ADHD – A Personal Walkthrough & Guide

As many of you reading this probably know, ADHD stands for “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder”. 

However, that name is a bit misleading as people with ADHD don’t technically have a “deficit” of attention.

While a lack of attention is one of the more readily observable symptoms, especially in something like a school setting (hence why it has that name), it would be more accurate to describe ADHD as an inability to regulate and direct one’s attention. 

Those of us with ADHD have plenty of attention. In fact, we actually have too much of it! Our attention is just on everything, everywhere all at once. It’s why we get distracted so easily. 

While a neurotypical brain can typically tune out and not pay attention to any thoughts or external inputs that aren’t relevant to the task at hand, the ADHD brain is usually paying constant attention to everything, with no real discrimination between what’s relevant and what’s not.

So, for example, you might be trying to focus on your science exam but that focus gets buried when you can hear the birds chirping outside, can see the leaves falling through the window,  hear the shudder of the heat vent turning on, feel that one itchy spot on your leg, etc. And that doesn’t even cover all the ways your mind might get internally distracted by random thoughts. 

This kind of difficulty in regulating attention is like a video game with a really crowded HUD. There are too many status bars, quest markers, power gauges, and two dozen other notifications all flashing and demanding your attention at once. With all of that visual clutter and noise, it’s a wonder you can keep track of the actual gameplay underneath at all.

So, that’s one side of the ADHD focus coin, but like all coins, there’s a flip side; That flip side is called “hyperfocus”. 

The Opposite of Distraction

Hyperfocus is the exact opposite of distractibility. It’s like our usual problems with directing our attention are inverted, turned inside out. Whereas most of the time, we struggle to tune out distractions, hyperfocus is an intense, nearly unbreakable focus on ONE thing.

When I’m hyperfocused on something, the rest of the world may as well not exist. I’ve been hyperfocused plenty of times on video games (Slime Rancher, the Sims, Cult of the Lamb, and BOTW/TOTK has been some of the most gripping ones but most good games have this effect). Hyperfocus can also often take the form of falling down the “YouTube Spiral” or “Wikipedia Rabbit Hole”. You can get hyperfocused on cleaning, on organizing a bookshelf, on solving a puzzle, researching ADHD, trying to find your missing lucky calculator, reading a book, writing a blog, almost anything really.

Sometimes, the state of hyperfocus feels like I’m trapped, unable to break free from an iron grip. At other times, the state is more neutral like playing the Sims for 6 hours straight (swear I hardly even remembered to blink 😆). And occasionally, hyperfocus is an incredibly powerful flow-state in which I can accomplish amazing feats, faster and better than any “mere mortal”. 

Hyperfocus Activate ⭐

So, now that we know what hyperfocus is and know its power.. how do we use that power.. on purpose? 

Well, hyperfocus isn’t necessarily something we can tap into on demand (obviously), but there are various things we can do to encourage this flow state.

Things such as having and using a designated space for doing work (and nothing else), planning ahead according to our habits, and/or putting on some music we can make it easier on our brains to go from that state of diffuse focus to a more concentrated one.

It also helps to take note of what conditions seem to activate your hyperfocus. Once you start to get a sense for what leads you to hyperfocus, you can apply some of those same conditions intentionally to focus more easily.

Similarly, you can also help yourself to intentionally avoid the types of situations where you end up hyperfocused on something unhelpful. (Like how I might occasionally charge my Switch downstairs or even in the basement overnight so that it’s harder to immediately pick up and play it when I know I have things to do the following day.)

Escaping the Black Hole

So then, what about the darker side of hyperfocus? Those times when what you’re doing isn’t even necessarily fun anymore and you feel like you’re being sucked into a black hole from which there is no escape? 

Well, I’m sure different strategies will work for different people, but for me, I usually either try a combination of backing away slowly before then making a run for it, or calling for backup.

Getting  backup usually means calling for or texting my partner (or someone else nearby) to ask if they can come and just walk me out of the room I’m in. Just having another human being there who knows my intention is to get up and go do something else helps a TON. All the other person has to do is throw me a life preserver and then I can swim myself the rest of the way back to shore. I’m not putting any responsibility on the other person to help me focus on the right thing, just asking for a small assist in getting unstuck from my focus on the wrong thing.

When there isn’t someone else around to ask for an assist, I find I can usually break free by taking tiny little steps towards moving on that cue my brain that we aren’t gonna be doing this thing forever.

Maybe I’ll shift my posture a bit, or place something like my water bottle or phone a little ways in front of me on the floor where I can see it as a prompt to pick it up and walk out of the room, and sometimes I’ll start playing some energizing music to remind my body to move. 

Once I’ve given myself at least a little nudge to leave, I find it I have the most success when I try and make a sudden break for it. Getting up on an impulse in the moment tends to work better than trying to find a “good place” to stop. (I’m sure we’ve all fallen into that “I’ll just do ONE more thing and THEN stop” trap. In my experience, that line is always a lie. 😆)

I’ve also found it works pretty well to tell myself I’m just gonna “pause” for a minute while I’m in the middle of the “one more thing” I’m doing. Once I’ve gotten myself up for a short break it’s a lot easier to not go back to doing the distracting task than it would have been to put it away all at once. And by that point, I can usually navigate myself towards a different task. 

The Level-Up

Overall, focus for those of us with ADHD just works differently than it does for most people. Sometimes our attention is pinging between 100 different things every second, and sometimes that attention is laser focused on ONE thing for hours on end.

At the end of the day, though, just remember that there’s a lot more to ADHD than the diagnosis name would suggest. We have a powerful well of focus, we just have to learn how to tap into it.

…(aaand learn how to occasionally get someone to help us get out of that “well”, like we’re Little Timmy in a Lassie movie. 😅)

Happy Hyperfocusing, Everybody! 🎉