Concentration and Focus Issues

[Pema]

I am currently in my first year of University after taking a gap year. I am majoring in English, but I am also required to do other units as part of my course. I've just been diagnosed with dyspraxia, and it's the first time I've ever even heard of it, but I've been researching it and it explains a lot of the issues I have struggled with and given myself a hard time over for my whole life. While I have quite a few of the physical/ co-ordination effects (particularly poor co-ordination, posture and difficulty telling left from right without thinking about it), these are predominantly minor compared to the difficulties I have with concentration, memory, organisation, anxiety, erratic behaviour, stress etc. I find these sometimes incapacitate me when it comes to getting things done, which is especially a problem when it comes to focussing on assignments and studying. I'm a good student, I engage with my topics intellectually and have a lot to say on them, but when it comes to handing in work, I just don't get it done until the very last minute and then it does not reflect my best work, which is very disappointing for me. I generally know I have these tasks to do and know I ought to get started on them, but I often just can't bring myself to get started on what always initially seem to me to be work I just can't get my head around. This is even more of an issue for studying, as I just have no idea how to go about studying and what I should be doing to get things into my brain.

Does anyone have similar problems to these, and have ideas as to what I could do to sort it out? I am worried I will continue to let myself down in this area.

Thanks

[syeda]

hi
i have very similar problems to the ones that you have, i cant bring my self to get my work done either infact i become very anxiouse everytime i think about starting my assigments because i never know whats going on and i just dont understand the itructions that i have been given. however i am changing alot though because my anxiety is becoming very very hard for me to handle so i try and finish my work before the deadline so that i wont be stressing out so much on that day that it has to be handed in. i guess you could get yourself started by just thinking about what your gonna add or maybe do some extra reading before officially starting it.
hope that helps

[Kat123]

I know organisation and memory is hard and once you get into the cycle of panicking, you stress, don't do it because its very hard to get down and sit down and just do it like so many others without dyspraxia. I find either asking your tutors for a weekly plan of where you should be up to with your essay, or make your own and sticking to it. Getting a little done everyday is a lot easier and gives you time to think about different ideas for your work. I know fromexperience its really hard, but if you start early and write a draft and then add ideas and build upon that it gets a little easier. I find typing exactly what I want to as a draft and then structure it later.

Hope this helps