My Secret Weapon: Chunking by Emma

My Secret Weapon: Chunking by Emma - September 2026 Scholarship Essay

ADHD task paralysis is real, and it feels like climbing Mt. Everest in flip-flops. You get nowhere fast, but the clock keeps running. Big projects practically guarantee it will show up.

I found a secret weapon, though, a strategy that helped me turn it around. It didn’t come from a planner, a study app, or color-coded notes. It came from playing Minecraft, and I stumbled into it by accident.

When I first started playing Minecraft, the vast blank landscape on screen felt like doom, just like big assignments in school. I didn’t know where to start. But I kept at it, and through hours of experimentation and Discord chats with other players, it finally clicked: chunking. It’s what makes massive builds possible. It starts with a mental blueprint of what I see in my mind, and then I break everything down into small steps so they’re manageable. Then comes the build-out. I choose an area and start with one block, one palette, or even one wall. It became my new system: plan, build, improve. I keep going until the finished project matches what I had in mind.

Minecraft trained my mind to start small, evaluate patterns, calculate resources, and experiment until I get it right. It might sound odd, but it’s thinking small that lets me think big in the end.

Applying this strategy to my academics changed everything for me. Five years ago, in middle school, when I had just been diagnosed with ADHD, my GPA was 2.5. I could not get a handle on big assignments. When I started applying that same “plan, build, improve” approach to my schoolwork, everything shifted. Since then, I have made Honor Roll 11 times, including 10 consecutive marking periods, been inducted into the National Honor Society, earned the New Jersey Seal of Biliteracy in American Sign Language, and finished last semester with a 3.77 GPA.

For me, that’s why chunking takes the win. It’s made a huge difference in my academic success. It makes big assignments easier because it gives me a way to break them down into small parts that don’t intimidate me, so I can finish the work one step at a time.