10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less)

Understand the Procrastination Equation
Can you actually quantify your motivation levels? According to Temporal 
Motivation Theory, you can. Developed by motivation researcher Piers Steel, 
this theory posits an actual equation with several factors that can be used to 
explain motivation.
This is called the Procrastination Equation, and it can be a useful tool for 
pinpointing exactly why you might be feeling a lack of motivation to get 
something done. Here’s the equation:
On the left side, we’ve got the end value Motivation, the resource you use to 
complete any task for which you expect a particular reward. 
Now let’s break down each of the components on the right side:
•
Expectancy: Your perceived odds of being able to complete the task and 
get the reward. How confident are you that you can succeed?
•
Value: How valuable the task’s reward is to you. Do you really care about 
what you’ll get when you finish?
•
Impulsiveness: How likely you are to get sidetracked. For me, this could 
be rewritten as: How close am I to people who are playing Smash Bros?
•
Delay: The time it’ll take to achieve the task and get the reward. This may 
be defined by a hard deadline/due date, or it may be defined simply by 
how long it’ll likely take you to do the work required.
In most cases, you won’t be able to do much about Delay. For example, if 
you’re working on a term paper, the deadline is pretty much fixed. You’ve got to 
turn it in on time or you fail.

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10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less)
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The other components, though, are more malleable. Therefore, if you’re 
experiencing a lack of motivation, you need to do one of three things:
•