Obsession
I have some similar issues, though I still breezed through college (prestigious school in 3.5 years, deans list, didn't "study"). I probably related that story here (and definitely did on reddit in one of those kids-called-gifted-where-are-you-now thread), so I'll spare us that story again.But where this really hit me was just two years after college, trying to write a large technical book (on HTML). I'm just now completing the task after 9 long months.It seemed like my mind broke, not because it was hard, but because of some other invisible wall. I still don't have the words for it. Writing about other things and reading other writing seemed to be the only thing that helped. It was easy to write about the topics of my expertise, but so much of the book was material that I had only heard of, and had to immerse myself in completely before I could even begin the task of writing. The project was therefore a set of many tasks within tasks.OP writes:> Regardless of whether or not they like or dislike the material, they break the challenge of studying for a test or completing an assignment into small problems, working away until they know, not think, but absolutely know that they are ready.There are four or five poems I read almost every day as a sort of cathartic ritual, and one of them is The Ladder of St. Augustine, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (of Paul Revere fame). The snippet that runs through my mind constantly:    We have not wings, we cannot soar;
    But we have feet to scale and climb
    By slow degrees, by more and more,
    The cloudy summits of our time.
    
    The mighty pyramids of stone
    That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
    When nearer seen, and better known,
    Are but gigantic flights of stairs.
    
    The distant mountains, that uprear
    Their solid bastions to the skies,
    Are crossed by pathways, that appear
    As we to higher levels rise.
    
    The heights by great men reached and kept
    Were not attained by sudden flight,
    But they, while their companions slept,
    Were toiling upward in the night.

Some days its hard to open a text editor. I don't know why. But sometimes looking down at the stepping stones is more useful for moving forward than looking up at your goals or (sometimes worse) everyone else. I think of poetry and start the program.[1] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ladder_of_St._Augustine