#ADHD studyblr

[nihilistem]

adhd study affirmations + tips to stray from discouragement by a stem student with adhd.

you’re not always going to be consistent. you’re not always going to be motivated. you’re not always going to be efficient. and that is okay.

edit : thank you so much to whoever blazed this post. It means the world to me.

and the fact that you even got this far is an accomplishment in and of itself. In this line of work, people aren’t always the kindest to neurodivergent people especially since our symptoms can often hinder our performance academically.

if you’re good to go after reading the above, I’ve also made a post regarding adhd study tips that I haven’t seen anywhere else. (Part 2 is here!) But, if you’re burned out like me, feel free to keep reading.

honestly, these might serve a bit more as reminders because they’re kinda simple but even I needed this, so, here we go.

do not seek advice from anyone neurotypical unless it genuinely helps you. I cannot tell you the amount of time and tears I could have saved if I just considered the fact that just because popular self-improvement tips or study techniques didn’t work for me, it doesn’t mean I’m stupid or useless. It simply means our brains isn’t motivated by the same things neurotypical ones are, and therefore a lot of popular self-improvement videos or study tips aren’t going to work for you because 90% of the time, they’re not designed to work for neurodivergent people. So if you’d like to seek help in this area, look for tips and videos that ARE for neurodivergent people.

you might experience burnout a lot more than others. again, that is fine. if this doesn’t apply to you, great! Feel free to skip to the next tip/affirmation. If this does apply to you, read this carefully; if you’ve had any sort of streak in studying right now, chances are you know at least a portion of your studies were led purely on interest, curiosity or even novelty, as these are what keep us engaged in our studies. Knowing this, it is natural for you to experience burnout more frequently than others due to the possible hyperfixations that have been forming around your work. If you get burned out, please remember to take a break for a day and make sure it is efficient. Like your studies, your breaks are the key to having efficient study sessions in the future. So please treat yourself, especially if you’ve been working extra hard!

do not admire studious fictional characters unless it genuinely helps you or they too are neurodivergent. I know this technically could have been thrown in with tip number 1 but I felt like this tip alone is so important, because nowadays I see a lot of study tips with the title, ‘how to study like (insert studious fictional character here)’ and when I look at the post it kinda repeats the same few study tips I see all the time like ‘stay organized’ or ‘time block your day’ and I feel like admiring fictional characters who do things that don’t work for you can be damaging for your mental health, because we’re already told by neurotypical people all around us that we’re slow or lazy just because we don’t do things the way they do, and I think idolizing neurotypical people that make us feel bad at the end of the day just further promotes that kind of toxic thinking.

expect that a routine/schedule/technique that has been working for a while now may not continue to work in the future. things will always have to be new for us to be interested or engaged, that being said, if you expect this in the future you won’t be frustrated with yourself because you already had this in mind. It doesn’t mean you’re not smart. It doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It doesn’t mean you’re useless. It just means that you’ve done what you could, and now it’s time to move on to another routine/schedule/technique.

keep doing the things you love alongside work. I find that because our symptoms may cause us to fall behind on our studies, we tend to neglect our other needs as human beings just to make up for the fact that we simply do not learn or pick things up the same way neurotypical people do. Your hobbies and interests need to be part of your day, just as your studies do, even if you may take longer to learn things or remember important concepts in your studies. Neglecting your hobbies or interests can lead to even more frequent burn outs and even a relapse in depression and anxiety, so please take care of yourself and recognize that you need and deserve these things just as much as anyone else.

regularly discover what works for you on your own. here’s the thing; neurodivergent or not, no two brains work the same. Of course it is good to try out advice or tips you find online because they’re backed up by experience, but they’re backed up by that person’s experience with working with their own brain. So naturally, you need to find what works with your brain. Be open to trying everything, even the tips that are discouraged like listening to lyrical music while studying. That was the only way I learnt that this tip actually does help me at times, even when many people have said that it negatively affects your focus.

that’s all I have right now guys, I think I’m experiencing burn out or probably falling back into depression again so more than anything this also served as a reminder for me, but I really hope it also helped you guys nonetheless.

As always, tell me if you guys would like more posts like these and I’ll be happy to make more <33 please take care of yourself guys, and remember that your studies is just one aspect of your life. There are other aspects that need your care and attention too.

