Every once in a while I get really passionate about some topic of study or a project, dive into it head first, devote all my (hopefully spare) time to it. Occasionally it has even been detrimental to my wellbeing. Like once I permanently fucked my stomach by skipping too many meals during a week long programing project.
Yet, nine out of ten times the whole shebang doesn't amount to anything. After a week or so I loose all interest and drop the whole thing.
Now, I'm getting one of those obsessions about learning a language and it got me thinking about the best way to deal with it. Maybe I should try pacing myself, stop myself from spending too much time everyday learning and maybe it will prevent me from burning out and losing interest in a week or two? Maybe trying to cram information into your brain ten hours a day is not an effective way to learn? Or maybe it's the opposite and the smart thing is to use this short period when I'm excited and eager to study to learn as much as possible?
Do any of you guy have experience with something like this?
That's a bummer. This means I would be able to get medicinal speed in a nicer country, but here in Russia quality treatment for ADD/ADHD isn't a thing.
Maybe I'll make do with meditation. I got obsessed with meditation like a month ago.
It does help somewhat, like it doesn't make actually doing stuff less painful but it makes it much easier to realize when your brain is trying to drag you off topic.
Weightlifting / rock-climbing / any resistance training helps.
Getting your sleep sorted helps (avoid melatonin and magnesium, but trazodone is pretty cool).
If you can't get access to stimulants, caffeine works. Tea works better than coffee because of the Theanine in it.
Interesting. I used to do rock climbing before I fucked up my knee and I drink hilarious amounts of tea so I guess I figured out those things intuitively.
When I hear people with autism talk about their fixation they seem to sustain them for long periods of time. My problem is not so much that I occasionally get those intense bouts of obsession, but that they go away after a couple of weeks and I'm left spending my evening scrolling through twitter or watching random videos on YouTube instead of learning or creating anything.
This sounds more like ADHD than autism imo, because the distractability is an important hallmark of ADHD. Once the novelty that sucked you into the new hobby starts to fade, your focus falls off a cliff. As far as I understand autism, the focused interests are much more durable than that.
I've got ADHD but not autism and your post is basically doxxing me lmao
yeah I'll tend to categorize my fixations like this as either hyperfixation or special interest
Hyperfixation is more of what you're describing: my life is entirely consumed by a topic for a few weeks, then I quickly lose interest and never come back to it, and until I have something else to fill the void I end up feeling very bored and not doing much at all. This can be associated with both autism and ADHD but tends to be associated with ADHD more often. For me it's more like "I just watched this TV show and it's the greatest thing I've ever seen. I will spend the next 2 weeks rewatching it on loop, reading fan theories, learning all the in-universe lore, reading interviews with the creators, and now that 2 weeks are up and I've squeezed every drop of serotonin out of this show I will probably not pick it up again for another 5 years minimum" or like "I am starting a new hobby like knitting, I'm spending all my free time researching knitting and watching tutorials and picking out knitting patterns, and I've finally gotten some knitting supplies and started knitting half a scarf and my interest is over, time to put the yarn away in the corner and look at it guiltily while I scroll through twitter until eventually I don't even see it when I look at it and forgot I ever did it"
Special interest is more often associated with autism, that's more like if a topic that I'm really interested in comes up I can and will talk for hours and hours about it if nobody stops me, and I will frequently spend time researching or engaging with the topic over a number of years. It's less like "I need to be engaged with this topic at all times" and more like "I have been putting the vast majority of skill points into Trains and Railway Infrastructure for the last few years and if we get stopped at a railway crossing I will not shut up about the kind of train that went past, where it was probably going, where it was probably coming from, what kind of locomotive was attached and all of the technical specs about that locomotive, how the crossing signal infrastructure works, etc, etc, etc"
I have been putting the vast majority of skill points into Trains and Railway Infrastructure for the last few years and if we get stopped at a railway crossing I will not shut up about the kind of train that went past, where it was probably going, where it was probably coming from, what kind of locomotive was attached and all of the technical specs about that locomotive, how the crossing signal infrastructure works, etc, etc, etc
Hello, you called me?
Every time I open a page like this it re-enforces the fact that I almost certainly have ADHD. I went for testing and was not diagnosed.
I really don't know, I feel like most of it was for autism maybe. I did visual puzzles, some memory games, and they tested how fast I could tap a button. I really didn't get much out of the whole thing, and apparently it's extremely difficult to get adhd medication where I live.
