Very much this. My son has ADHD (full neuropsych eval) and he has attention issues, but his main challenge is executive functioning. Daily routines do exist, but are achieved through literally months of repetition, not by conscious effort to identify and organize all of the things that need to happen before school, after school, etc.
Establishing and sticking to a formal program to read books is literally the hardest thing he could do, but when he finds a book he likes, he'll stay up late to read it, and would stay up all night if we let him.
In my experience, for an ADHD folk the routine stuff is the hardest.
If it doesn't give you a hit of dopamine, it becomes extremely difficult. Anything from homework to daily chores means your brain entering a deep brain fog, almost like a subdued headache.
Getting to a point where I have the discipline and self-control to maintain a daily routine has been a lifelong challenge.
"Having a routine" is exactly what doesn't work with ADHD. We can't do routine. Anything but this. Some of us are struggling with brushing teeth every day, or showing up at work. Even though when hyperfocused, we can do a week's work in a day, or successfully prepare for a difficult exam in a night, but doing something regularly — that's something we absolutely don't have.
My son's got an ADHD diagnosis and he seems like you. Whatever is slightly uninteresting is terribly difficult for him to focus on but if there's something interesting, he can maintain perfect focus for hours.
I imagine it might be days if he wasn't interrupted.
They exist, and there’s usually a mourning period when you have to truly grapple with understanding things really are harder for us.
“a failure to cultivate habits of discipline” is an _outcome of ADHD_. Executive dysfunction is preventing the cultivation of habits, not to say it’s impossible but they’re usually connected.
A useful trick here is to accomodate the lacking parts of the ADHD brain, with external consequences and external timekeeping.
External accountability and consequences such as a gym buddy (who you don’t want to let down), or needing to get your work done to get paid (so you can eat).
And external timekeeping is critical because we are time-blind [0]. Whether it’s a calendar, setting reminders, etc.
“People with ADHD know what to do, but they can’t do what they know.”
Not ADHD but ASD with pretty poor executive function.
The only thing I've found that helps is having a list of things somewhere I can see it. We have a list of tasks next to the fridge on a whiteboard, and it's the only way things get done.
As a side note, I'd suggest looking up ways to improve executive function, as this tends to be the area where this sort of problem falls into. There are tonnes of books out there, as well as ADHD coaches now, which can be pretty helpful.
ADHD is a real thing. Maybe not the same as procrastination and lack of self-managment.
I've known ADHD people with extreme self-control (amazing time planning), persistence and will to learn but when they tried concentrating it wouldn't happen. Either something in their brain can't click to grok the subject or they get constantly distracted by their thoughts. The time they put into the subject is huge but they get so little from it.
I've tutored several and am amazed at how well they try to avoid the problem by being better organized but their brain sometimes just can't focus on the important stuff which limits their ability to learn stuff that requires serious attention as quickly as others.
I've seen a few videos of people discussing their ADHD. One thing that came across is "I can't focus" was too broad. Some of them could sit for hours on end mastering a video game. What they could not do is focus on things that were less interesting.
Mind you, these were high functioning individuals. They found ways to use their bountiful reserves of energy to earn a lot of money. Maybe there are others that can't focus on anything for a long period - I don't know.
The difference between them and myself (apart from that energy) was that I can, with a struggle, force myself to focus on most things if I'm physically comfortable. That said, doing something I don't like is struggle, and I'll procrastinate like crazy. But for them, it seemed near impossible.
They solved the problem in the same way I do for regular things I don't like doing. They incorporated it into their daily routine. Repeating a routine, even something a simple as casting a fishing line (which I guess is not that simple to do well, now I think about it), brings it's own pleasures regardless of the task. For me it takes a few weeks to add something to my routine. For them, it seemed to take months or years. The self discipline they applied to keep at it until it became a routine they enjoyed for it's own sake, was amazing.
The visible symptoms of ADHD (ADD is no longer a separate thing) are things normal people experience all the time.
ADHD is very poorly named. It has similar symptoms at times but it is categorically different because they come from severely compromised self-regulation across many facets. Emotional control, memory, focus, sensory processing, etc.
Many people with ADHD find ways to work around this by finding ways to create a structure they can work in. This contributes to the belief that ADHD can be solved by diligent, disciplined work. Especially because discipline is the solution to normal people’s issues with attention.
But the reality is ADHD not a lack of discipline, but the inability to have it in the first place. Some people manage, but many can’t and other people make moral judgements that anyone with ADHD isn’t trying hard enough.
Thank you for the explanation. That isn't really my understanding of the challenges that ADHD brings, but I don't know much about it and will have to learn more if necessary.
Edit: For instance, is it the case that it is prohibitively difficult for people with ADHD to work hard in the skilled trades? That isn't how I usually think of it, but perhaps I'm wrong.
I don't see why any of that would be excessive or exclusive to people with ADHD. Neurotypical people forget important stuff all the time and would also benefit from good organizational skills and reminders about important deadlines.
I have been diagnosed with ADHD, what you describe is precisely what I struggle with. I have difficulty prioritizing tasks, completing projects. I get distracted by exciting new endeavors, dive head long into them, only to become bored within a matter of days or weeks.
Not true at all, and obviously im on this thread because im not neurotypical. ADHD is about misfunctioning emotional regulation and nothing to do with inability to form habits, as a matter of fact coping strategies is basically habits that work with disfunction. With ADHD I can focus extremely well, hyperfocus actually but not on the things that I find boring.
All these “integrate X in your daily rituals” kinds of advice absolutely don’t work for people with ADHD. There are no daily rituals for us. Life is chaotic.
I am trying to categorize things that might work in this condition, but you know, “categorizing” anything is also quite a challenge.
I'm sorry to hear about the struggles this has put you through, but I might mention that it is not universal that diagnosed sufferers of ADHD are unable to engage with their interests. In fact often direct interests can be highly engaging, while things that need to be done but are not interesting are debilitatingly difficult (executive dysfunction).
As with ASD and neurodivergency at large, ADHD is a spectrum, with differing impacts for differing people.
I work with someone with ADHD. It is plain as day when the medication starts to wear off. They can focus and program with diligence in the morning to early afternoon, but then later have a difficult time following longer trains of thought. It's not mere laziness - this person buckles down for even the most tedious of tasks, but rather their attention sorta slides off the topic. If you took the way a person's eyes slide off something shielded by a SEP-field, or the opposite of how your eyes are drawn to police flashers.
It's hard to describe, but it's certainly not just a goofy bandaid. They develop a routine around the process: harder or deeper problems in the morning, and small quick tickets/tasks in the afternoon. Or: as the day wears on, the work gets more granular (and thus more resilient to inturruption).
Mind, this is from my outside viewpoint. What actually goes on in their head can only really be described by them. But quite a few months of routine give me this impression.
Establishing and sticking to a formal program to read books is literally the hardest thing he could do, but when he finds a book he likes, he'll stay up late to read it, and would stay up all night if we let him.
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