[winryrockbellwannabe]

switching screen time for study time 📵📚

idk if anyone has already done this for studyblr, but i keep on seeing my favorite booktubers doing this but for reading time and it always looked so fun!

so starting today, i'll be facing the consequences of being glued to my phone /jk bc im only doing this bc my screentime was decent last week lol

☕ this is what im working with:

monday: 4h29 tuesday: 4h17 wednesday: 4h40 thursday: 3h21 friday: 3h53 saturday: 3h52 sunday: 6h28

i'll be updating yall at the following morning (so starting tomorrow) - hopefully i manage to study even more than the stipulated time since i have a test in 2 weeks that i have to study for😅. i'll also be keeping tabs on that day's screen time, and also the normal stuff

[chaoticfroggo]

ADHD study tip

One of the hardest things about studying, or just being productive in general, with ADHD is getting started. It's so hard to just sit down and get something done. I was talking to my brother, who also has ADHD, and we realised we both do the same thing before studying. I always thought it was a bad thing, but after talking to my brother I realised it motivates me to continue being productive.

What we do is something we like to call "productive procrastination". It sounds bad, and yes, to an extent, it can be. Basically you do something not related to your task at hand that is still productive. It gives you that activation energy you need to just start what you need to do.

For example, yesterday I put on an audiobook and for half an hour I did a deep clean of my desk and bookshelves before starting my day of studying. Yes, this was procrastination, but it helped give me motivation. Doing something small makes what you need to do less daunting, because you get that bit of dopamine that keeps you going.

I also find that cleaning up my room really helps. I'm normally a really messy person, but when I study I need a clean space. I used to think it wasn't true, but I now really agree with the saying "messy room, messy mind".

[sufferwithaurora]

Online dictionaries and translators are useful but nothing beats the satisfaction of using physical ones. What's distraction? I don't know her, I'm an ancient scholar deep in texts

[thatadhdmood]

Focus frogs! A tool to help neurodivergent people chunk up work and take breaks while still maintaining momentum due to having a visual signifier of ur progress!

[helenstudies]

what do you mean if I am an "honest" and "realistic" studyblr? is posting one thing and disappearing for weeks on end not realistic enough for you? :/

[ashs-nerd-den]

Gearrscannán ar YouTube

Short films on YouTube

(Don't worry, everything has English subtitles in the videos themselves)

Fán https://youtu.be/e3xnvkMp_1Q?si=i-4pmljDbzA8bRtu

Created by the incredible @nibmoss, an absolute queen (Bánríon). It is a short sapphic story about 2 best friends who end up together and it is my favourite short story ever!!! It is also my favourite piece of Irish media in existence!!! I love it!!! It is incredible!!! BEYOND AMAZING!!!

Yu Ming is ainm dom https://youtu.be/JqYtG9BNhfM?si=jnZjP4LozqOhNxkI

This is a classic. Ive had 4 different teachers show me this over the years, and my first year Irish class studied it exam style. It was the first piece that we studied and everyone LOVED it, people were quoting it all the time. Every second conversation had someone using a line from it. It's a crows pleaser and simple to listen to even without the subtitles provided. It also has a great storyline about a man who is fed up with his life in China and learns Irish to move over here, and well (bhuel) , I won't spoil the plot twist for you

Lipservice https://youtu.be/4QP0eEhhTSo?si=1DLvo_ECRhwGI5s8

It's the day of the oral exams and everyone is terrified (bhí imní an domhain ar gach duine), people are rehearsing in the bathrooms and speaking French instead of English, the stuff that half of them come out with is absolutely gas, this one is such a bit of craic, I was in stitches. And the bit at the end is so sweet. Is breá liom an gearrscannán seo agus beidh mé mo scrúdú béil i dhá bhliain 🙈🙈🙈 (I loved this short film and I've my speaking test in 2 years🙈🙈🙈

Filleann ar feall https://youtu.be/Tay7eMxas2k?si=q3ksVJVYJ7E_xxoa

IT'S CILLIAN MURPHY AG CAINT AS GAEILGE!!! You can't beat a bit of Cillian, he's a national treasure. And this is 2000 Cillian, he's so young (this was before I was born) he's in the Gaeltacht for his holidays with a grumpy friend, on a job to sell some Putchín, and he is everyone's favourite sweetgeart, a bit of a himbo, and a respecter of old ladies. Agus deir duine sa sna tuairimí (a person in the comments said that it's like Breaking bad, but with an Irish teacher that instead of a chemistry one (I've never seen Breaking Bad, so I don't know how true that is, but I do know that this was AR FHEABHAS!!!

