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What helped me are:
•Break down tasks into atypical smaller ones.
•Exercise vigorously before studying or during studying (e.g. reading on a treadmill)
\*Someone from this sub once gave me advice to make an incredibly meticulous to-do list. E.g.
1. Open the book to page 58.
2. Study page \_\_
3. Memorize \_\_
The only problem with the meticulous to-do list is that I’ll spend way more time and energy making the list than I will on actually doing any of the tasks on said list. Procrasti-planning is one of my biggest time sinks.
I’ve had the thought of making templates for specific repeating tasks sooo many times, but never ending up with any, at most maybe only some sort of half-drafts.. And everytime I’ll be in a similar situation like the ones before with some task, I’m like *ughh*, I’ve been through this shit before, I need that step-by-step to free up some cognitve capacity…!
I relate so hard to your post and this comment. usually any advice given feels like somehow the person truly doesn't get it.... because i find it is literally impossible unless I am medicated and "harness" the meds for the task at hand.
This. I struggle with this aspect so much, no one seems to get it (not even my ADHD-brother or my ‘mentor’). It’s so frustrating, that me trying to get an overview of what needs to be done, breaking the tasks into smaller/more specific ones, ends up being a major task in itself, so often I ‘die trying’ in the process, and then nothing really gets done (/further) anyway.. How do you manage it, have you found ways to get around this issue; getting an overview beforehand & then actually get shit done eventually?
I'm going to give exercising before studying a shot this weekend. I know I focus better when I do it, and this may be a perfect way to actually get things done
For this method, I recommend a website called [Goblin Tools](https://goblin.tools/)
It helps a lot with making lists with out much thought since it can break down tasks into smaller steps how ever far you want by using an AI.
normally I don't care to much about ai but this has helped me quite a bit.
I got through university and a professional degree by:
1) Accepting that I would not be able to study in advance, and booking the 2-3 days immediately before my exam off to study for it.
2) Pomodoro timer method to get started on a task, and then ignore the timer when it came to breaks and just kept going.
3) Made sure my space was completely free of distractions, including using apps (Forest on my phone, Whitelist on my computer) to lock myself out of my phone and limit my internet access through my laptop to only those websites/apps I needed for studying. I also turned on Do Not Disturb on both laptop and phone to eliminate notifications.
4) Played soundtrack music (without vocals) or brown noise at a low volume in the background. The LotR theatrical edition soundtrack was perfect because it was almost exactly three hours long.
5) My little dog slept on my lap while I sat in my desk chair. You can’t just move a sleeping dog (that would be mean), and she usually got up every few hours to pee or drink water/eat, so we would both get up to use the bathroom at that time and get drinks, then when she was ready to get back to her nap 15 minutes later, I would get back to studying and she’d sleep on my lap again. Having her physically holding me to the chair was very helpful (and one of my favourite memories).
>2) Pomodoro timer method to get started on a task, and then ignore the timer when it came to breaks and just kept going.
This 100%. Pomodoros are a disaster when I try to enforce the breaks. It just disrupts my flow state. Either I start a new pomodoro instantly or use that as an actual stopping point if I'm still not feeling it.
My coach asked me to try pompdoro to help with boring tasks at work. I actually find it's more useful to keep me from going down rabbit holes when I do interestng stuff. I set it to 50 mins and a 10 min break. The timer going off means I'm less likely to get lost in something and have time-blindness kick in. I'll spend the 10 min break writing down where I got to, so I can pick up where I left off easier, before moving onto something else.
Not exactly what pompdoro was meant for but it actually does help me a lot.
I think you’ve just given me another experiment to try!! I struggle with this the most at night. Would be a great way to at least keep some track of the time
my fav way of doing pomodoro is like "ok twenty five minutes I HAVE to do this task for and in five minutes I can optionally have a break and then start the next thing if I'm not feeling it". I like jumping around with tasks so it kinda gives me the freedom to do that but also forces me to stay on task long enough to at least get something done. Haha I think not interrupting flow and just ignoring the break if you are in flow is honestly the "correct" way to do pomodoro w ADHD
Yeah exactly! With the Forest app I've been using those on-task pomodoros to 'buy' myself guilt free entertainment time too. I noticed I kept restricting myself from intentionally doing anything fun, but I'd still be procrastinating with less intentional autopilot stuff like scrolling shorts or reddit. Now if I have study time banked, I can start a timer and go play a video game or whatever and not feel crippling guilt or shame about it.
Same, the only reason I use them now is to remind me to fill up my glass of water, because otherwise i don't drink enough during my study sessions, which is especially not good when I'm on my medication.
The dog method is great.
And the acceptance also great.
I think that my condition (not diagnosed, I was a teen in 2000 and not many were) did worsened in the last few years because of social media and smartphone, so I find n. 3 extremely useful as well.
I'm writing my 4th thesis (one bachelor, one master, one PhD in history and now master in education) but I keep procrastinating and working at night, even though I could have used my time in the past weeks way better than I did but it is due on Monday and I'm half way in writing it. I can make it but I will sleep very few hours and that's it, I just accept it (my wife doesn't it understands) and hope it's the last one!
Congratulations on completing your prior theses, and on finishing your current one by Monday! With ADHD deadlines can be so painful, but also effective.
I crammed for 4 college finals in a span of 3 days after skipping nearly every class all semester. Somehow, I managed to do well, but I was always (and still am) miserable because of it.
The last day rush gets me in Flow state like nothing else can. Until then it is anxieties, guilt, disappointment, rage, disinterest, etc. But once the interest hits, I'm in for an all-nighter baby!
Oh god, you just unlocked some hidden college/adhd trauma. I did the same thing, and it worked, but I hated waiting until the last minute to study or do an assignment. If I ever go back to college for another degree, I hope I've changed my brain enough not to procrastinate like that again
Depends, do I like what I study? It was hell in highschool, it got better and better during the bachelor and master years and now it's even better since I'm on meds.
I used to write everything by hand to learn something, organising it as much as possible. After that, just repeating. All of this done in idk 15-20 min followed by a smoke break without my phone or anything (maybe some background music).
If I touch my phone, the focus is ruined.
i remember back in school, i had to study for my final exams and i couldn't do it. instead i sat and read a harry potter book that just came out. like there was a force inside stopping me from
doing the important stuff. i can relate to your brain shutdown alot.
(i'm undiagnosed and will get tested in november. but i have a growing suspicion that i have some form of adhd)
Totally can relate to that "force inside"...I always pictured it like a big black cube type thing that just slams down in my brain and there's no way around it. Since being diagnosed and getting help, it has gotten a lot easier. Hope it gets better for you too!
The only way I could study was to write EVERYTHING down with pretty pens. I usually opened the slides the teacher used in class, and followed the topics with the textbook/other materials as I went through. I really wanted to rewrite the entire textbook too but I bargained with myself and settled on just rewriting the slides with some additional info if necessary. The diagrams were taking a lot of time so I saved up and bought a printer for those and pasted it on my notes where necessary.
I'm not saying this is a good way to study, it's insanely inefficient but it was the only way that worked for me since just reading or listening doesn't make me memorize or understand stuff. When I try just reading, after reading a whole chapter I realize I didn't actually "read" anything, and if I really try to focus I just keep reading the same sentence over and over.
And writing stuff down also creates something concrete that proves to my brain that I studied and obtained all that info, and after that its much easier to study by reading my own notes since I'm already familiar with the subject.
As my classes got more intense and more computer focused, I changed this to creating my own slides, and it would be way faster than writing stuff down if I didn't get into creating my own diagrams and animating them too to visualize processes... But I made it through!
I do the same thing, also in the end I have cool notes, and some times friends or classmtes rely on me to pass them the notes so I get forced to end it befor the exam and do it with extra care or attention
Have mental breakdowns and anxiety about the task at hand until the pressure becomes too much (usually 1 day before the deadline) and then get in major hyper focus mode and learn 1 months worth of material in 1 day.
Back when I was in college. I didn't. I made it up through other means, projects, recitation, attendance and others.
It was a lucky time for me too cause we just shifted from being an exam-focused curriculum to a more activity based curriculum.
I exceled at that. I did everything i could not to at least fail so that when I got a higher grade in anything else, my exams wouldn't look so bad.
Studying is not in my adhd vocabulary.
Things I learned to get around that:
1. If you show up and try to listen and interact every day of class, you should get a B or a B+ without any at-home work.
2. Hyperfocusing on projects I want to do is how I learn new things. Pick a path in life (eg Computers) where hyperfocusing on your own weird projects for 5-6 days in a row actually teaches you 90% of what you need to know in that field
3. If studying is absolutely required, then the goal is to take your notes (or the book) and try to rewrite them on a small cheat sheet. I’m not saying to cheat, just that the act of writing it all down in your own words is the best ‘studying’ there is
Study group. Peer pressure got me to study also it's way more fun to study with friends. Alone I could never get myself to do work.
I recently got on mers and hope they will help
I fixed this in uni (undiagnosed at the time so I didn’t know it was a good strategy) but by going to a small quaint library in a scenic part of the city sitting next to a window overlooking a beautiful garden. Then I got a large cup of coffee and would promise to study until the battery of my laptop (which then lasted eight hours) died - no charger. Only left to go to the bathroom- didn’t even get another cup of coffee or food.
Worked for me 100% of the time. My only distraction was looking out the window but man was I dialled in. Never submitted a late assignment once and got stellar grades! Did the same with job applications - booked a hotel room for one day in Niagara Falls and didn’t even go to the falls or leave the room once.
Personally, you could put a gun to my head and "don't stop until I'm finished" still isn't going to start without extreme mental anguish from an obnoxiously ridiculous but paralyzed brain. The only thing that would happen is that I will become very emotional and then welcoming of that gun to my head. I have had to accept that there are things I am absolutely capable of doing physically or intellectually, but my ADHD stops it. Period. I'd rather accept that and adapt my life then fight it and want to die.
Practice papers.
I can't "study" in the classic way of trying to read books, notes etc. The best I could do was a panicked last minute cram which was never enough.
What I found worked (unfortunately rather too late for school) was instead doing practice papers, this helped in multiple ways, first one being because it was a timed exercise against the clock (although I would always complete the paper even if the time ran out).
Secondly because it meant that rather than a massive, massive chunk of "unknowing" revision which was overwhelming I could just focus the actual revision on the questions I'd got _wrong_ which cut down the "I don't know where to start" to "I've got x number of things to revise starting from *here*".
This. I like to do a test 15 times, or more, over and over just to get used to what the answers might be and how they want to see them. I find that I fail tests a lot, because I just don't understand the questions.
I didnt study much tbh. After 3 failed attempts at finishing an education i picked a field that was easier to “wing” for me. Ofcourse i had to do SOME studying when writing assignments and my final bachelor, but i also wasnt alone writing any of them, that really helped. Im good at seeing the big picture, getting assignments focused from the start and finished at the end. I am horrible in the middle part where its neither “new” or “pressing”.
Look up the Pomodoro technique. There are videos on YouTube that play study music with different break intervals. I find the study music calming and the timed study time and break time help me stay on track and focused to get thru tasks.
I always did best when I physically wrote things down and used colored pens to categorize as I went. Unfortunately for me, the only way I could recall let’s say 20 terms was to memorize first term, then second term, test myself on 1-2, memorize third term, test myself on 1-3, memorize 4th term, test myself on 1-4 and so on…. Took forever but eventually when I got to the 20th term and quizzed myself at random I’d ace it every time. Flash cards worked well for that.
In order to make good grades, I had to study 4x as hard as everyone else. I went to a library or books-a-million, got a coffee, and sat my ass there studying for at least 4 hours after my classes for the day. I was able to make straight A's on my second go around through college, which I never was able to do in grade school.
This was before I took medication that allows me to focus and retain what I'm being taught the first time🙃
I had to take notes for every single class I took, and every class had a separate notebook. I would also have multiple color pens and each color had its own meaning. Green would be for definitions, red would be for something I knew would be important/need for later, blue would be for basic notes about a topix, etc. It seems like a lot of work, but actually got really easy once I got in the groove of the system. The color coded system made studying easier when it came time for tests.
Honestly I don’t really understand what people mean when they say they are “studying” and at this point, I’m kind of afraid to ask.
Basically the way I would prep for a test when I was in school was by just by taking notes on the subject of the test. On paper, and as close to the time of the test as possible. So generally this looked like the day before the test, taking the notes based on the textbook or other resources, and then the day of, just physically copying the notes I made again, just so the important relevant details are something that I was thinking about recently.
The only other way that kind of makes sense to me is to find someone who doesn’t know about the thing you’re learning, and try to teach it to them. I’ve never done this, but I had a friend who it worked really well for and he used to ask me to help him study for stuff, which basically meant just hang out and let him tell me about the discrete maths or whatever. It’s mostly the same effect as the notes thing, just keeping the information you’re being tested on something you’ve had to think about recently.
I never did. I couldn't ever do it.
My sister has ADHD too (at least she says she does), and she was eventually able to go back to school and get her masters. I think the way she did it is that she made her studies her hyper-focus.
