As someone with Adult ADHD, I often find it hard to get started on things, keep going on them, or come back to them once I stop. The last few years I’ve been trying out different things, and here are some things I’ve found helpful:

1 // Introduce Variety in Locations

This one has been extra important to me as someone who has been working from home for what will soon be a year. The pandemic has made it much harder to find some sense of variety in all aspects of life, but especially in a work context. There’s one room in our house that we use as the ‘office’ area, which is important when I’m seeing clients and need the confidentiality.

For essentially everything else I do (working on notes, writing, editing CXMH, emails, etc.) doesn’t need to be done at that specific desk or even that room. It’s easy to feel obligated to use it (or even just want to) because we spent time & money making that room work well as an office space. But which is better: trying to always utilize that space and being frustrated when I lose steam or giving myself the freedom to move where I’m working every hour or so and getting more done? Sometimes our dinner table seems to work better for some reason, sometimes I can work sitting on the couch (not often, more on that next).

2 // Pay Attention to my Body and Energy

Why do I find working on the couch hard? Maybe I can’t answer that specifically, but I’ve paid enough attention to know that I feel more energized when I’m sitting up and working at a desk then when I’m reclined on a comfy couch with my laptop on my lap. The same thing goes for my bed: I cannot work well for very long if I’m sitting in a reclined position or if I have to lean forwards to reach my computer on the bed.

Similarly, in the afternoons I’ll often find a way to work standing up. The afternoons are when I tend to hit a slump in energy, so it makes sense to try to counteract that sluggishness by being in a position where I’m less likely to lean back in the chair. Before you start searching for sit/stand desks on Amazon (they’re so expensive y’all), I do this:

That’s literally just the box I found in my house that puts the computer at the right height for me to type well. Trust me: I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking “maybe standing would help” and then spent the next 2 hours looking at them online. The trick here is to just find something that works for now and then use it.

3 // Introduce Variety in Tasks

You know what’s pretty much never going to work for me? Sitting and working on the same task for multiple hours in a row. Instead of trying to just white-knuckle my way through, I try to mix it up. Work on something at my desk for awhile, then do something else. It’s extra helpful if it’s a different kind of task. Can I fold a load of laundry or empty the dishwasher? These are hands-on tasks where I can literally see the progress of accomplishing a task. That’s very different from something like writing or editing audio where the goal might not be to finish the whole thing but just to make some progress. It also almost always includes a change in location (see #1).

4 // Red Time & Blue Time

This is an idea I got from L. David Marquet when he was a guest on this episode of the Accidental Creative Podcast. He suggests using it for a team dynamic, but I think it can work for an individual too. Designate ‘red time’ and ‘blue time’; red times are when tasks need to be done, they’re about accomplishing the goal without much exploration. Blue times, on the other hand, are times where there’s a larger exploration involved. Red Time for me might include writing progress notes, responding to specific emails, or creating something specific (ex: putting something I’ve already written into a slideshow for a presentation). Blue Times might include writing, reaching out to future podcast guests, or doing some research for some content I’m trying to create. The importance of separating them is that it limits “side quests” or psuedoproductivity that so often pop up in the middle of trying to get tasks done, but it still creates space for them later knowing that there are important parts to those.

Here’s an example for me: I sit down to respond to some emails about scheduling, knowing that I need to get some recordings for CXMH on the calendar. As I’m responding to the emails I already have in my inbox, I notice something interesting in someone’s email signature. That leads me to poking around their website, and I see that they’ve coauthored a book on an interesting topic. That leads me to looking at the website of the other person, considering whether it would be good to have an episode on that other topic. This can easily spiral to where I’ve done a bunch of brainstorming/exploring potential future guests, but I never ended up responding to the 3 emails that would actually result in something on the calendar for the next recording day. If, instead, I’ve designated Red and Blue Times, I can remind myself that right now is a Red Time (do the tasks) and I can jot the thing that looked interesting down to explore during my next Blue Time.

5 // Creating a Helpful Context

This one is somewhat vague, but consider what else is helpful to you instead of what “should” work. Having some upbeat music helps me, but it also can’t have words because I’ll either listen to them or spend all my energy trying not to listen to them. For this reason, I have a Spotify playlist of upbeat or inspiring songs that are also instrumentals. I add to it all the time to keep it from being the same songs constantly (but also make sure I don’t end up spending an hour adding songs when I was trying to just turn it on).

I also have a pink rubber ball that I mess with (you can see it in the picture earlier). Having something to fidget with nearby is helpful when I’m watching a webinar or something similar where I can do so without distracting anyone else. I also mess with it during meetings where I know everyone on the call pretty well and know they won’t assume ‘playing with that ball’ = ‘not listening.’

The last part of this is considering how food & exercise impact your energy & focus. I’m not an expert in the area, but I can say that stretching in between tasks has helped boost my energy levels. If you’re interested in how food impacts energy levels, I recently read Fuel Your Brain, Not Your Anxiety by Kristen Allott and Natasha Duarte and found it pretty helpful.

It’s important for me that I make one final note: these are ideas of things that have been helpful to me, not prescriptions of exact solutions. If you try some and don’t find them helpful, toss them out. If you take some and adapt them so they work for you, perfect! It’s all a matter of trying things out to see what might work, which changes over time and on different days.

Other things you might find helpful:
- More Attention, Less Deficit: Success Strategies for Adults with ADHD by Ari Tuckman
- CXMH episode 122 - How Writing Can Shape Your Past, Present, & Future (feat. Allison Fallon)
- CXMH episode 120 - Lies We Face (& Truth We Need) Along The Journey (feat. Hannah Brencher)

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