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.
What works for this
Implementation intentions
Putting things off is mood repair rather than laziness: delay removes the bad feeling straight away and the cost lands later. So the move is not more willpower, it is a plan specific enough to run without a decision.
One move, today
Write one sentence: when it is [time] and I am at [place], I will [the first small action]. Naming when and where is the part the evidence supports.
What matches
3 practicesIf most of the difficulty is happening at home, most of the work needs to happen with the household in the room. Otherwise the hour of good conversation gets quietly undone by Tuesday.
In a settled stretch, seeing the young person on their own with occasional family time is fine. In a crisis, turn it round: everyone together,…
Worry done on your own goes round in circles. Said out loud to one other person, it usually turns into a problem with edges, and sometimes into a next step.
The rule is short enough to remember at midnight: never worry alone. It does not have to be someone who can fix anything. A friend, a colleague, your…
When your child comes to you in a spin, the kind thing is to stay warm and steady rather than to promise that it will be fine. Reassurance settles the next ten minutes and feeds the asking.
It sounds cold and it is not. What your steadiness says is two things at once: this feeling is real, and I think you can carry it. Keep it short and…