Ace
Short answer: motivation is unreliable and discipline is tiring, so the most dependable way to study consistently is to build a habit: the same short study action, at the same time and place, every day. Research found that students with high self-control mostly succeed because of good habits rather than willpower, and that new daily habits took 66 days on average to become automatic, with a wide range.
Discipline, motivation and habit: what's the difference?
- Motivation is wanting to study. It comes and goes with your mood, the deadline and how the last session went.
- Discipline is studying when you don't want to, by effort. It works, but it is tiring to rely on day after day.
- Habit is studying because it is what you do at that time and place. It takes almost no decision at all.
The "discipline vs motivation" debate misses the third option, and the third option is the one with the best evidence.
What the research says
Self-controlled people lean on habits. Galla and Duckworth (2015) ran six studies with a total of 2,274 people to understand why self-control predicts so many good outcomes. They found that people with high self-control were not mainly winning by resisting temptation. They had better habits, including study and homework habits, and those habits explained much of the link between self-control and outcomes such as homework completion, grades and staying in college. In other words, what looks like discipline is often habit.
Habits run on autopilot. Wood, Quinn and Kashy (2002) had people report their thoughts and actions every hour. During habitual behaviour, people's minds were often on something else, because they did not need to steer what they were doing. Habitual behaviour was also linked with less stress than non-habitual behaviour.
Procrastination is a self-regulation problem. Steel's (2007) meta-analysis of 691 correlations found that the strongest, most consistent predictors of procrastination included low conscientiousness, distractibility, poor organisation and low achievement motivation. Several of those are things a fixed routine can help with.
How to build a study habit
- Pick a cue you already have. Habits form around stable cues: "after my first coffee", "when I get back from my last lecture", "after dinner". Same cue, every day.
- Make the action small and specific. "Study" is too vague. "Answer 15 practice questions on this week's lecture" is a habit you can start in ten seconds.
- Keep the place the same. Same desk or library seat where possible. Context is part of what makes the behaviour automatic.
- Remove the set-up cost. Have the material ready before the cue arrives: slides downloaded, laptop charged, questions waiting.
- Track it, lightly. A streak or a calendar tick shows the habit building and makes skipping more noticeable.
Our guide to habits of top students covers which habits are worth building first.
How long does it take?
Not 21 days. Lally and colleagues (2010) followed 96 people who each picked a new daily behaviour, tied to a cue, for 12 weeks. For the participants whose data could be modelled, it took 66 days on average to reach maximum automaticity, and the range ran from 18 days to a predicted 254 days. About half of the participants who completed the study never reached a clear habit within the 12 weeks.
Two practical lessons come from the same study. First, missing a single day did not meaningfully set people back. Second, consistency is what counts, so start with something small enough to do every day, and make it longer once it feels automatic.
What about the days you don't want to?
This is where a little discipline still helps. On a bad day:
- Do the minimum version. Five questions instead of fifteen. The point is to keep the cue and the action linked.
- Don't miss twice. One missed day is fine. Two in a row is how habits fade.
- Don't wait to feel motivated. Motivation often shows up after you start, not before. Our post on staying motivated to study has more on this.
The easier the daily action is to start, the easier it is to repeat every day. Ace turns your lecture slides and PDFs into practice questions written only from that material, so a session after your last lecture is ready on the iPhone app or the web, and its streaks and study calendar show the habit building day by day.
Frequently asked questions
Is discipline more important than motivation for studying?
Discipline is more reliable than motivation, but habits are more reliable than both. Research on self-control found that people who seem disciplined mostly rely on good habits.
How long does it take to build a study habit?
In Lally and colleagues' study, new daily habits took 66 days on average to become automatic, with a range from 18 to a predicted 254 days. Doing it consistently in the same context matters most.
What if I miss a day?
One missed day made little difference in the habit research. Get back to it the next day, and try not to miss two in a row.
How do I study when I have no motivation?
Make the first step tiny and tied to a fixed cue, such as five questions after dinner. Starting is the hard part; it usually gets easier after a few minutes.
Sources
- Galla, B. M., & Duckworth, A. L. (2015). More than resisting temptation: Beneficial habits mediate the relationship between self-control and positive life outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(3), 508–525.
- Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009.
- Wood, W., Quinn, J. M., & Kashy, D. A. (2002). Habits in everyday life: Thought, emotion, and action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1281–1297.
- Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94.
