, we all fall into a trap of thinking that we have to feel a certain way to do a certain thing. This is especially true of motivation and study. We want to wait until we feel like studying before we can do it. In fact, motivation mostly works the other way around. So we feel motivated only after we start and complete something.

One tip that can help with starting work is the 5-minute rule. It’ where you set a timer on your phone and you start the task and do 5 minutes of it. It might sound simple but after 5 minutes most people forget to stop or actually feel like they want to keep going. This article has some other useful tips that can help while studying at home.

Thank you again for reaching out today, you deserve to feel supported and you do not have to manage this on your own.

Kevin,

The Jigsaw online team