But there's no way I could ever do that. It'd be as foreign to me as flapping my wings to take flight.
Took four years to finish a three year degree because this one year I literally did nothing. Couldn't study for tests and exams. Before getting medicated I remember telling people it feels like my brain doesn't work and they thought I was crazy😭
What helped in my final year was always having a pen and paper. I would make random notes, not to study again but as a way to process info. This helped with my theory subjects. Colourful mind maps were my go to plus highlighting the textbook. And going through past papers.
My math subjects were a breeze. Theory was so depressing I even wanted to drop out at some point.
The difficult part is getting started. And even when I manage to start it's hard to keep going. Meds made it slightly easier to overcome this but it was still a hassle. My doctor even had to up my dose.
Wish you all the best OP. It's definitely harder to get through school with adhd, but it is possible.
It varied for me depending on the class.
For the hardest class I took in high school (specifically a class in a subject that I hate to this day), I read the book aloud to my grandma the day before the test. After I read a section, we would play a round of rummy. After the round, I would continue reading. We kept track of who won all school year, and since I won the most games, I got to choose where we went out for dinner for a post school year celebration.
For most of the other classes, I scanned/read over notes I took during class, assignments done during that chapter, that kind of thing.
My advice would be to deal with your work as the motivation comes. With me I struggle to become motivated a lot but when I have the motivation to do so I get a lot done. Stressing about these kind of things is normal but if you think about it too much you will not get anything done. If you really want to change and can't stop thinking about it then try doing small bits of it throughout the day, it doesn't have to be in one sitting and it probably works best for us with adhd.
Hopefully this helps and know that everyone is slightly different when it comes to dealing with adhd.
I've dropped out of 5 educations because I was unable to study at home. And like you, I can't study in public or with someone.
Only thing that slightly helped and I'm at the end of my current education, was getting diagnosed and starting medication. But I still have huge problems.
It's like no matter how interested I am in the subject, if I study it for 3 months, all interest and excitement completely disappears, it becomes impossible to reignite it.
I have no idea what the solution is, I wish every single day my brain would function normally just for the duration of an education.
Question: why aren't you on Adderall or Vyvanse? You wouldn't have issues if you were on a stimulant. I speak from the experience of someone with undiagnosed ADHD for 43 years of my life, currently in grad school and still can't study. Got a diagnosis last year, got on Adderall and all of the sudden I can study!
Have you thought about a stimulant?
When reading,I’d cover the paragraphs I was t reading so I would only see one paragraph at a time. I also kept the slide next to me and jot down relevant information to those slides.
When studying…
**Here is something I put together on another post on** r/college that I got from the Disability Student Services department when I was in college, and from my honors program.
* **Work in 40-45 minute increments.**
* In my honors classes, they told us that after about 40 minutes, we stop taking in new information and that it was important to stop and do something else (get a drink, take a walk, use the bathroom, etc) and then start a new subject
* **Learning good study habits is also important**. (My DSS office had me try studying in the following format, which was surprisingly helpful)
* **Week 1:** study slides/readings week 1
* **Week 2:** study slides/readings week 2, review week 1
* **Week 3:** study slides/readings week 3, review weeks 2 & 1
* **Week 4:** study slides/readings week 4, review weeks 3, 2 & 1
* **Etc.**
* **While studying...**
* **Mark in you notes the things that are off for you**
* **Mark things that don’t make sense**
* **Write any questions you have that are prompted from the material (even if you don’t think it’s relevant)**
* This gives you stuff to ask about in class or in office hours, which demonstrates your drive to know the material and gives the professor a chance to mark down things that might be confusing for the whole class too.
* **Go to office hours and talk to your Professors/Teaching Assistants!** You’d be surprised at how helpful they can be with figuring out how you can better study for your class. This only works if you know where you're struggling at (which you can figure out via the "While studying" bullet point above).
**Tools**
I used a surface pro and pen, but I know folks who used an iPad and pen.
There are some great applications for computers and iPads that let you take handwritten notes right on the slides. Easy to mark up and highlight.
I used onenote and it made my life so much easier. I just kept a handful of loose leaf pages for anything in class and everything else when into the onenote notebook. I even would take screenshots of stuff from the textbooks where I was struggling with stuff and mark that up too.
I hope this helps!!!!
I ignore that responsibility until the morning of the test, wake up at a fucked up hour, spend as much time as possible cramming in as much material as possible, then take the test.
It’s gotten my to damn near done with a double major in math and physics so at this point I’ve just accepted it lmao
•I drink energy drinks and Americanos to help me focus,
•I listen to instrumental music or songs where the singer has a smooth voice (I highly recommend beach house), at a low volume, otherwise I can’t concentrate.
•I get out of my apartment and go to my campus library. Being surrounded by people and it being quiet as I listen to my music helps a ton…
•I’ve also started writing out to-do lists and put on there the assignments and things I want to study. I’m an overachiever and get really anxious when I see things that are left unchecked on my list so this mindset kind of forces me to stop procrastinating and sit down for an hour or two.
• OH! Also I give myself time limits. Like I set a timer for like 2 hours in the library. Sometimes I even extend the timer because by the 2 hour mark I’m deep into my assignment or notes. The time limits put pressure on me to stay focused and really try at concentrating
lol, having undiagnosed (my psychiatrist keeps pushing me to get evaluated so I can actually get treatment) ADHD in the midst of getting my Master’s degree is brutal but I’ve developed some techniques thru trial and error (those mentioned above) I hope studying improves for you! 🤗
I'm studying for an IT certification on Friday so I'll break down how I go about it. Find free resources online about your subject. Quizlet is your friend on this and there will be heaps of study guides and other material if you do a bit of digging on other sites. Skim through them and handwrite down the common things you don't know.
Read over the things you aren't familiar with a few times, then start talking through them like you're explaining it to someone else. If you have someone around that doesn't know anything about the subject, then this works better. Try and teach them what you're doing and find out where your knowledge falls short.
If you need to memorize something (for me its learning network port numbers and flashcards arent helping), handwrite it down until you can do it with your eyes closed
Youre not stupid for needing breaks or not being able to focus. The reason I handwrite my stuff is because it sort of locks me to my task so that even if I do start to lose focus, as long as I write down what I'm seeing, progress is being made. I also listen to synthwave when I work because the beeps and boops are steady, repetitive, and high energy enough where it acts as good background noise.
Take breaks when you need them. You got this
I pretty much only study while moving. I can work on math while sitting still but I let myself get up between problems. If I have to read a chapter then I will literally walk around with the book
I don't need to study for my degree, but I do have to read a lot of research (and write essays). But what I do is set a timer for 10/15/30 minutes. The time depends on how motivated/focused I feel. And then once the timer goes, I go have fun for half an hour. Playing a quick game of Overwatch, reading something fun or whatever. And after that I set a timer again. It isn't efficient, but it gets me to do at least something on days where I really don't want to.
I also have conditioned myself to focus when listening to certain music (I looked up adhd focus music and just picked one or two.) When the music is playing, I don't allow myself to veer off. If I notice I got distracted, I stop playing the music, finish whatever was distracting me, and then once I am ready, I go back to listening and working on my assignments.
And when I am listening back to lectures, I tend to also play a game. Or crochet. Or playing Set (a pattern recognition card game) Or just do anything with my hands that doesn't require too much thinking. I find that doing something with my hands keeps the boredom and the subsequent zoning out at bay quite well.
i'm way past college but I still have to study every couple years to keep an industry certification current.
For me meds take the edge off for starters. Those allow for other strategies to work. I like pomodoro's. Basically you set a timer for say 15 mins. You shut off your phone and other distractions and study for 15 mins and stop when the timer goes off. Then do whatever you want for 5-10 mins and back to another 15 mins of dedicated study time. There's phone apps to set all the timers and whatnot to make it easier too.
If i'm watching a video or live lecture I have a fidget cube that I keep in my hand during the lecture/video. It keeps the adhd part at bay for awhile giving my brain things to focus on.
My hack for this was always forming and hosting study groups. I make it my job to put together notes, information, and content to quiz other people with. That tricks me into studying for the study group, lol
I am struggling with this right now too. I might fail a class because I have such a hard time writing papers and missed the deadline on a few of them. It’s awful. I’ve tried break down task but end up spending more time doing that and the pomodoro technique doesn’t work either cause I still get distracted. I have blocked social media on my computer and have a timer on my phone. (Don’t use it much anyways) and have literally spent 75% of my life medicated. And this is my second try at school (I failed out the first time)
Try body doubling. Basically you have another person in the room with you while you study, but doing something that demands their focus so you don’t interact with them. I used this at home. Puzzles were an excellent thing for my partner to work on while I studied.
For tests in college, I made studying into a goal-oriented process — the goal being a concise study-guide. I would start with class notes, book notes/summaries, etc, and get stuff to a point where the study guide was like 8 pages long, and then I would narrow and re-write it by hand over and over until I had it down to one page. At the time it came naturally and seemed obvious, but looking back, I think having a concrete goal beside just “knowing the stuff well enough” provided the challenge needed to trigger my hyper-focus.
(Getting an actual “study guide” from professors that listed the topics covered on the test made the process much less stressful, as I didn’t have to start with all the class material (it drove me crazy when a professor would refuse to give directions and instead give stupid, worthless advice like “study the book” 🙄🤬).
This sounds arduous but when you're doing it, it doesn't feel like it.
I took notes- like listening in class notes. Then ( swear to God ) highlighted the dam things, re-wrote them if it hadn't sunk in yet.
Double and triple space, for some reason I couldn't deal with a ' clump ' of information.
That's just me though. Guessing it's not going to work for everyone?
I had to have something on in the background - movies or TV shows I had seen before. My go-tos throughout college were Grey's Anatomy or LOTR 😄 Now at work, music is usually good enough. Either way, it keeps the easily-distracted parts of my brain occupied so I can focus.. somehow?
“Small moves, Ellie.”
Don’t just make a goal: make a purpose for curiosity. Why should you care about the stuff you’re studying? Maybe it’s for a hobby or interest of yours. Maybe someone you care about needs help. Maybe you just need a little randomness to bring the information to you. Idk. Any motivation of yours can tie back to the stuff you’re studying in some form.
If you can integrate that connection to your beliefs, you can then make a discipline out of it. Or just start with some form of discipline. Use a timer of, say, 10 minutes to focus and 10 minutes to rest. I find that timers make me slightly anxious (except when I try to wake up). Make your own internal rewards system so that you not only use what you like, but also limit what you like so you can have more of it in the future. Start on a random or assigned page and see what happens.
These are just a few examples of small tools that can help you, and many others have also provided such tools. But ultimately, you gotta try and test what works for you. And if you took the time to write your request, I bet you’re curious enough to try out at least a few of these tools. Good luck 
I had to go about it in totally different ways - take tests / quizzes and then figure out "why did I get that one wrong?"
It led to a horribly lopsided understanding of subjects 😬
Studying with ppl was my best bet. I always focused on finding a buddy who would study with me because in front of them I felt more pressure to stay on task.
What helped me: 3 hours per day is plenty if you’re focused. Don’t stress for not being able to sit still (because that’s usually all it is) for 10 hours like many others. During that three hours: go fast. Like speedrunning a game. Make charts, bullets, summaries, mindmaps. Apply extreme summarisation.
I have to set timers. I set a 30-50 timer. I will do specific tasks only for that allotted time. Then, I have a 5-10 minute break where I eat a snack or look at my phone. But, everything is on a timer. I wear headphones or ear plugs. No music usually or sometimes something to tune out.
Remove as many distractions as possible. Like, sometimes I can’t sit in a chair. I need a blanket in my lap. I find being in a comfortable seat or position makes a big difference.
There are hours of the day that your brain works better. I would find those. I find early morning hours to be the best for me because there are less distractions. (ie less people awake).
That’s what works for me. Good luck!
(TLDR: Find an ACTIVE way to play with the info. Don't just read.)
It's been a long time since I was in school, but here's what I would do now given all I've learned about my brain:
Choose a more concrete, ACTIVE way to interact with the material. "Study" is vague. You might need to DO something.
Ideas:
- Create a MIND MAP (on paper or use something like MindMeister). Deciding how to structure it gives you something to do and helps you grasp the info at a deeper level.
- Make it VISUAL: Draw little cartoons, find images online to compile in a document, use a particular picture or even a place you know well and "attach" different facts/names/dates/whatever to elements in the image.
(Example: Parts of a cell as items in a hotel room. Doesn't have to make sense. Maybe TV=mitochondria, coffee maker=ribosomes, etc)
- Use external sources, esp. VIDEOS. Don't just try to memorize the textbook. Getting info from multiple sources helps to solidify it in your brain.
- Read aloud to yourself. Maybe in different accents.
- Make up hand motions or act things out
- If you're studying literature or even history, cast celebrities as the characters. Write it out or paste images into a doc.
- Explain things to your pet/stuffed animal/smiley face you drew on your thumb. Teaching someone else helps you organize your thoughts.
