myHomework Student Planner and Digital Hall Pass system

Effective Use of myHomework

A good planning system is vital to success in school and beyond.

What follows on this page are some guidelines for successful use of myHomework. In general, myHomework is a simple, flexible and effective planner to help keep focused on academic priorities.

All students are different. Some students need thousands of items in their planner each year to be successful while others do just as well a fraction. The key is finding what works for your child(ren).

The key to solid use of myHomework is to get setup at the beginning of each school year or semester.

Then, be persistent in your habits of planning and use of time.

Getting Setup

Once you have created an account, if you haven't already, download the myHomework app on your phone, tablet and/or computer. Then login to your account on each device.

Add your classes and class times. Give each class a color.

From the calendar, add all of your No School Days, Late Starts, Early Releases and other important School Events.

At this point, you should be ready to think ahead about your academics for the coming term(s).

Planning Time

If you have a history of missing assignments, turning things in late, procrastination or know that you struggle with Executive Function, then dedicating yourself to spend time planning is extra important.

Since planning is a task that needs time and energy, we prefer that it be setup as something that needs to be "completed" each week.

Once a week, you should have a time to look at your upcoming week, think about what it will take to be successful, and add additional tasks to myHomework.

We recommend adding a "Homework" that Repeats Every Week at a time where you'll take twenty to thirty minutes looking at the next two to three weeks and figuring out what additional tasks are needed.

In addition to this weekly task, many students find it helpful to go through a similar step when they get home from school every day to plan for the work they will do that night.

Scheduling Homework Time

Depending on your age, you should have a general idea of how much time per evening is going to be needed working on homework.

With extra-curricular activities, it's important to think ahead about when you will spend the time each week and each night working on homework so that you can stay on track or even get ahead.

For example, following the rule that it should take about 10 minutes a night to do homework, a 6th grader or Year 7 student, should be expecting to do 60 minutes of homework per school night.

Think about when your extra-curriculars are, what time of night you get home on most nights, and when you are able to most effectively focus and get work done.

Then schedule into your week using Events that Repeat Weekly when you will try to work on homework. It is understood that in many cases, this exact time won't be able to be used but seeing all of those hours in the schedule helps the mind see what it's going to take to be successful.

Making the plan and thinking through how much work is going to be needed is the important part.

You may want to consider putting myHomework information on your main calendar so that you can more easily see when or if "Homework Time" is supposed to happen.

Day to Day Usage

Daily planner usage is the heart of being successful with myHomework.

Each day, visit your planner to see what you need to be working on and adjust the priority of the most important task or two to "high" to remind you that you have to get those done well.

As you finish each item, mark it complete. Take a short break. Then, begin work on the next highest priority item.

The widgets for iOS and Android can be particularly helpful with making sure academics are always at the top your mind.

Tips for Task Size and Backwards Planning

The ideal task size is different for everyone, but it is suggested that 20 minutes is the longest someone can stay completely mentally focused on a task. Therefore, we recommend trying to get "Homework" tasks to definitely be less than an hour each while targeting 10 to 20 minutes.

In the typical class, there are a few important grades that make up the majority of the course. Exams and projects commonly fall into this bucket. During your weekly planning time, in addition to looking at what is going to happen this coming week, it is extra important to take note of any projects or exams coming up in the next two or three weeks.

Then, create new "Homework" to break down the overall effort it will take to get a good grade on the project or exam starting well ahead of time. When you decide to put off a task because the project's not due for two weeks, you'll see it turn to red and show as Late. This gives an extra bit of motivation to get started.

Parental Guidance

Depending on your age and academic status, it may be extremely beneficial to have your parents directly involved in helping you enforce a solid routine including Planning Time and Homework Time.

Visit myhomeworkapp.com/parents for more information on how parents can follow along.

Need a Fresh Start?

We've seen millions of students use myHomework to plan and organize their tasks and not one student uses it the exact same way as another.

If it's the middle of the semester and you're already struggling to plan ahead and organize your time, try setting yourself up for by following some of the advice at myhomeworkapp.com/help/starting-fresh.

This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iTunes are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Content purchased from the iTunes Store is for personal lawful use only. Android and Google Play are trademarks of Google Inc. Use of these trademarks is subject to Google Permissions. Kindle, Kindle Fire, Amazon, the Amazon Kindle logo, and the Kindle Fire logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.