Rúbaí https://youtu.be/jjYx5v2BUWo?si=tFu1ektBvHNkoQFB

This is a short story about a little girl (cailín beag) who's class is about to make their 1st Holy Communion, but she doesn't believe in God (ní creideann sí i nDia). She's everyone is trying to convince her that god is real and she's just like "nope, read a bit of Darwin, he's great, I'm off to collect worms", even to the priests face and towards the end there's a bitter sweet twist which gives a LOT of background. This was a nice, easy watch, the little girls was so cute, there were a couple of laughs (cúpla gáire) and the vocab was nice and simple

Gaiste https://youtu.be/Xr-V7vg_Y2Q?si=cMMNqPLkmtugbg8t

Very simple vocab, good message, kind of like a fable, big "One of us is Lying" vibes. Nice short film overall

Fíorghael https://youtu.be/t3Kv4fZ2SOE?si=bHibiFJyRUcvZ-TZ

This ones a bit older, but it's still a good bit of craic. You need to wait a couple of minutes to get into it, but the end is brilliant (Caithfidh tú cúpla nóiméad a fanacht chun dul isteach ar, ach tá an chríoch go hiontach)

Sylvia https://youtu.be/fi_4aweOP4w?si=ZCfUAfYaD73IVn8r

There are plot twists, and then there plot backflips, this was the later. This is so weird, but I really enjoyed it at the same time

Ciúnas https://youtu.be/cGfuQ-HeTmk?si=WRPGmo-UNQ0bw9mA

There's not much dialogue, but all of it is very casual, so you still get to pick up a few words that you wouldn't find in a textbook. The storyline is quite sweet, but please be careful watching because it although it centres around her family's love for her, it is set on the way home from the hospital after she tried to end her own life

[the-0ther-mother]

Local public library...save me...

Local public library

Save me local public library

[megumi-fm]

🎫 status update 🎫

[may 20th to aug 10th ; weeks 22 - 33/52]

hi besties I've been inactive for like two months now so here's an update on what I've been up to!

⚗️ completed my six month internship » 🔓achievement unlocked- sorcerer’s apprentice ✈️ moved out of the country » 📍currently in 🇸🇬 ↳ 📝 completed immigration process [4/5] ↳ 🏠 moved in to my new apartment ↳ 💳 set up my bank account and travel cards ↳ 📱 set up my mobile number 🎓 officially started my Masters Program!!! » 📑 24/25 intake for MSc Biotechnology 🧬 ↳ 📄 registered for sem1 courses [4/4] ↳ 📣 attended department orientation sessions [2/2] ↳ 🧪 attended compulsory workshops [1/1] ↳ 💻 undertaking laboratory safety tutorials [↺] 💌 other fun new experiences ↳ 🤝 attended uni-hosted networking programs [3/3] ↳ 🍵 organized and attended get-together events [2/2] ↳ 💞 made a lot of new friends ↳ 🍳 been cooking meals together with my housemates <3 ↳ 🎆 went to see the National Day Fireworks last night 🤍❤️

so yeah! that's been me for the past three months. I want to be more active on here but my Uni is notorious for its insane workload so let's see 🥹🥹

[ashthenerd]

I made a community for nd students to share tips and resources with each other. Everything is screen reader + photosensitive friendly. You do not have to be diagnosed, diagnosis is a privilege. It's a really nice environment and everyone is super friendly. Comment under here if you want me to add you and feel free to ask any questions 💙💙💙

(This is still open. If I ever decide to close this, I will add it to this)

[darlinguistics]

'its just IMPOSSIBLE to not be addicted to your phone nowadays its UNREALISTIC-'

heres some advice to being less chronically online. for gen z (and younger??) who dont even know how to start thinking about it and have only heard shitty advice from older adults who just genuinely do not get it, from a fellow gen z and my experiences so far.

