[nickpsecurity]

I'm upvoting it because it's incredibly common in high schools and college. People have to do tons of repetitive, boring stuff. They have piles of work. Many turn to Adderall to stay focused enough to get it done.

Like it or not, it's how a huge chunk of people in college "keep improving" despite the challenges they face not getting better over time.

[nindalf]

I'm not sure that's great advice. Adderall provides a temporary boost but it takes a lot out of you too. Kicking it becomes difficult because you don't think you can be productive or even intelligent without it. This account [1] of a person who got addicted in college and tried for years to kick it convinced me not to try it.

Please think twice before recommending or endorsing any kind of pharmaceutical product.

[1] - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/magazine/generation-addera...

[nickpsecurity]

"I'm not sure that's great advice. Adderall provides a temporary boost but it takes a lot out of you too. "

I didn't recommend taking Adderall. I'm against it unless it's a last resort where nothing else is working. I upvoted it because it literally is how so many students and workers in America keep moving. Not just that drug but many. So, it's worth being in a survey.

The natural follow-up is asking what kind of work they do or where in case one wants to avoid motivation for such a solution. ;)

[return0]

> People have to do tons of repetitive, boring stuff.

A good programmer will automate this stuff and will not bother with it again. Maybe aderall is incentivizing the wrong behavior here.

[nickpsecurity]

You can automate homework and tests for your classes? That's news.

[return0]

I was referring to programming work only

[nickpsecurity]

How do you automate arbitrary programming assignments without cheating by having someone else do them? There were piles of little problems I had to do in programming. It being mundane was obvious when contrasted to better options like having people build a neat app or game piece-by-piece as they go through lessons. Land of LISP comes to mind. Also has amusing artwork.

[NikolaeVarius]

Studying is repetitive boring stuff.

[weavie]

Not if you do it right.

[nickpsecurity]

How do you study mundane, endless trivia "right" where it's not boring or wearing you out? I managed to do what studying I needed to do but it was far from fun. The only times it was fun was when the material itself was fun. It was still work but at least interesting work. Most weren't, though.

[weavie]

Good question. I think a lot of it starts with motivation. If you are just studying something for fun then the boring stuff does get really tedious. But if you are studying for something beyond the subject, eg, in my case it was acing my degree to prove something to myself, then the competitive side takes over.

There are people out there that devote themselves to memorizing decks of cards or arbitrarily long numbers. Cards or random numbers are not particularly interesting, so these folks invent mind games. They may take each card to represent a particular object and then make up some crazy story involving these objects. Suddenly to them what was mindbogglingly dull becomes tantamount to some epic screen play.

You can employ similar tricks to studying any subject. When studying for my degree there were a few things that really helped. Note taking, notes had to be as vivid as possible. I would always have multiple coloured pens and highlights as possible. Pictures, various sized and coloured text and lots of arrows. My notes became art. Mnemonics and stories were important for the long lists of things.

Also managing energy levels is pretty important. Regular sleep cycles, exercise help maintain focus. Environment makes a big difference. A library is much better than the common room.. Also, slightly controversially, I find the often given advice to take regular breaks when studying was highly damaging. If I allow regular breaks, then my focus shifts to watching for when my next break is. Also in the breaks I would get time to think about how dull this stuff was. So I would find maintaining pure focus for about 4 hours at a stretch much easier. It helps to have a variety of studying techniques to move around in. So moving between reading / note taking, mnemonic memorization, doing exercises, visiting tutors, discussing with study partners helps keep things flowing.