I had already finished most of my studies before I got my ADHD diagnosis. By that point, I had adopted a number of coping mechanisms and also abandoned several along the way. I wish someone had told me that to be successful I didn’t have to study like ‘everyone else’ and that if what I was doing worked for me then that was fine! Whilst it is useful to know the ‘rules’, individuality is so important in moving academic discussion forward. If everyone has the same ideas and style, then nothing new will be created. There’s a quote about the risks of academic conformity that I find particularly evocative from Doty (2004, p.379):
"often we are hideous beings swallowed up by our scholarly clothes, the dancing fools under the fluorescent lights of our paradigms and theories that voraciously consume our thoughts, hammer the soul from our words, and drain our voices of any traces of humanity"
If we are going to be successful, bring new insight and further exploration then we can’t be the same as ‘everyone else’. I’m mainly writing now to tell you that if something works for you then do it, it doesn’t matter if others don’t. Whether or not you are neurodivergent you have the ability to take control of your own learning experience. I’ve put together a list of issues I’ve faced and how I’ve dealt with (some of) them just in case it’s useful for anyone who might happen to read this. This is not so much advice, but more my attempt to share my lived experience. I hope that in sharing, others might feel more comfortable with theirs or learn from my mistakes.
1. Initiating Tasks
I would often tell myself I was going to spend a day studying or working on an assignment, then I just wouldn’t. I would want to; I’d just not be able to. I wouldn’t be in the right mindset, or I’d keep getting distracted. So, I started doing body and mind checks. I needed to remove any excuse for a distraction so I would make sure I had eaten, that I had a drink, that I was comfortable so I wouldn’t be getting up every 10 minutes. If I was experiencing an overwhelming emotion, I knew I had to resolve that first, whether it meant talking it through with a friend, going for a walk, listening to angry music, or just hugging the cat. I had to deal with it otherwise I’d just not be able to settle down to work. Spending an hour or two sorting this out might seem like a waste of time to some, but if it meant that I then spent a few hours studying then believe me it was worth it. Some of us might find routine useful; this could be having an hour every day where you read or complete a university-related task. The key is to not avoid it: if you had planned to write out an outline for an assignment but you aren’t in the right head space, then still take the time but maybe read instead. If you are starting early enough, then you have the luxury of choice. It might also help to try some productivity apps like GoblinTools to help create manageable to-do lists, because sometimes even just figuring out what you need to do can be overwhelming.
2. Staying Focused
For me, this just isn’t going to happen. Even if it’s my current hyper-focus, I will get distracted. The main thing that helped with this was to stop beating myself up about it. Difficulty sustaining attention is one of the most common issues for ADHDers. No matter what, I wasn’t going to be miraculously able to focus for hours. It might seem counterintuitive, but I found that splitting my focus helped. I was searching for dopamine, so I needed to make sure I was getting dopamine at the same time as studying. I would listen to music or a podcast at the same time as working. I actually found that having YouTube on in the background the most helpful – my go-tos are lo-fi playlists, video game playthroughs, D&D live plays. It just needs to be long enough that I don’t have to keep picking something new every five minutes.
On that note, working with other people can be greatly beneficial, but it could also be my own personal hell. I find it really useful to have an accountability buddy or to body double on a task; I’m so much better at housework if my partner is also doing housework, or if I can turn something into a competition. if it’s something that takes real concentration then I need to not be distracted by conversation. As a result, there are very few people I can work with as I need comfortable silence. If busier environments are better for you, then go for it. If you want to be held accountable, then communicate that to people. Or, if you want to be held accountable but don’t want to deal with people, then try a productivity app such as Habitica.
3. Environment
I’ve always worked best at home in my own space, as I need to immerse myself in my work. I like being surrounded by my work (papers and books spread everywhere) and it’s generally impolite to do that in shared spaces. This is why remote working has really helped my mental health. I’m not stressed out by others, and they aren’t stressed out by me. I also use app blockers like Opal to make sure I don’t end up distracted by my phone. If I find I’m still struggling to focus, then a change of scenery can help me reset and get back into it. It could be that I spend a few hours working at my desk then I move to the living room. The change just helps me stop from getting bored, I guess. I have found that if I’m really struggling then working in a coffeeshop for an hour or two is useful, mainly because when I return home it’s a relief. I stop taking my space for granted and I can work in it again. Being at home also means that I have more control over my own comfort levels such as noise, temperature, space and my cat can keep me in check if I start getting distracted (see below).
4. Reading
I always used to tell my students that you ‘read’ for a degree, and I feel that it really sets the scene for students. Reading was the most useful thing I did for my studies. The more you read, the better you get at it, the more you learn, and the more you have to write about. You also learn how to write within your subject area. That doesn’t mean that you need to sit with a book for hours on end; it’s about making it work for you. Having already been diagnosed with dyslexia, I had tried some of the recommended reading strategies and it turns out that some do track over to ADHD. One of the issues I have is that I can have read every word on the page, but I have no idea what is being said. It’s like I’m going through the motions but not actually engaging with the material. When this happens, I find it useful to go through paragraph by paragraph and after each one I write a few keywords or a short summary next to it to make sure I’m actually engaging with the content. If I can’t do that, then I give myself a break. If I don’t, I’m just going to get stressed out and everything is going to be worse. The keywords and summaries also make it easier to navigate the reading when I’m looking back through it for evidence and citations to use in my own writing.
I would also miss out sentences sometimes without realising. It turns out that visual tracking can be a struggle for ADHDers as well as those with dyslexia, so I would track the sentence that I was reading with a ruler. If this sounds odd, the good news is that you can can now get on-screen rulers like Helperbird or the Chrome ReadingLine.
The final thing that I do to help with reading, which has led to some rather strange interactions when I’ve been reading in public, is that I read aloud. You might notice that when you read silently that you read so much faster, but it could be part of the reason for that speed is because you are skipping words or letters and filling in the blanks with what you think it says. I found that by reading aloud I was forcing myself to read each individual word and it also helps me process the information because not only was I reading it, but I need to have a good enough grasp of what I was reading to be able to verbalise it, which I could then also hear. So, I process the information in at least three different ways. If this seems like a lot of work, then you might find the read aloud functions on eBook platforms or screen readers helpful.
And sometimes you just need a treat, a lil‘ snacky snack - a little hit of dopamine.
5. Motivation
If I don’t care about a task or understand why I need to do it, then I find it very difficult to complete the task. I need to be very clear on the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the task. What do I actually need to do to complete it? And why should I spend my time and mental capacity on it? If there’s not a good answer to either of these then it goes to the bottom of my list of priorities whether I like it or not. But sometimes we need to complete tasks that we don’t like, or that we don’t think of as important. We then need to give purpose and meaning to it. You can do the task to prove to yourself that you can do it, to prove it to others, or to help others.
I have worked so hard for my qualifications and career so that my cat doesn’t need to worry where her next meal is coming from.
There are plenty of ways the help yourself take control of your studies, it takes time to explore different strategies, but the benefits are worth the effort. When I started at university as a student, I didn’t think I’d end up where I am now. At the time, I was just hoping to pass. It turns out I was doing myself a great disservice and just needed to take responsibility and hold myself accountable - but accountable to my standards not to anyone else's.
References
- Doty, R.L. (2004). Maladies of our souls: identity and voice in the writing of academic international relations, Cambridge Review of International Affairs [online], 17(2), pp.377–392 https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=ff2f1d7d-ecee-3cc4-9837-ec76afe0c983