*these are personal and may not all 100% resonate but its still good prompting to start thinking about things! PLEASE feel free to add your own stories/advice in the notes! support your fellow humans, dont gatekeep what youve learned, lets have these conversations! and no negativity/pessimism please <3

first thing is to make it a less scary thought, a more concrete idea and not a hypothetical. it doesnt have to be all-or-nothing, cold turkey, a huge announcement and a fundamental shift in your personality. the internet will be in your life for the rest of your life, this is an ongoing relationship you are trying to make healthier thats all! and it takes one step at a time and some self-compassion, but a true effort nonetheless. 'dont you think thats a bit too serious-' if youre my age you quite literally grew up and developed online, it is literally part of your psyche the way your childhood is, it IS serious, you deserve to treat it seriously.

dont save your login info/dont stay logged in for social media accounts, having to manually log in when you want to go on like youre on some elementary school chrome book is a really healthy and clear boundary to have between being logged off and logged on.

-> bigger challenge - uninstall it on your phone in general, only log on on your laptop/pc if applicable for you!

if youre motivated to, try to work on your posture too. i only say that because most of our bad posture is at least partially related to being on our phones a lot, and when i started wanting to fix my posture, completely separately and unrelated from trying to break my phone addiction, it made it easier to lose interest in my phone since i didnt want to ruin my progress with my posture. it made me start to have a mindset like 'well if you cant do this on your phone with good posture then dont do it' and 'if youre on your phone so long your posture starts to cave in, youve probably spent too long on your phone anyway'

listen to music more. its easier for me to kinda write off my phone and do other things if i just open music or a podcast or long youtube video on it. i know we all love long video essays, but i recommend music more specifically for me at least because im less inclined to pause music or scroll while listening to it for some reason? whereas using a show or video or podcast for white noise, im way more likely to also be scrolling on my phone and that is my activity lol. music for some reason i dont want to interrupt and instead of being on my phone i can clean or do something productive on my computer etc

this one is sooo hard but try to fall asleep with some distance between you and your phone, even just a couple feet. mine stays on the desk next to my bed which isnt that far but its better than on bed like it used to be. when you wake up you probably wont feel like reaching for it right away if its far and even better if you have to get up for it because then at least you stand and move your body first thing instead of looking at your phone first thing. and try to get more and more of your morning routine done before touching your phone over time.

-> for me, i started by just trying to at least wake up a bit in bed before touching it, then stand up before touching it, then stand and stretch, then going to the bathroom first, making coffee first, feeding the cat first, etc. its surprisingly helpful to have a specific chore/task in mind that is The requirement so that everytime you do it you get a lil dopamine rush for unlocking your phone from yourself lmao. when the weather was nice i used to make my Requirement being outside first before going on it and i LOVED that. esp as it got easier and i started doing more and more before going on it and finally walking outside with coffee and my phone felt like such a pleasant little reward.

find a hobby that uses your hands. example: i really need to get back into knitting because when i did it regularly so much time that wouldve been on my phone was spent knitting with music/podcasts/shows/(even online lectures! when i felt productive lol) playing. its the same amount of physical relaxing - barely moving lol - but uses a longer attention span and a much better dopamine hit than scrolling, i literally MADE things.

-> you might be thinking, 'but mindless knitting isnt better than mindless scrolling is it?' but that mindless feeling on your phone is just that, mindless. the mindless feeling you get when doing something like knitting is actually closer to a flow state, which is actually incredibly good for you, like a fulfilling nutritious meal as opposed to 'empty calories' or whatever

get a widget for your homescreen that shows your screen time. i have one and of course it doesnt always stop me but seeing that time go up all day the more i use it and the pride of keeping it low is really helpful

practice grounding. in general.

spend more time on anonymous activities and have more privacy and less attachment with your 'persona' - what i mean by that is, i consider things like scrolling through tumblr (for me personally!) to be relatively harmless because i dont try to like,, brand myself here. if youre a tumblr regular you know the jokes - 0 follows, 0 notes, screaming to the void, moots you dont talk to, blorbo pfp and urls, fake names everywhere, and we're having fun! basically targeting the 'everyone is famous now' thing with this one - embrace being a nobody with no personal stakes here

