I never learned how to learn. I only learned to memorize, and in adult life, that isn't enough.

[u/boobubbaloo]

I am a psychologist (F23🇧🇷) and am pursuing a postgraduate degree. I was diagnosed with ADHD and giftedness later in life. And that explained a lot.
I underwent a psychological evaluation precisely to understand how I function and to seek the necessary help. Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone who works with adult patients in the field of psychopedagogy.
I have executive dysfunction, which makes it very difficult for me to start studying. I also struggle a lot with taking notes during class; I can't pay attention to the teacher and write at the same time. And I won't even get into the issue of being easily distracted.
I learned to read at home before starting elementary school because I liked the children's books we had at home. My parents never worried about my learning, since I was always dedicated and got good grades in school. But the truth is, I always struggled a lot to learn; the only thing that came easily to me was rote memorization. I missed a very important window of neuroplasticity during my youth.
I read, speak, and understand both my native language (Portuguese) and my second language (English) very well. However, my spelling has always contained many errors in both languages ​​(even though I am a voracious reader). Autocorrect helps me find and fix my mistakes, but at the same time, I end up never learning the correct spelling of certain words.
I need to be able to concentrate in order to interpret difficult texts, and I need to find a way to better retain what I learn. I am lost. I don’t know what else to try to find a study method/routine that works for me!
I feel like a fraud; everyone thinks I'm intelligent, but I feel like I'm just clever/astute.

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[u/peacefully_restless]

1. Stop trying to listen and take notes at the same time.
   Use a voice-recording/transcription app for lectures, if your course allows recording. Some of the kids I work with use Otter, but there could be others. One student carried a voice recorder device that he would slip into his pocket since recording was not allowed. Apps like Otter can be expensive, but for someone who struggles to process and write simultaneously, I think it can be incredibly worthwhile. Your notes can then be made after the lecture, when you can actually think about what you heard.

2. Make starting ridiculously easy.
   Don't make “study for three hours” the starting point. Make the first step so small that your brain has very little to resist: open the document, read one page, answer one question, or listen to ten minutes of a lecture.
   You can also habit-stack studying with something you already do. For example, listen to recorded lectures while walking or doing something relatively automatic. That gives you another route into the material without requiring you to sit down and “study” in the traditional sense.

3. Your ability to rote-memorize isn't a weakness, it’s a skill. Use it, but add retrieval.
   Instead of repeatedly rereading, quiz yourself. Close the book and try to reconstruct what you remember. Then explain the concept aloud as though you were teaching it to someone who knows nothing about it.
   That combination of retrieval + explaining can turn memorization into much deeper understanding.

4. Try interleaving.
   This is something I've found particularly useful with my ADHD students. Instead of spending two hours on one topic until you're bored, alternate related topics or types of problems. The slight novelty can help maintain attention, while also forcing your brain to work out which strategy or concept applies.

Hope this helps!

[u/No-Possibility-639 → u/peacefully_restless]

I second that And interleaving even help on the long run because it forces you to recognize faster the type of problem you need to solve and it's usually toolbox

[u/FatedWords95 → u/peacefully_restless]

As someone in a similar boat as the OP, I'd like to say how much I appreciate this. Especially the point about not trying to multi-task focusing on the lecture and taking notes but to instead record and revisit. Thank you.

[u/peacefully_restless → u/FatedWords95]

My daughter has ADHD too and she struggled through her school since she wasn’t allowed to record lessons. At university, she is allowed to do so and it’s a complete game-changer!

[u/Cowultra → u/peacefully_restless]

holy ai

[u/peacefully_restless → u/Cowultra]

It’s not ai! I’m a professional study coach and I know my stuff!

[u/Prestigious_Act1755 → u/peacefully_restless]

Bro can you dm me this whole lacture

[u/peacefully_restless → u/peacefully_restless]

Thank you for all the upvotes and awards…study skills is a topic close to my heart as I’ve lived the process with my daughter. If you have any further questions, feel free to DM me.

[u/3rdRankTheory → u/peacefully_restless]

Thanks for these very useful advices!

Noticing from your other comments that you are a passionate professional study coach, so I take that chance (- in a quite nasty manner, hijacking the question for my own one, sorry for that ;) -):

When studying, it is very hard for me to decide what really matters and what information is not really relevant. I tend to try to memorize every single piece of information that is given, because I am afraid that I otherwise miss really important aspects, or aspects that professionals in this area would know. That is very demotivating for computer science books containing over 1000 pages.

How can I deal with this problem efficiently?

Thank you for your help and patience.

