Hey all,
I just realized that I have been struggling through reading an academic book for a book review for one of my courses, and it was very difficult to get through the material.
But, when under pressure... meaning that I have to meet my tutor today, I went through 2 chapters in record time, was able to pick out the main points.
I know it is because I am under pressure, but I am dumbfounded that this would be all due to the anxiety of the situtation.
It's a good aspect of it, but one I would rather not have to deal with.
I think that it was that I didn't have a sense of time or urgency when I had lots of time to do it...
my tutor put a time limit on the reading of the chapters, and I didn't think I could do it, but I did when under pressure.
It's annoying me to a great extent, as I just avoid readings for classes now I think.
So how do you think I should go about changing my mindset about reading for classes?
I suppose it's a good thing that I realized that I AM able to read at a faster rate...
I feel silly now... what if my LD is just b/c of my lack of cognition of my true abilities and hence resulting in anxiety that keeps me from doing the reading, or being able to do it easily.

Any ideas welcomed!

I understand this completely; I'm the same way when it comes to completing assignments for class. The more pressure there is, the more incentive I have to actually get something done, and thus the more quickly thoughts actually start coming into my mind...

Heh, I had two academic book reviews for a course this year--interestingly, I don't think I've ever done a book review in university before this course--and I didn't read either of the books, just skimmed them, found what I thought was important, read those parts quickly, and then laboured over bullsh*tting my way through critiquing and whatnot... And I managed to pull off an A- for each of them.

I also don't read very fast, although I remember that when I was a kid I read very fast... then I stopped reading for years and now I'm a slow reader.

I also work best under pressure, since until I really have to have something done I slack off.

I was also a very fast reader as a kid, but definately not anymore!! I have no clue why - possibly a lack of reading in the middle... (plus I don't really read fiction anymore which is sad)

But anyway - slowpoke, I know what you mean about being unable to work without pressure - if I go to the library with a plan in my head that I will spend all day there (which I do a lot) I will very often not get ANYHTING done ro else just do it super slowly. It's so bad!! I don't procrastinate homework very much anymore becuase I've been trying to get through SOO badly... but when I procrastinated a lot I never seemed to have trouble with wasting time the way I do now.

Something that I started a few days ago to help with wasting tons of time is a form of behavioral therapy (which I made up myself lol)
I set a goal amount of time to do my work in. Then I go to do the work, and when the targeted time is OVER, I force myself to leave. I've only done it twice so far and it's very difficult... On sunday night I went to the library at 11pm to start some math homework, and I decided that I should be back in bed by 2am to get enough sleep. Well - I went and chose a quiet spot, but somehow or another wasted the whole 3 hours flipping the pages back and forth and taking bathroom breaks lol!!! I didn't even get ONE problem done. I looked at the time and thought - OMG - I need to do this homework for tommorrow!! (I had to talk to the prof at office hours) normally what I would do at that point is vow to myself that I will focus and get back to work. It's so tempting for me to just stay and keep going until I finish... (or am too tired to continue) because I've engrained it into my head that that's what I have to do - that's what I SHOULD do. I will feel morally wrong and guilty if I don't do it - I would be lazy.

So instead of staying I forced myself to go home. It was the right decision becuase even though I had to skip office hours (since the homework wasn't done) I had gotten some sleep and was able to work on it the next day. If I had actually been able to FINISH that homework in a timely manner that night, then YES it would have been better to stay (in my opinion) but I realized that if I did stay I would most likely go into "infinate time" mode (where I think I ahve all the time in the world to finish - it's worst if i decide to stay up all night) And I probalby would have gotten only a few more problems done by the time 5am rolled around. That's not worth it by almost anybody's standards.

SOOOO that's what I'm tryiing to do now whenever I go to study. NO STAYING OVERTIME!!! I figure that once I've developed that behavior I will be better at managing time - Hopefully I will be able to create the pressure to finish quickly on my own, without needing the external force to do it for me. I've gotten so bad in my habits that I often just GIVE UP when pressure is too high - if it's within an hour of classtime I will just decide that there's no point in trying to finish the homework and turn it in undone. That's a horrible habit because I used to rely on anxiety to carry me through procrastination...

Oh it's all so complicated!!

The thing about it is that if I allow myself to keep working for hours and hours and hours, I am basically letting myself fall into a pattern of slow reading/problem solving... and also I will tend to work on things that aren't very important during that time becuase I THINK I have time to get through EVERYTHING... I am sort of a perfectionist in that I want to do eveyrthing in order and feel like I need a very througough grasp on every irrelavant concept.

Another thing that I've been wanting to do is to find a study partner - becuase they will not want to sit around forever working on stuff that's not very important - they will want to move on and will drag me with them. The only problem with that is that i catch on slower than many people, and I need time to really learn stuff. I have to spend a lot of time on my own in order to get it. And it's soooo easy to jsut let someone else work through somthing and THINK that I understand when I really don't.... That is a big barrier.

But either way I really do think that this may be the solution for me. I wanted to share - maybe there is somthing in there that you would find helpful!?