i keep forgetting everything
doesnt work
Well, not controlling your Z, and just being awake whenever, won’t help you either. A good nights rest is vital for the brain.
its very difficult to sleep a lot when you have both insomnia and noisy neighbors
Insomnia is very important clue in your puzzle. It doesn’t come from nothing and sleep is a time when brain processes stuff for memorization.
Why can’t you sleep?
Maybe racing thoughts? Maybe you can’t put away your phone? Maybe something else?idk but even if im thinking of nothing and without any devices im just unable to sleep…man i fsckin hate adhd
my neighbor making noise at 3am does NOT help
You’re studying wrong.
I’ve got no suggestion on how to study correctly as we all learn in different ways but whatever you’re doing now clearly isn’t working.
As an example, I’ve got ADHD and I learn through doing. I could spend eight hours miserably staring at text books and retain nothing… but if I instead study by constructing or finding an applicable problem and struggle through solving it I’ll retain quite a bit.
i have adhd too and sadly trying to apply that…welp i spent 4 hours trying to solve a problem and i never got it right, i seem to only remember what i dont need
If you can’t solve that problem, can you solve another slightly easier problem? Sometimes it is the level of difficulty that is too high for the moment, and you have to find something a little less challenging and repeatedly conquer that before you are capable of the more challenging problem. You may also be experiencing some anxiety because you are telling yourself you can’t remember it or do it. To work on this you will have to change your attitude toward your ability and working on the easier problems may also help you gain more confidence.
These are just suggestions from a veteran teacher who works with many students with the same issues; these are the things I’ve seen help the most. I hope they help you!
I also have adhd and the best thing I have found is tricking my brain into seeing the thing as interesting by adding context. I’m not referring to the associate a single thing with another thing that apparently works for most normal people, but by entirely changing the context.
Even singing the thing I’m doing to myself while I write it down can be enough. Or writing it down in a way that adds some extra context. A stick person on a sled on a graph of a slope is enough to remember something like whether it is ascending or descending. Or an alligator eats the larger number for 3 > 1.
More complex subjects are harder, but the concept is the same. Need to interact with it in a way that piques my interest or it is going to float away from memory.
This was great for me as well, even in social science contexts. I’d draw out stick versions of historical events or do wordplay with names and events. And my notes would all be written as if I were retelling a friend’s story, rather than using any professional lingo. I was never good (and am still not) at remembering specific dates though, just general timelines.
Spaced repetitions and the overwhelming feeling that the exam is in one month
Blackmail and threats always works for me.
“Better knock it off brain. I control the arms.”
Human memory is not like computer memory. It’s more akin to a workout. Your muscles get strong by repeated stress of a long period of time. Your brain remembers through repeated learning over a long period of time.
Cramming for an exam is a little like cramming for a marathon. Not a good idea.
Study in smaller time segments spread out as much as possible. Vary your study patterns and environment. Use different techniques. Connect details with concepts and narratives.
Look for a Youtube video on the memory palace technique. It’s a method for indexing information in mental images to help recall. It’s simple and makes it much easier to commit things to memory.
i thought that was a myth, it really works?
Depends, do you want it to work?
I’ve used it successfully to memorise phone numbers, shopping lists, etc.
Depends on how you learn, and what the material is. Stuff that worked for me, in no particular order:
- Write a cheat sheet for exams, even if you can’t actually use it in the exam
- Start homework the day the lecture that covers the material is given in class.
- Try to explain the subject out loud to someone else (real or imaginary). Anywhere you draw a blank when talking is something you need to refresh on. Repeat this until you get it right.
- For memorization - heavy topics, build an Anki flashcard deck
All of these techniques are variations on the fact that people learn by repeated exposure. the closer together the initial repetitions are, the higher the retention.
Learn the material not study for the exam. That means do the homework. That means attend the lectures. That means read the textbooks. Preferably do all of the above on different days. The key is to see the same material (in different contexts) many times before the exam. The day before the example you do a quick review and that is enough.
i do homework always. unlike my classmates
In my experience, homework is garbage. It’s busywork. The intent of homework is fine: repeat exposure of what you have previously learned. The execution of that intent is generally a piss-poor waste of time and energy.
