Tips & Tricks: Managing School Assignments

If you need help keeping track of your school assignments, you might appreciate this post!

I thought it was about time I wrote a proper, thorough post about how to keep track of your assignments for school. If you’re not in school anymore, this can also be helpful for managing your work projects. Instagrammable image for this post, including a line drawing of a person sitting among piles of books. There are a few ways to manage school assignments, and what I’m going to explain here…

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Sent March 1, 2024

This can be a thing, but there are a lot of different things that can cause this kind of zoning out. The first thing that came to mind was dissociation due to trauma.

I do, however, forget what I'm saying in the middle of words sometimes, and if I don't write stuff down I will forget. I use timers to remind me that I'm cooking.

Followers, what do you think?

-J

Sent March 1, 2024

Studying is hard! A fair bit depends on what is tripping you up, but I can at least offer some general suggestions/tips.

I'm actually working on a section about this for the workbook I'm putting together, and hopefully it will be ready soon!

Followers, what are your best tips for studying?

-J

Sent March 3, 2024

A lot of this does sound similar to ADHD, yes. However, your other conditions could be causing those symptoms. It's also possible that those conditions are just making the ADHD symptoms harder to deal with. It is always worth talking with a professional about the possibility, to see if they agree that an assessment is warranted.

-J

Sent February 22, 2024

Our official position on self-diagnosis is that it's fine to do so as long as you aren't trying to use it as an excuse to get out of taking responsibility for poor behaviour. There are so many reasons people may not be able to get a formal diagnosis, and a self-diagnosis doesn't qualify you for treatment anyway.

The main problem with your mom's attitude is that you're doing fine until you aren't. Speaking from personal experience, you may be able to mask and function quite well in school because of the external structure being imposed on your time, but all of that may fall apart when you're finished high school and have to figure it all out for yourself. Even if you don't need medication or accommodations now, you may want to access one or both in post-secondary, and you'll need a diagnosis on the books in order to do that. In addition, if you're an average student right now you may find that you become much better once your symptoms are better managed and accommodated. Never mind the strategies you could learn if you access ADHD coaching!

This post will take you through the process of self-diagnosis. If you go through it and conclude that yeah, you probably do have ADHD, make a list of all the practical ways your symptoms affect your life in negative ways, and talk to your mom about those. Tell her that, if nothing else, you would like to maybe see an ADHD coach (you usually don't need a formal diagnosis for that) to see if you can learn some effective strategies to help you with these things now, before you're thrust into the unstructured, disorganized world of post-secondary education.

After you've been seeing a coach for a while, you can revisit the possibility of getting a formal diagnosis. Your coach may have some thoughts about whether that will be beneficial, too.

For a coach, I recommend looking for someone who has been trained through iACT. The owner has ADHD herself and is a Nurse Practitioner as well as a Registered Nurse. If I were to train to be a coach, this is where I would register.

-J

Hyperfixation ended

My boyfriend has ADHD. He’s acknowledged that in the beginning he was hyper fixated on me and now that feeling has gone he’s confused and thinks we should break up He says he has love for me and is so sad that it didn’t work but ultimately that feeling of being in love isn’t there Now he’s saying he’s confused and that his ADHD is to blame Is jumping ship the wrong thing to do

Sent February 5, 2024

Ouch. I’m so sorry this is happening.

You can’t force him to stay. If he for sure wants to break up, then that’s what’s happening. I would say that it is probably partly due to his ADHD, but I suspect that it’s mainly due to his definition of “being in love”.

There is a conversation to be had, about what exactly “love” is and whether “that feeling of being in love” is actually necessary in order to have a good romantic partnership.

Before I get started, I will note that this isn’t specific to ADHD. Lots of people who don’t have ADHD seem to think that if you don’t have certain feelings all the time, then you’re not really “in love” and you should definitely break up. If you want to see what I think about this whole thing, keep reading. Otherwise, no worries.

-J

Sent January 31, 2024

Hi there!

Sensory stuff (which includes finding weighted blankets beneficial) often comes along with ADHD, but it is not part of the diagnostic criteria. You can find more information about how to tell if you have ADHD over here.

-J

Sent January 19, 2024

Interruptions SUCK and can totally derail stuff, as you obviously know. (As an aside, I love the phrase "doing executive dysfunction" and I may need to steal it.)

If timers don't stress you out, you could set one for five minutes and give yourself an active break. You have to get up and do something else anyhow, might as well make it even more useful. Get up, set your timer, go find the notebook and put it on your desk, then grab a snack and some water and put them on your desk, and then pace until the timer goes off. Then return to your desk and get back into things.

If timers do stress you out, I think the key is to keep yourself from getting sucked into something else. So you need your notebook? Go find it and return to your desk immediately. Don't let yourself sit down on the couch, that is not what you're doing right now. That sort of thing.

