Those who went from good student, to great college student, to disorganized dopamine mess post college what do you do to manage yourself and get back to that organization and level of focus?
You don't! Or at least I didn't. Slowly finding habits that help me care for myself on a somewhat regular basis. Accepting I have limits and moderating my activity accordingly. Modifying my environment to keep me on track enough.
Make doing things important to me easy and saying goodbye to lower priority stuff I can't manage. Finding a balance I can keep. Being realistic about what I can and can't commit to.
I haven't gotten back to that yet.
But I'm on meds now. So the next thing I'm gonna try to do is fill my schedule a bit more. If I'm doing more, that's less time for my brain to fill that time with analysis paralysis and more time doing stuff I enjoy. The byproduct, hopefully, is that my brain will just be happier overall with the added stimulation. Or so the theory goes, at least.
Sorry. I was the opposite. College was a slow decline as I burned out. Literally started first semester with straight A's and ended my fifth year (yeah not a good idea to grab another major) with mix of c's and d's. If I had gone any longer I would have washed out.
You assume is was organized or focused in school or college as opposed to just generally curious enough to know tons of information while also being able to focus on lectures (because most were in topics I was interested in, especially in college) without taking lots of notes that made me pretty good at tests.
The reality? I got diagnosed and on meds and looking to therapy to close the gap. It turns out my grades were driven by good test taking and an ability to churn out a BS ridden paper that should have taken weeks in a day or two of pure panic. I have never needed to take a test at work to get my job done, and have grown weary of the panic fueled rushes to get things done by deadlines.
My college highlight was starting a 6 page paper on a book I never read, five hours before it was due. Got a B.
Thanks for sharing! I also recently thrice best under that insane pressure but I don’t love it.
I took as many summer courses as I could because it condensed a whole semester into a month. 3hr classes a day, test at the end of every week. I HAD to start studying and do homework at a certain time or I wouldn't finish before it would cut way too much into my sleep. A whole month of regimented heavy pressure to do my work. Those were my best grades.
Yeah, it's okay when the work isn't super challenging or you can stay on top of the workload coming in. But when the work becomes actually challenging and/or you start getting too much to stay on top of naturally it leads to burnout really fast which just sucks (like I've contemplated quitting a job I generally really like from it).
I don't. Organization and focus is overrated, I thrive without them no problem.
I use tools. Lists for home projects and chores. For work I use JIRA to organize tasks. Seems to help me. I don't take any medication yet because I was recently diagnosed.
I went from top of the class to "smart, but lacking effort" before I got to high school.
Haven't really moved on from that phase since.
Personally, I use Hemi-Sync focus frequencies.
What does this mean