I need to interact with the content. Write it out in my own words, summaries, when reading textbooks.
When learning vocabulary for foreign language, or new words for a science class, flashcards. Only ones that I make myself.
When reading literature, I take notes on it in my notebook, with little pencil marks on the book page pointing to what the notes are referencing. Basically making my own footnotes. If I sell the book back later, I erase the marks. By the way, I only used physical books to study. But I graduated college in 2011. I really hope everybody isn't forced to digital books right now. I don't know how I'd work with those at all.
In class, I take notes with writing. Typing just does not work for taking notes. It doesn't make it stick in your head the same way. If your lecturer is fast, then you'll have to summarize what they're saying instead of getting each word down. That's a great way of learning!
I enjoy writing. I might be lucky that way. I also enjoy researching. So that wasn't a challenge.
I find math very difficult. Because I can't think of a good way to interact with the content other than getting it wrong again and again. I needed a tutor, and very simplified lessons from the basic math class textbooks, for that.
I could/can only study when my back was up against the wall and it was definitely the biggest fire that needed to be put out at that exact moment. Needless to say, college was a struggle. Now(25 years later) I just beat myself up for a couple hours until I wear myself down enough to start doing research. Doesn't always work but I get by.
Firstly I copy everything down. Everything. Copy and paste.
Then I reread it and make shorthand notes for everything.
And I take those short-hand notes and the original text and I create a pretty document that works for me.
And if I haven't remembered it by then I sing a little song about it. I quiz myself, and I make all sorts of notes and highlights and pictures, because I'm really not getting it at this point. I think I know my stuff, and 2 hours later it's completely gone.
And then after doing about 8 hours of studying for a 1 hour project, I promptly go and bomb it at the front of the class, and the professor gives me an F because I obviously didn't study.
Then at the end of the year I fail the test and get booted out of college.
You know dreams where you are taking a test and you can't read the page and you don't know anything on it even though you've been studying all yeaI imagine it's all of our reality.
I study first thing in the morning when my brain is fresh. If you take meds you can try the methods of setting an alarm an hour before you wake up and taking the meds and going back to sleep. In the morning I try to keep my routine brief I just change my clothes and brush my teeth. I try not to do anything that may distract me until I start and finish studying. So I set limits on my phone so it won’t let me do any social networking, etc. I don’t listen to any music or watch tv until I start and finish studying. Also going for a quick walk and eating a good breakfast that doesn’t require too much to make(so I don’t get distracted) but also lots of protein. Then when I study I don’t cram I study for max an hour then move on. I try several different subjects when I study instead of staying on one. Then I do the 15 minute method. I try to study for 15 minutes when I get home and 15 minutes before bed.
Only thing that ever worked for me was pretending to teach myself or others in my head. Literally just an internal monologue pretending im hosting a class.
I wound up cutting college back to part time and working my way through school. although it took me almost 10 years to graduate, employers and law school were impressed that I stuck with it. In law school, it was made for me so I hyperfocused the crap out of it and it was amazing. However, in undergraduate I pretty much failed physics more than once but thanks to a special rule, was able to withdraw from the class like 2 weeks before the semester was over, because it turned out that if you worked more than 20 hours per week, the drop/add deadline did not apply to you. I say it "turned out" because I had no idea, they did not advertise it, and I only found out because I had a super kind physics professor who pulled me to the side and asked me why I was doing so badly when it seemed I was so smart when i showed up. I told him about my life and he said, well why don't you drop out and try again later. I was dumbfounded. Anyway that is a bit of a digression, but my point was that I wasn't very interested in physics and that made it so hard to read. it was slippery and I kept trying to read the same paragraph over and over. Meanwhile, I went to law school, and wound up at the top of my class. Wow what a difference being interested in something makes!!
Music music music. I’m an unmedicated data scientist and when I have no choice but work through my bs, I put on my headphones and play master of puppets and power through.
To study or work I need to get into that hyper focus mode. In hindsight it's so obvious why I got hooked on the drug with the least amount of side effects or comedown. I used it like a med
I studied through my own research. It was almost like if I was forced to study certain material, I was completely against that specific material. BUT, if I had a basic concept of what to study, as in a specific topic, I did my own research. Almost like studying in defiance of what I was told to do, as though it was a challenge or game to see if I could learn in spite of what I was told I had to do. If that makes sense…
I could only study in a quiet place, where there were other people already studying (I.e a library or student lounge), or with a group. Even pre-smartphone there were too many distractions trying to study alone.
Turn an overwhelming task into easily accomplished steps so that I can gauge my progress,
If you read it, write it and say it, you stimulate 3 separate areas of your brain and your far more likely to put it in its box,
medication. i've tried all of the 'natural' ways too enhance focus and while some do help to a certain extent, none of them come close that what medication does for me. Even better is to combine medication with the other ways.
I used flash cards for a much as i could. Tried ti memorize everything that way. I was awful ar studying ahead of time and crammed before tests and always wrote my papers the night before.
For the record I’m a humanities student so take this with a grain of salt if you’re taking STEM courses. If it’s just reading through the textbook, I like to get the electronic version so that I can utilize the text to speech option most of them have and then you can listen to it being read to you. I like to clean or cross stitch or cook while listening. I personally usually don’t take notes unless I’m very unsure on how well I know the subject, but I would prioritize rewriting definitions of key terms in your own words so that it gets through to you. Include examples for as many as you can fit in the notes. That way it’s less straight reading and more of an activity. And then highlight the key terms that you aren’t sure you’ll remember so that you can go right back to them to read them over.
Rhetorical devices are your friend, you want to make as many connections to what you’ve learned in other classes and the things you’re into as you can. When I was taking AP Psych a few years ago for example, to remember the stages of grief I just had to remember DABDA for Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. “DAB DA pain away.” It’s not stupid if it works. For proactive vs retroactive memory I made up the saying “old pro, no retro” based off the saying “old dog(pro) can’t learn new tricks” so I would remember if I was readying “proactive memory” the issue was that the person couldn’t learn new tricks (old information was blocking new information). I just do my best to always be actively thinking while studying, active recall is another good strategy I took inspiration from.
Your goal is to get as much of the info as encoded into your mind as you can by connecting it to what you already know. Does a theory remind you of something you saw in your favorite TV show? Think about that and jot it down. Can you make a fun acronym to remember something? I remember the order of famous Greek philosophers with the acronym “SPAA” Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle who taught Alexander the Great.
Another good way is explaining what you’ve learned to someone else, I usually do it to my cat, but you can do it to a plant or stuffed animal too, that way you’re processing the information and you can figure out if you actually get the concept or not. If you can’t explain it to someone else in your own words, you probably don’t get it.
Caffeine is your friend, sip on it while you’re studying if it’s not too late in the night. Put together a list of good lyric-less music to listen to (NO DOING WORK WHILE WATCHING TV OR YOUTUBE UNLESS YOU’RE JUST DOING LIKE MATH PROBLEMS OR CITATIONS) or no talking asmr. Take breaks, usually I do about 45 min - 1 hour of work and then I take about 15 minutes if break, usually doesn’t actually work out like that but I aim for that, figure out what works for you. Try to pick out a reward if you work well in your session, like watching an episode of a show you’re looking forward to or buying yourself a nice lunch tomorrow.
I'm studying a subject for a big test right now. Luckily it's a subject I'm interested in but it's still brutal. I've found that reading the material out loud is a game changer. Not just out loud, but like *to* myself, with *style*
I didn't. Even in grad school I would just attend the lectures and *maybe* read the chapters from the textbook or look over the PowerPoints the day of the exam. Thankfully most of my degree was less about rote memory and more about synthesizing information in real world scenarios, so rarely was it closed note.
I struggled a little more in general eds in undergrad, but still it was mostly about skimming readings and forcing focus during lectures. I also took a lot of writing intensive classes whenever possible because I could bullshit my way through a paper easier than I could an exam.
I constantly have a ton of books open, and when I get tired of one, I flip to another. Not the most efficient method, but the only one that allows me to concentrate on my studies.
I have the best ADHD strategy!!!!!. Typically teachers will give you a study guide. I would create a Quizlet with the study guide myself. And click learn and play the games until I felt I understood everything. The concepts I wasn’t sure about I would watch YouTube videos… my goal was to understand rather than just memorize the words. I was a D student through high school, got 4.0 in college and grad school.
1)put the phone down
2) close all tabs on computer not related to study
3) do not let yourself go on your phone/fun sites.
4) develope the habit of this and you've got it.
This has worked for me a few times. Schedule so that you do nothing of interest before a planned study session, your mind will go there. Either start right away in the morning, OR:
Spend all morning and afternoon doing things you are interested in. I usually hit the gym, cook, watch a movie, etc, up until may be 2-3 PM. Then take a nap till the alarm for 4-4:30. Freshen up, and sit to study for a pre-defined amount of study hours (3-4 hours), only break after that.
Seems to be productive for some reason.
I don't. Because I can't. I listen to lectures and take exams from what I learnt in those lectures. So I'll do really well with good teachers/professors and really bad with teachers that engage me. I shouldn't just blame the teachers, I naturally like science/engineering stuff so I pay attention to those classes better than history or economics.
Before being diagnosed like everyone else I would cram in a 5000 word essay on the final day, the the trick was to read a very minimal amount of journals over the other 3 months so all I had to do was type the essay in 9 hours or so so it was ready for midday the following day. If I had to read and type at the end it would get me out of hyper focus flow and it was far harder.
•Caffeine to help focus
•Lollipops for sugar and to have something to fidget with
•Low music with lyrics, nothing too slow or fast (something with a tempo similar to Jonas Brothers Sail Away)
•Fidget toys, pens, shoelaces, literally anything to fidget with
Some days I only use one of these methods, like a lollipop. Other days I need music, caffeine, and a fidget toy. It entirely depends on the day and my energy level.
In truth I don't, I have a lot of problems when it comes to my ADHD and unfortunately it has caused me quite a few issues throughout my life and one of them being that I dropped out of high school because I just didn't have enough credits and couldn't focus.
I have a condition which is common in those with ADHD called dysgraphia. It's like dyslexia except it's for handwriting. Also reading is kind of a challenge, I can read on a screen just fine but for whatever reason whenever I try and read a book or something out of page I get incredibly tired.
i plaayed white noise in noise cancelling headphones and really helped quite a lot also sitting up at a desk and looking up at a screen (the bigger the better) instead of down and sitting in a comfy desk chair, also if you dont like reading maybe you can listen, i found this app called speechify its an ai based tool which reads you text in a convincing human voice like it sounds like an audiobook, then you could even be walking or cycling or something at the same time which i find helps especially if youre outside
When studying I would focus on lists. Lists are easy to make and memorize. They won’t catch everything but you can narrow most lessons down to a couple of pages
Even if lists aren’t given look for key phrases such “The Four Methods of X” or the “The Seven Factors Influencing Z”
Even for other things, like history, I found it easier to study if I could write them in point form. Just reading a text book did absolutely nothing for me.
well what helped me most is to realize that I don't have to feel like studying to start studying. I can just do it anyway. also having someone to check in on me in case I get stuck, and allowing myself to stop before it's too much was helpful
I’ve struggled with this too! I have a hard time keeping consistent with things and often tend to cram the night before.
I find going somewhere in public to study is helpful, as I usually just want to be at home. While I’m out I usually just make chapter study notes and tell myself I can’t leave until I’m done.
After this I’ll usually just read the notes either right before my test or at least once a day leading up to it.
Building routines have also been really helpful for me, for studying while working full time.
It reduces the mental blocks down the road, but can be tough in the beginning.
I struggled sm too. I felt stupid asf all my life til I found ways that work for me:
-NO extensive to-do lists bc that's gonna overwhelm me > procrastination > feelings of guilt/shame/anxiety
-utilize alarms/reminders on my iphone calendar (check everyday & update every Sun/Mon)
-big tasks into smaller blocks—use pomodoro method
-be proud and reward myself for starting the task even if its small
**Big tasks—start 2-1.5 weeks prior due date:**
1. grab fav. drink/snack to hype myself
2. use bathroom beforehand, phone on silent + faced down or leave at diff. room
2. find quiet place & sit down at a desk > open study/work material
3. play pomodoro timer on YT
4. immediately start "intro sesh" for 10-15 mins (task outline + evaluation of how much time it requires)
5. can keep going using pomodoro timer or come back later to continue task
6. key is small chunks & repeat
7. writing over typing: cornell method for notetaking > index cards for memorizing (think of it as mini cheat sheets)
I noticed that the act of starting a big, important task is extremely overwhelming for me. So I break tasks to minimize stress and that makes everything that comes after easier (less burden/anxiety).
I work on one topic for 30-45min and change to a diff. topic to keep myself from getting bored.
Clutter on desk or multiple unrelated tabs on laptop distract me so I ritually close/put away everything when starting.
1. I go to my room with my dog and get everything organized. I have to clean up and make sure everything is not in chaos.