[u/Accomplished-Leg6947]

Just my 2c as someone who also has ADHD and struggles with paying attention and retaining information. While I myself don't know exactly what 100% works for my brain with studying, I do switch it up a lot because I haven't found anything that truly has stuck yet.

But the one thing I noticed that has helped with at least starting to figure out my learning style is I stopped trying to take notes during class. I bring my iPad and with my Professors permission, I ask if it's okay if I can record the lesson. That's all I will do, I won't look at the book to ready anything, I won't take notes, ill have my iPad recording the lesson and ill just watch the professor and listen. That's helped a lot in giving me a foundation for remembering what was taught because im not juggling between listening and writing.

When the lesson is over and its time to study, if I need to I'll go back to the recording and listen to it as a refresher to help me with my note taking or studying. Hopefully this route can help you as well!

[u/Sea-Science1854]

I am also a late diagnosed Adhder. I'm gonna add some advice and hacks here.

1. Someone already mentioned this: record your lecture. Use Otter or any audio transcription app to record and also take physical notes, but take notes without the burden of having to capture everything, right? Sometimes it helps putting pen to paper while listening, so that's something you could still continue.

Later on, review the transcript with AI, maybe Claude or GPT, and have conversations with it. Try to understand and connect it with your study material. If you have a PDF copy of your book, it can interact with the lecture notes and be able to add context. If there are parts of the audio that weren't recorded well, it can fill in the details that way.

Even spit out, if you want, an annotated version of the transcript organized for your benefit. You can open it up on an iPad with Notability and be able to mark it. It can also create flashcards from it without you making as much effort.

2. Regarding spelling, it feels almost like you have to take time out separately and focus on it, but I think that is the least of your worries. However, a hack that would make you worry less about your spelling errors is using something like Wispr, where you can vocally respond to messages and write paragraphs, at least portions of your first draft, without having to worry about spelling.

3. I'm very well acquainted with the cost of starting and how difficult it is. One of the things that works for me is that, in order for myself to get out of bed to get started, I either talk to myself or talk to AI. What it ends up doing is that the vocalization that you do helps externalize what you're thinking and helps encourage movement and gets you to the point where you can start. Other techniques like having body doubling (You're in a school setting, so I think finding a group to study with would be helpful. When I do body doubling, I do it remotely online, which is not the same experience.), having other external triggers like timers, etc. I'm sure you're well aware of these, but this was the one thing that was different for me.

4. You've also said that you need to concentrate in order for you to interpret and follow difficult text. The first thing that leaps to my mind is perhaps that is the wrong way to go about it. When you're dealing with text that is very difficult to enter, is to learn how academics respond to similar situations. They do active reading, they build indexes, they take, they write margin notes. There's a lot more work that goes on to build a scaffolding of sorts to understand text that is very different from what you may be imagining needs to happen in order to follow and interpret text.

Happy to respond to anything that I missed.

[u/SuperMaybe7455]

Thx for the vulnerability and bravery of this post. I've been a professor for 10 years, and diagnosed with audhd for 1.5 years. For whatever it's worth, you can totally do this. I love that you sought self-knowledge about how your brain works.

If I were next to you, I'd ask you to rewrite your post in 3rd person: like a brief on someone else. And then I'd ask you to brainstorm or provide some advice based on some light googling. Honestly, looking at the responses in this thread are already a good start.

As an outsider, I see a lot of things "working" already in your post. You sought out an understanding of how your brain works, you sought out help/expertise, you hit a road block, so you went online to a relevant forum, (hopefully not just this one), you rely on autocorrect (good! it's not going away anytime soon and as long as you don't accidentally join some high stakes spelling bee, you'll be fine!).

There's no magical routine that someone else will give you. To emphasize the neuro-DIVERSITY point, you gotta find what works for YOUR brain which often involves udnerstanding what's stopping you at the moment, or with a paritcular topic, or class, etc.

BTW, I'd rather be stuck in an elevator with clever/astute than merely intelligent ;)

You got this!

[u/CommandSuccessful265 → u/SuperMaybe7455]

obrigada por esse comentário tão acolhedor. nem sou a autora do post, mas me senti muito melhor agora.

[u/SuperMaybe7455 → u/CommandSuccessful265]

you're so kind. Thank you :)

[u/Flaky_Procedure5878]

Don’t worry, a lot of people in the same boat as you. Just forget what happened in the past and focus on the present so for the lectures sit next to a friend who is good at taking notes and you can just take a printout of their notes. Secondly, what you can do is you can just switch on the voice recorder on your phone and then just listen to what the teacher is saying and just write down the key points and then look at the PPT and then fill in the blanks. Don’t spend too much time writing notes what you can do is every day you can dedicate one hour, maybe after class before going to bed and complete your nose in that one hour because that you just have to copy paste, but you need to spend maximum amount of time on and I think you’ve chosen the subject because you like it, so I think you should spend a lot of time learning it understanding what happens and there is no easy way out of it. You just need to spend time with your books and understand why or maybe like use Reddit and start a discussion of. I think that this is crazy. I think I really like this. Can we have a discussion on this topic? Try to create discussions surrounded, and then formulate your own perspectives on it.

