Tips for staying focused while studying?
I find that when it comes to reading and taking notes, or trying to solve a practice problem where I can't see the correct approach immediately, I immediately want to "take a break" to "find my thoughts". My max attention span for this kind of work is like ~10 minutes. It sometimes takes me all day to get like 2 hours worth of studying done.
My attention span honestly isn't much better while writing an exam, but I make it work by jumping back and forth between all the questions; I change between questions constantly and if something is hard for me, I often come back to it five or six times before solving it.
There's some things that I can really sink into and I'll be absorbed for hours, but I really struggle to get started and I worry that in spite of having pretty good grades, I'm coasting with bad habits and poor discipline. I have exams on Tuesday and Wednesday that I'm a bit underprepared for, and I need to cover a lot of content, but I can't seem to settle my mind. I've been trying to get started on studying since noon and I've put in maybe 20 minutes of actual work. I've tried turning off the internet on my computer after opening all the tabs I need, and locking myself out of my phone, and I just find myself staring at the wall or doodling on my practice exam.
Any tips? People who struggle with the same thing and have found strategies that work for them?
Posted Dec 16, 2018, 11:43 PM UTC