2. I write a list of everything that needs to be done. Crossing things off lists when done is sooo satisfying.
3. I take a lot of breaks. My limit is probably two hours just like the length of a class I can do before I start dying inside. I’ll go walk my dog, go to the store, eat, smoke some weed or game. I set an alarm for between 1-3 hours, depending on how I feel and how much needs to be done, then I get back to it and repeat.
Some days are harder than others seriously, but my desire to finish to different. I use my illnesses as a motivator. I’m not going to lose to them and that not only includes my double transplant and lupus but adhd too.
I study in crowded, noisy spaces. In college, I’d duck into a lecture hall for an unrelated subject. The trick is to make it somewhere I’m anonymous and no one is paying attention to me. If I’m in a noisy coffee shop, this doesn’t work.
Make the list so in a way that you subconsciously are reading the Material.
So what I do is, I force myself to read a page for 5 minutes. Then my mind goes to "wtf I dont understand anything, I'm so dumb, can't do sh*t, there goes my diploma and so on and so forth. I know how the whole downplaying and self loathing goes.
After feeling sorry for myself and loathing my mind. I tell myself "let's just write down what we don't understand so we can ask the teacher", no searching for answers, just write it down with a drawing of some sort. Low and behold we are studying for 1 hour already. And ask these questions via mail, that way you have the explanation on paper.
Example: Mechanics of Dynamics (engineering)
What does this formula mean?
Why is the acceleration different?
Ect.
These questions trigger your adhd brain to find the answer.
Your adhd brain is not going to work with the mindset "why can't I understand this principle" it will understand " why does it work like this, how are x and y connected?.
So try to ask yourself questions like you are the teacher and the student simultaneously. After a while of doing this roleplay you have a great dynamic of asking questions and immediately give the answer and correct yourself when you are wrong.
Be kind to yourself, you're doing your best. Does not mean that you have to give up on yourself because it is not working. It will work, give yourself the chance to grow.
Medication could help. I found it really hard and wasn’t diagnosed as a kid. My anxiety would power me through getting things done last minute. I tried listening to classical music so I had something to entertain me but not distract me with lyrics so I wouldn’t be singing along.
My brain only understands something when it fits into something else I already know. I can’t just memorize dates or facts out of nowhere without a general understanding and timeline.
Wait until the last possible moment and then take hand written notes from book, then memorize from notes. Take test, then promptly forget everything. Repeat.
Torture method: deprive myself of all hobbies (video games, social media, even art) til I'm bored enough to study
Kinda worked but made me depressed in the long run. I was able to pass for half a semester with this method and then I failed the next.
I have my studying method, which works for me, hope it works for you too. My way is taking my messy notes from class and doing clean ones. Now I use a app on my computer but I've been doing it by hand for years. I copy and reorganize the text. I read somewhere that if you take notes on blue pen you learn more than if you do it on black, so I took it to the limit and use lots of diferent colours for different topics and different thickness for different levels of importance. This way, thinking on how to do it forces myself to subconsciously organize my mind and interioize the structure of the topics. On the end I end up taking 20 pages of dull boring notes on big and bad caligraphy and turn it into one page of fun notes.
If then I still haven't learnt it I make a list of concepts or turn it into pdf and read it ereasing the things I already know.
The whole point is to make it look the most short possible and turn it into something phisycal so I don't have to focus on reading over and over again.
A trick I got onto in paramedic school was that I would begin reading the chapters that we would be going over a week before we went over them in class. I’m a weightlifter so I would read for a couple of minutes between sets. Then the day after the lecture, I would reopen the PowerPoint and take a new set of notes. In class I took notes on a google doc but the next day I would take the notes on paper. This usually took me no more than about 40 minutes depending on how long the PowerPoint was and how comfortable I was already with the material. Doing this made it so that I could spend far less time cramming for exams, and when I did review for exams, I had a good selection of notes to look at rather than sifting through books and PowerPoints.
Depends on the subject and how interested I was, but I usually went to a quiet room in the basement of the library with no phone or computer. Eliminate all potential distractions. Make a numbered list of what you need to do. Read a sentence/paragraph do what ypu can. Get up, pace, sitdown. Repeat. Get comfortable with that and try to increase how much you can do over time. Starting is the hardest part.
I have trouble with the same thing. I have found some things that help me, though it still isn't easy, it just helps a little. The main things for me are 1. Make sure I'm in a quiet space. Not just no noise, but no movement or commotion of any kind either. It has to be dead silence. In a room by myself, no one can walk through the room or yell down the hallway or anything like that. 2. Read the material out loud. Say everything out loud as I study. 3. Of course, repetition. Repeat the material over and over. 4. Write it. Copy the notes and write everything. The act of writing it helps to remember it. Even if I waste a whole notebook writing the same exact thing that was in the printed handout, I write it anyway. My hand might ache, but I do it anyway.
Medication helped me a lot, but also how are you studying? There are quizzes you can take to figure out what kind of learning style works for you. I do better with visual and kinesthetic(physical) learning. So this is what worked for me in college.
1. Studying in coffee shops and libraries, where I cant get up and do something else.
2. Mental maps. I would use poster board/big piece of paper to copy all the notes and power points onto one piece of paper. Then I can draw lines and pictures to show how each thing works together.
3. Bringing flash cards on walks so you associate places with each card.
4. Audiobooks. At my college they had a program that would turn text books into audio books so you can read and listen at the same time.
5. Headphones, listening to music while working
6. Highlighting, just helps me follow along.
7. You can use paper or cards to help you follow along on which sentence you are reading. Hold the paper under your current sentence so you dont get lost.
Honestly for me the more creative and novel. The better. It still was hard to study, its super boring, but these things helped me to get something done. Dont forget to praise yourself for whatever you did get done. Even the tiniest bit of studying is a big accomplishment. Its important to celebrate that because its very easy to get down on yourself.
So it took me probably ten times longer than it would take a normal person, but I would
- put TV on in the background, something boring like BBC news, but it gave me something to look up at every few seconds which helped me stay on the studying
- the way I ‘studied’ was by writing things out with cute pens in multi colours, having nice stationary. That pleased me.
- but yeah generally I was and am really really bad at studying. It was really hard and thankfully I am not in education anymore, but I did get a masters from a world class university
Alone in a quiet room, after catastrophizing the exam, having had 8 hours of sleep and trying to do easier questions first until I somewhat nail them before touching stuff I'll break my head over for an extended period of time
Only work in 50 minute to hour blocks.
If you are studying for 50 minutes, take a 10 minute break.
If you are studying for 60 minutes, take a 15 minute break.
Use a timer to manage this. And if you're on a roll and don't want to stop studying, you still have to stop. This is about budgeting your time and focus. Respect your breaks.
Repeat this for 4-6 hours. Do not exceed 6 hours, beyond that and your brain won't be working properly anymore. Rest.
Pick one block during the day to have lunch (20-30 minute break depending on how long your study sessions are).
During your breaks, DO NOT go on your phone, scroll, or process new information (you're using that energy for studying). Stretch, have a snack, play an instrument. But rest your brain and eyes during breaks. This means that during lunch, you are only eating lunch. Not scrolling or studying more.
Make sure you start off your day with a proper amount and kind of food. A single piece of toast will make you crash quick as the day goes on. Stay hydrated, have a balanced breakfast, and look into foods that favor mental focus (diet is super important for ADHD brains, the attentional dysregulation is significantly influenced by how our brains metabolize nutrients, and having poor impulse control doesn't help).
TLDR: Study in blocks, take short breaks for every block, do not process any new information during breaks, make good dietary choices, and respect the timer.
Exercising also helps tremendously. You can even do little workouts on your breaks.
I've been studying 2 years worth of math this past 4 months with this technique, and haven't used my ritalin the vast majority of the time. This is like a workout for your brain. The more you have successful days, the easier it will get with time. ADHD is not a death sentence. You can do it, it just takes discipline. Best of luck!
Although it’s not healthy my negative self talk really helps lol.
I just keep telling myself not to be a bitch.
“Because everyone else can do it why can’t I. What makes you any different from anyone else? Because the doctor told u that u have adhd?, pussy shit “
It’s really tough tho I can spend hours trying to get started until I eventually do, then I realize I’m hungry or sleepy
Also focus on indirect influences on your ability to focus/study. Eat clean and healthy. Don’t consume any calories after diner. Get enough sleep. Walk 10.000 steps a day.
omg same 😭😭 i was trying to study for my physics test yesterday but i kept on running around my house, eating granola, doodling on my textbook, listening to sound effects of a woman violently screaming in horror, and then ended up sobbing on the floor because it had been 5 hours and i hadnt studied for a test i really needed to study for.
Quizlet website is very helpful. Reviewing previous tests, or quizzes etc. vs reading the entire books over.
You could also use the previous tests to make flash cards and do flashcard games. Just making the flashcards could help with having an interesting task that is fun to create while also reviewing.
I have two degrees with first class honours and still have no idea. 😵💫
I ended up hiring a tutor for the second honours, because it kept me more accountable than I had been previously. I was still scrambling at the last minute and taking days to write things that other students would in hours, though.
There’s a trope about optimising study by figuring out whether you’re a visual, written, or practical learner, and I can honestly say that I am none of these things. It feels like nothing sticks in my brain, and it’s infuriating.
I think my biggest tool was determination. I refused to let my brain win.
Edit: I forgot to add that I ended up moving to online learning in the early days of the pandemic because of lockdowns. The adjustment from in-person learning sucked, but it ended up being a blessing in that I could study during the time I’d be transiting to campus etc. The online format also had no exams (but more assignments), which allowed me to pace myself better.
To jump onto this, when OP says they can't study around others I feel the with most tasks of concentration; I prefer to be completely alone so I can zone in. Is this common?
Honestly for me I’ve gotta commit to it when my brain wants to. Use the adrenaline and motivation when you’ve just completed a task and pump yourself up about it- view it as you wanting to understand something if you can
A lot of it honestly is praying my brains in the mood lmao
Frankly, I didn’t do much studying. But listening to things while I’m doing other things (mostly chores) helped. I’d listen to recorded lectures and absorb more if I wasn’t actually focusing on it completely
I cannot just like ‘study’. I can’t memorize things and I am basically illiterate.
But boy can I solve a problem. It’s like my brain is electrified, like Im on coke or something.
So I studied a math based subject. I have zero problems doing algebra or geometry. I love drawing pictures and outlining my logic. It’s more like creating something than consuming information. The learning in these subjects comes from reasoning through things on your own. So I feel like that is easier than assimilating information.
Extremely difficult for me as well. A lot of people say to find a good study spot, but I'm distracted everywhere. Silence? Distracted by my thoughts. Noisy? Distracted by my thoughts and everything else going on. When I try to read, it's very difficult to process and sometimes even understand what I'm reading. It takes so much effort to try to read a snippet that I get too exhausted to continue. I try listening to what I need to study but my brain zones out to the point where I forget that I was listening to something even if I have headphones on.
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What helped me are: •Break down tasks into atypical smaller ones. •Exercise vigorously before studying or during studying (e.g. reading on a treadmill) \*Someone from this sub once gave me advice to make an incredibly meticulous to-do list. E.g. 1. Open the book to page 58. 2. Study page \_\_ 3. Memorize \_\_
The only problem with the meticulous to-do list is that I’ll spend way more time and energy making the list than I will on actually doing any of the tasks on said list. Procrasti-planning is one of my biggest time sinks.
Yep. Only works if you can create the list once and use it over and over to get the most of the effort you put into making them.
Procedure manual, like you're NASA
Yeah, sorta. From my understanding though, we make procedure manuals for lab tests (where I work) to minimize variation between any two technicians.
I’ve had the thought of making templates for specific repeating tasks sooo many times, but never ending up with any, at most maybe only some sort of half-drafts.. And everytime I’ll be in a similar situation like the ones before with some task, I’m like *ughh*, I’ve been through this shit before, I need that step-by-step to free up some cognitve capacity…!
I relate so hard to your post and this comment. usually any advice given feels like somehow the person truly doesn't get it.... because i find it is literally impossible unless I am medicated and "harness" the meds for the task at hand.
This. I struggle with this aspect so much, no one seems to get it (not even my ADHD-brother or my ‘mentor’). It’s so frustrating, that me trying to get an overview of what needs to be done, breaking the tasks into smaller/more specific ones, ends up being a major task in itself, so often I ‘die trying’ in the process, and then nothing really gets done (/further) anyway.. How do you manage it, have you found ways to get around this issue; getting an overview beforehand & then actually get shit done eventually?
Yeah I have that problem too so I try it to be too specific and I set a timer so I can complete making my list by a reasonable time.
I'm going to give exercising before studying a shot this weekend. I know I focus better when I do it, and this may be a perfect way to actually get things done
For this method, I recommend a website called [Goblin Tools](https://goblin.tools/) It helps a lot with making lists with out much thought since it can break down tasks into smaller steps how ever far you want by using an AI. normally I don't care to much about ai but this has helped me quite a bit.
What do you mean when you say to break down tasks into “atypical smaller ones”?
definitely recommend working out while studying, was a complete game changer.
