advice for studying

Mordecai

Hello, i apologies in advance, idk if this forum is for my problem, but YOLO,

Basically, i have AuADHD (not medicated) i finnished school, relativley long ago, but, i noticed a problem, when i want to learn something, i first get " i want that" feeling, then, i try to acually do it, and im like " how do F i do this" i realised i don't know how this should look like, how do i know it works etc, it made me sad at beginning, but as i age, last year, i got severley depressed, reason being, i felt like time is moving and im same place, i want to do many things, from languages,Chemistry, Philosophy, but im incapable of doing it

Few months ago, thinking, i came to conclusion that there are fundamentals in life, or i bealive that they are.

Studying
Note taking
Researching
Cross-referencing
Testing

Probably more,but forgot them, i bealive if i learn how to do these activity's, i can learn anything to extenct, not that i would be better at X bc i know how go take notes, but the progress in the field would be more smoother if i know so called " fundamentals"

Wdy guys think? And suggestion,Advice is welcomed, and i apologies if i missed the point of thhe forum, forum seems nice. Thank you

andang76

Hi Mordecai, I don't know much about your condition, so I wouldn't feel qualified to give you specific advice about how it may affect your learning.

One thing that came to mind while reading your post is something quite simple: when you put your thoughts somewhere outside your head (on paper, in a note on your computer), does that help you in any way compared to keeping everything in your head?

If so, yes, externalizing your thoughts can already make a surprisingly big difference: you can come back to previous thoughts and connect things that would otherwise disappear from your memory.

Regarding your list of fundamentals, I think you're probably onto something. Studying, researching, testing, taking notes and connecting things are useful skills. But I don't think you need to learn all of them before you can start learning something.

My advice would be: just try, and start as simply as possible.

When you have a thought, try to write it down in a simple way.
When you read something, formulate a question about it, try to answer it, and write that answer down in a note.
When you don't remember a thing, read again a note you have written in the past. You have written it for this purpose.

You don't need a complicated system at the beginning.
Just start externalizing your thinking and see where it takes you.

Mr_Minor_Chord

@Mordecai said:
Basically, i have AuADHD (not medicated) i finnished school, relativley long ago, but, i noticed a problem, when i want to learn something, i first get " i want that" feeling, then, i try to acually do it, and im like " how do F i do this" i realised i don't know how this should look like, how do i know it works etc, it made me sad at beginning, but as i age, last year, i got severley depressed, reason being, i felt like time is moving and im same place, i want to do many things, from languages,Chemistry, Philosophy, but im incapable of doing it

There are dozens of answers to questions like the "how" of learning, how it should look, how you know it works etc. This should make us feel free, but it also terrifies us, especially those of us who finished school and find trouble learning outside of school. A lot of adults don't even try. I commend you for trying, and I also think it's great that you identified practices that you think are helpful for you:

@Mordecai said:
Studying
Note taking
Researching
Cross-referencing
Testing

My advice would be to pick one method of studying, note-taking, testing, etc. and try to stick to it for 3-months like a kind of experiment. You mentioned chemistry and languages, so a flashcard system like Anki would be a great Testing experiment for those subjects, for example. Don't worry too much about picking the right method right away, because the point of experimenting is that we can move on if we don't like it.