I am in high school (Italy), and i have always had serious issues with studying. I literally cannot focus into anything for more than 5 minutes or so, before my vision gets blurry and i just stop understanding what i read. And because Italian schools decided to be unique, i need to study subjects i have no interest in, like physics or latin, which are basically impossible to get into my head. I tried many methods, namely: taking regular breaks, going somewhere without any technology, studying with friends, watching videos, listening to music; but it never worked out, i’d always just drop the topics I’m studying, and i’m kinda jealous of those who study 30 minutes and get the best grades, because i can never get to what they know even in infinite time. What can i try?
I don’t?
No one does anything well when they don’t want to do it.
The real solution here isn’t to try to figure out how to force yourself to do something you don’t want to, it’s to figure out how to want to study. The people who can study a broad range of things effectively are the ones who think of themselves as good at learning, and want to understand as much possible. For most of them, part of their self story is that they’re good at learning, and understand things. That can be part of your self story too if you choose it.
I definitely don’t want to pretend that’s an easy change to make. Motivation is one of the harder things. I would like to be able to tell you how to be motivated, but I can’t. But if you’re looking for the difference between you and the ones who seem to study effortlessly, that’s it. They’re not smarter or more capable on any fundamental level. At least not at a level that matters for most things. They just actually want to do it.
I do this self story thing by telling myself a) solving certain kinds of math problems is fun so I want to have more fun, b) learning what other people have discovered is a good prerequisite for discovering something yourself, and wouldn’t that be cool; also it feels like discovering something itself, because before not know after do know.