By far the most common difficulty in study is simple failure to get down to regular concentrated work.This difficulty is much greater for those who do not work to a plan and have no regular routine of study.Many students muddle along,doing a bit of his subject or that,as the mood takes them,of letting their set work pile up until the last possible moment.
Few students work to a set time-table.They say that if they did contruct a time-table for themselves they would not keep to it,or would have to alter it constantly,since they can never predict from one day to the next what their activities will.
No doubt some temperaments take much more kindly to a regular routine than others.There are many who shy away from the self---regimentaion of a weekly time-table,and dislike being tied down to a definite programme of work.Many able students claim that they work in cycles.When they become interested in a topic they work on it intensively for three or four days at a time.On other days they avoid work completely.It has to confessed that we do not fully understand the complexities of the motivation to work.Most people over 25 years of age have become conditioned to a work routine,and the majority of really productive workers set aside regular hours for the more important aspect of their work.The "toung-minded"school of workers is usually very contemptuous of the idea that good work can only be done spontaneously,under the influence of inspiration.The most energetic of authors,Anthony Trollope wrote:"There are those...who think that the man who works with imagination should allow himself to wait till inspiration moves him.When I have heard such doctrin preached,I have hardly been able to repress my scorn."