Huh that's weird. ADHD is typically diagnosed through a combination of general interview with an experienced adhd expert and the Conners Test. This test is a simple questionnaire that produces a points-based result, you can literally do it for yourself right now although you may need to look up certain elements. Here are a couple, one here and
I don't know what country you're in but over here we can specifically ask for a referral to an adhd specialist. It sounds like you're getting sandbagged by someone earlier in the process and need to get past them to the people that can actually diagnose and help you.
I would look up specifically what you need to say or do in your country to get past whatever stage is the barrier for you in order to get to the people that matter. Over here we're fortunate in that we can ask for a referral and the GP can not refuse to refer. Downside is waiting lists.
Sucks, hope you can figure it out! You just gotta get to a proper adhd specialist for that actual diagnosis.
I wrote a few paragraphs to this because I can relate A LOT. Deleted it all tho.
Just wanted to say you are not alone!
:meow-hug:
I try to work on it sometimes and I enjoy it when I actually sit down and do it, but I always find ways to avoid it, because what if it’s not any good?... it doesn’t leave me alone – I feel guilty and it’s always prodding the back of my mind
Damn but if that doesn't describe me to a T. The weirdest part is, like you said, I know I enjoy writing. Once I start, I get lost in it. Finally summon up the courage to write, say to myself I'll only write a line or a paragraph because if I'd do that every day it'd amount to something, then I'll write a thousand words. But actually starting is so hard. And I know if I could find the discipline to just push through the fear and do it every day I'd be better off—even if I never publish anything I'd still be better for it, I think—but it's so much easier to surf the web, or play a game I've already played before, or listen to podcasts, or watch YouTube (hell, sometimes I even read books) than it is to actually do something difficult.
I prevent this by having so many things I'm obsessed with I bounce between them and never spend long enough on one single thing to burn myself out.
That's what I would prefer but for some reason that's not how my brain works.
I suspect the only reason I can do that is medication.
Unfortunately that's kinda how ADHD works. All the tips and therapies and shit do nothing without medication. Medication makes it possible to do any of those hacks.
yeah, i get this with pretty much any project i do
just like a week of hyperfocus then burnoutI have this too, it's a common feature of ADHD which I have. Hyperfixation can sometimes be really cool but sometimes it can suck, especially when your hyperfixation makes it harder to live your life.
My newest hyperfixation is anime, so that's fun. :ohnoes:
if you're reading a lot about a subject but falling behind on necessary daily upkeep, you can switch it up and listen to a lecture/ podcast on the same topic while also doing another useful activity that is unrelated but simple enough to not be distracting. like, crocheting, drawing, doing meal-prep (!), spending time with / observing animal friends (bird watching on walks perhaps, with headphones?), tidying up, cleaning firearms, etc. so you're building skills, improving your ability to focus, taking care of yourself physically, or taking care of just general everyday business at the same time. the secondary activity can't involve language (such as idk organizing your emails, sorting out junk mail, texting), imo, since you're still trying to absorb the audio content of the subject you're passionately intent on mastering.
something that slows me down with this strategy is the process of picking out podcasts or lectures to listen to. so I've started just saving them for later when I see them out and about on the web! Hexbear has been a hugely important source for such things
or yeah you could pick out a secondary interest that is complementary to your other one. ive definitely noticed that when I get obsessed with a singular topic, I have a lot harder time socializing because it's all I want to talk about. lol
My solution is to rotate interests/hobbies, try to find clear stopping points and put the hobby into 'stasis', when it's done. Pick it back up when you're interested, or even just bored. This works better for some interests than others. But I have like 5-6 hobbies skills that I'm slowly building as I have the interest.
Yeah just accept you make lots of progress in bursts and do your best to solidify progress when you feel like taking a break.
It's ok to have hobbies that don't come back as well,
My (less obsessive though) way is after burn out try to spare 2-4 hours during week on things I’ve burned myself out of, so I won’t lose my sunk cost completely. Continue programming project, or finish book or continue studying. Then I have better pacing with burning stuff, cause I still have to spare some hours on previous interests, and it serves as a lesson to my brain not to overcommit on new passion, as old passions serve as reminder. Maybe something like this will help :meow-bernie:
Do you have any tips for forcing yourself to continue doing those things you're burn out on, even if on a smaller scale?
Protracted negotiations with brain.
Kinda like:
- okay, you want to do this new exciting stuff
🧠 :yes-hahaha-yes-l:
-but remember we did this other exciting stuff, we even learnt something useful for this new exciting stuff
🧠 :sicko-no:
- okay, let’s say we do this stuff for a half an hour, and then we can go hog wild. Kinda like eating veggies.
