I have ostensibly been doing history homework for nine hours now. In reality, I've gotten about twenty minutes' worth of work done. Why? No idea. I stare blankly at the book for five minutes or so, and then get distracted. Then I remember, "Oh yeah, homework." I go back to it, stare blankly at the book for a few minutes, then get distracted again until I remember, "Oh yeah. Homework." I stare blankly at the book for a few minutes, get distracted again, and go, "Oh fine, I'll get this done and then really seriously crack down on my homework." I finish it, go back to my homework, stare blankly at the book for a few minutes... and then get distracted. Lather, rinse, repeat. The homework itself isn't really that hard (when I can actually crack down and get it done, the entire lesson only takes about an hour or two), it's just that I can't concentrate on it! Whoever it was that told me that if I find myself reading a paragraph over and over, I should just skip it and go on is a fool, just like the person who told me that if you can't concentrate, you should do something else for a while and try again.
I've tried caffeine, which sometimes helps. I've tried sugar, which sometimes helps. I've tried turning music on. I've tried turning music off. I've tried sitting in a different room. I've tried opening the window. I've tried bribing myself. I've uninstalled video games that distract me. I've even tried wearing a different hat! I have no earthly idea what to try next.
1 comment:
Here's something that works for me when I'm finding myself unable to concentrate on a narrative-like study subject: I'll read a sentence, then immediately imagine a set of cartoon characters (such as the Yakko, Wacko, and Dot, or Bugs and Daffy, or Dexter, or ...) in that particular sentence/context/activity/setting.
For example, if I'm studying the Russian revolution, as I read, one sentence at a time, I imagine the cartoon character DOING THAT SENTENCE. I read the next sentence, and again put the cartoon character in that sentence. At the end of the paragraph, I review the entire "scene" made up of the sentences of that paragraph, and "see" the cartoon again.
Sure, this is a slow painstaking way in that it doubles the amount of time you spend reading and studying, and you plod along sentence by sentence. If you force yourself to stick to ONLY the sentences in the book and not go off on tangents, you'll eventually get through.
By consciously developing the multi-level seques (from individual sentence to cartoon activity... and then from sentence to paragraph, and then tying all the paragraphs together into a coherent cartoon) you finally begin to catch on to what the study passage is all about.
Just stick to one sentence, one simple cartoon passage, at a time. Don't let your creative spirit wander: do a quick sentence, and move on immediately to the next sentence. At the end of the paragraph, see if you can trim down the cartoon to just the main point, too. Picture yourself as a film editor and ask: am I getting the message across?
Try it one time and see if it works. If it doesn't, move on to another strategy.
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