“Be nice to yourself. It is hard to be happy when someone is being mean to you all the time.”
— Christine Arylo
the one with the brains
[top right picture belongs to @sadcypher]
Study Motivators That Work
The 3 Minute Rule
- When you have a task that you don't want to complete, just get started and keep going for 3 minutes. If you still don't want to complete the task after 3 minutes, stop and start another task
- This method can be very challenging during the initial stages of trying it
- When you procrastinate, you tend to find something else to do first to dodge the main task at hand
- This rule forces you to immediately avoid any deviation from completing the task for 3 solid minutes with the option to stop after those 3 minutes
- Discipline plays a crucial role in this motivation technique as starting the 3 minutes requires you to overcome procrastination
- Something that helps in this process is trying to slightly mentally detach yourself from the situation to have an objective view on it
- You need to look at the situation and acknowledge that you have the freedom to stop the task after 3 minutes if you truly cannot complete it and that you absolutely must start the task immediately
Often times, I keep going once I start which results in significantly improved productivity
Flexibile Schedules
- Often times, I plan out the perfect study and work session with my tasks and times detailed to the second
- However, sometimes, life gets in the way of these plans and I'm forced to reschedule everything
- Something like this can be extremely demotivating, especially if your day revolved around your very detailed plan
- To help solve such issues, there are 2 options for 2 different scenarios
- The first option is to prevent the situation from occurring at all
- Extremely rigid and detailed plans are very easy to disrupt
- Preventing the situation would be done by outlining more flexible study and work plans that can be done at most times and don't rely on strict timings (I will post another article on creating a flexible and functional study schedule)
- The second option is how to move forward if you do find yourself in a situation where your study plans have been disrupted and you're demotivated
- In this instance, the first step is to list the topics you need to cover and sort them from most important to least important
- Estimate how much time each topic will take and look at how much time you have available
- Evaluate if the time you have available is adequate to completely cover all of your listed topics
- If not, choose as many topics with the greatest priority that will be able to be completed within your available time
- Remember, these steps should be completed within 5 minutes at most to prevent you from losing any more time
There's always a plan for every situation. It just needs to be found.
Justify It
- If you truly feel like there's no reason to compete the task, find a reason
- If the task is important enough for you to lament over it, it's certainly important enough for you to complete it as soon as possible
- Clear your mind of any frustration and just relax
- Think of what the purpose of the task is
- Do you need to complete an assignment that will be a part of your final grade?
- Do you need to complete a report for your job?
- Will this benefit you in the future - near or far?
- If you need to study, what is your end goal?
- When I hesitate with my studying, I always remind myself that what I'm learning now will one day help me improve as a doctor
- Once you identify a reason, act on it and complete the task
- The reason will help you sense that what you're doing has meaning and purpose, making the task less of an inconvenience and more of a duty
Knowledge is always valuable.
a George Costanza moodboard
mountain-spirits-deactivated202
quebec magic
Astounding paintings that combine realism and texture by artist Maldha Mohamed, who lives and works in Maldives.
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“I didn’t know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good.”
— Ransom Riggs
disdelta-deactivated20230607
[click images for high quality]
[transcript under the cut]
Other advice posts that may be of interest:
Tips for Studying When You Have ADHD/Never Learned How
Hi everyone! I have a few tips that I’ve gathered over the years to help cope with your brain not working like everyone else’s.
1. Find a way to turn part of your brain off.
For me, this means having something that is stimulating in the background, like a podcast or loooong video. I really like stuff like Critical Role, if it’s too funny it just distracts me so I recommend something serious but not really important to know.
Conversely...
2. Find a way to turn your body off.
I do this by crocheting. It’s like productive stimming, it’s fun, the progress mounts super quickly, and you can redo something over and over if you need to. I use this time to listen to something important. Because my hands and eyes have something stimulating them, my ears are free to listen intently. This is when you should listen to an audiobook or a recorded lecture.
3. Don’t read and have someone speaking in your language at the same time.
That’s a recipe for not understanding either thing and having your time be wasted, essentially. If you’re reading, keep any background to something that you can tune out but still have in your mind, like lofi or classical music. Sometimes I’ll even use albums that I’ve listened to hundreds of times because my brain goes on autopilot for those.
4. Keep your workspace as busy as you need, but don’t let it get cluttered.
If you are a maximalist like me (or love hoarding stationery) your desk might be a little... much. And that’s okay! As long as you can work with visual stimulation. This comes down to personal preference, but if you know that having few things helps your focus, try to downsize, or vice versa!
5. Structure your study time and plan your breaks.
Structure is so important for my mental health and function, so I always recommend it to others. Plan your study time, lay out what you want to learn by the end, and have some sort of timer or cue for when it’s time to take a break. I recommend short breaks every 90 minutes or so, and a long one after 4+ hours. If studying in tiny chunks doesn’t work for you, don’t do it! If you need bigger blocks of time that’s totally fine, don’t feel guilty about not being able to focus properly on 10 minute sessions.
6. Repetition is soooo important for conceptual things.
Math and science can be especially difficult for people with ADHD due to memory problems. It is very important that you work at these problems and repeat them over and over to get the concept memorized in your long term memory so you can reach it continually. So, do your assigned problems, do the other problems in the book, find some on Khan Academy, and do them until it’s ingrained. It’s so worth it, I promise.
7. Set your own deadlines and STICK TO THEM
If your procrastinate until the 11th hour and then produce decent work, I completely understand and see you. However, work with your executive dysfunction and trick your brain. Set deadlines for yourself and rewards for sticking to them, punishments if you don’t, and actually enforce them. Maybe if you don’t finish your rough draft by Thursday night, you have to finish it before you can FaceTime your friends. If you do finish it on time, call and play some games together. It helps to have a study buddy to keep you accountable and set deadlines with so you can both motivate each other and be accountable. ***Be very careful to not let this affect your mental health!!! Do not burn yourself out and lose your friends, your mental health comes first!!!***
Finally
8. Do not beat yourself up for not being entirely productive all the time.
You are human. You are already at a disadvantage due to your brain’s chemistry. Work with your brain, don’t berate it. Eat some candy or drink some Gatorade to give it the dopamine it needs to keep focusing. Take down time for yourself. Let yourself have free time to just exist, practice regular self care and hygiene. You are strong, valid, and brave for going against the odds and pursuing learning at this disadvantage. I am very proud of you, and I know you can succeed.
ousia-poetica
There are incomparable, essential and immeasurable pleasures… Reading is enriching and expanding the world where you live, it is discovering a treasure on each page, living multiple lives, being born, dying and being resurrected with each book. It is an ongoing adventure where we stretch time, because the time we read is time we double in life.
Ousía Poética ©
Hay placeres incomparables, imprescindibles e inconmensurables… Leer es enriquecer y ampliar el mundo donde habitas, es descubrir un tesoro en cada página, vivir múltiples vidas, nacer, morir y resucitar con cada libro. Es una aventura continúa donde dilatamos el tiempo, porque el tiempo que leemos es tiempo que duplicamos de vida.
Ousía Poética ©
Genko-an Temple (Kyoto,JAPAN)
Summer/Fall/Winter
Pharah Mercy by Charmaine Lee
2187, some tat ideas