-> personally ive never kept up with having social media accounts that are actually just, me irl - like a facebook or main instagram, like a locals account yknow? but i think it goes for that too - stop spending so much time trying to further personalize your online presence in the hopes of it representing you perfectly - because it never will, and it shouldnt, and you shouldnt aspire for that. your social media presence is lighthearted and incredibly surface-level, treat it like that! thats not me bashing social media either, having that mindset will make it more enjoyable bc youll be using it as it should be used!

do following/followers or camera roll/files or app purges. this is also a soft launch type of way to practice easing into a better mindset. aside from just literally getting rid of junk, the process of trying to judge whether or not you need something is good practice in mindfulness! even if you dont delete everything you feel like you maybe should, thats fine, youll do other purges in the future too. eventually youll get better at parting with things and realizing when things that feel good in a moment are actually bad for you. and it forces you to regularly check in on your more long-lasting parasocial relationships online and how theyre serving you or not

speaking of parasocial - for actual friends, if theyre irl, think about how much you interact with them online vs in person and why you think that is and how it affects you. maybe youll wanna see them more irl if possible (i promise its better for your friendship), maybe youll realize you dont need to keep tabs on them anymore (old high school acquaintances lookin at you). for celebrities and fandom things - try to think about the bare minimum content from them you could do with. you dont have to unstan all your faves and stop enjoying things - but do you need their notifications on? do you need to have a stan account? do you need them on all the platforms? do you need to have all that saved content of them? are there aspects of this that you love that could be found elsewhere?

if youre of the genre of online where you just cant help yourself from getting involved in big discussions or discourse and arguments - i recommend journaling when you get upset by something online, articulating your feelings without the idea of someone ever reading it and without the goal of 'winning' or being the most correct and logical or even the most sympathetic and morally good. take away every audience aspect of it. what is this really about for you, and why would strangers online deserve to hear your personal well-thought out opinions? why would your thoughts deserve to be simplified and misconstrued and underappreciated the way they would be in this discussion? is there even an outcome to this where you feel truly satisfied? are their people who are more worthy of hearing your thoughts who arent part of this audience? is this a conversation that is best held online where so much communicative nuance is inevitably sacrificed?

in the end these are all just practices in remembering how in control you are. and that goes for if any of these are scary or too difficult sounding too! these all become less scary if you remember that as soon as anything becomes too uncomfortable or painful, you have all the power to stop doing it, make a change, and try again later. so much of advice for quitting bad habits can be intimidating because the pressure and the shame that would come from failing scares you out of the possible benefits of trying - just go ahead and kill that shame from the jump. of course youre going to fail! you are going to have setbacks! thats part of it! you have agency in this, always. the internet is not inherently or completely evil nor good. build trust in yourself to make the calls on when it is serving you and when it isnt on a case-by-case basis, and then give yourself permission to learn through trial and error.

and remember you are worth all of this effort. i believe in us <3

[ghostphys]

i’ve always sworn i would be so much more productive if i could just sleep from 6pm-2am and then study before uni but i’ve never tried this because i know my mother wouldn’t allow me.

however this week i’m going to be home alone all week so i might actually try it for this week, i’m not sure if anyone would be interested in updates but i’m actually really interested to see if anything with my studying changes.

[winryrockbellwannabe]

5/25 days of productivity

- completed the worksheet nº 3 Biomechanics✅ - read ppts 10 to 14 of Biomechanics✅ - mental health walk ✅ - watched tutorials on the Mohr circle✅ - istg that it going to be my 13th reason - bought this super cute alarm clock ✅ - hopefully this will stop me from oversleeping - still gotta finish worksheet nº4 Biomechanics before going to bed

[squirrelbee]

Study hacks that actually work for me as an autistic ADHDer

(who massively struggled with anything school related for years)

Not getting too invested in series, movies, books, you name it If I like something, I REALLY like it. If I'm into something I'm REALLY into it. I try not to consume too much new media during exam periods/periods of intense studying so I don't fall down that spiral of distraction and binge watching. If you absolutely do need to watch something to relax or get your brain fueled, maybe try watching a few episodes of a series with no context (so start somewhere in the middle) or rewatch stuff you already know but haven't watched in a while.

