Hello, fellow ADHDers. I’m in the verge of despair and irreversible frustration.
Here is my situation. I’m trying to prepare to pass a competitive service exam in Spain, Europe. I’m from Spain, by the way. So, because it’s a competitive service exam, there is always a ratio of 30 or 40 people per job offer. So, if there are 1.000 job offers and 40.000 people to pass that exam, I need to be among those 1000 best marks.
Anyway, because of that, I need to study like 10 hours per day, 6 days per week. I put one day to rest because I don’t like to be burnt out. But what happens? It happens that I’m only able to study 2 hours per day, or barely 3 during my best days. And the rest of the day, I procrastinate or do useless stuff, even when I want to study with all my strength.
I tried caffeine two weeks ago, and until today, it worked for 2 or 3 days, allowing me to study during those hours. But other days, maybe I was able to study for 4 hours, or even 5.
So, if you struggled like me and you were able to succeed, how did you do that? How can I force myself to study for 10 hours per day like normal people do with no issues?
PS: I’m not allowed to take any ADHD stimulants. No Concerta, no Elvanse… I only take atomoxetine, since March 2023.
Studying for excessive amounts of time at a stretch have diminishing returns for nuerotypical people too, so trying to cram 10 hours a day in tends to be counterproductive for anyone.
Before I was diagnosed in my 30s, my successful uneducated approach was bursts of studying with short and frequent breaks where I would note down the distracting things for later so I could get them out of my mind and refocus. Don’t remember where I heard the suggestion from, but it worked fairly well. So I would focus for an hour or so until I noticed I was off track, write down the non-related stuff, then pick back up where I was.
It didn’t work for things I had no interest in, but it did work well for times when I was getting distracted. Keep in mind that I did not have any idea that I was ADHD at the time, this was a study tip from someone I knew.
Now that I am on medication I still do the same thing and it is even more effective, although with meds it even works when doing things I have no interest in. Regular short breaks to clear the mind help both when the meds are working and when they have worn off. Can’t be too long or I move on to something else.
Overall I guess my recommendation is that you don’t overdo the time per day because it will become counterproductive at some point, but do take regular short breaks to see if you are able to refocus and continue.
As I commented to the other user, I study using the pomodoro technique. It worked well when I was taking Concerta (don’t ask me why I was prescribed that, but I was, by a private psychiatrist before going to Social Security/Public Health System).
