I can`t study, what do I do?

[studioworks]

I get nervous or I feel like I don`t need and that I can go see a movie on my laptop, or see videos on YouTube, or I get checking my e-mail constantly.

But if I do that I get stressed and worried and actually don`t enjoy any of that. My social life is hell because I feel that I shouldn`t `waste time` talking to people when I should be studying.

I just fell the need for study two or three days before the test, so I cram. And that blocks me from going to the gym, going out on weekends or learning techniques for smart studying. The tips are usually `remove all distractions` but I`m learning programming so I need my laptop all the time, what is a huge distraction. Also I need to be constantly checking the professor slides.

I don`t know what to do. I`m thinking in drop out of college for weeks now, since I`m feeling like this for months and this is really messing with my physical and mental health. Life is being hell.

What should I do?

Sorry about my English.

[ssandra]

Turn off the internet?

Set yourself a goal (first a small one, working up to a larger one) such as 5 minutes study, 15 minutes play.
Next day 10 minutes study, 15 minutes play.
Next day 15 minutes study, 15 mintues play
Next day 20 minutes study, 15 minutes play

etc. etc. etc. Until you get into the habit of working for longer periods at one time.

Because I'm noticing right now that being able to work for longer periods at one time is very much a habit...

how often doesn't it happen that I truly want to work on something, yet find myself here responding without even consciously realizing that I clicked on the internet and on the forum...

[sandy]

When you can really enjoy yr study nothing will hardly distract you, you will naturally focus on it For me, it seems u r now just studying for the sake of studying. If it's me, I will suspend my school for 1 yr and do some part-time jobs or travel around to relax little bit, clear my thoughts to figure out my life and the things I truly want there

[studioworks]

Thank you both, I'll follow your tips ssandra.

Even though I'm exhausted of feeling like this I feel like dropping out or take a year vacation is not an option. There's people I love I wouldn't have the guts to disappoint and can't let them down.

Besides, Steve Pavlina himself said when finished college in three semesters he was so motivated by the challenge he could've majored in psychology. So I just need to find a way to get motivated, after all, a lot of people didn't like high school but got motivated enough to finish either way.

Thanks again.

[curiouslyrandom]

Get a study buddy, someone who will check in with you and keep you on task.

Use the Pomodoro Technique.

Forgive yourself, and relax!

[ZephyrusX]

When it comes to studying, I find my biggest problem is starting the process. I’ll come up with all kinds of excuses why I don’t want to start the task. Once I’ve already begun to study or work on projects though, I find that I naturally get caught up in the reading material or the assigned task as I enjoy it. If this is not the case with you, perhaps you might want to reconsider your major? Unfortunately, I think starting the process of studying is just a learned habit. Sandra’s idea sounds interesting.

Getting into the habit of studying or working on a project every day is a good idea. The idea isn’t to study for 2+ hours or anything drastic like that (this generally backfires any way… my classmates who do this don’t do as well on their exams and projects). Just study/work for an hour or two. That way when you are approaching an exam or a project deadline, you are not spending hours upon hours trying to rush a project/exam through. I think your brain processes information better that way any way as it gives you time to think over an accessible amount of material.

I think it is also important to relax and to dispel any unwarranted fears you may have about failing. The people I know who have dropped out of university (excluding those who could no longer afford tuition) tended to do so because they stressed out way too much.

Good luck with your classes.

[Tanja]

As ssandra and ZephyrusX said, it's a habit. And you can do it!

2 months ago I had to start studying for something after a longer period of not doing it, at first I felt like you..and did exactly the same thing, i.e. finding distractions-checking email, reading the forums etc. I felt like there was a huge wall of ''energy''/resistance'' I had to push through to get started..and it seemed like a lot of work to do every day. When you feel nervous and feel the urge to do something else...ask yourself why you're doing it? Are you afraid there's too much of it so you feel overwhelmed, the subject doesn't interest you, you don't understand it etc? (And what you can do to solve whatever comes up--if it's too much tell yourself you'll do it in small manageable chunks, if you don't understand it --tell yourself you'll find a study body to help you etc).
What thoughts go through your mind before you're about to study? If you keep thinking''it's difficult, boring, I can't do it'' ..it can be tough to push through that, just remind yourself that it's your mind repeating useless stuff.

As Sandra suggested, start with maybe 10 minutes and work your way up. the thing is to do something study-related every day, even if it's only five minutes. One day I didn't feel like studying so I only leafed through the book..for like 5 min, but I considered my daily studying task to have been completed

You don't have to tell yourself you're going to study but only read the materials, that's how I started. I'd just read one chapter, or read for 15 minutes, and after a while I'd simply continue doing it for longer periods.

When do you study better, in the morning or in the evening? Try to adjust your study time to that.

And what got me excited (), using colour markers to make notes in your notebook, or find a notebook with some funny/lovely photos on the cover (a monkey, panda,koala??), so it's fun to actually use it

Even if you don't feel motivated to study, never mind! Just sit your butt in a chair and start reading (or stare at your notes, yeah, I did that as well), but it gave my mind a message that every day for half an hour it's gonna sit in front of that book so it might as well learn.