The exact opposite of what I just wrote, but only do this outside of exam season/ very intense study periods!!! If you do get really into series/books/whatever kind of stories- use that. Pretend you are your favorite character (preferably a really studious or nerdy one), dress up in their style or something so you get really hyped about it and then sit down and study.

Try to find your way of doing it. Experiment with strategies and find out what makes it stick for your brain. You don't need to do flashcards if they don't work for you. Try mind maps, list, tables, writing quiz questions for yourself, explaining it to someone, listen to your textbooks, whatever. Be creative. But please, please note: If you invest more time into the method itself than in studying, it's not a good method. As always, feel free to share what works for you!!

[nihilistem]

Hey! I read your study tips both posts regarding adhd . (Feel free to ignore )

I am still undiagnosed and I think it's adhd but i do not have the resources nor the environment or support system to do anything about it .I am a high schooler preparing for entrance exams and i really need to like get my shit together and i feel like i have wasted sm time already but i really do want to get better. When i sit to study i just can't focus if I keep my phone in some other room then also i would just sit and stare at my books without accomplishing something. I am trying really but it's feels like my brain is frozen and my body is moving .my brain keep screaming guilty and ashamed but i can't seem to do anything about it.your study post actually i related to a lot because pomodro kind of seems to be working for everyone but me and the you described the exact same things I do

I know this is a lot to ask for please feel free to ignore but how do I stop Letting my emotions take over and study consistently because I only have one chance at the exams

Oh my, first of all I’d like to say that, as cliché as it is, I know exactly how you feel. I was undiagnosed for so long (I was only diagnosed a few months ago) and I didn’t even know that the adhd things I experience on a regular basis wasn’t normal or neurotypical for so long.

first up : I know this is difficult, but please do not say such things about yourself. I’m not gonna get into the whole thing, (cuz I have done a post on that already) but it’s true that the more you drill that bad stuff into your brain, the more it’s gonna stick. We need our brains to be in the best condition possible to study efficiently and saying bad stuff about yourself that isn’t even true is just going to hinder your performance. You got this. I promise you’re not lazy. Your brain just isn’t motivated by the same things others are, but we can work with that simple difference.

I’ll make a separate post on how not to let your emotions take over, but for now …

adhd study tips for those trying to get into the habit.

— by a stem student with adhd.

here’s my first post on adhd study tips.

— don’t put your phone in a different room. Instead, download an app that prevents you from using other apps on your phone.

there’s plenty of apps that do this but the one I prefer is ypt because all its features are completely free and it stops your timer when you exit the app unless you enter ‘allowed app mode.’ I don’t know about you, but if I find that I’m just zoning out on my textbook then I end up stopping my timer and deleting the record because I know I didn’t actually study, and this motivates me to actually get some work done. The timer also gets me motivated to keep going for longer so I have physical proof of my focus time and studies. It will feel good to even have just 1 hour of study time on it, I promise.

— even if you’re not interested in your studies, try your best to find even one thing that interests you.

novelty, challenge and interest are some of the best motivators of the adhd brain, so use it. I know that sparking your curiosity for a subject you hate seems impossible, but hear me out.

ever since I was young, I was exposed to books and I drew everyday. This caused me to become very passionate about the arts, but since I had adhd and didn’t know, I failed all my classes and specifically hated chemistry because it was specifically designed to be everything that I can’t be good at due to my poor memory and the need to memorize a TON of concepts. Then during class one day, I was doing chemistry work with my friends and felt frustrated that they could easily balance equations and work out which compounds were acids or bases purely by its chemical formula. And that’s what sparked me to start reading my textbook to see what the big deal was. How was it possible for one to just know when something is a acid solely from looking at a bunch of letters? This started a chain reaction; I found my answer, and found that the process of finding my answer and learning this new information was fulfilling. So I looked at all the other chemistry topics, and it turns out chemistry was fun. I was supposed to be an art student but now I’m majoring in chemistry and biology, all because of that sense of challenge and curiosity I was given that day.

tdlr; I was bad at chemistry but I’m now majoring in it because I felt challenged by a friend and was curious to know how they could solve chem equations easily.