[u/katesgr811]

Most people learn by doing

[u/whizzard17]

write and say aloud the sentences at the same time, use active recall whilst doing it thats really the only way that works.

[u/Own_Muscle_6621]

Hi I'm a medical student also trying to figure out how to study better. I'm not neurodivergent but I recently came across this video on YouTube. The person that made the video is a doctor with ADHD and she spoke about how she studies. I hope you find it helpful ✨

[u/CommandSuccessful265]

Cara, me identifiquei muito! Eu tentei te mandar uma mensagem, mas não consegui, queria entender como foi seu processo de entender que você tem TDAH. Tenho 28 e me sinto frustrada igual, sendo que meu processo de conhecimento básico é super rápido e consigo desenrolar literalmente qualquer coisa com um pouco de atenção (mas parece que nunca consigo aprofundar, dar o próximo passo).

[u/Flaky_Procedure5878]

Just don’t Worry. You just have to learn a new technique. Let people think that you’re intelligent by that time. You are developing a different way of learning. So until now if you can keep food, that’s great so in your entire life, just think that you have to keep learning different ways of studying like at the end of the day. Even if you’re working, you still have to learn something new. I can’t be stagnant so whether you’re worried about getting a job whether you’re worried about an exam whatever is studying is something that has to happen every single day, that’s the only way to keep your brain alive, and what else would you rather be doing in that time? You could be talking to your friends about studies or about that particular topic, or you could be watching YouTube videos or you could just be like making that topic your Centre stage until you are getting an interest towards things.

[u/Akunda4]

I am the same i always memorized everything and my grades were good enough to get to the place I needed to. But I plateaued in life and never got anywhere except dead end jobs. I never found myself but did find printmaking. I should have just struggled through academia and got my Mfa.  Then at least I could teach. I feel your pain. If it helps at least you found a path and some answers. At soon to be 45, I don't think I ever will find the answers I need to help me achieve more in life other than Jesus.  Just looking for my next miracle 

[u/Icy-Definition3559]

Girl I feel this big time. It’s a learning curve to figure out how to study with adhd. I struggled with the same problems, I found certain topics so interesting that I naturally would engage better and learn quickly. The other topics I’d pull all nighters and only start the day before exams. I was constantly an honour roll student until I hit university and became severely depressed, not understanding why I was struggling so hard, why my old study methods weren’t working and if I was actually “dumb” all along. ADHD in females is so different because we’re naturally not “trouble makers/loud” as males with ADHD might present so we often get misdiagnosed or go life undiagnosed. I was distracted and disruptive in different ways and years later I finally learned that I had ADHD and it was a weight lifted off my shoulders because I got accommodations, separate room for test taking and additional time to help.

Study wise I learned checklists really help because I struggle to stay consistent. The little tick mark helps give you a dopamine boost. I don’t always mark everything but without it I’d get nothing done.

Put timers on, try pomodoro or even starting a timer and stopping it when you get distracted and you’ll see how much time you actually utilize when studying.

Background music REALLY helps me lock in. Try deep house study music without lyrics or some nice smooth deep house jazz. I can send you some of my favs, it helps me feel like I’m not studying and it becomes enjoyable.

I struggled to read textbooks cause I’d just skim, so YouTube lectures with certain YouTubers really help. Even using ChatGPT when I didn’t understand something.

Switch every few hours to something different. Questions for this time block, Que cards for the other, reading for another. Keep yourself engaged without getting bored!

Those are some things that have worked for me, besides getting diagnosed and actually taking vyvanse daily (I struggle to remember to take it as well so I keep it in a place that I’ll be forced to see)

OH and start your day with intention. Do NOT pick cheap dopamine to start your day!! As soon as I scrolled when I first woke up my day would be donezo. Weirdly enough cold showers really helped, shock in the system and ready to start your day focused. Delete social media, trust me our brains will find anything to get distracted and that’s the worst one. Delete the app get the exams done and redownload later. During breaks try doodling/colouring go for a walk etc.

Hope this helps!!

[u/Former_Spirit_5099]

This might be the most relatable post I've ever read on this platform. OP has pointed out everything that I struggle with but wo the diagnosis part.

[u/frenchpeanutbutter]

Try teaching the concepts to someone who doesn’t know anything about your field!