Followers, how do you keep yourself on task when you're interrupted by something that should be simple to deal with (but we all know isn't simple because nothing is ever as easy as it ought to be)?

-J

Sent December 28, 2023

Like you, if I get too detailed on my planning then I can't keep up. Instead, I plan larger blocks of time and categories that I'll work on.

So, for example, while my kid is doing his online school in the morning, I will work on writing and editing. In the afternoon, I try to get over here (or I will be doing so now, that's supposed to be the plan!). After he's done school, I try to get some housework done. I keep lists of what to work on in each category, and I choose what to do based on what I feel capable of and what interests me in the moment. If nothing appeals to me, I just go with whatever's at the top of the list.

I did a series about planning etc. over at the Actually ADHD web site in 2022. The related printables are here: https://actuallyadhd.org/resources/printables/ and will hopefully be helpful for you. If there's something that isn't quite right, please let me know so I can work on something else.

-J

Sent January 6, 2024

I am so sorry I'm so late with this response. I hope I'm not too late to be of some assistance.

The psych will ask questions and hopefully take a good history and fill out a screener. Do your best to be honest and explain the practical ways your life is being impacted negatively by your symptoms. Another piece of advice that's been shared by others here is that you should assume that questions are asking about your bad days, not your good days.

Followers, what are your best bits of advice?

-J

Hey everyone!

I’m creating a workbook that includes information and practical suggestions, plus (of course) worksheets to help with ADHD stuff.

I have an outline and it’s going pretty well so far, but I thought I would ask you all what kinds of things you would need in such a book.

For example, I’m working on school-related stuff right now but it’s been like 20 years since I was in university. So… what ideas and worksheets would help you with school?

And anything else that comes to mind! I want to make sure this is properly helpful to as many people as possible!

-J

Sent December 7, 2023

Okay, first of all, HOORAY FOR MAKING IT TO CLASS AND KEEPING YOUR DISHES CLEAN! Regardless of anything else, those are two huge achievements. I don't care what the rest of the world thinks, I care that you did something that huge for you.

I also completely understand feeling stuck, feeling like you're drowning, feeling like a failure, not feeling able to ask for help. I'm not great at dealing with it yet, but I can at least tell you what's been helping me a little bit.

Here are a few tips about redefining success.

Success doesn't have to mean "perfect" any more than it has to mean "rich". When I was working in Early Intervention, we considered a skill mastered when the student was able to do it correctly 80% of the time. It sounds to me like you did that this year, even if it didn't result in passing grades.

When you don't get that 80%, look at where things broke down so you can try and keep that from happening next time. For example, did you struggle with completing assignments on time? Maybe you need to get extensions on the due date. Maybe you need to break an assignment down into smaller steps and give each step a deadline so you can get it done and turned in on time. I obviously don't know, but if you need help figuring that stuff out we can help if you give more details.

Followers, do you have any words of celebration or encouragement (or both!)? Please share!

-J

Sent December 8, 2023

There are a lot of different reasons this may be happening, and the first one that comes to mind is that your dose may be too low.

There is another aspect that's important, and that is the need to manage your expectations.

Medication doesn't make all of your ADHD symptoms go away. It doesn't make you neurotypical. It doesn't magically give you the skills you never learned due to ADHD stuff.

It sounds like you have quite severe ADHD (hi! Same here!), which makes every single little thing harder. But here's the Really Simplified Explanation about how meds help.

Let's say that a person's overall functioning can be rated on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is "completely neurotypical" and 10 is "completely non-functional".

Given this, your unmedicated ADHD is at a 7 or 8, and it sounds like your medication is pulling you to around a 5, or maybe a 4. This sounds awful, but what it does is give you the ability to actually learn the skills you need so that you stand a chance of being slightly more functional when you're off your meds.

The other part of this is that the Big Four (sleep, diet, exercise, & stress) also affect your functioning, and if any of them is out of whack then your medication won't be able to help as much. So having something screwing with you may put you at a 9, and then your meds will only be able to get you to a 6.

Things that may help with the issues you've listed here include active breaks, fidget toys, and lots of routines. We have lots of information about all of these here, but if you want specific information about any of it please feel free to ask.

Followers, what do you think about this situation? Do you have any advice?

-J

Book: The Procrastination Equation Subtitle: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done Author: Piers Steel, PhD Publisher: Random House Canada Year: 2010

This isn't going to be a really formal book review or anything, I just thought I'd provide you guys with the pertinent information, in case you want to read it yourselves. :)

So, basically, Piers Steel is an industrial psychologist who specializes in procrastination. He teaches at the University of Calgary, in the Haskayne School of Business. He started studying procrastination because he procrastinated, so once again we have an expert who used his own problems to influence his studies. :D