By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed.
You have a test you know you need to study for. You want a good grade, and you know it’s important.
There’s just one problem: You don’t feel like studying.
You know you should. You want the result of what happens if you do (yes, please, to an A). But again, you just don’t want to.
This problem doesn’t just appear when you need to study. It can show up anywhere:
- The paper you have to write
- The email you have to send
- The application you should fill out
- The notes you need to go back and review
Again, you just don’t feel like doing any of it.
I get it. This happens to me too. Sometimes I really don’t want to do something, and so it takes me longer than it should, or I become a lot more dramatic about it than I’d like to be. And I’m the anti-procrastination expert … so what the heck is going on?
What “I Don’t Feel Like Studying” Really Means
Even though “I don’t feel like studying” seems like it’s an emotional thing, I argue it’s not. (Well, actually, there’s one exception, which I explain at the end of this post.)
When we don’t feel like doing something, there’s usually something beneath the surface preventing us from doing the thing. But the symptom that we notice is just the “feeling” of not wanting to do it.
So what happens is that we say, “I’ll do it later.” Or we tell ourselves, “I’ll do it when I’m more motivated.” But none of those mental fantasies solves the real problem – the one that is, again, beneath the surface.
So what’s the real problem?
My argument: When we need to do something but we just don’t feel like it, the true problem is that we aren’t actually sure what we’re supposed to be doing.
In other words, “not feeling” like doing something is a signal telling us we don’t actually know what we’re supposed to be doing.
Think about it: If we knew exactly how to do something, and we knew it needed to happen, we’d probably do it. So when we say “I don’t feel like it,” what we’re really saying — without realizing it — is: “I don’t actually know what I’m supposed to be doing right now.”
And now, we can face the reality that we’re dealing with a planning problem, not a motivation or “feelings” problem.
Why Waiting Until You Feel Like It Never Works
I write about motivation a lot on this blog, and I talk about it just as much on my podcast, especially in this episode that explains the difference between motivation and discipline.
With that said, here’s the point I’m always making about motivation: It doesn’t come first. It comes after. Motivation follows action. It doesn’t come before it.
We almost never feel like doing something until after we’ve already started doing it. It’s the momentum that makes us feel like we can keep going. But to get that magic momentum, we have to start when we don’t feel like it.
You’ve probably experienced this yourself. Think about the last time you finally made yourself start something you’d been putting off. Once you got going, it was fine, right? Maybe even fine-ish? The dread and drama were worse than the actual thing.
So when you tell yourself, “I’ll do it later, when I’m in the mood,” you’re waiting for a feeling that can only be triggered by doing the thing you’re avoiding. See the problem? You need to start in order to feel like starting… which means waiting for the mood is a dead-end street.
Plus, “later” has the same set of problems as now. The thing is still going to be annoying and you’re still not going to want to do it…the only difference is that it’s later.
The “I don’t feel like it” feeling goes away when you have a plan. If you have no plan, later will feel exactly like now.
What a Planning Problem Looks Like for Students
I’ve made my point that the real problem is that you’re unclear about what you’re supposed to be doing, or in this specific case, what you’re supposed to be studying. At the core of that is a planning issue.
So let’s talk about what that looks like.
A planning problem often looks like this:
- You sit down to study.
- You spend 10 minutes figuring out what to even work on.
- By the time you land on something, you’re already frustrated, your focus is shot, and the session hasn’t even started yet.
- So you get up and say you’ll do it later.
Or:
- You open your bag to study.
- You realize you don’t have what you need.
- Your notes are in your locker.
- The practice problems are on a handout from two Thursdays ago.
- Your laptop is dead and the charger is upstairs.
- So you get up and say you’ll do it later.
Or:
- Your plan for the session is “study for bio.”
- You’re overwhelmed because you don’t know what it means to categorically “study bio.”
- So you get up and say you’ll do it later.
Or:
- You can’t decide whether to work on the history essay or the chemistry problems.
- So you spend 20 minutes going back and forth, debating which one to start.
