this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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ADHD

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 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.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

I didn't get a degree until my thirties, once I got diagnosed and figured out my needs.

For me it was:

  1. Accomodations,

  2. Meds,

  3. Moving a lot,

  4. Low music with a predictable beat and no vocals,

  5. Accountability checks (showing up for every lectures or partnering/grouping up for every assignment),

  6. Active participation,

  7. Learning by doing, and

  8. Learning by talking.

  9. For maths (the bane of my existence, but soooo satisfying once you get it!) I also got to do the exams in a separate room with headphones on, and could take breaks to run around the building or up and down the stairs a few times whenever I needed to restart my brain. Plus extra time to account for those breaks and the mental breakdowns that preceded them.

  10. Meds are essential for me, but they can make me miss cues from my body. So it's important to manage my body's needs like clockwork while on them, regardless of what I feel like I can do or do without in the moment: eat breakfast and lunch and an afternoon snack/mini-meal to avoid emotional outbursts or binge eating when the meds wear off. Take breaks (just stepping out or standing by an open window to breathe, or set an alarm and lie down with legs up and closed eyes) for a few min every hour. Go to the bathroom. Drink water. Blink. Do not put in overtime to "only" solve/finish this one thing -that thing won't get solved until you have a shower or talk to another human. Overtime/cramming will not be efficient studying, the goal is not just passing one test and forgetting, but actually learning and understanding...and resting is an essential component of that.

  11. Listening to online lectures (or even worse, pre-recorded one's) was impossible until I got a walking pad, and it made writing assignments and at home-tests way easier. For on campus-days I'd run up and down the stairs during every break in or between lectures (most teachers would do breaks every hour but if not I would just ask them for it). Blood flow through legs means blood flow to brain!

  12. Low music without vocals with a good chill beat fill the silence when people are talking too slow and keeps me on track when it gets boring, without stealing attention or focus by being too loud or interesting.

  13. With daily lectures I got a schedule and routine, which got me up and started in the morning and left a suitable time slot for lunch (missing lunch is a big no-no!). While doing assignments with someone else it was a lot easier to get started (I'm great at filling uncomfortable silences that happens when no-one know where to begin) and organise and section off the work into manageable parts, while having someone else to take charge of those last 5% that I seem unable to do.

  14. I need to take plenty of notes during lectures (might never read them again, but just the motion of writing the words help my listening and retention). I also always ask as soon as I get lost or have a relevant question, and attempt to answer any questions during (even if I get it wrong) a class. If I think my question will get answered I'll write it down and ask them at the end if I'm still unsure. If I don't do this, I'll get stuck on something in my mind and stop following along.

  15. I chose a school with a lot of practical learning built into the education. Lots of practical assignments, internship opportunities etc.

  16. Our brains are evolved for conversation, language and communication. When getting stuck, I usually need a break... But if the break doesn't solve it, explaining the difficult thing to someone else will often make me figure it out by the time I've finished talking. If not the other person might have an idea for how to think and move forward. Asking questions, explaining complex concepts to each other, bouncing ideas, telling stories are all great tools for learning and more importantly gaining understanding of a topic.

Good luck, and if you managed to read all this: you're gonna be fine!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

i am probably not the best example, as i never finished my degree, but studiying is the one thing where pomodoro timers were actual helpful for me, but nothing was better than having a small group of people to study with.

Working on problems together on a whiteboard was almost magical, because so much stayed in my brain without totaly draining my batteries.

other than that keeping things fresh and fun is important, to this day i'll draw pictures on my notes when going through them, emphasize stuff by putting it in speech bubbles or write stupid stuff in foot notes.

i also sometimes experiment with different note taking techniques, but it's mostly bullet points.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (4 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!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

A lot of people mentioned Pomodoro timers, I should pick this one back up and use it in non-library studying.(To better motivate myself in different environment.)

As for music cueing, I almost forgot that I had an album that do just this! My mp3 got so many new music over the years, think I lose sight of what the mp3 was intended to do. (Less distraction + nice music to study)

Lastly, 5~4 class a semester? Yeah... feels like I should cut back on how many hard classes I tackle at a time. Currently 3 heavy class + 5 filler class(class that are easy but have homework on a per-week basis)。

Points taken, Thanks for the advice!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Eight classes a semester! Our universities must run on a very different model. For me (humanities degree), a full course load was five courses at once, each of which had three instructional hours per week. So I was normally in class for 15 hours a week, and probably spent about the same amount of time studying/reading. Going from five classes to four effectively meant going from 30 hours a week spent on school stuff to 24. It was much easier (especially since I was also working p/t).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Oh, also! I don't know if you live on campus or if you're a commuter, but if the latter: stay on campus during the day! Sometimes I had big enough schedule gaps that I could have gone home in between classes, but staying on campus instead made it a lot easier to just go to the library or whatever.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

That is smart! Could also do a reverse-challenge: The goal is to write something worse than anything that has has ever been turned in to that teacher. "teecha has a stoopit" (but don't forget to delete)

Brian Tracy mentioned a similar trick for his shady cold calls business: A reward to the first employee who gets a rejection every morning, with a bell and everything.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

anki flash cards worked well for me. Most of the time is used making the cards then can easily learn anything in less than a day by cramming them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I wonder how well this will work for math related subjects. Will definitely do this for Spanish learning though!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

For your Spanish I advice you to make your flashcards for vocab and grammar at the beginning of the week and work on them. But especially cram all of them to review before a test.

