How do I stop taking way overcomplicated solutions to problems? I have done this my entire life. I remember as far back as middle school math, when I would fill out pages of scratch paper trying to derive the general solution to a problem, when of course the test was really just asking me to apply a formula we learned in class (which I probably failed to memorize because I was ADHD and never paid attention even when I wanted to). Now I'm in college and I do the exact same shit on math and programming assignments. It frustrates me because sometimes I feel like I have a decent grasp of the material but can't do the ass-easy task of picking the right tool and applying it. Imagine a student that, when asked to find the circumference of a circle given its radius, pulls out a compass and protractor and starts experimenting with circles to get an approximation of the ratio of radius to circumference, rather than remember the formula he was taught. Then he gets his test back, and he failed because he wasted all his time on one problem, and because he estimated pi at exactly 3. He sees his peers that just remembered the formula but have no intuition about what it means, and he is filled with retarded nerd rage.

I just spent literally days writing a program before I gave up and went to office hours, where my professor felt bad for me and held my hand to find the one-line solution I'd been missing. This happens all the time. I'm wasting so much time. This is a lifelong issue with how I solve problems.