• I need to consciously preplan unpleasant parts of the task so I can do them. Either because they require planning to do them pleasantly or because they are unpleasant to me because of low efficiency or other reasons (running the Simulation software that makes me feel bad for my CPU to slowly test hypotheses about my program). So I write down (in a text file) what I am going to do next. This felt like it got me slightly more motivated.
• If the Textbook is not engaging to read, I just skip forward to the exercises, then look up what I need for each.
• I felt significantly better recently after telling myself that each day has a part where I don’t need to do the task that I don’t like, and stop expecting myself to totally frontload it, because then I just feel stressed for a few days and backload it instead.
• The guy who said that you should think about motivation instead of technique might be onto something a little bit, because these strategies I have for myself fix something about my brain: having enough context to start or concrete things to do to keep going. They also feel like they are ADHD coping strategies, but I don’t actually know if I have it.

What are the specific problems (these are not yes or no questions, at least answer for your self the how and why’s (eg emotions) if you don’t want to share):

• are you unable to start?
• are you unable to continue because of boredom or is it actual physical repulsion to learning?
• do you force yourself to start and continue even thought your mind is somewhere else?
  Identify where the problem arises and why and if there are parts you are able to do. It might be emotional or it might be a structure problem (like problems with starting and getting into it might be lack of understanding the topic and the thing you need to learn because it feels overwhelming.)
• do you feel pressured to learn (parents, system and future, by yourself and your stamdards)
• do you have a clear structure of the thing you need to learn? (Do you understand the assignment and the steps associated with it)
• is it for things like homework or for learning for exams or staying ontop of the learning (reviewing notes) or do you struggle in all aspects
• have you any strengths on what things can keep your attention and what you are drawn towards (games, being creative, literature, movies/ series, art, music, makijg presentations, teaching/ explaining things, experiments, etc.) you can try and extrapolate a solution on how to engage with a topic from that. If you like to write, then it might be fun to write a short story about idk a wizard who summons physics spells so you’d have to engage with latin and physics to make your story work
• do you have any mental health problems you need to adress, trauma, depression, etc (or as mentioned here neuro divergence like adhd and autism) They all impact your abilies to concentrate and engage with learning most things get better with meditation/ mindfulnes practise but only do so when it’s save for you
• do you just want to get good enough results on the exams? I always thought it’s the most fun to engage with tests directly and answer questions and look up answers for questions then a practise book or online ressources might help.

Lots of good advice here on technique, but not motivation. (I’m assuming you can study or research something that you find really interesting) For that you gotta trick yourself into finding it interesting. Hype yourself up as if you are about to do something awesome. Also try to find a way to make it more interesting. For example with latin, tell yourself how you will be be prepared if magic is real cause spells are all latin. Figure out a way to cram something you are interested in, into the subjects you aren’t.

Hello I’m in tech and we have to study constantly over here in this world.

One of my tricks for myself is I pretend I gotta write a help page for someone new about the subject at hand and I have to make it interesting enough to make someone want to know it. Make it easy. Like a grab and go version of it. Something that will entice someone to get comfortable with it fast.

For some reason this tricks my brain into being personally invested in the thing I’m looking at and what would i do to make it more interesting to someone else who might struggle to understand it.

I’ll start with the who(it’s for), what(it is), why(it’s history), how(to use it), where(to find it) and when(to use this thing). then I’ll do a walkthrough.

next thing i know im writing out examples for it and the answers are more held in my head for the purpose of the thing i need to know.

so often information is just shouted at us without any story so i give it a story.

I didn’t. I was undiagnosed ADHD though. My brother definitely had it, but was more hyperactive so I assumed that I must not have had it because I didn’t have that component.

It wasn’t until much later, in my 30s, that I was informally diagnosed (I never took the official test because it’s like a massive book full of forms and shit and no way that was happening).

Anyway, maybe consider getting checked out for it yourself. I was prescribed medication, and it worked, but I personally despise the way I feel when medicated so I choose not to take it. I imagine 30+ years of developing my own coping mechanisms helps me live without needing the meds.

That said, it’s still a daily struggle. I’m fortunate to have a union job that’s very flexible so it’s rare lately that my ADHD has gotten me in trouble, but it does still happen from time to time.

It is what it is. School was tough though, because yeah I just wouldn’t. I’m honestly shocked that I made it through college (undergrad).

Could you suffer from AD(H)S? My son had this, he couldn’t focus on shit, still passed his exams due to his high iq.

https://screening.mhanational.org/screening-tools/adhd/

You could have ADHD. It’s worth looking into. Proper treatment can make a big difference.

Definitely something to bring up with a doctor/teacher.

However, in the meantime try to figure out a way to game-ify it. Instead of just reading find a game that’s been made as a study tool for those subjects or make one up. Even something as simple as flash cards helps when reading from a book feels impossible.

studying with friends often turns into hanging out, which is a different thing from having someone quietly working next to you. that presence alone makes it way easier to stay in your chair, it’s called body doubling. I built coquiet.app for that, it’s my own project, free focus rooms with calm music and other people there. and make the start ridiculously small, just open the page and read one paragraph.

I don’t?

No one does anything well when they don’t want to do it.

The real solution here isn’t to try to figure out how to force yourself to do something you don’t want to, it’s to figure out how to want to study. The people who can study a broad range of things effectively are the ones who think of themselves as good at learning, and want to understand as much possible. For most of them, part of their self story is that they’re good at learning, and understand things. That can be part of your self story too if you choose it.

I definitely don’t want to pretend that’s an easy change to make. Motivation is one of the harder things. I would like to be able to tell you how to be motivated, but I can’t. But if you’re looking for the difference between you and the ones who seem to study effortlessly, that’s it. They’re not smarter or more capable on any fundamental level. At least not at a level that matters for most things. They just actually want to do it.

I had this problem too. When I was young the subjects I had on a particular year were… distasteful for the version of me in that year. But now in my 30s I figured out that it was because of misalignment in interest based on my age.

Tl; Dr -

1. Top-Down approach - skim through the text at a brisk pace and capture the high level themes of each section/paragraph. Then drill down deeper for the second time. Repeat until you are familiar with the topic.
2. Change perspectives - Imagine you are the person solving a problem in history when some problem/event happened. Works well to pur yourself in somebody else’s shoes. Especially useful “unlearning” a lot of things we take for granted in the modern age.
3. Try to study a subject from multiple sources: Lecture videos from other schools, different professors, different books, summaries from AI.

The main problem is the material needs to be presented to you in a way that aligns with your thought process and frame of mind at a specific point in time.

Expecting a young person to change perspective is very hard: They have a hard time having ONE consistent perspective… let alone multiple based on the subject at hand. However it’s too important to suggest alternatives.

Let’s take physics. Try to understand at a high level what the problem statement is and why people invented the math to understand the physical phenomenon they were trying to understand and describe.

Latin: Generally for language it’s important to practice speaking and listening to get familiar quickly. Unfortunately for languages like this which is not spoken widely nowadays you have to rely on reading history and associate the language to it somehow.

Procrastination via proxy. If you have more then one thing to study study something else to avoid the first thing.

Then when you have had enough of subject 2 return to subject 1.

I had terrible problems studying so I just wrote everything again, sometimes short hand.

That way your body is occupied as well as your mind.

A good way I did this was to write notes by hand in class then type them up at home and print them so I had my in notes I knew inside out.