🧠 I guess
The point, for me at least, is spent some minuscule time (even 15 minutes) on something other. if I get bored, I have more measured approach to new shiny thing, if I don’t get bored, I have spent some time doing something else, and be less burnouty with new thing.
So while this is writing advice, it can work for any project. From "The Elements of Academic Style"
Writing every day is difficult because everyone has any number of other things to do, most of which frighten them much less than writing. The key is to carve out a very small period of time for writing each day, putting it in both your physical and mental calendars, and convincing yourself that having that time is a way of taking care of yourself. Once that is done, you need to protect your writing time vigorously, both from others and from yourself. This means definitively scheduling this time and not moving it around or interrupting it, even when it seems perfectly reasonable to do so. Doctors, plumbers, teachers, friends, students, and even your family and children will all live, and live happily, if you consistently refuse to be available from, say, 9 to 10 every morning. Or even 9 to 9:30
Part of building this habit involves speaking about it others. Narrating your process (I do X for Y minutes a day; I do X for Z minutes during breaks; then I start again) by sharing it with friends helps externalize it, and makes it something that exists outside your own drive and desire. A pattern’s external existence makes it easier for you to feel responsible to it, rather than treating it as an easily modifiable expression of your current mood or state of affairs. In other words, it makes it a habit
Make small goals and meet them. Whether you choose to write for a time or to a word count, you will sometimes not reach your goal for the day. One of the most important things my advisor Jane Gallop taught me was that unmet goals don’t create habits. For this reason you absolutely need to focus on giving yourself small, easily achievable goals. Don’t plan to write four pages a day; don’t try to write eight hours a day (or two hours a day when you’re teaching). Focus on the slow and steady. Your job is to making meeting goals a regular part of your life, to become a goal-meeting person.
Above all, don’t add today’s “gap” to tomorrow’s task. If you only wrote one page today, that does not mean you have to write three pages tomorrow. Sitting down to write three pages is harder than sitting down to write two, which makes your habit-creating pattern that much harder to begin. Those extra pages have a way of spiraling out of control, leading to a day when, faced with the idea that you have to “catch up” by ten pages or so, you simply give up and eat a bag of Doritos instead. (I have done this, by the way. The chips were delicious.)
Now, obviously this is for "writing," but I think a lot of it applies to any self-motivated task of creation. Basically, the tl;dr:
- Set a reasonable amount of time daily (you can take weekends off) to work on your task.
- Give yourself a goal for each day, and hit that goal (for instance, I'm going to write for 30 minutes straight)
- Don't put yourself in "debt" when you don't meet a goal, but reward yourself when you do.
I have a full PDF but would need to know how to wipe all identifying data before sharing to comrades - don't want to inadvertently dox myself.
Yeah that is an odd omission. Probably some academia ivory tower shit pretending as if graduate students and junior scholars don't have bosses. Maybe once you're tenured you can get away with that, but yeah, some definite ideology.
:zizek:
This is really good. If the book we're talking about is Eric Hayot's The Elements of Academic Style: Writing for the Humanities it's already on LibGen. Should I read it or is it all the relevant advice it has?
Yes. The relevant chapter is chapter 3 - "Eight Strategies for Getting Writing Done."
(So to clarify, that whole chapter is all that's really relevant. I've chosen the juciest bits, but there's some other good advice in there)
The rest is more focused towards writing in the humanities, but the strategies in Chapter 3 I feel are very portable. When he talks about days that you teach, you can insert whatever there - days you've worked at your alienating job, days that your job made you work overtime, etc.
I'm still working to implement them, but every month that I've stayed on the daily writing practice, I've done more work overall than any binge/purge cycle of writing I've been on. The trouble is keeping up on it after a vacation or such. I need to still learn how to always do something towards my writing (so like, reading some article or doing research in lieu of actual writing when I'm on vacation with my partner, just to keep the momentum going).
why not start watching tv or listening to the radio in that language while you do other things
This is a great way to learn when you're at least at intermediate level. Watching English language tv shows is what made me proficient in English.
But with this new language I'm just starting out. I've watched a show with subs and while it's a lot of fun and occasionally I hear a word I already know or hear an interesting sounding word and look it up, generally it's not an effective way to learn for a beginner.
Like I'm not a huge anime fan but in the past fifteen years I probably watched at least 30 shows in Japanese with subtitles and I know maybe 20 japanese words and zero grammar.
Big fucking mood here. I accomplish nothing, but I have learned a lot of things.
