PDA fae

Tag: studying

  • How about writing in a logical order?

    “Introduction paragraph should be the first to be read, and last to be written”

    Gosh how my brain is rankling at that idea, of writing the first paragraph of my essay last. Especially the more my lecturer returns to this idea, the more my brain thinks ‘never needed to do that so far, why would I start now?!’

    The idea was a demand the first time it was mentioned, three or four times later and it’s a definite No. The essay gets written from the beginning, as it will be read! As is sensible!

    I guess I understand why some would find writing an introduction based on stuff that have already written out easier, but for me, an essay plan usually enables me to write an introduction – that is how I know where my essay is going to go.

    It’s a silly point, but this really stood out to me as causing demand anxiety – the statement that the introduction will be written last.

  • “Just prepping”

    I made a small instagram post about this – the hack of telling myself that I’m not “Doing The Thing”, I’m just “preparing”. It’s something I’ve used a lot throughout life, usually to get myself to study. It started in high school, I would set up my pens, my books, my computer at the kitchen table, often taking quite a lot of time over an exact layout. I’d tend to feel unable to start until things were laid out “just so”, but also that that was all I was going to do – just lay things out.

    Somehow, starting by “getting things set up” reduces the demand anxiety to get the rest of the task done. I think I’ve used this with tidying as well, with setting up llama life, or a pomodoro stream. I wonder if it could be used to effect with cooking, laying out the ingredients and the materials needed, like the dish, frying pan, or chopping board and knife. I imagine that might actually work pretty well.

    It’s strange to me how this is a little hack I came up with years before even having heard of PDA. I guess I have been living my life having to find some ways around the feeling of demand anxiety – a lot of that involved dissociation, which I think I’ve mentioned before I do a lot less now I have acknowledged my demand anxiety.

    It’s good to live a life working with my brain, not against it.