this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
45 points (100.0% liked)

ADHD

11415 readers
134 users here now

A casual community for people with ADHD

Values:

Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.

Rules:

Encouraged:

Relevant Lemmy communities:

Autism

ADHD Memes

Bipolar Disorder

Therapy

Mental Health

Neurodivergent Life Hacks

lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
45
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Long-time lurker, encouraged by this community to get properly diagnosed recently (Thanks!).

Ok, to the point: I know taking longer to reach a college degree is normal, and I should just make peace with the fact that it might take me an extra year or two. But two whole years into college, trying hard and never being enough (to prevent failing subjects & falling behind) is ...just sad.

Studying feels like trying to make the stars align. I will have to be in the library, with minimal smart devices (Laptop + MP3 player at most), properly prepare for what I need to study (The correct textbooks, maybe a calculator, the right notebook, etc..), in order to have 90% chance of studying.

(Basically the good ol' "For the next 3 hour I am holding you hostage" way)

This works.... but it is really slow and takes a lot of time for average amount of studying.

I would love to experiment with other methods, and hope to hear about how other people manage their studying.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Pomodoro timers, as someone else mentioned, are great. It was a lot easier to start when I could tell myself "ok, I only have to do this for fifteen minutes" -- and most of the time when that first timer went off I'd gotten into a groove and kept going anyway.

For writing assignments, I found starting with a blank page really difficult, so I'd paste in a paragraph or two of lorem ipsum or some other nonsense text and go from there. Having words on the page, even though they were irrelevant and I knew I'd have to delete them later, tricked my brain into thinking "oh, I've already started this; carry on, then!"

The habit of doing even just a little bit every day was more sustainable and more effective for me than infrequent big cram/study/writing sessions.

I had probably the most success with using musical cueing. Whenever I sat down to write or study, I listened to one of the same two albums on repeat. (I like classical; one was Handel's Messiah and the other was a two-disc set of Thomas Tallis choral works.) Even now, almost a decade later, when I put either of those on it instantly snaps me into work mode. Creating that kind of association is really helpful! And having only one or two choices also meant I couldn't distract myself by trying to figure out what to listen to: it was A or B, end of.

You might also consider how/whether you could spread out your course load. Most years in undergrad I did five classes a semester, but one or twice I did four only (plus a summer class to stay on track) and being at only 80% of a full load made a huge difference.

Good luck!

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Great advice that works for many, including myself!

Even if you don't get into the flow and do a single pomodoro session per day, a lot will be gained over 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. A degree 3 or 5 years later is much better than no degree.

load more comments (4 replies)