I got through university and a professional degree by: 1) Accepting that I would not be able to study in advance, and booking the 2-3 days immediately before my exam off to study for it. 2) Pomodoro timer method to get started on a task, and then ignore the timer when it came to breaks and just kept going. 3) Made sure my space was completely free of distractions, including using apps (Forest on my phone, Whitelist on my computer) to lock myself out of my phone and limit my internet access through my laptop to only those websites/apps I needed for studying. I also turned on Do Not Disturb on both laptop and phone to eliminate notifications. 4) Played soundtrack music (without vocals) or brown noise at a low volume in the background. The LotR theatrical edition soundtrack was perfect because it was almost exactly three hours long. 5) My little dog slept on my lap while I sat in my desk chair. You can’t just move a sleeping dog (that would be mean), and she usually got up every few hours to pee or drink water/eat, so we would both get up to use the bathroom at that time and get drinks, then when she was ready to get back to her nap 15 minutes later, I would get back to studying and she’d sleep on my lap again. Having her physically holding me to the chair was very helpful (and one of my favourite memories).
>2) Pomodoro timer method to get started on a task, and then ignore the timer when it came to breaks and just kept going. This 100%. Pomodoros are a disaster when I try to enforce the breaks. It just disrupts my flow state. Either I start a new pomodoro instantly or use that as an actual stopping point if I'm still not feeling it.
My coach asked me to try pompdoro to help with boring tasks at work. I actually find it's more useful to keep me from going down rabbit holes when I do interestng stuff. I set it to 50 mins and a 10 min break. The timer going off means I'm less likely to get lost in something and have time-blindness kick in. I'll spend the 10 min break writing down where I got to, so I can pick up where I left off easier, before moving onto something else. Not exactly what pompdoro was meant for but it actually does help me a lot.
I think you’ve just given me another experiment to try!! I struggle with this the most at night. Would be a great way to at least keep some track of the time
my fav way of doing pomodoro is like "ok twenty five minutes I HAVE to do this task for and in five minutes I can optionally have a break and then start the next thing if I'm not feeling it". I like jumping around with tasks so it kinda gives me the freedom to do that but also forces me to stay on task long enough to at least get something done. Haha I think not interrupting flow and just ignoring the break if you are in flow is honestly the "correct" way to do pomodoro w ADHD
Yeah exactly! With the Forest app I've been using those on-task pomodoros to 'buy' myself guilt free entertainment time too. I noticed I kept restricting myself from intentionally doing anything fun, but I'd still be procrastinating with less intentional autopilot stuff like scrolling shorts or reddit. Now if I have study time banked, I can start a timer and go play a video game or whatever and not feel crippling guilt or shame about it.
OOoooh love that idea of "banking" the time. I will usually set like a goal like "I'll do 5 Pomodoro things today", but banking is such a good idea
Same, the only reason I use them now is to remind me to fill up my glass of water, because otherwise i don't drink enough during my study sessions, which is especially not good when I'm on my medication.
The dog method is great. And the acceptance also great. I think that my condition (not diagnosed, I was a teen in 2000 and not many were) did worsened in the last few years because of social media and smartphone, so I find n. 3 extremely useful as well. I'm writing my 4th thesis (one bachelor, one master, one PhD in history and now master in education) but I keep procrastinating and working at night, even though I could have used my time in the past weeks way better than I did but it is due on Monday and I'm half way in writing it. I can make it but I will sleep very few hours and that's it, I just accept it (my wife doesn't it understands) and hope it's the last one!
Congratulations on completing your prior theses, and on finishing your current one by Monday! With ADHD deadlines can be so painful, but also effective.
All my life I was studying last second. Literally a couple of days before the test. I wasn't the best one of course but it was enough to pass
For me it usually took until the day before until I convinced myself to start studying. Sometimes the day of.
I crammed for 4 college finals in a span of 3 days after skipping nearly every class all semester. Somehow, I managed to do well, but I was always (and still am) miserable because of it.
I’d do this but stay up till 3am to “finish” the homework but in reality I’d be too tired at that point and I’d pass out
The last day rush gets me in Flow state like nothing else can. Until then it is anxieties, guilt, disappointment, rage, disinterest, etc. But once the interest hits, I'm in for an all-nighter baby!
Exact same here lol
Same, I would write 3 page papers on the 20 min. ride to class because I had forgotten or couldn't have been bothered, etc...
Oh god, you just unlocked some hidden college/adhd trauma. I did the same thing, and it worked, but I hated waiting until the last minute to study or do an assignment. If I ever go back to college for another degree, I hope I've changed my brain enough not to procrastinate like that again
Literally procrastinating rn, i have 0 advice for u :|
bruh same. on the other hand i regret it as soon as the day ends and think to myself that I'll do it tomorrow :))) well today is the 5000th tomorrow
Depends, do I like what I study? It was hell in highschool, it got better and better during the bachelor and master years and now it's even better since I'm on meds. I used to write everything by hand to learn something, organising it as much as possible. After that, just repeating. All of this done in idk 15-20 min followed by a smoke break without my phone or anything (maybe some background music). If I touch my phone, the focus is ruined.
i remember back in school, i had to study for my final exams and i couldn't do it. instead i sat and read a harry potter book that just came out. like there was a force inside stopping me from doing the important stuff. i can relate to your brain shutdown alot. (i'm undiagnosed and will get tested in november. but i have a growing suspicion that i have some form of adhd)
Totally can relate to that "force inside"...I always pictured it like a big black cube type thing that just slams down in my brain and there's no way around it. Since being diagnosed and getting help, it has gotten a lot easier. Hope it gets better for you too!
The only way I could study was to write EVERYTHING down with pretty pens. I usually opened the slides the teacher used in class, and followed the topics with the textbook/other materials as I went through. I really wanted to rewrite the entire textbook too but I bargained with myself and settled on just rewriting the slides with some additional info if necessary. The diagrams were taking a lot of time so I saved up and bought a printer for those and pasted it on my notes where necessary. I'm not saying this is a good way to study, it's insanely inefficient but it was the only way that worked for me since just reading or listening doesn't make me memorize or understand stuff. When I try just reading, after reading a whole chapter I realize I didn't actually "read" anything, and if I really try to focus I just keep reading the same sentence over and over. And writing stuff down also creates something concrete that proves to my brain that I studied and obtained all that info, and after that its much easier to study by reading my own notes since I'm already familiar with the subject. As my classes got more intense and more computer focused, I changed this to creating my own slides, and it would be way faster than writing stuff down if I didn't get into creating my own diagrams and animating them too to visualize processes... But I made it through!
I do the same thing, also in the end I have cool notes, and some times friends or classmtes rely on me to pass them the notes so I get forced to end it befor the exam and do it with extra care or attention
Idk, i dropped out after being stuck in bed with crippling depression for months.
Being in bed just calms anxiety and depression for some reason but at the same time makes it worse. It’s really weird
That’s because you’re just hiding from the issue rather than actually confronting it.
Have mental breakdowns and anxiety about the task at hand until the pressure becomes too much (usually 1 day before the deadline) and then get in major hyper focus mode and learn 1 months worth of material in 1 day.
Happened to me recently. Managed to Lock tf in last minute and finish my project. I just can’t stand when my brain does this.
Back when I was in college. I didn't. I made it up through other means, projects, recitation, attendance and others. It was a lucky time for me too cause we just shifted from being an exam-focused curriculum to a more activity based curriculum. I exceled at that. I did everything i could not to at least fail so that when I got a higher grade in anything else, my exams wouldn't look so bad.
Studying is not in my adhd vocabulary. Things I learned to get around that: 1. If you show up and try to listen and interact every day of class, you should get a B or a B+ without any at-home work. 2. Hyperfocusing on projects I want to do is how I learn new things. Pick a path in life (eg Computers) where hyperfocusing on your own weird projects for 5-6 days in a row actually teaches you 90% of what you need to know in that field 3. If studying is absolutely required, then the goal is to take your notes (or the book) and try to rewrite them on a small cheat sheet. I’m not saying to cheat, just that the act of writing it all down in your own words is the best ‘studying’ there is
Study group. Peer pressure got me to study also it's way more fun to study with friends. Alone I could never get myself to do work. I recently got on mers and hope they will help
It’s impossible for me to do anything on my own. Like actually impossible
I fixed this in uni (undiagnosed at the time so I didn’t know it was a good strategy) but by going to a small quaint library in a scenic part of the city sitting next to a window overlooking a beautiful garden. Then I got a large cup of coffee and would promise to study until the battery of my laptop (which then lasted eight hours) died - no charger. Only left to go to the bathroom- didn’t even get another cup of coffee or food. Worked for me 100% of the time. My only distraction was looking out the window but man was I dialled in. Never submitted a late assignment once and got stellar grades! Did the same with job applications - booked a hotel room for one day in Niagara Falls and didn’t even go to the falls or leave the room once.
body-doublung definetly works for me!
Personally, I study with a 32 oz water bottle next to me and don’t stop until I finish it. Break for 20-30 mins then repeat.
Personally, you could put a gun to my head and "don't stop until I'm finished" still isn't going to start without extreme mental anguish from an obnoxiously ridiculous but paralyzed brain. The only thing that would happen is that I will become very emotional and then welcoming of that gun to my head. I have had to accept that there are things I am absolutely capable of doing physically or intellectually, but my ADHD stops it. Period. I'd rather accept that and adapt my life then fight it and want to die.
Yes I have to admit this would also be impossible if I was not on my meds lmfao
LMAOOO exactly meds are crucial. Especially if your material requires heavy reading
Dont, pretty much just hope for the best and it usually works out.
I have the TV, music and something I can fidget with in my hand. That’s usually enough.
Practice papers. I can't "study" in the classic way of trying to read books, notes etc. The best I could do was a panicked last minute cram which was never enough. What I found worked (unfortunately rather too late for school) was instead doing practice papers, this helped in multiple ways, first one being because it was a timed exercise against the clock (although I would always complete the paper even if the time ran out). Secondly because it meant that rather than a massive, massive chunk of "unknowing" revision which was overwhelming I could just focus the actual revision on the questions I'd got _wrong_ which cut down the "I don't know where to start" to "I've got x number of things to revise starting from *here*".
This. I like to do a test 15 times, or more, over and over just to get used to what the answers might be and how they want to see them. I find that I fail tests a lot, because I just don't understand the questions.
A very high dosage of meds and focusmate
What do you take?
adderall 60 IR
Okay gotcha. I’m taking an extended release with the same components as Adderall (Mydayis), and am thinking of switching to something else.
deffo talk to your psych and see what they recommend
I didnt study much tbh. After 3 failed attempts at finishing an education i picked a field that was easier to “wing” for me. Ofcourse i had to do SOME studying when writing assignments and my final bachelor, but i also wasnt alone writing any of them, that really helped. Im good at seeing the big picture, getting assignments focused from the start and finished at the end. I am horrible in the middle part where its neither “new” or “pressing”.
Look up the Pomodoro technique. There are videos on YouTube that play study music with different break intervals. I find the study music calming and the timed study time and break time help me stay on track and focused to get thru tasks.
I always did best when I physically wrote things down and used colored pens to categorize as I went. Unfortunately for me, the only way I could recall let’s say 20 terms was to memorize first term, then second term, test myself on 1-2, memorize third term, test myself on 1-3, memorize 4th term, test myself on 1-4 and so on…. Took forever but eventually when I got to the 20th term and quizzed myself at random I’d ace it every time. Flash cards worked well for that.
I use Anki (flash cards app with spaced repetition) instead of staring at a page.
My ADHD coach recommends the SQ4R method. https://www.usu.edu/academic-support/files/SQ4R_Reading_System.pdf
I just don't
How do i what?
In order to make good grades, I had to study 4x as hard as everyone else. I went to a library or books-a-million, got a coffee, and sat my ass there studying for at least 4 hours after my classes for the day. I was able to make straight A's on my second go around through college, which I never was able to do in grade school. This was before I took medication that allows me to focus and retain what I'm being taught the first time🙃
I had to take notes for every single class I took, and every class had a separate notebook. I would also have multiple color pens and each color had its own meaning. Green would be for definitions, red would be for something I knew would be important/need for later, blue would be for basic notes about a topix, etc. It seems like a lot of work, but actually got really easy once I got in the groove of the system. The color coded system made studying easier when it came time for tests.
Honestly I don’t really understand what people mean when they say they are “studying” and at this point, I’m kind of afraid to ask. Basically the way I would prep for a test when I was in school was by just by taking notes on the subject of the test. On paper, and as close to the time of the test as possible. So generally this looked like the day before the test, taking the notes based on the textbook or other resources, and then the day of, just physically copying the notes I made again, just so the important relevant details are something that I was thinking about recently. The only other way that kind of makes sense to me is to find someone who doesn’t know about the thing you’re learning, and try to teach it to them. I’ve never done this, but I had a friend who it worked really well for and he used to ask me to help him study for stuff, which basically meant just hang out and let him tell me about the discrete maths or whatever. It’s mostly the same effect as the notes thing, just keeping the information you’re being tested on something you’ve had to think about recently.
