ADHD and the wandering mind help

[GoofKing]

I notice a lot of times when I'm reading up on a certain subject or is on Wikipedia, that my mind either wanders and causes me to loose interest or the links on Wikipedia causes me to open tabs on subjects related to it.

Does anyone suffer the same thing or have any good resources to help with focusing without the need for medication ?

 

[Grumpy Cat]

I don't use any meds. I really have a hard time focusing on subjects if I don't have any interest in them - like my International Relations class. I try to think about some positive things to learning the subject first, then I try to "feel" some sort of excited feeling to keep my interest going (hard to explain and doesn't always work). I can't have any outside sources of sound - just some classical music that I always listen to for studying. AND I can't have anything visual around except for the reading source itself - no computer, no IPhone, no TV, otherwise I am automatically drawn to that instead. When I have to use the computer, it is difficult cause I go online often since it is so convenient. I find that earphones or those ear thingies that block noise greatly help me with outside noises and keep me on track.

 

[King_Oni]

I don't really think I have any tips for it aside from "just take all the time you need". I've been guilty of spending upwards to 10 hours on wikipedia reading up on things. But I tend to go in deep and start reading the source material from wikipedia instead, lol.

Perhaps you should look more into a pragmatic approach; why are you looking something up? And go with the results you find there. Look up things for the purpose of looking them up. I always found that more focused than just "browsing". Browsing in general creates too much "noise" so to speak. It's a lot of distraction. Narrow your search parameters. Don't search on "cars" but search on "2015 Chevrolet Camaro" for example. I also think that searching on other sources that wikipedia helps. Search for your information on actual sources, not a "summary" that's chockful of distractions in the form of hyperlinks that link to things and within 3 links, you've ended up reading about "Anne Frank" or the "Hungarian Revolution" while you started out reading about "the origin of Ben & Jerry's"

I reckon if you wander of, the subject doesn't interest you enough. And that's a totally different issue alltogether, of which I don't know if that can be attributed to ADHD, but is merely a matter of discipline.

While I'm not medicated, I do doubt that a pill will automatically help you gain interest and focus without any effort.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

Medication only helps if you know why you're looking things up. If you don't have a destination, it doesn't matter which way you go.

 

[Cinnamon115]

I have the same problem only with Tv tropes instead of wikipedia, and I have ADHD. I also haven't found a solution to it, and my medication doesn't really help with avoiding it. My medication does help me focus a bit, but there's a lot of not so great side effects to my medication (like insomnia and lack of appetite).
I have noticed that there are certain times of the day when I can focus more (like around noon) and times I can't (anytime past 8pm). I just do my homework at the time of day I can focus best and try do avoid tv tropes until 8 pm. (though that doesn't always help). I also remind myself that the sooner I get my homework done I can have fun, and that helps.