Difficulties with obsessing over things

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I find myself spending wayyy too much time at my computer and not doing homework. I can't find the concentration I need and will often shirk my work to mess with the computer. I am wondering if anyone here has been able to shift their obsessiveness from one subject area to another. I need to obsess over school. I would be totally fine with that. Even just obsessing over a specific subject would be cool with me. But working hours upon hours on a computer game that will never come to fruition simply because I can't help myself is less than appropriate.

I've done well in my classes previously, but the workload has gone from almost nil which I could take care of just before class when the stress hit, to me needing to actually do things before they are due and before I get stressed out about them. However I failed all my classes last semester. Since then I have read books on stopping procrastination, getting things done, and everything else under the sky. I am still very worried though. I tried to give myself an assignment from my chemistry book, but I failed to complete it, however I managed to do plenty of screwing off with photoshop.

Please, someone, I need help.

I’d also be interested to learn what strategies others use.

My pervasive interest is (and always has been) horses. I no longer ride, but I still obsess over books, magazines etc.

When I decided to return to uni and get another degree in a (non-related) area of interest, I was aware that the horse fetish could potentially take time away from my studies. Therefore, I packed away every horse-related book and magazine I have in sealed boxes. I gradually replaced them with books relating to my new subject area, in the hope of redirecting my obsessionary tendencies.

I find that as more time passes, I am actually less compelled to obsess over horses, and much more likely to dwell on the new subject area. There remain times when I feel strongly compelled to unbox my horse stuff, but I emphasise to myself the importance of being independent through having a good career (which means I need a good degree). Unfortunately, the horse interest will not lead to this (tried it, wasn’t for me).

Another thing that has greatly helped me is the flexibility of my teachers in terms of assignment and essay topics. I have had some brilliant teachers who (on learning about my AS) have let me pick my own specific topics of interest within the broader subject area, play with word lengths etc to help me remain focused on the area.

Ugh I've been forcing myself recently. I've managed to get through about a chapter in the past week. Today I will be trying to get half of the questions done at the end. Difficult because I am jittery and want to get up and do things. I am sorta kinda managing though.

If people don't mind I may update this thread with my progress. I think it would give me an outlet to encourage myself to keep going.

I'm trying to spend less time on the computer and more time on homework. I just started school today and already have homework that is sitting next to me but I haven't touched it yet.

This is not an AS/autism specific problem. Most people in the world have problems with procrastination.


You are just going to have to turn the computer off. Schedule a specific time to get what you need from it, assignments, homework, etc, and a specific time slot when you do need to use it longer for research, and keep to it.

Is something bothering you? Are you NOT looking forward to a certain event, for example? I've noticed that whenever something not-so-nice is coming, I get huge concentration problems, then ask myself why, and after the certain event, I'm fine again, thus concluding it must've been that certain event which was bothering me.