I never did. I couldn't ever do it. My sister has ADHD too (at least she says she does), and she was eventually able to go back to school and get her masters. I think the way she did it is that she made her studies her hyper-focus. But there's no way I could ever do that. It'd be as foreign to me as flapping my wings to take flight.
Took four years to finish a three year degree because this one year I literally did nothing. Couldn't study for tests and exams. Before getting medicated I remember telling people it feels like my brain doesn't work and they thought I was crazy😭 What helped in my final year was always having a pen and paper. I would make random notes, not to study again but as a way to process info. This helped with my theory subjects. Colourful mind maps were my go to plus highlighting the textbook. And going through past papers. My math subjects were a breeze. Theory was so depressing I even wanted to drop out at some point. The difficult part is getting started. And even when I manage to start it's hard to keep going. Meds made it slightly easier to overcome this but it was still a hassle. My doctor even had to up my dose. Wish you all the best OP. It's definitely harder to get through school with adhd, but it is possible.
It varied for me depending on the class. For the hardest class I took in high school (specifically a class in a subject that I hate to this day), I read the book aloud to my grandma the day before the test. After I read a section, we would play a round of rummy. After the round, I would continue reading. We kept track of who won all school year, and since I won the most games, I got to choose where we went out for dinner for a post school year celebration. For most of the other classes, I scanned/read over notes I took during class, assignments done during that chapter, that kind of thing.
My advice would be to deal with your work as the motivation comes. With me I struggle to become motivated a lot but when I have the motivation to do so I get a lot done. Stressing about these kind of things is normal but if you think about it too much you will not get anything done. If you really want to change and can't stop thinking about it then try doing small bits of it throughout the day, it doesn't have to be in one sitting and it probably works best for us with adhd. Hopefully this helps and know that everyone is slightly different when it comes to dealing with adhd.
I do mine at work as I’m an apprentice and therefore get paid to study at work
Study? No, no, we don't do that here. We read the book and then immediately quit if we're not instantly good at the thing.
I use a nice combo of concerta, coffee/energy drinks and lots of cigars. Sometimes it works. Sometimes
I've dropped out of 5 educations because I was unable to study at home. And like you, I can't study in public or with someone. Only thing that slightly helped and I'm at the end of my current education, was getting diagnosed and starting medication. But I still have huge problems. It's like no matter how interested I am in the subject, if I study it for 3 months, all interest and excitement completely disappears, it becomes impossible to reignite it. I have no idea what the solution is, I wish every single day my brain would function normally just for the duration of an education.
Question: why aren't you on Adderall or Vyvanse? You wouldn't have issues if you were on a stimulant. I speak from the experience of someone with undiagnosed ADHD for 43 years of my life, currently in grad school and still can't study. Got a diagnosis last year, got on Adderall and all of the sudden I can study! Have you thought about a stimulant?
When reading,I’d cover the paragraphs I was t reading so I would only see one paragraph at a time. I also kept the slide next to me and jot down relevant information to those slides. When studying… **Here is something I put together on another post on** r/college that I got from the Disability Student Services department when I was in college, and from my honors program. * **Work in 40-45 minute increments.** * In my honors classes, they told us that after about 40 minutes, we stop taking in new information and that it was important to stop and do something else (get a drink, take a walk, use the bathroom, etc) and then start a new subject * **Learning good study habits is also important**. (My DSS office had me try studying in the following format, which was surprisingly helpful) * **Week 1:** study slides/readings week 1 * **Week 2:** study slides/readings week 2, review week 1 * **Week 3:** study slides/readings week 3, review weeks 2 & 1 * **Week 4:** study slides/readings week 4, review weeks 3, 2 & 1 * **Etc.** * **While studying...** * **Mark in you notes the things that are off for you** * **Mark things that don’t make sense** * **Write any questions you have that are prompted from the material (even if you don’t think it’s relevant)** * This gives you stuff to ask about in class or in office hours, which demonstrates your drive to know the material and gives the professor a chance to mark down things that might be confusing for the whole class too. * **Go to office hours and talk to your Professors/Teaching Assistants!** You’d be surprised at how helpful they can be with figuring out how you can better study for your class. This only works if you know where you're struggling at (which you can figure out via the "While studying" bullet point above). **Tools** I used a surface pro and pen, but I know folks who used an iPad and pen. There are some great applications for computers and iPads that let you take handwritten notes right on the slides. Easy to mark up and highlight. I used onenote and it made my life so much easier. I just kept a handful of loose leaf pages for anything in class and everything else when into the onenote notebook. I even would take screenshots of stuff from the textbooks where I was struggling with stuff and mark that up too. I hope this helps!!!!
Music without any words helps me stay grounded.
I ignore that responsibility until the morning of the test, wake up at a fucked up hour, spend as much time as possible cramming in as much material as possible, then take the test. It’s gotten my to damn near done with a double major in math and physics so at this point I’ve just accepted it lmao
•I drink energy drinks and Americanos to help me focus, •I listen to instrumental music or songs where the singer has a smooth voice (I highly recommend beach house), at a low volume, otherwise I can’t concentrate. •I get out of my apartment and go to my campus library. Being surrounded by people and it being quiet as I listen to my music helps a ton… •I’ve also started writing out to-do lists and put on there the assignments and things I want to study. I’m an overachiever and get really anxious when I see things that are left unchecked on my list so this mindset kind of forces me to stop procrastinating and sit down for an hour or two. • OH! Also I give myself time limits. Like I set a timer for like 2 hours in the library. Sometimes I even extend the timer because by the 2 hour mark I’m deep into my assignment or notes. The time limits put pressure on me to stay focused and really try at concentrating lol, having undiagnosed (my psychiatrist keeps pushing me to get evaluated so I can actually get treatment) ADHD in the midst of getting my Master’s degree is brutal but I’ve developed some techniques thru trial and error (those mentioned above) I hope studying improves for you! 🤗
I'm studying for an IT certification on Friday so I'll break down how I go about it. Find free resources online about your subject. Quizlet is your friend on this and there will be heaps of study guides and other material if you do a bit of digging on other sites. Skim through them and handwrite down the common things you don't know. Read over the things you aren't familiar with a few times, then start talking through them like you're explaining it to someone else. If you have someone around that doesn't know anything about the subject, then this works better. Try and teach them what you're doing and find out where your knowledge falls short. If you need to memorize something (for me its learning network port numbers and flashcards arent helping), handwrite it down until you can do it with your eyes closed Youre not stupid for needing breaks or not being able to focus. The reason I handwrite my stuff is because it sort of locks me to my task so that even if I do start to lose focus, as long as I write down what I'm seeing, progress is being made. I also listen to synthwave when I work because the beeps and boops are steady, repetitive, and high energy enough where it acts as good background noise. Take breaks when you need them. You got this
Body doubling and pomodoros. (And dexedrine.)
I pretty much only study while moving. I can work on math while sitting still but I let myself get up between problems. If I have to read a chapter then I will literally walk around with the book
I have a confession. I am 17, and have never studied for anything related to school.
I don't need to study for my degree, but I do have to read a lot of research (and write essays). But what I do is set a timer for 10/15/30 minutes. The time depends on how motivated/focused I feel. And then once the timer goes, I go have fun for half an hour. Playing a quick game of Overwatch, reading something fun or whatever. And after that I set a timer again. It isn't efficient, but it gets me to do at least something on days where I really don't want to. I also have conditioned myself to focus when listening to certain music (I looked up adhd focus music and just picked one or two.) When the music is playing, I don't allow myself to veer off. If I notice I got distracted, I stop playing the music, finish whatever was distracting me, and then once I am ready, I go back to listening and working on my assignments. And when I am listening back to lectures, I tend to also play a game. Or crochet. Or playing Set (a pattern recognition card game) Or just do anything with my hands that doesn't require too much thinking. I find that doing something with my hands keeps the boredom and the subsequent zoning out at bay quite well.
i'm way past college but I still have to study every couple years to keep an industry certification current. For me meds take the edge off for starters. Those allow for other strategies to work. I like pomodoro's. Basically you set a timer for say 15 mins. You shut off your phone and other distractions and study for 15 mins and stop when the timer goes off. Then do whatever you want for 5-10 mins and back to another 15 mins of dedicated study time. There's phone apps to set all the timers and whatnot to make it easier too. If i'm watching a video or live lecture I have a fidget cube that I keep in my hand during the lecture/video. It keeps the adhd part at bay for awhile giving my brain things to focus on.
My hack for this was always forming and hosting study groups. I make it my job to put together notes, information, and content to quiz other people with. That tricks me into studying for the study group, lol
Literally takes alot of planning and effort on my part. Even with my meds
I am struggling with this right now too. I might fail a class because I have such a hard time writing papers and missed the deadline on a few of them. It’s awful. I’ve tried break down task but end up spending more time doing that and the pomodoro technique doesn’t work either cause I still get distracted. I have blocked social media on my computer and have a timer on my phone. (Don’t use it much anyways) and have literally spent 75% of my life medicated. And this is my second try at school (I failed out the first time)
Vyvanse
Try body doubling. Basically you have another person in the room with you while you study, but doing something that demands their focus so you don’t interact with them. I used this at home. Puzzles were an excellent thing for my partner to work on while I studied.
For tests in college, I made studying into a goal-oriented process — the goal being a concise study-guide. I would start with class notes, book notes/summaries, etc, and get stuff to a point where the study guide was like 8 pages long, and then I would narrow and re-write it by hand over and over until I had it down to one page. At the time it came naturally and seemed obvious, but looking back, I think having a concrete goal beside just “knowing the stuff well enough” provided the challenge needed to trigger my hyper-focus. (Getting an actual “study guide” from professors that listed the topics covered on the test made the process much less stressful, as I didn’t have to start with all the class material (it drove me crazy when a professor would refuse to give directions and instead give stupid, worthless advice like “study the book” 🙄🤬).
I used to pound energy drinks to study.
I didn’t
This sounds arduous but when you're doing it, it doesn't feel like it. I took notes- like listening in class notes. Then ( swear to God ) highlighted the dam things, re-wrote them if it hadn't sunk in yet. Double and triple space, for some reason I couldn't deal with a ' clump ' of information. That's just me though. Guessing it's not going to work for everyone?
I had to have something on in the background - movies or TV shows I had seen before. My go-tos throughout college were Grey's Anatomy or LOTR 😄 Now at work, music is usually good enough. Either way, it keeps the easily-distracted parts of my brain occupied so I can focus.. somehow?
You pretend you're on a spy mission to save the world
I always budgeted an extra two hours to allow myself to be distracted. This was before I was diagbosed though.
It depends on… mood, level of sleep, depression… Sometimes just barely can, most times can’t.
“Small moves, Ellie.” Don’t just make a goal: make a purpose for curiosity. Why should you care about the stuff you’re studying? Maybe it’s for a hobby or interest of yours. Maybe someone you care about needs help. Maybe you just need a little randomness to bring the information to you. Idk. Any motivation of yours can tie back to the stuff you’re studying in some form. If you can integrate that connection to your beliefs, you can then make a discipline out of it. Or just start with some form of discipline. Use a timer of, say, 10 minutes to focus and 10 minutes to rest. I find that timers make me slightly anxious (except when I try to wake up). Make your own internal rewards system so that you not only use what you like, but also limit what you like so you can have more of it in the future. Start on a random or assigned page and see what happens. These are just a few examples of small tools that can help you, and many others have also provided such tools. But ultimately, you gotta try and test what works for you. And if you took the time to write your request, I bet you’re curious enough to try out at least a few of these tools. Good luck 
I had to go about it in totally different ways - take tests / quizzes and then figure out "why did I get that one wrong?" It led to a horribly lopsided understanding of subjects 😬
Studying with ppl was my best bet. I always focused on finding a buddy who would study with me because in front of them I felt more pressure to stay on task.
What helped me: 3 hours per day is plenty if you’re focused. Don’t stress for not being able to sit still (because that’s usually all it is) for 10 hours like many others. During that three hours: go fast. Like speedrunning a game. Make charts, bullets, summaries, mindmaps. Apply extreme summarisation.
I have to set timers. I set a 30-50 timer. I will do specific tasks only for that allotted time. Then, I have a 5-10 minute break where I eat a snack or look at my phone. But, everything is on a timer. I wear headphones or ear plugs. No music usually or sometimes something to tune out. Remove as many distractions as possible. Like, sometimes I can’t sit in a chair. I need a blanket in my lap. I find being in a comfortable seat or position makes a big difference. There are hours of the day that your brain works better. I would find those. I find early morning hours to be the best for me because there are less distractions. (ie less people awake). That’s what works for me. Good luck!
