How do you not get distracted?

Specifically what happens - do you go on your phone?

How do you attempt to study?

So at the moment im in year 11, studying for my GCSEs. I get distracted quite easily. I dont think i've ever concentrated for more than five minuets, I would love some advice of how to not get distracted so easily.

Shauna

I have ADHD, so please bare in mind that some of the following suggestions may be a bit extreme, or may actually serve to be another distraction for you.
The main issue I had was the fact that a) everything was so boring it almost physically hurt and b) I found it hard to pay attention if I wasn't moving in some form. So some suggestions I had and utilised were:
1) Stop trying to write absolutely everything down, and instead write the context down. So instead of writing down a book page line for line, read the first line of the paragraph: this is what the paragraph is about in its entirety. If it's important, read it and make short hand notes (such as: "about the ways atheism changed over the years" or "about how people who are now atheists are completely unrecognisable compared to the atheists of classical philosophy"). A page full of notes is boring, impossible to sit through and read, and just sucks to look at. A post-it-note, however, is easier to digest mentally, easier to understand, and easier to contextualise.
2) Take regular breaks if you can. This obviously can't apply if lessons are where you have issues paying attention, but if its during your own study time then you need to take breaks. Learning difficulty or not, barely anyone can sit and pay attention to one thing for hours on end. The standard is to work for 50 minutes, take a 15 minute break. If i'm lucky I can work for 3-4 hours straight, if i'm unlucky I need to take a 5 minute break every 30 or even 20 minutes. Its easier to keep your attention for longer if you're sprinting instead of running a marathon.
3) Break your revision down into easy to follow chunks. For me this is translated to writing essays, where I always do half of what I have left per sitting (so for a 2,000 word assignment I do 1,000, then 500, then 250, and so on). This can be harder to translate to book revision, so I would recommend you move away from book revision. Try to look into ways you learn, not ways you remember. For me it helps to understand the why, and not just the facts. So when studying for my RS ALEVELS it would have been useless for me to learn word for word what Jung said, but it was useful for me to learn the context of Jungs beliefs. For you it may be learning the context in which a poem was written for English literature, because finding out a poem was written after the Chernobyl Power Plant exploded helps make the content make more sense.
4) Try to keep half of your brain busy whilst the other half works. For a lot of people with ADHD this comes in the form of something called stim toys, which aren't nearly as dirty as they sound. The one you'd be most familiar with would be a fidget spinner, which yes was originally designed for hyperactive children to try and pay attention. Obviously these are basically banned with a death sentence punishment in schools at this point, but there are other options. One option is a fidget cube (image in spoiler)


and the option of a fidget ring for something a bit more inconspicuous (image in spoiler)



Thats really all the advice I can think of for trying to pay attention, hope i've helped give you a few ideas if nothing else!