- You get overwhelmed
- You end up doing neither.
- You scroll your phone instead and feel terrible about it for the rest of the night.
Every single one of those above scenarios has a planning problem at its core. In other words, you had absolutely zero concrete plan for your study session, which meant you couldn’t do it. (I mean, you could have, but you didn’t.)
Lack of planning leads to decision paralysis, missing materials, and vague goals. These kill your study session before you ever start.
And because your study sessions tank before they even happen, you conclude that you just aren’t in the mood. But the mood has nothing to do with it.
How to Plan Your Study Sessions in Advance
The decisions that kill your motivation need to happen before you sit down to study. The mistake I see most students make is that they go into their study sessions with no plan, which makes the task seem bigger and harder than it is.
And when something seems big and hard and scary, we don’t feel like doing it. Obviously.
Before your next study session, I want you to answer these four questions:
1. What subject am I working on?
Be specific. Don’t say “study for bio,” but say something like “study chapter 7, sections 1-4.”
2. What is the specific task within that subject?
Again, not “study for bio.” Something like: make flashcards for chapters 7 and 8, or do practice problems 12–24, or outline the first two parts of the lab report.
3. What materials do I need, and do I have them?
Do you need your notes? Textbook? A specific handout? A book? Something you need to print? Get everything ready before you sit down.
4. How long am I studying for?
Set a timer. Defining a stopping point in advance makes starting feel less intimidating. I recommend a study session between 25 and 45 minutes. If you need more, set a timer for a 5 or 15-minute break between sessions.
If you take like two minutes to answer these four questions, it’s a bazillion times easier to start the work. Nothing is stopping you, no confusion is keeping you from beginning, and there’s no drama about “this is too hard” or “I don’t get it.”
Note: If you’ve answered all four questions and you’re still sitting there, not taking any action, try this one thing: ask yourself what kind of person you want to be. Then ask yourself what decision that person would make right now? Do you want to be the kind of person who lets their feelings win every time? Who doesn’t do what they say they’re going to do? Didn’t think so.
How to Organize Your Study Sessions
To make this whole process easier, I have a free student study planner you can grab right here: get the study planner for free.
It’s simple, it walks you through these exact decisions before your session starts, and it’ll come straight to your inbox when you sign up. And again, it’s free.
The One Exception: ADHD and Emotional Regulation
At the very beginning of this post, I said that “I don’t feel like studying” is almost never an emotional problem — but that there’s one exception. Here it is:
For students with ADHD, the feeling of not wanting to do something can be genuinely more intense and harder to ignore than it is for neurotypical students. That’s because ADHD doesn’t just affect focus, time management, and other academic skills we talk about here on the blog; it also affects emotional regulation.
ADHD affects the prefrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain responsible for planning, focus, time management and task initiation. But it’s also the part of the brain that helps regulate emotional responses. In people with ADHD, emotions can feel bigger and harder to override. The “I cannot make myself do this right now” feeling can be intense enough to kill even the most solid plan.
This is partially rooted in emotional dysregulation, and it’s a legitimate symptom of ADHD.
For most students, the planning strategies in this post will solve the problem. For students with ADHD, planning is still the right starting point — and it will still help. But if you find that having even a clear plan isn’t enough to get you started, emotional dysregulation might be part of what’s going on.
Your study plan definitely still matters, and I still need you to make one. But for students with ADHD, it might just not be the whole picture.
Next Steps
Now you understand that “I don’t feel like studying” has more to do with a lack of planning than with anything else.
You also know that motivation is not the main event here. It’s cool to have, but the show must go on regardless of how motivated you feel.
You also know that “later” is a silly time to start things you don’t feel like doing. Why? Because you know deep down inside that you’re not going to want to do it later either.
So now, your plan is to make a plan. You do this by answering the four key questions before you sit down to study. If you do that, you solve the real problem, which was never motivation in the first place.
If you want a complete system for managing your assignments, planning your study sessions, and building the habits that make all of this feel less like a battle, that’s what SchoolHabits University is for. Learn more here.
