this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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ADHD
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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!
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.
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!
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).
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.
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.