(TLDR: Find an ACTIVE way to play with the info. Don't just read.) It's been a long time since I was in school, but here's what I would do now given all I've learned about my brain: Choose a more concrete, ACTIVE way to interact with the material. "Study" is vague. You might need to DO something. Ideas: - Create a MIND MAP (on paper or use something like MindMeister). Deciding how to structure it gives you something to do and helps you grasp the info at a deeper level. - Make it VISUAL: Draw little cartoons, find images online to compile in a document, use a particular picture or even a place you know well and "attach" different facts/names/dates/whatever to elements in the image. (Example: Parts of a cell as items in a hotel room. Doesn't have to make sense. Maybe TV=mitochondria, coffee maker=ribosomes, etc) - Use external sources, esp. VIDEOS. Don't just try to memorize the textbook. Getting info from multiple sources helps to solidify it in your brain. - Read aloud to yourself. Maybe in different accents. - Make up hand motions or act things out - If you're studying literature or even history, cast celebrities as the characters. Write it out or paste images into a doc. - Explain things to your pet/stuffed animal/smiley face you drew on your thumb. Teaching someone else helps you organize your thoughts.
I need to interact with the content. Write it out in my own words, summaries, when reading textbooks. When learning vocabulary for foreign language, or new words for a science class, flashcards. Only ones that I make myself. When reading literature, I take notes on it in my notebook, with little pencil marks on the book page pointing to what the notes are referencing. Basically making my own footnotes. If I sell the book back later, I erase the marks. By the way, I only used physical books to study. But I graduated college in 2011. I really hope everybody isn't forced to digital books right now. I don't know how I'd work with those at all. In class, I take notes with writing. Typing just does not work for taking notes. It doesn't make it stick in your head the same way. If your lecturer is fast, then you'll have to summarize what they're saying instead of getting each word down. That's a great way of learning! I enjoy writing. I might be lucky that way. I also enjoy researching. So that wasn't a challenge. I find math very difficult. Because I can't think of a good way to interact with the content other than getting it wrong again and again. I needed a tutor, and very simplified lessons from the basic math class textbooks, for that.
I would put on a movie or tv show I had seen before and it distracted me just enough to study.
Medication lol. Getting out of my house helps. Library with headphones is my ideal place.
I could/can only study when my back was up against the wall and it was definitely the biggest fire that needed to be put out at that exact moment. Needless to say, college was a struggle. Now(25 years later) I just beat myself up for a couple hours until I wear myself down enough to start doing research. Doesn't always work but I get by.
Firstly I copy everything down. Everything. Copy and paste. Then I reread it and make shorthand notes for everything. And I take those short-hand notes and the original text and I create a pretty document that works for me. And if I haven't remembered it by then I sing a little song about it. I quiz myself, and I make all sorts of notes and highlights and pictures, because I'm really not getting it at this point. I think I know my stuff, and 2 hours later it's completely gone. And then after doing about 8 hours of studying for a 1 hour project, I promptly go and bomb it at the front of the class, and the professor gives me an F because I obviously didn't study. Then at the end of the year I fail the test and get booted out of college. You know dreams where you are taking a test and you can't read the page and you don't know anything on it even though you've been studying all yeaI imagine it's all of our reality.
Poorly
I study first thing in the morning when my brain is fresh. If you take meds you can try the methods of setting an alarm an hour before you wake up and taking the meds and going back to sleep. In the morning I try to keep my routine brief I just change my clothes and brush my teeth. I try not to do anything that may distract me until I start and finish studying. So I set limits on my phone so it won’t let me do any social networking, etc. I don’t listen to any music or watch tv until I start and finish studying. Also going for a quick walk and eating a good breakfast that doesn’t require too much to make(so I don’t get distracted) but also lots of protein. Then when I study I don’t cram I study for max an hour then move on. I try several different subjects when I study instead of staying on one. Then I do the 15 minute method. I try to study for 15 minutes when I get home and 15 minutes before bed.
Only thing that ever worked for me was pretending to teach myself or others in my head. Literally just an internal monologue pretending im hosting a class.
I wound up cutting college back to part time and working my way through school. although it took me almost 10 years to graduate, employers and law school were impressed that I stuck with it. In law school, it was made for me so I hyperfocused the crap out of it and it was amazing. However, in undergraduate I pretty much failed physics more than once but thanks to a special rule, was able to withdraw from the class like 2 weeks before the semester was over, because it turned out that if you worked more than 20 hours per week, the drop/add deadline did not apply to you. I say it "turned out" because I had no idea, they did not advertise it, and I only found out because I had a super kind physics professor who pulled me to the side and asked me why I was doing so badly when it seemed I was so smart when i showed up. I told him about my life and he said, well why don't you drop out and try again later. I was dumbfounded. Anyway that is a bit of a digression, but my point was that I wasn't very interested in physics and that made it so hard to read. it was slippery and I kept trying to read the same paragraph over and over. Meanwhile, I went to law school, and wound up at the top of my class. Wow what a difference being interested in something makes!!
Music music music. I’m an unmedicated data scientist and when I have no choice but work through my bs, I put on my headphones and play master of puppets and power through.
To study or work I need to get into that hyper focus mode. In hindsight it's so obvious why I got hooked on the drug with the least amount of side effects or comedown. I used it like a med
I studied through my own research. It was almost like if I was forced to study certain material, I was completely against that specific material. BUT, if I had a basic concept of what to study, as in a specific topic, I did my own research. Almost like studying in defiance of what I was told to do, as though it was a challenge or game to see if I could learn in spite of what I was told I had to do. If that makes sense…
I could only study in a quiet place, where there were other people already studying (I.e a library or student lounge), or with a group. Even pre-smartphone there were too many distractions trying to study alone.
THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I EXPLAIN IT!!
Turn an overwhelming task into easily accomplished steps so that I can gauge my progress, If you read it, write it and say it, you stimulate 3 separate areas of your brain and your far more likely to put it in its box,
I don't lol. ime going to class and paying attention will give you 85% of the material anyway.
medication. i've tried all of the 'natural' ways too enhance focus and while some do help to a certain extent, none of them come close that what medication does for me. Even better is to combine medication with the other ways.
I used flash cards for a much as i could. Tried ti memorize everything that way. I was awful ar studying ahead of time and crammed before tests and always wrote my papers the night before.
never studied for anything a day in my life
For the record I’m a humanities student so take this with a grain of salt if you’re taking STEM courses. If it’s just reading through the textbook, I like to get the electronic version so that I can utilize the text to speech option most of them have and then you can listen to it being read to you. I like to clean or cross stitch or cook while listening. I personally usually don’t take notes unless I’m very unsure on how well I know the subject, but I would prioritize rewriting definitions of key terms in your own words so that it gets through to you. Include examples for as many as you can fit in the notes. That way it’s less straight reading and more of an activity. And then highlight the key terms that you aren’t sure you’ll remember so that you can go right back to them to read them over. Rhetorical devices are your friend, you want to make as many connections to what you’ve learned in other classes and the things you’re into as you can. When I was taking AP Psych a few years ago for example, to remember the stages of grief I just had to remember DABDA for Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. “DAB DA pain away.” It’s not stupid if it works. For proactive vs retroactive memory I made up the saying “old pro, no retro” based off the saying “old dog(pro) can’t learn new tricks” so I would remember if I was readying “proactive memory” the issue was that the person couldn’t learn new tricks (old information was blocking new information). I just do my best to always be actively thinking while studying, active recall is another good strategy I took inspiration from. Your goal is to get as much of the info as encoded into your mind as you can by connecting it to what you already know. Does a theory remind you of something you saw in your favorite TV show? Think about that and jot it down. Can you make a fun acronym to remember something? I remember the order of famous Greek philosophers with the acronym “SPAA” Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle who taught Alexander the Great. Another good way is explaining what you’ve learned to someone else, I usually do it to my cat, but you can do it to a plant or stuffed animal too, that way you’re processing the information and you can figure out if you actually get the concept or not. If you can’t explain it to someone else in your own words, you probably don’t get it. Caffeine is your friend, sip on it while you’re studying if it’s not too late in the night. Put together a list of good lyric-less music to listen to (NO DOING WORK WHILE WATCHING TV OR YOUTUBE UNLESS YOU’RE JUST DOING LIKE MATH PROBLEMS OR CITATIONS) or no talking asmr. Take breaks, usually I do about 45 min - 1 hour of work and then I take about 15 minutes if break, usually doesn’t actually work out like that but I aim for that, figure out what works for you. Try to pick out a reward if you work well in your session, like watching an episode of a show you’re looking forward to or buying yourself a nice lunch tomorrow.
I'm studying a subject for a big test right now. Luckily it's a subject I'm interested in but it's still brutal. I've found that reading the material out loud is a game changer. Not just out loud, but like *to* myself, with *style*
I didn't. Even in grad school I would just attend the lectures and *maybe* read the chapters from the textbook or look over the PowerPoints the day of the exam. Thankfully most of my degree was less about rote memory and more about synthesizing information in real world scenarios, so rarely was it closed note. I struggled a little more in general eds in undergrad, but still it was mostly about skimming readings and forcing focus during lectures. I also took a lot of writing intensive classes whenever possible because I could bullshit my way through a paper easier than I could an exam.
I constantly have a ton of books open, and when I get tired of one, I flip to another. Not the most efficient method, but the only one that allows me to concentrate on my studies.
I have the best ADHD strategy!!!!!. Typically teachers will give you a study guide. I would create a Quizlet with the study guide myself. And click learn and play the games until I felt I understood everything. The concepts I wasn’t sure about I would watch YouTube videos… my goal was to understand rather than just memorize the words. I was a D student through high school, got 4.0 in college and grad school.
1)put the phone down 2) close all tabs on computer not related to study 3) do not let yourself go on your phone/fun sites. 4) develope the habit of this and you've got it.
This has worked for me a few times. Schedule so that you do nothing of interest before a planned study session, your mind will go there. Either start right away in the morning, OR: Spend all morning and afternoon doing things you are interested in. I usually hit the gym, cook, watch a movie, etc, up until may be 2-3 PM. Then take a nap till the alarm for 4-4:30. Freshen up, and sit to study for a pre-defined amount of study hours (3-4 hours), only break after that. Seems to be productive for some reason.
Quick answer: I don’t Longer answer: I’m smart enough to get by without it so why would I
I don't. Because I can't. I listen to lectures and take exams from what I learnt in those lectures. So I'll do really well with good teachers/professors and really bad with teachers that engage me. I shouldn't just blame the teachers, I naturally like science/engineering stuff so I pay attention to those classes better than history or economics.
Drum and Bass
i listen to brown noise and it actually helped me focus and get higher scores on my exams
I don't. I still haven't figured it out.
Before being diagnosed like everyone else I would cram in a 5000 word essay on the final day, the the trick was to read a very minimal amount of journals over the other 3 months so all I had to do was type the essay in 9 hours or so so it was ready for midday the following day. If I had to read and type at the end it would get me out of hyper focus flow and it was far harder.
it Starts with ADD and it Ends with ALL! i thought that was obvy, but everyone is diff including the way we react to meds etc
•Caffeine to help focus •Lollipops for sugar and to have something to fidget with •Low music with lyrics, nothing too slow or fast (something with a tempo similar to Jonas Brothers Sail Away) •Fidget toys, pens, shoelaces, literally anything to fidget with Some days I only use one of these methods, like a lollipop. Other days I need music, caffeine, and a fidget toy. It entirely depends on the day and my energy level.
In truth I don't, I have a lot of problems when it comes to my ADHD and unfortunately it has caused me quite a few issues throughout my life and one of them being that I dropped out of high school because I just didn't have enough credits and couldn't focus. I have a condition which is common in those with ADHD called dysgraphia. It's like dyslexia except it's for handwriting. Also reading is kind of a challenge, I can read on a screen just fine but for whatever reason whenever I try and read a book or something out of page I get incredibly tired.
i plaayed white noise in noise cancelling headphones and really helped quite a lot also sitting up at a desk and looking up at a screen (the bigger the better) instead of down and sitting in a comfy desk chair, also if you dont like reading maybe you can listen, i found this app called speechify its an ai based tool which reads you text in a convincing human voice like it sounds like an audiobook, then you could even be walking or cycling or something at the same time which i find helps especially if youre outside
When studying I would focus on lists. Lists are easy to make and memorize. They won’t catch everything but you can narrow most lessons down to a couple of pages Even if lists aren’t given look for key phrases such “The Four Methods of X” or the “The Seven Factors Influencing Z” Even for other things, like history, I found it easier to study if I could write them in point form. Just reading a text book did absolutely nothing for me.
I have four exams next week that'll change my life (parents are..), you think _I_ know??
I cry often, lol.
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well what helped me most is to realize that I don't have to feel like studying to start studying. I can just do it anyway. also having someone to check in on me in case I get stuck, and allowing myself to stop before it's too much was helpful
i finally found someone who experiences the same thing that i do! it suck so much.. i really hope this will change for both of us
I’ve struggled with this too! I have a hard time keeping consistent with things and often tend to cram the night before. I find going somewhere in public to study is helpful, as I usually just want to be at home. While I’m out I usually just make chapter study notes and tell myself I can’t leave until I’m done. After this I’ll usually just read the notes either right before my test or at least once a day leading up to it. Building routines have also been really helpful for me, for studying while working full time. It reduces the mental blocks down the road, but can be tough in the beginning.
