I could make a timeline of my approaches to difficult/academic work.
Primary school
Vague attention. Read lots. Unable to learn times tables despite concerted effort by my father. No strategy for completing work.
High School/6th form
Window gazing. Occasional burst of interest (and thus, effort) in single project or subject. Constantly forget homework and sometimes forget to go to classes. Enforced revision sessions by my father give rise to my first learning strategy. Current, and only, strategy is to listen to music while reading in an effort to maintain stimulation. Have no strategy to prevent frequent mind wandering and listlessness. Bad grades.
Intermittent/work period
Enter independent period. Motivate application to jobs and the follow through by listening to music and mentally assuring myself. Would psyche myself into a fervor for especially difficult or intimidating tasks. Eventual employment increases self confidence and, with it, ability to get stuff done. Unable to create effective academic work strategy and flunk attempted at-home study course.
College
Get into access to higher education course at college. Early motivation for completion of essays and classwork is given by desire to "do myself justice" and be someone of achievement in the eyes of others. Paradigm shift in my relation to others causes later motivation to be based on a desire to put myself in a position from which I can improve the world, people's lives or create "the good". Motivation is consistently high both qualitatively and quantitatively. Strategies are entirely based around maintaining my beliefs in personal worth, and "the good". Work is of very high quality.
University
Enter red-brick university. Initial success but eventual degradation of belief system, and, with it, self-worth make no work strategy effective. Grades drop to average over the year one later and year two earlier periods. Motivated by external pressures not to be seen as a failure. Identify new personal issue.
Intercalation (break) from University
Take a year long break to deal with new personal issue.
Return to University (current)
Issue, to some extent, made benign. Happier and have high self-esteem but with no personal mission. Motivated by a desire to improve myself. Motivation quantitatively fairly high but qualitatively fairly low.
I guess I blab about my motivation and life circumstances in a thread about strategies we use to get things done because, as far as I'm concerned, my ability to achieve things is entirely dependent on my motivational fuel. My mind and emotions are too stubborn for tricks.