Hmm... maybe I should start putting my grading off until the last minute so that I'm more motivated to do homework and study. There's another productivity boost here: the last minute effect. I have a lot of trouble doing tedious things, unless it's the last minute. I can grade extremely fast if I need to have them entered before morning so the course coordinator can run an anova on the grades of the different sections, but if I try to grade the weekend before, it will take all weekend.

On the other hand, I'm usually fairly productive doing homework - as long as it isn't a tedious or especially difficult problem. I also structure studying to take advantage of this - doing problems. When I need to memorize things while studying, I think I already partially take advantage of what patri is talking about - instead of some great studying technique, i just copy and recopy whatever I need to memorize. It feels like I'm avoiding what I should be doing, but i find it helps me memorize things rather well - and I can will myself to do it.