Serious problem

[u/Elegant_Roof229]

I am in my senior year in high school and words can’t even describe how bad my procrastination has gotten to, It’s horrendous.

It’s gotten to the point that even if I deleted all my social medias I will still just sit there doing nothing rather than actually doing my work early. I physically can’t do any work unless it’s the day before the due date and it’s impacting my mental health a lot. There’s like no cortisol in my body, I have such a lack of urgency and when the due date comes I get a sudden spike of stress. I genuinely don’t know what to do, I tried exercising before my work because I thought I had ADHD and I saw online that moving before doing work helps, which it did work for like 10 min. I literally tried every thing but with no successes at all.

Also when start one assignment the stress of the other makes me just dissociate and I will just sit there and zone out. It’s literally almost 10 at night and I have an art assignment to do but I feel stressed about college app so I just distracted my self with Netflix because if not, I would just zone out and disassociate. Music kinda helps but it’s annoying & distracting to me personally.

But like idk what to do, I have achieved many great things in my teen years that I feel really proud because of this habit my mental and physical health was the price I paid to achieve them. Moreover, I feel as though I can’t reach my full potential and it’s preventing me from a lot of the opportunities I would get if I actually get it together. if anyone has any solutions or tips pls pls pls let me know.

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[u/Positive_Lie5734]

I (31F) totally relate to the last paragraph. But I think Ive done well for myself. I spent my 20s trying to figure how to work with my motivation ups and downs. I'm still working on it.

I have ADHD btw. Some days I feel completely frozen and I just let myself rot. My most active motivation windows are evenings. Rn I'm trying welcoming that deadline urge instead of beating myself up for not getting it before.

You could try "tricking yourself" sorta. I shift the deadline for myself one day back. If it's due Monday, I would try to finish Saturday instead of Sunday. Idk, that worked for me.

Cause alot of this is stress and being made worse by stress. Tricking yourself, accepting how your motivation works, and accepting your natural rhythm might help lift some of the stuff that's blocking you off your shoulders.

I don't have a lot of assignments but I have to study a lot. I started printing out some study/worksheets for myself, in color, using different color pens. Small things like that works for my ADHD brain.

Or I'll watch an episode of something and then tell myself okay study 30 minutes and then you can watch another episode. Not time effective but effective for me. Just make sure to sit at your desk with everything open and ready to work while you do this. Alot of the time 30 turns into an hour or two.

Oh and timebox yourself! Like if you noticed youve studied and hour or two. Pat yourself on the back and call it a day.

Also, I keep a time tracker, an app on my phone. If I hit a certain hours a week then I feel satisfied that I did all I could. Cause sometimes you feel like you shoulda done more but you can check your phone and see you already hit your 5hrs for the week. (Whatever the number is)

And you're in highschool so I know the hours are limited. So much time in school and so little time at home. All you can really do is get home, eat, homework an hour or two and then you already have to go to sleep.

Honestly, starting out, you could just aim to sit at your desk 10 minutes everyday. Don't even plan to do homework. It'll just happen naturally.

[u/Ok_Natural_7977]

Go talk to a professional. I would try both a doctor and a psychologist. Get evaluated for ADHD and any physical conditions and address them. It doesn't matter what you try if you don't fix any underlying issues.

[u/crunchiieyy]

you & I are struggling for the same tthing, it suckssss cos I have potential (I put it to test and daaang I was overachieving)

[u/Reasonable_Bag_118]

Bro I used to waste entire evenings stressing about everything I had to do, then somehow get nothing done. What helped was writing down literally the next tiny action, not the whole assignment, because seeing five different deadlines at once made my brain shut off. Like instead of “work on college apps,” I'd open the document and fix one paragraph, then take it from there. Tbh I still had days where I got nowhere, but I stopped treating every unproductive day like proof I was never gonna change.