A study challenge for neurodivergent people
I’m sorry this got so long but I wanted to include everything that I found to be important. I don’t know if someone would be interested to try this challenge out. I would feel very honored if someone did. Just in case I tried to phrase the rules so they address others. If this is formulated confusingly, too long or contains mistakes I’m sorry. But my brain is a chaotic mess today and English is not my first language.
Why did I create this challenge?
As my final a level exams start in a few weeks I wanted to do a study challenge, that motivates me to prepare as well as I can.
Most challenges that I found sounded really good. Some provided a very exact rhythm or gave you one specific task per day, others (like the 100 dop challenge) were more open. But I think it will still be impossible for me sticking to one. Every time I wanted to do such a challenge I gave up after a short period of time - sometimes I didn’t even start.
So I thought of the main reasons why it didn’t work for me:
The pressure to do it right/perfectionism
Negative emotions and therefore avoidance/repression
So I tried to create a challenge that doesn’t pressure me. A challenge that respects the individual and doesn’t just provides a set of strict rules. And a challenge that is not boring after a short amount of time. At the same time it should be easy and helpful. (For someone that generally doesn’t have those problems and already has a method that works it is the wrong challenge though.)
The challenge’s purpose is not to get perfect grades in every subject. It hopefully helps people that don’t know how to start or how to study.
The underlying idea: it is always better to do little than nothing and failing is helpful as you gain experience or knowledge.
Do it for 20 days. Which doesn’t mean that you do it day after day. You can do just one day per week. Or you make a four day break after day seven. Or study every two days. You decide which days count and which days do not. Why? this way you don’t feel pressured and if you’re a perfectionist, you don’t need to stop after you missed one day as you simply can’t miss a day.
Study at least one unit every day. You define what a unit is for you. It could be 30 minutes for example. Why? People have different attention spans and preferences. Instead of forcing your brain to do something that doesn’t suit you, you can decide how much you are able to do.
Try something different/add something new every day. That means that you never do the exact same routine every day. Try out different locations, methods, strategies, stationary, time spans, concepts every day. One day you might listen to Beethoven and the other day you use only blue stationary. It doesn’t matter if it’s studying at an unusual time or place, eating unusual snacks or just listening to binaural beats - the fancier the better. Why? So you don’t get bored, are motivated because you can try out new things and it will also help you to find out what study methods work for you.
Make your effort visible: At the end of every day you write down what and how you studied. Add whether it worked/ was helpful and if you enjoyed it. Share it with the world or just write it into your journal. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that is important is that you keep it in the same place so you see your effort and don’t lose it.
At the end of your challenge you were productive for 20 days. It doesn’t matter whether you could’ve studied longer, more effective etc. etc. Even if your, you profit from it. You learned what you like and don’t like. You learned what methods you could apply to the future and what doesn’t help you at all.
