You’ve decided to get ahead in school or retake a class to get a better grade. When you were first signing up to take your summer classes, your parents were proud and you thought it’d be no big deal. But now your night of hanging out late with friends is making an early morning wake up for class difficult. Even a class in the afternoon is torturous, as the sun shines beautifully in a gorgeous blue sky just outside the classroom window. Seriously, how can they expect you to pay attention and do well?

Set yourself up for success by getting yourself into a particular schedule. With an online class especially, it can be difficult to motivate yourself to take  the time to prepare for your class and actually get your work done. Between internships and a social life, it’s easy for summer classes to become ignored—who wants to study during the summer anyway? Depending on the kind of class you have, specifically schedule time to do your homework and study. Even if you’re in a classroom a certain number of hours every week, make sure to set up some extra time outside of class to attend to your school obligations. There’s no point in taking a summer class period if you’re not going to even try to pass it.

Do your best to ignore the weather and your phone while doing your work or sitting in class. Close your curtains or move to your basement to avoid being distracted by the sun or tempted to take a break that stretches on for the entire afternoon. By turning off your phone for a while, you’ll avoid the temptation to hang out with your friends when you really just need an hour to write your response paper.  It might sound lame and anti-social, but hanging out will be much more enjoyable without your parents grounding you for the rest of the summer to get your work done or knowing you have no time limitations on your outing.

You can also try setting up a mini reward system for yourself for getting work done. After completing one homework assignment, give yourself a snack break or a quick swimming break. Power through an entire essay and allow yourself a day at the movies or a shopping trip. By giving yourself different motivational factors, you’ll be more likely to get your work done quickly. But don’t try to rush through what you have to do either to get to your fun time either. Putting no effort into your work is only one step up from not doing it at all.

Just treat your school work during the summer as you would during the year (which hopefully means putting some effort in, at least). It might mean having some less fun than the rest of your friends, but in the end it will be worth it. You’ll get your credits, you won’t have wasted your parents’ money by failing a class and you’ll have at least one worthwhile accomplishment of the summer. There’s plenty of time or fun, you can give up a little of it for your work.

Good luck!