Lol I’m NGL half of what made me never feel compelled to contribute on reddit and just be a lurker was how some people seemed to not have “conversations” but rather just talk over each other. It wasn’t always true, but it felt like many people weren’t actually trying to understand what the other people was saying.

I don’t thrive in those environments, I much prefer the deliberate conversations that happen in smaller communities.

So yes, long live Lemmy!

it’s the perspective of a NORP

Huh, do ADHD people count as NORPs? Or is that more of a mindset thing?

My naivete aside, it’s true that the way I phrased my statement ignores people with ADHD who can experience hyper focus on an activity they’re interested in, or people experiencing mania. I’ve certainly experienced the former, but like you said, it’s not a solution but more of a trade-off with its own set of problems.

I guess I should have phrased it more like “even if you have limitless willpower, it doesn’t break physics”: even if you aren’t neurotypical and can sustain willpower for unusual amounts of time, no matter how much motivation you have there is a limited learning capacity you have and a finite amount of time in a day, and you have to pick what you spend them on.

It’s a bit tricky to convey that nuance succinctly, so thanks for pointing that out stranger. :)

I’ve read that humans can only sustain maximum focus about an hour. I used to think “I can focus for longer than that!”, but I think a more correct interpretation is that “after more than an hour, you start to see diminishing returns on your effort.”

Upon more careful reflection, that sounds about right. I do engineering work that involves deep focus and complex mental manipulation, and I can say that you really can’t do that for more than 1-2 hours at a time without a break. Try to force it longer than that, and you won’t be able to go back for a second round of that in the same day.

The reason why students seem to be able to do it is because of the staggered classes and the variation in complexity for their course load and, you guessed it, taking short breaks in their sessions. Common advice for engineering students is to pair their engineering courses with lower-stress liberal arts courses or courses that use different parts of the brain in a given semester so they don’t burn out, and to rest between classes and study sessions.

And lastly, as an ADHD adult, I’ll offer this insight on the nature of motivation: everyone’s threshold for how much motivation they need to perform a task with sustained focus is different. Sometimes, you just don’t have it in you, because you’ve used the energy on other things. Willpower is not some magical force that you can limitlessly tap into to achieve the impossible; it is very much a finite resource. So if you’re struggling to bring yourself to do more towards a specific goal, consider where you can shave off some energy elsewhere. Or, perhaps after thinking about it, you realize you are already putting in exactly the amount of energy you are willing to. In that case, there’s no need to feel guilty, because you’re already doing what you can and want to.