Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD
Focus, starting, and ADHD
Most advice about focus is written for a brain that starts easily. This area is not. It covers what ADHD actually is, how to make a start when starting is the hard part, how to bring a future consequence close enough to feel, and how to stop paying for it in shame.
Narrowed down
5 practicesHow long you have · A minute
Approach · CBT
When · Any ordinary day
Try turning 'I will not mess this up today' into 'today I am going to do this well'. You do not have to believe it yet. Said the other way round, it keeps the disaster in front of you all morning.
Notice how many of your goals are stated as things that must not happen. Do not be late, do not lose your temper, do not forget the form. Each one…
Picture spilling coffee down your shirt on the way in. One version: the day is ruined and everyone will see. Another: this is going to be a good story by eleven. Same coffee, two different days.
The part that decides is the sentence you say about the event, and it usually arrives so fast that it feels like part of the event itself. Slowing…
Put something small at stake and you turn up more. Groups that charge a token amount get better attendance than free ones, and the same trick works on yourself.
It does not have to be money. Book the class you would have to cancel a day ahead, tell a friend you will meet them there, pay the small deposit. The…
When you wave off what your child is into, they rarely hear a comment about gaming. They hear something about themselves.
At that age a good part of who someone is gets built out of what they love, so a shrug at the thing usually lands as a shrug at the person. You do…
If mindfulness is going to help with ADHD, the version with a chance is small and spread out. A few seconds of noticing, several times a day, rather than one long sitting you come to dread.
A forty five minute block asks you to get settled in one place and then somehow carry that into the afternoon, and the carrying is exactly what tends…