As far as play goes, let's say you decide to study for an hour every day, the rest of your time fill up with other activities/hobbies etc,guilt-free.

Good luck!

[livelove18]

What i did was block off a certain period of time during the day no matter what. So say to yourself Im going to study everynight from for example 8-830 no matter what happens. Also, get rid of any distractions that could tempt you. But stick to a promise and schedule some time.

[VinceG]

Originally Posted by studioworks

What should I do?

Go outside and play. Do something interesting. Find an amazing experience.

Nothing you're doing right now, when you're not studying, is truly interesting. You're trying to fill the hole in your existence created by tons of crap, with more crap. Find something enlightening and incredible.

I would suggest you not study again until you find that experience.

[NDN Scholar]

I don't know, bro. You gotta really get yourself in the mood for studying. Focus on the subject matter, get yourself excited over it, tell yourself what you plan on reading and laying out what you should remember for an exam.

Personally, I'm very skilled in staying up all night (with the help of an energy drink) and really going all out on the cramming. Just the past week, I went hard on publicly-funded healthcare and everything about it. Awesome class, btw.

Focus on it, then rip through it and tear it apart. Be a man, you know?

[Canadian]

Give up.

If you are going to study then you are going to study, if your not your not. You're just wasting energy and creating anxiety by worrying about it, and only making it LESS likely that you will study.

I was getting nothing accomplished for 2 years, I was spending all my time trying to force myself to be productive. When I stopped worrying about it and learned to relax then all of a sudden I had a lot of energy and time freed up to do what I actually want to do, which happened to be practically the same stuff I was trying to force myself to do.

The only problem being is that I sometimes forget and slip back into being anxious and things stop getting done again!


Oh, and I'd like to add that maybe all the time wasting and worrying is actually about having something on your mind at all times so that you don't have to confront deeper issues. I remember feeling that was true with myself at one point, although I forget exactly what those issues were.

[The Cloud]

One thing that worked for me was having a set amount of hours each week to work on school (with class time, I tried to get it to add up to about 40, same as a work week, but you can change that as is needed). I made up a time sheet where I would sign in to do school work, and sign out when doing other things (so I'd have to sign out even if all I was doing was checking my email or getting a snack). This did fantastic things for my grades, getting me A's in advanced physics and math courses that would normally have me scraping C's.

I planned it so that I had, on average, ten hour days Mon-Thurs. This gave me complete freedom Fri-Sun where I literally forbid myself from working on school work (barring midterms and such, I had extra contingency hours that I added in those circumstances).

As for the internet thing, maybe try a checklist. I did that, too, so I could only check my email and stuff a set number of times a day.

This system probably isn't the best for creative work, but school work is almost never creative and is always time-consuming. You don't have to be interested or even invested in the work you're doing. You just have to take the time and the work will finish itself, even if you're so bored you're only paying half-attention. A major advantage of this system is that you lose the sense of urgency to get assignments done quick, since even if you finish early you still have to put in the rest of your hours studying. If you set the time and stick to the schedule, you'll be getting A's and partying (or sleeping, CS major that you are) on the weekends in no-time.

[goldberg]

Originally Posted by studioworks

I get nervous or I feel like I don`t need and that I can go see a movie on my laptop, or see videos on YouTube, or I get checking my e-mail constantly.

But if I do that I get stressed and worried and actually don`t enjoy any of that. My social life is hell because I feel that I shouldn`t `waste time` talking to people when I should be studying.

I just fell the need for study two or three days before the test, so I cram. And that blocks me from going to the gym, going out on weekends or learning techniques for smart studying. The tips are usually `remove all distractions` but I`m learning programming so I need my laptop all the time, what is a huge distraction. Also I need to be constantly checking the professor slides.

I don`t know what to do. I`m thinking in drop out of college for weeks now, since I`m feeling like this for months and this is really messing with my physical and mental health. Life is being hell.

What should I do?

Sorry about my English.

Set up parental control, block the sites you are wasting time on.

[Daedalus]

I felt that I needed to post because I can relate to your situation.

I also have been struggling with this for a long time. Right now I have been able to improve this by trying different methods until I found one that is working better with me. I need to use my laptop because I need to work with it(programming) so I can't remove every source of distraction so I divide my activities by day because I feel that dividing by minutes or hours is too little for time consuming activities like programming or learning to do it.

The days that I do exercise I tend to have problems focusing on sitting on a chair and working with my laptop(I feel too active to stay in one place without moving) so those days I do more physical actions like cleaning the house or going out.

The other days I do more programming and other "mental" activities like reading. I try to avoid forums, facebook and other webs not related to my work because once I enter I know it will be very difficult for me to stop clicking.(But at the end of the day I still surf the web like an hour lol) And I dedicate other day to all my sources of distractions.

Still, my method is far from perfect and I need to improve myself even more. It is also important that you feel interested in doing the work that you need to do(sometimes is hard for tedious work) or achivieving the goal that is related to the work you are doing.

I can't tell you how to study and do your work but I can recommend you to try different ways of doing it until you figure out what works better for you because everyone works different.