Been writing a paper for university the last week or so.
It's not my bachelors thesis, but still rather important.
The project itself didn't go too well, but it is what it is now.

The only issue... I can't seem to get productive when writing the document.
I sit in front of my desk, staring at my monitor, and I can get out a sentence or two every 15 minutes.

At this point I genuienly fear that I might have some form of ADHD. Can't be that hard to document the little amount of work I actually made......

I don't know what is your approach to work, but my generic advice would be to lay down the exact sequence of atomic tasks you need to complete, down to a paragraph if that's what it means. And then just force yourself to diligently do it one after the other like a job of washing utensils or doing laundry.

Once you have a concrete structure about what are you supposed to do, it reduces the cognitive load on the brain and makes it easier to force the brain to work.

The next step can be to do, say one paragraph per sitting, and space it with a five or ten-minute break, slowly increasing the amount of work being done in a sitting (but not reducing the duration of the break, that messes with the motivation model of the brain).

We used to do this back when we tried a start-up, and it increased productivity so much. Again, I don't know how you work so you could be doing some or all of that already.

Are you at least thinking about what you will write? I would count that as being productive even if it doesn't mean writing down anything. You can then write it down a day or two before the deadline.

Maybe the topic is wrong for you?

@alcatraz627 @electrineer I know what parts I have to write, we layed it all out, and I know the stuff I have to write. I just can't get any sentences out. And if I rush/force them I reread it and think “that is God awful I can't write that”

@sheriffderek the topic is interesting, sadly the project didn't go that well overall.

@LotsOfCaffeine luckily you are not the one who has to read what you wrote. I would just wait for the moment you are in a mood where you get the flow going. That should happen when the deadline is near if not earlier.

@electrineer bro the deadline is monday

@LotsOfCaffeine how long should it be? What time on Monday? Maybe start Monday 8 pm so you don't have time to read the crap you write.

I'm the kind of guy that has to have a crystal clear picture of what my ideas are to have confidence to write them down. You can imagine this often lead to me feeling very blocked until the last minute, and sometimes not meeting deadlines. The way I deal with it is let myself relax for as long as I could, but force myself to at least think about the details of the proposal, or parts of the proof/explanation whenever I have the time to. Then when I finally sit down to write it, I spend minimal time going "WTF am I doing" and avoid the self-doubt.

@electrineer we're basically finished at this point, only some bits missing and then a proof read...

Get on discord chats and stay online with people who are also working. Kinda like peer programming, but just online. A bit of chatting and a lot of trying may help.

@NoMad me and the others (group project) did that a couple of times, but we found that we'd end up less productive since we would end up watching stupid meme compilations on youtube...

@LotsOfCaffeine fair. But I found since high school that I can focus better if people I like are around me. I mean, if I have to do something, I eventually stop talking and start working.

@NoMad maybe, I think I'd rather just be muted when writing the document.

When coding, sure that's different