The single best way I know of to retain information is to teach it to someone. Tutor someone, or group study. Or, in the absence of actually teaching it, plan a lesson, as though you intend to teach it to someone.
Strattera was pretty useful for me
Tip on how to internalize material: when studying, every so often, either pretend out loud or find a human person to teach/explain in detail what you just learned. If you’re a visual person, use a white board, if you’re a movement person, stand up and be expressive.
Maybe Instead of trying to memorize answers to exam questions, take some time to understand what is being presented to you. Examine, digest, and internalize the knowledge so it can be distilled into real understanding of the fundimental abstract concepts being conveyed.
Its like the difference between skimming through a paragraph to track down one piece of information vs being invested in reading through the chapter in totality to appreciate the plot of a good story. One might get you a passing grade on this weeks exam in a pinch and let you get back to partying, the other let’s the core of the knowledge live in you forever or atleast long after school is over and your neurons start weakening with age.
Let the ideas and concepts roll around in your mind like a fine wine tasting. Examine them, play with them, see how they line up with your pre-existing understandings of smilar concepts and reality in general. Make up some toy model example scenarios, visualize with your minds eye, see if its similar to a related concept you’re already familiar with. Think about the concepts and the abstractions and how they logically lead to exam solutions.
Then when you’re tired of thinking and visualizing to the point your brain actually aches from the workout, rest. Play a game, watch some entertainment, have fun, get a good sleep and let your subconscious internalize all that knowledge. Allow your neurons to rearrange themselves to better model new patterns of information.
What’s your process? Where in the process does the knowledge get lost?
My learning process back when I was studying has always been to summarize the material. Go through it, and write out a summary, and what was non-obvious to me. And then, if applicable, summarize that summarization, reducing what I could clear up.
the most standard one and bam deleted as soon as im asked
i think my brain is doing this on purpose tbh, because i only forget stuff if im asked about it
i do and for whatever reason i only remember what i dont need like i remember that d/dx(tan(x)) is sec^2(x) (which i learned from some random chat on irc) but not how to do radicals (which i have to do a lot this year)
hmm…seems like i only forget stuff if im gonna be asked for it…maybe?
i mean, half of what is in the plan is stuff i already knew
What scum downvoted this!?
very articulated persons
I know there’s a joke here about “getting bent”, but I can’t quite articulate it.
Wait… I think I just did…
https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/studying-101-study-smarter-not-harder/ <- this looks good for me from quick glance over
Also how much do you remember already? Sit down and write in a diairy (once is enough as diary should be used differently)
Notable events of the day? What did you eat for breakfast? What did you do last weekend? What happend last month? Where did you go last summer? How much do you remember from you life?
For me I didn’t remember stuff older than a week due to childhood trauma. I couldn’t tell you when and where I traveled last month, but still I had a knack for understanding math rules and principles.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Memorization#Techniques
i remember everything BUT the things im asked
Maybe contemplate that for a bit. It’s not common for someone to forget things you are asked to memorise.
Why are you forgeting things that are asked of you? Why is it important for you to not remember them?
A meditation like state is quite good for that kind of introspective thinking. Closed eyes and quiet place really help to hear your inner quiet thoughts. (unless you have adhd, then you need different method)
idk man, but it always happens, i think my head is just shitting me at this point
In my opinion with careful observation you can figure it out what are conditions for your forgetfulness.
When humans don’t have data about a phenomenon, they tend to bend their perception in various ways. By rituals or black and white generalized thinking.
Crealrly there is something complex going on as you remember some things and you forget others. The important stuff is to figure out what is different about them and how you can mitigate that in the future.
Mindfulness Is a process to teach yourself a skill to observe the mind and notice the patterns. If you notice things you can then begin to control them and modify them.
It also depends what your goal is:
Pass an exam -> study how to study
Memorise 100 digits of pi or some other information -> mnemotechnics
Stop being forgetful -> Mindfulness will teach you how to notice the things happening in your mind so you can figure out why you are forgeting important stuff. Magic solution to solve all your problems -> doesn’t exist
If information isn’t transferring from short-term to long-term memory, find some related information you already have in your long-term memory that you can connect the new information to—then you’ll be able to retrieve the new information by association.
As I once heard a neuroscientist say, our brains are built to understand, not to remember. Find ways to relate the material to things you already know.