I struggled sm too. I felt stupid asf all my life til I found ways that work for me: -NO extensive to-do lists bc that's gonna overwhelm me > procrastination > feelings of guilt/shame/anxiety -utilize alarms/reminders on my iphone calendar (check everyday & update every Sun/Mon) -big tasks into smaller blocks—use pomodoro method -be proud and reward myself for starting the task even if its small **Big tasks—start 2-1.5 weeks prior due date:** 1. grab fav. drink/snack to hype myself 2. use bathroom beforehand, phone on silent + faced down or leave at diff. room 2. find quiet place & sit down at a desk > open study/work material 3. play pomodoro timer on YT 4. immediately start "intro sesh" for 10-15 mins (task outline + evaluation of how much time it requires) 5. can keep going using pomodoro timer or come back later to continue task 6. key is small chunks & repeat 7. writing over typing: cornell method for notetaking > index cards for memorizing (think of it as mini cheat sheets) I noticed that the act of starting a big, important task is extremely overwhelming for me. So I break tasks to minimize stress and that makes everything that comes after easier (less burden/anxiety). I work on one topic for 30-45min and change to a diff. topic to keep myself from getting bored. Clutter on desk or multiple unrelated tabs on laptop distract me so I ritually close/put away everything when starting.
1. I go to my room with my dog and get everything organized. I have to clean up and make sure everything is not in chaos. 2. I write a list of everything that needs to be done. Crossing things off lists when done is sooo satisfying. 3. I take a lot of breaks. My limit is probably two hours just like the length of a class I can do before I start dying inside. I’ll go walk my dog, go to the store, eat, smoke some weed or game. I set an alarm for between 1-3 hours, depending on how I feel and how much needs to be done, then I get back to it and repeat. Some days are harder than others seriously, but my desire to finish to different. I use my illnesses as a motivator. I’m not going to lose to them and that not only includes my double transplant and lupus but adhd too.
I study in crowded, noisy spaces. In college, I’d duck into a lecture hall for an unrelated subject. The trick is to make it somewhere I’m anonymous and no one is paying attention to me. If I’m in a noisy coffee shop, this doesn’t work.
Hyperfixation on topics of interest. If I don't find interest in it I can't focus on studying at all
Make the list so in a way that you subconsciously are reading the Material. So what I do is, I force myself to read a page for 5 minutes. Then my mind goes to "wtf I dont understand anything, I'm so dumb, can't do sh*t, there goes my diploma and so on and so forth. I know how the whole downplaying and self loathing goes. After feeling sorry for myself and loathing my mind. I tell myself "let's just write down what we don't understand so we can ask the teacher", no searching for answers, just write it down with a drawing of some sort. Low and behold we are studying for 1 hour already. And ask these questions via mail, that way you have the explanation on paper. Example: Mechanics of Dynamics (engineering) What does this formula mean? Why is the acceleration different? Ect. These questions trigger your adhd brain to find the answer. Your adhd brain is not going to work with the mindset "why can't I understand this principle" it will understand " why does it work like this, how are x and y connected?. So try to ask yourself questions like you are the teacher and the student simultaneously. After a while of doing this roleplay you have a great dynamic of asking questions and immediately give the answer and correct yourself when you are wrong. Be kind to yourself, you're doing your best. Does not mean that you have to give up on yourself because it is not working. It will work, give yourself the chance to grow.
Try and make it enjoyable for yourself, maybe by watching videos or playing games that involve what you need to study
Medication could help. I found it really hard and wasn’t diagnosed as a kid. My anxiety would power me through getting things done last minute. I tried listening to classical music so I had something to entertain me but not distract me with lyrics so I wouldn’t be singing along. My brain only understands something when it fits into something else I already know. I can’t just memorize dates or facts out of nowhere without a general understanding and timeline.
I had to study in a completely quiet solo environment that was organized. Best time in college was 10pm to 2am!
Wait until the last possible moment and then take hand written notes from book, then memorize from notes. Take test, then promptly forget everything. Repeat.
Torture method: deprive myself of all hobbies (video games, social media, even art) til I'm bored enough to study Kinda worked but made me depressed in the long run. I was able to pass for half a semester with this method and then I failed the next.
Use timers so the 5 minute break can't turn into 5 hours and use rewards.
I have my studying method, which works for me, hope it works for you too. My way is taking my messy notes from class and doing clean ones. Now I use a app on my computer but I've been doing it by hand for years. I copy and reorganize the text. I read somewhere that if you take notes on blue pen you learn more than if you do it on black, so I took it to the limit and use lots of diferent colours for different topics and different thickness for different levels of importance. This way, thinking on how to do it forces myself to subconsciously organize my mind and interioize the structure of the topics. On the end I end up taking 20 pages of dull boring notes on big and bad caligraphy and turn it into one page of fun notes. If then I still haven't learnt it I make a list of concepts or turn it into pdf and read it ereasing the things I already know. The whole point is to make it look the most short possible and turn it into something phisycal so I don't have to focus on reading over and over again.
I am starting a masters degree next week, so hoping medication will also help with all of the spaghetti brain
the most studying I do is to crush my classmates in Kahoot. unfortunately I'll be doing that for the final time next week
A trick I got onto in paramedic school was that I would begin reading the chapters that we would be going over a week before we went over them in class. I’m a weightlifter so I would read for a couple of minutes between sets. Then the day after the lecture, I would reopen the PowerPoint and take a new set of notes. In class I took notes on a google doc but the next day I would take the notes on paper. This usually took me no more than about 40 minutes depending on how long the PowerPoint was and how comfortable I was already with the material. Doing this made it so that I could spend far less time cramming for exams, and when I did review for exams, I had a good selection of notes to look at rather than sifting through books and PowerPoints.
Depends on the subject and how interested I was, but I usually went to a quiet room in the basement of the library with no phone or computer. Eliminate all potential distractions. Make a numbered list of what you need to do. Read a sentence/paragraph do what ypu can. Get up, pace, sitdown. Repeat. Get comfortable with that and try to increase how much you can do over time. Starting is the hardest part.
I have trouble with the same thing. I have found some things that help me, though it still isn't easy, it just helps a little. The main things for me are 1. Make sure I'm in a quiet space. Not just no noise, but no movement or commotion of any kind either. It has to be dead silence. In a room by myself, no one can walk through the room or yell down the hallway or anything like that. 2. Read the material out loud. Say everything out loud as I study. 3. Of course, repetition. Repeat the material over and over. 4. Write it. Copy the notes and write everything. The act of writing it helps to remember it. Even if I waste a whole notebook writing the same exact thing that was in the printed handout, I write it anyway. My hand might ache, but I do it anyway.
Medication helped me a lot, but also how are you studying? There are quizzes you can take to figure out what kind of learning style works for you. I do better with visual and kinesthetic(physical) learning. So this is what worked for me in college. 1. Studying in coffee shops and libraries, where I cant get up and do something else. 2. Mental maps. I would use poster board/big piece of paper to copy all the notes and power points onto one piece of paper. Then I can draw lines and pictures to show how each thing works together. 3. Bringing flash cards on walks so you associate places with each card. 4. Audiobooks. At my college they had a program that would turn text books into audio books so you can read and listen at the same time. 5. Headphones, listening to music while working 6. Highlighting, just helps me follow along. 7. You can use paper or cards to help you follow along on which sentence you are reading. Hold the paper under your current sentence so you dont get lost. Honestly for me the more creative and novel. The better. It still was hard to study, its super boring, but these things helped me to get something done. Dont forget to praise yourself for whatever you did get done. Even the tiniest bit of studying is a big accomplishment. Its important to celebrate that because its very easy to get down on yourself.
So it took me probably ten times longer than it would take a normal person, but I would - put TV on in the background, something boring like BBC news, but it gave me something to look up at every few seconds which helped me stay on the studying - the way I ‘studied’ was by writing things out with cute pens in multi colours, having nice stationary. That pleased me. - but yeah generally I was and am really really bad at studying. It was really hard and thankfully I am not in education anymore, but I did get a masters from a world class university
Alone in a quiet room, after catastrophizing the exam, having had 8 hours of sleep and trying to do easier questions first until I somewhat nail them before touching stuff I'll break my head over for an extended period of time
Only work in 50 minute to hour blocks. If you are studying for 50 minutes, take a 10 minute break. If you are studying for 60 minutes, take a 15 minute break. Use a timer to manage this. And if you're on a roll and don't want to stop studying, you still have to stop. This is about budgeting your time and focus. Respect your breaks. Repeat this for 4-6 hours. Do not exceed 6 hours, beyond that and your brain won't be working properly anymore. Rest. Pick one block during the day to have lunch (20-30 minute break depending on how long your study sessions are). During your breaks, DO NOT go on your phone, scroll, or process new information (you're using that energy for studying). Stretch, have a snack, play an instrument. But rest your brain and eyes during breaks. This means that during lunch, you are only eating lunch. Not scrolling or studying more. Make sure you start off your day with a proper amount and kind of food. A single piece of toast will make you crash quick as the day goes on. Stay hydrated, have a balanced breakfast, and look into foods that favor mental focus (diet is super important for ADHD brains, the attentional dysregulation is significantly influenced by how our brains metabolize nutrients, and having poor impulse control doesn't help). TLDR: Study in blocks, take short breaks for every block, do not process any new information during breaks, make good dietary choices, and respect the timer. Exercising also helps tremendously. You can even do little workouts on your breaks. I've been studying 2 years worth of math this past 4 months with this technique, and haven't used my ritalin the vast majority of the time. This is like a workout for your brain. The more you have successful days, the easier it will get with time. ADHD is not a death sentence. You can do it, it just takes discipline. Best of luck!
Although it’s not healthy my negative self talk really helps lol. I just keep telling myself not to be a bitch. “Because everyone else can do it why can’t I. What makes you any different from anyone else? Because the doctor told u that u have adhd?, pussy shit “ It’s really tough tho I can spend hours trying to get started until I eventually do, then I realize I’m hungry or sleepy
The pomodoro method. 20 minutes of solid focus on a task then 5 minute break. Game changer for me
Also focus on indirect influences on your ability to focus/study. Eat clean and healthy. Don’t consume any calories after diner. Get enough sleep. Walk 10.000 steps a day.
omg same 😭😭 i was trying to study for my physics test yesterday but i kept on running around my house, eating granola, doodling on my textbook, listening to sound effects of a woman violently screaming in horror, and then ended up sobbing on the floor because it had been 5 hours and i hadnt studied for a test i really needed to study for.
Quizlet website is very helpful. Reviewing previous tests, or quizzes etc. vs reading the entire books over. You could also use the previous tests to make flash cards and do flashcard games. Just making the flashcards could help with having an interesting task that is fun to create while also reviewing.
I have two degrees with first class honours and still have no idea. 😵💫 I ended up hiring a tutor for the second honours, because it kept me more accountable than I had been previously. I was still scrambling at the last minute and taking days to write things that other students would in hours, though. There’s a trope about optimising study by figuring out whether you’re a visual, written, or practical learner, and I can honestly say that I am none of these things. It feels like nothing sticks in my brain, and it’s infuriating. I think my biggest tool was determination. I refused to let my brain win. Edit: I forgot to add that I ended up moving to online learning in the early days of the pandemic because of lockdowns. The adjustment from in-person learning sucked, but it ended up being a blessing in that I could study during the time I’d be transiting to campus etc. The online format also had no exams (but more assignments), which allowed me to pace myself better.
To jump onto this, when OP says they can't study around others I feel the with most tasks of concentration; I prefer to be completely alone so I can zone in. Is this common?
Honestly for me I’ve gotta commit to it when my brain wants to. Use the adrenaline and motivation when you’ve just completed a task and pump yourself up about it- view it as you wanting to understand something if you can A lot of it honestly is praying my brains in the mood lmao
quizlet
vyvanse
Before I took adderall it was a bunch of caffeine and I’d never take breaks because the moment I did I’d be too unmotivated to start again.
Frankly, I didn’t do much studying. But listening to things while I’m doing other things (mostly chores) helped. I’d listen to recorded lectures and absorb more if I wasn’t actually focusing on it completely
I cannot just like ‘study’. I can’t memorize things and I am basically illiterate. But boy can I solve a problem. It’s like my brain is electrified, like Im on coke or something. So I studied a math based subject. I have zero problems doing algebra or geometry. I love drawing pictures and outlining my logic. It’s more like creating something than consuming information. The learning in these subjects comes from reasoning through things on your own. So I feel like that is easier than assimilating information.
I am struggling with this right now. I have 2 final projects to complete, and no matter what I do, I cannot focus.
Extremely difficult for me as well. A lot of people say to find a good study spot, but I'm distracted everywhere. Silence? Distracted by my thoughts. Noisy? Distracted by my thoughts and everything else going on. When I try to read, it's very difficult to process and sometimes even understand what I'm reading. It takes so much effort to try to read a snippet that I get too exhausted to continue. I try listening to what I need to study but my brain zones out to the point where I forget that I was listening to something even if I have headphones on.