Moshroom wrote:
I have the same issue as you and am still figuring some things out since the most known methods aren’t that effective with me.
- Fidget with whatever makes you comfortable, can be a stress-ball, slime, or even just a bunch of marbles. Me personally, I need something that I can both fidget with and use as a way to get a quick sensory break, so I mostly use my magnetic small marbles. I fidget with it when I work, and I play with it and build shapes when I need a quick break before breaking down completely.
- Listen to something. I would not recommend podcasts and songs with lyrics if you need to focus on reading, but rather ambiant or brown noises. Personally the brown noises help me calm my thoughts down, but only for a short period of time, it ends up freaking me out so I opt for for ambiant instead.
- It might not work for everyone, but there’s this new type of font that bold only the first few letters of each words. Personally it helps me read and understand faster, so I think it’s worth it to give it a try ! I haven’t found one yet but there will surely be an automatic text converter somewhere online.
- Give yourself a treat for when you finish your task. Any kind, it can be a snack, a walk outside, gaming time, whatever makes you feel like you accomplished something.
- As said already, try to keep any distracting device away from you, even in another room. It may be hard at first, especially since you said that your attention keeps getting everywhere but your text. That’s why the fidgeting and ambiant are important. The fidgeting may help you replace that need of quick distraction tour phone gives you, and the ambiant helps your brain not loses its mind over the task of focusing on only one thing.
A game/software for your computer I highly recommend is Chill Corner, it’s free on Steam. It’s a sort of game where you are in a cozy lo-fi room and its purpose is to help you focus and do your tasks. You have timers, to-do lists, chill music, you have different ambiant noises you can set yourself (rain, fireplace, cafe, etc…). And the longer you spend doing tasks with a timer, the more currencies you earn which allows you to decorate the cozy room as you wish !
If you prefer a mobile app motivator instead, I would then recommend you Habitica. It’s a complete planner but turned into an RPG. Completing your tasks gives you mana and stamina, falling into bad habits deal you damage, and you can go on quest. Aka, start a bigger and longer project out of your comfort zone to slay a boss and earn more loot. There’s also a community part of it where you can create guild to go on a quest, to motivate each others. Or some players can also publish challenges, they are sort of solo quests but in a giveaway format to try to earn the rarest currency on the app. I haven’t won any yet, but it made me reorganize and clean my desk so it’s not that bad !