For math, I’m not sure but I see online decks on the Anki website for math. I’m not good at math but I would imagine using it to memorize methods may be helpful

Main shared page https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks

Math page https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks?search=math

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The way I pulled it off is basically by pure chance. A few classmates had gotten the impression (still don’t know how or why) that I was a good student. Whenever they had any difficulty at all they’d ask me. As such I was constantly explaining a bunch of stuff, especially the more difficult parts of the material. So from the moment I first understood it I just kept on repeating it to others endlessly.

In retrospect that’s probably what helped me get through the whole thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Perhaps its because we are good at "pretending to be focused"?

A lot of people said I give off the impression of a "good student" but deep down I wonder how fast people will figure out.XD

Having dependable/depended friends sure sounds like a good motivation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Nah, I wasn’t pretending. I enjoyed 85% of all of my courses so usually I was hyper focusing during class. The remaining 15% of courses were pure hell though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Haha, that is some fantastic imposter syndrome right there. "People thought I had answers for some unknown reason. So they came to me for answers and I kept providing the with correct answers. Weird."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I mean… yes. Definitely yes to the impostor syndrome. But people thinking I had answers made me pay attention differently and made me work harder to understand stuff because people were counting on me to always know.

It was like having an accidental accountability buddy. I could be questioned on the testing material basically at any point in time. So I tried to always be ready.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

That makes sense. I had a consistent fear that I would graduate, get a job, and not know what I was doing at all. So it pushed me to understand materials beyond what the class required.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

I didn't unless I was with other people, in class or the exam was the next day.

Got my college diploma and now I'll never go back to that hellish place ✌️

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Study into the night. Your brain will be too tired to get bored and so will stay focused on only one thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Nighttimes are quiet and calm. Perfect for study. But mayyy mess up sleep schedule quite a bit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

I've just accepted that I'm a night owl. I regularly sleep 4am-12. Fortunately I'm studying a course that allows for this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I used to study from about 1 to 6 in the night. Basically when everything is closed and asleep. I then mostly listened to Binärpilot and Röyksopp. This was usually mere days before exams or when papers were due.

I somehow managed to finish studying, so it worked out fine. Work, being a parent and owning a house nearly broke me though. Currently trying to find new coping mechanisms. Fuck adult life.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Good luck on finding new mechanisms! Feels like experimentation & messups, are forever parts of our lives (more so on our quirky brains).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

The time put in is a huge factor, even when it's done "all wrong".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

This is what I had to do in college and the real game changer was getting meds. It went from spending a long time to get a reasonable amount of work to spending a lot of time to get a lot of work done. So if you haven't already, get diagnosed and get meds. It'll make the rest of college way more enjoyable and useful.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I achieved a lot in terms of studying and failed a lot in other areas.

Ask yourself: Counting only focussed, undistracted studying, do you achieve significantly less IN THE SAME STUDYING TIME than your peers? If the answer is "no", improve your method. If "yes", you will need to put in a few extra years, but do keep going!

Hit that problem with methods. There are tons of methods that work for some, don't work for others. Pomodoro, X-effect, habit building, Leitner system etc.

Some things are completely uneffected by ADHD, for example building habits. The prefrontal cortex is not involved in that.

I use pomodoro, and I'm super strict about it. Here is my old comment: https://lemmy.ml/post/24026788/15853247

It's good that you have that method in the library! I'd say keep it as it is, don't water it down. Those special focussed sessions will help you a lot. But it should not be an excuse like "I can't do the library thing today, so I do nothing".

Instead, for situations where you can't, maybe try my method. Think of it like squid game: Players have 10 minutes to study as hard as they can, then the ones with the lowest relative gain are culled. You'd rather pee in your pants than go to the toilet, and you'd not look at your phone when it makes a noise during that time. Maybe you can start with 25 instead of 10 right away, up to you.

Don't get put off by false perfectionism. There was a group fight in the barracks last night, you haven't showered in days, you didn't drink enough, you got hit on the head and feel dizzy - better put those 10 minutes to good use anyway and survive another game!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

For me, it was studying more effectively. Whether it's studying, cleaning, or even enjoying a hobby, I just cannot buckle down and grind through the hard part. My brain needs some minimum level of efficiency to be satisfied. If it feels like I'm working too hard without enough of a result, it's an impossible battle.

So I figure out how to do things better. Someone already mentioned Anki flash cards, and those were great for pure memorization. But every subject - and person - is different. The key was always going off the beaten path to look for other ways and other resources rather than just trying to grind it out. If I were in school now, I'd probably ask ChatGPT a lot of questions to help me learn. But I want to stress that I'd do so very carefully.

Maybe it's because I'm AuDHD, but I tend to have to figure out my own way of doing things anyway. I rarely expect that the way other people do it is going to work for me. So I research and experiment until I find my own unique path. That feels less awful and it's much easier to stick with.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Looking back I was never really able to do long study sessions. What helped me a lot was to break it down into smaller sprints with something as reliable reward inbetween.

In the past that was OGame or other browser games where you couldnt play for long and had to wait some time inbetween. Nowadays it’s tarkov scav runs that sometimes work well. Im currently trying to write my PhD thesis so this is my struggle again :)

Also for me it’s specifically a momentum thing so just telling myself 5 minutes is enough will get me over the hump usually. And not expecting too much for the day. Otherwise I will be demotivated even if I managed to do a fair bit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

I probably wont try "Video game between sessions", I would just not go back to studying LOL.

As for the take more break & don't expect too much part, I agree! Progress is progress.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I was never able to do well enough in school to get anything other than a 2 year degree. I have a good white collar job and have been in IT (for lack of a better word) for 20 years or something at this point.

School isn't everything.