All it took was a bit of curiosity. It’s a very powerful thing to the adhd brain. And if you use this as a motivator for your studies it might even cause you to hyper-fixate on your work, which means you’ll naturally spend more time studying just to find all the answers you’re now dying to know.

— use the pomodoro timer, but think about the things that you have to do that seems a little impossible to do under 25 minutes.

This fulfills the ‘challenge’ category I mentioned in the previous tip.

Let me explain; I subconsciously started doing this to myself without anyone telling me this and it’s helped me a LOT. Here’s an example;

“This chapter’s too long, it’s impossible to read through everything and understand the key concepts in just twenty five minutes.”

is it, though?

So I was off to the races, genuinely reading through every page and taking note of every single heading or bold or italicized word so I will be able to summarize the entire topic by the time the twenty five minutes is up.

And it doesn’t even matter if you don’t make that twenty five minute mark, because you’ll feel a sense of defeat and try it again with another chapter/topic.

this accomplishes two things; one, the work you’ve been putting off or zoning out on is now probably 20% - 50% completed and now you feel motivated to continue. Two, this method will train you to be faster in learning or studying new material or even just completing work in general, depending on what you’re challenging yourself to do.

— dress up, do your hair, study at a library or cafe you love (and possibly make pretty notes.)

I’ve talked about interest, I’ve talked about challenge, and now I’m gonna talk about novelty.

Do this with purpose! But what do I mean by that?

I’m sure you’ve come across studious girls in media or even people on social media making videos and taking pretty photos of their day out to study. Usually they’re dressed the part and even if they’re not, there’s a certain vibe, aesthetic or aura about them that is just so desirable that it makes you wish you were doing what they were doing. And if you don’t feel this way, find content creators or media that do make you feel this way.

How will this help me? Well, there are actually a few reasons but the first one that comes to mind is that this is also an adhd tip used outside of studying. Combining a task you don’t want to do with a task you’d like to do is a faster and more efficient way of convincing yourself to do long, difficult or even tiring tasks. Another is that doing this would also mean you’ve technically gotten yourself to desire studying, something more commonly known as romanticizing studying. If you make studying look fun, glamorous or even desirable for yourself then you’re sure to get to the hideous parts of it. Think about being a straight A student, someone who’s always wearing nice clothes with great hair and such a focused work ethic. Once you desire to be that person and you dress like that person, you’ll start to do the things that person will do.

— use the pomodoro timer but set it to even shorter bursts instead. (e.g. 15 minutes work, 5 minutes break.)

Or hell, on my worst days I set it to 5 minutes work, 5 minutes break.

The whole point of this exercise is to just start, because that’s arguably the hardest part about studying, you can’t get yourself to actually start or to actually focus. So promise yourself a five minute break after a very short amount of time of reading.

— skip straight to the questions of a topic, try to do them and identify the information you need to get the answer right.

For example, I came across a bio question that was rather simple but I didn’t know the answer to because I haven’t revised the topic for a while, and the question was, what is needed in the body for anaerobic respiration to take place? And the answer was simple, but I didn’t know because again, I didn’t study the material before answering the paper.

one’s brain can have the habit of being complacent especially when you don’t wanna do work, so diving head first into the questions and realizing that you don’t know jack shit would be a good wake up call for you and your brain—and this can connect to the second point that I made because you might find that you’d be eager to get the answer right all on your own, and become curious as to what the answer is.

important to remember …

erase everything bad that you were told or led to believe about studying. I promise that if you look for ways to make it engaging for you and form a habit, studying can be something you don’t dread or worry about everyday. You are capable. This is the start of your journey. Yes, the question of ‘what if I get distracted again’ will always be there but think about what could happen if today is the first day you’re not distracted. If you don’t at least try to start now, you will have zero chance of being able to actually focus and study. But if you try, the worst that will happen is that you tried. If you keep trying, it will happen. I promise.

If you need any more tips regarding adhd, (or being undiagnosed,) please do let me know. I’ll do my best to help.

[rogue-academic]

just wanna share a youtube chanel I found with amazing adhd-friendly study tips - Elizabeth Filips. I don't think I've ever heard her mentioning adhd in a title or a video, so I thought someone searching for adhd study tips might not find her which would be a tragedy because I got almost all of the best study tips that I use from her. hope this helps someone, go check her out