When I was in fourth grade, my school had a contest in which students submitted art projects depicting their favorite place to read. The kid who won drew a tree house on a mural that somehow included actual leaves sprouting from it. Of course, the contest was just tangentially about art. Our school was really trying to celebrate reading. A favorite place to read can only exist for a student who relishes reading.

But you see this theme over and over again for successful people, from writers and artists to physicists and programmers. They don’t just arbitrarily work and hope for the best. They have a routine—a time of day, a room, a desk, a chair, and other patterns or rituals they use over and over again to do their best work. They each have a way they get their work done.

High school students spend a great deal of time completing assignments, studying, and otherwise focusing on academic material when they’re outside of class. Do you have a favorite way of doing it, one that’s proven to work for you over and over again?

If not, the first step is to find one. The best place to look is your past. The last time you did focused, effective, work that paid off, where, when, and how did you get it done? Repeat and refine, and you’ll probably find a favorite.