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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.

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8 practices
Feelings and focus remove filterTwenty minutes remove filterAny ordinary day remove filterClear all
Theme · Feelings and focus
Systems for daily life 28Medication and how it works 20Get started 16Screens and attention 12Reading, numbers and learning differences 12What ADHD actually is 12Treatment and medication 11Getting assessed and diagnosed 10Your sense of time 9Feelings and focus 8Exercise, food and other supports 8Bringing the future closer 7Shame and stigma 4Structure and routine 3Remembering to do it 3Use your strengths 3
How long you have · Twenty minutes
A minute 6Five minutes 10Twenty minutes 8Longer 8
Approach
ADHD skills 6CBT 2
When · Any ordinary day
Any ordinary day 8Under stress 3After a row 3In a change 1Coming and going 1

A reward that is far off has almost no weight in ADHD. Tying the task to something you actually care about gives you a reason that does not depend on the payoff arriving soon.

So instead of 'I should file these', try 'I want to be someone my family can rely on, and this is part of that'. The other half of this approach is…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusCBTQur’an 12:86

Time with people is not the nice extra you get to once the real work is done. Put it alongside sleep, medication and exercise rather than underneath them.

It helps to treat it like any other part of a plan, with something specific in the week rather than a general intention to be more social. One…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 2:45

Belonging to the group does nothing. Going does. Having a friend does nothing either, unless you see them.

So count the actual events. How many times this week did you sit with someone, not message them. A number you can check beats a resolution to be more…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 8:11

Fear tends to make its case as caution. Try not to let it quietly shrink what you are willing to attempt, because the shrinking rarely stops on its own.

If you have been criticised often enough, staying out of things stops feeling like a choice and starts feeling like plain good sense. The way back is…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 3:139

When someone has gone flat, the question is not what they ought to be doing. It is what still has any life in it for them, however small or unimpressive, and then how to get more of that.

Activities handed out from the outside do not lift much. Someone who brightens talking about their car, or a cousin, or a game has just given you the…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusCBTQur’an 94:1

ADHD rarely turns up on its own. If anxiety or low mood is in the room as well, it needs treating in its own right, and that includes when it is the other partner who is struggling.

This is the part that gets missed in couples. One person becomes the identified patient and everybody works on them, while the other one's untreated…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 2:153

Explain the calming corner on a quiet Tuesday, not in the middle of a meltdown. New instructions do not go in once a child is already rising.

Walk them through it when nothing is happening. This is where it is, this is what you can do there, this is how you come back. Let the whole class…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 23:97

Whatever the correction is, teach it before you need it. A routine the child already knows can be started with two words instead of a negotiation in front of everybody.

Show them the table, the worksheets, what happens when they finish, and let them try it once while nothing is wrong. After that the instruction is…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 48:4