When I have to focus on something I don’t want to do , I find manipulating myself works pretty well.

You just have to find out the best ways to coerce yourself.

I give myself rewards for doing the work. Ice cream, mostly. A promise myself something I want like a blizzard or milkshake if I get the weeks work finished on schedule. Then when I have it , it’s reinforcements that my work was worth it.

I also like competition with myself. so I set reasonable goals and then I will keep at it until I meet the goal. I also really like it when I exceed the goal. So it’s one way to help motivate myself.

I also find that I have to be like a strict parent with myself sometimes.

I don’t even let myself try to come up with an excuse not to do something.

I have to. No ifs and or buts. Once you start making an argument in your head about why you can do it later. Or why it’s not that important, you have fallen. Don’t listen!

Honestly it often feels like I’m forcing a child to clean their room. But it gets easier to push yourself the more you do it. .I also try hard to find something interesting about the work. Even if going in, I was 100 % uninterested in the topic. I try my best to find something to latch to.

Being genuinely interested really helps with motivation.

And as many others pointed out. Math is just practice.

Your speed is based on fluency. Which is based on experience.

Do as many exercises as possible. Algebra is pure practice.

Don’t mess with computers or AI or other distracting crap. Do ALL the exercises in your textbook. Then get another textbook covering similar material but with different exercises, and do those. The idea is not to do exercises on topic X until you can get it right. Rather it’s to do them until you can’t get it wrong.

Schaum’s Outlines used to be good for upper division college level math. IDK what they have for intro level like you’re describing.

For the factorization you mention, look at the roots of the polynomial, i.e. x^3+1=0. So the roots are the (complex) cube roots of -1. One of those cube roots is -1 itself, i.e. x+1=0. So that is one of the factors: x^3+1 = (x+1)(something). So then figure out what (something) is.

Post the hardest ones that you cant get a grasp on here or if theres a dedicated community but try to engage as much as possible. Be curious and blurt out what your current thinking or processes are and just ask and vomit up all your unvalidated but instinctive assumptions until you get closer on the trail to the desired insight.

Like, ask a hard one you just cant get yet and engage with the replyers (the helpful ones altho dont necessarily thumb your nose at difficult ones if you can sense they are genuine and they make you question or wonder or feel the spirit of inquiry in any way). Obstacles are often if not always the way

It basically turns that super hard question into a fun case study that people actually pay thousands of dollars to get almost the same thing. But you get it for free (or the price of your engagement) since it will be mostly people who enjoy that subject matter or other interested learners

And even if you ask the “wrong” question or you get “wront” replies, the force of seeing a mistake and wanting to correct it and (and maybe get that recognition but not necessary) pretty much always drives a future response from someone with that knowledge who will set the record straight

Worst case scenario, your unvalidated biases or assumptions or misunderstandings will likely be at least pointex out and given a starting point

Practice, practice, practice.
This is something where AI might be helpful. You can ask it to make you a practice test. Make sure to give it the proper parameters for your course, so you don’t get bullshit questions or unsolvable questions.
If you don’t trust AI, you can find practice tests online. But the same applies, they might be too easy or too difficult for your situation.

A trick I was taught very young was to suck on a mint candy, and then when you actually have your test, to also bring a mint candy with you.

The story I was told is that mint causes the blood vessels in your face and head to dilate, so your brain gets a little more oxygen.

Then the olfactory and taste sensation being the same from when you were studying to when you were actually being tested on the topic can help your brain remember the information and recall it when it’s needed.

I cannot prove that this has worked, but for me at least I’ve always been extremely good at tests doing this and maybe that had some part in it.

I used to build a cheatsheet of all the formulae or parts I didn’t have memorized, then only study that sheet, then next session make a new sheet removing the parts you now can do from memory. Repeat until day of test you don’t need to look at any of the sheets to know the all methods.

Everyone has their own best learning methods so what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for you. But here’s my most general advice:

Practice + a good amount of rest so your brain actually processes what you learned during practicing. Homework assignments are usually good practice materials.

While practicing: write down all rules/methods that you forgot on a sheet so you have them all at one place and can come back to them later. Writing the rules down also makes you memorise them better.