How to study when you cannot concentrate — what actually works, when you have been putting it off

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Every point here is written so that a bad week is still enough to manage it.

You have been putting this off. Starting is the only step that matters.

If you only do one thing from this page, do the first point below. It is first because it removes the most friction for the least effort.

Work in blocks of twenty-five minutes with a real break. The break means standing up, not opening a different screen.

Test yourself rather than re-reading. Recall feels worse and works better. If it feels easy, it is probably not working.

Decide the smallest possible unit: one page, five questions, one worked example. "Study history" is not a task, it is a category.

Write the question you are trying to answer at the top of the page. Reading without a question is how an hour disappears.

Put the phone in another room. Silenced and face down is not enough — the presence of it alone reduces available attention.

Stop while you still know what you are doing. Ending mid-thought makes restarting much easier than ending at a natural finish.

Lyrics generally do not, if you are reading or writing. Instrumental or noise tends to be neutral to slightly helpful.

Write one sentence summarising it. If you cannot, you were not reading it, you were looking at it.

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