Penny, for your thoughts, is out. Parking lots for your thoughts is in. Welcome to today’s study strategy without medication for ADHD.
ADHD Study Strategy: What’s a Parking Lot for Your Thoughts?
Do you ever find yourself sitting down to be productive, but your brain, almost on cue, begins to tug you in a million different directions? With this new tool to add to your ADHD toolbox, you’ll be able to regain control of your brain reins and steer your focus where it needs to go.
If you’ve ever meditated before, or at least attempted it, you know a bit about passing thoughts. They come when you don’t want them to, and you can’t seem to summon them when you do. The following tips tackle those two ideas: control when your thoughts come and return to them on your time.
Study Tip #1 “Think Time”
Give yourself “think time” before you start any focus activity. Think time is when you step away from any distractions and let all the thoughts swirling around your subconscious surface to get the attention they’re demanding. If you give yourself think time throughout the day, your thoughts will come at a convenient time for you rather than a convenient time for the thought. Think time will feel similar to “shower thoughts” because a shower is a place where you are away from distractions, and your brain is really free to dig around and pull out some crazy ideas. The power behind think time is that you’ll be able to record your thoughts in your journal or on paper. If your think time turns into a journal session, that’s awesome and shows you how much attention you’ve been denying your thoughts.
Study Tip #2 Thought Parking Lots
Thought parking lots are similar to think time, but they’re built for uninvited interruptions to our focus. Thought parking lots are simple; when a thought passes through, immediately pull it out of your brain, rehouse it in a parking lot, and return to what you were doing. The idea of removing a thought is to relieve your brain of the need to give attention to it with the security of knowing it’s in an accessible location. The goal of your thought parking lot is to alleviate any unnecessary internal battle between the new thought and the thing you want to keep focusing on, and put all of that energy back into your focus.
My two favorite thought parking lots are 1. my journal and 2. the Stickies feature on my computer. If I have my journal with me for a focus activity, I’ll grab some open page space, write “thoughts parking lot,” and jot down anything that comes to distract me. The Stickies feature on both Macs and PCs is great because you can have it open at log in, and a sticky note can always be on your screen to collect your thoughts. A computer sticky note is perfect for any laptop work and can be especially helpful during lectures, class, study sessions, or any instance where you feel the pull away from what you’re doing.
Put Your Parking Lot to Use
Staying on task can be really hard sometimes, and these little passing thoughts have the power to completely derail you from any flow you’ve created, so it’s time you’ve gained control over them. By taking the thought out of your headspace right away, you’re spending as little attention and time as possible relaying to longevity in your focus. In an ADHD brain, actively choosing to stay focused delays your dopamine and results in receiving a greater sense of satisfaction when the task is complete.
If a thought comes to your head while you’re in the flow and your immediate response is, “I have to take care of this right now,” NO, YOU DON’T. That’s the ADHD talking. Write it down and tend to it later. Our brains may think we can do a million things at once, but our brains are also known to be fools. The key to thought parking lots is re-visiting your accumulation later, at a designated time. You can then disperse the thought collection into your to-do list, send the texts you need to send, or add whatever to your grocery list.
By putting this into practice, you’ll find relief by taking care of passing thoughts in the least distracting way possible and finishing your tasks way quicker than you’re used to. Also, looking at a presumably large thought parking lot after successfully finishing your task will shed light on how many distractions you faced and resisted while trying to reach your goal; go you!
Drop any other ideas you have to create thought parking lots in the comments!
Pictured: my favorite study spot at UMich.
