DESCRIPTION:
Tired of your ADHD distractibility getting in your way? You can turn that around now using these tips. So you can focus on what’s important to you.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Your ADHD contributes to your distractibility
- There are nine other factors that can also contribute to your tendency to be distracted
- Taking care of your body and brain is one way to manage distractions
- Engineering your environment can also help reduce distractions
- Just enough planning is also helpful in managing distractions.
RESOURCES:
- The 1-3-5 Rule – A Better To-Do List: The 1-3-5 Rule
- Tool: Focusemate – Virtual coworking
TRANSCRIPT:
(00:00):
Do you feel because of your ADHD, you are constantly doing battle with managing distractions to not only get what’s important to you done but to be who you want to be and who you envision. Ready to see how to turn this around? You’ve tuned into Scattered Focused, Done Re-Imagining Productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD, adults like you who want to learn how to adopt the best strategies, tools, and skills to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins, and I’m glad you’re joining me today on this journey to re-Imagining productivity with ADHD. So you can get what is important to you done without trying to do it like everyone else.
(00:47):
Let’s first start with the two different types of distractions, internal and external. I know you already know this, but let’s go over it again anyway. The internal distractions are those thousand and one ideas that are rambling about in your head. It could be new ideas, it could be your to-do list. It could be just random ideas, and you just can’t land on one idea to focus on. So you keep on switching from thought to thought, and whichever thought is the loudest gets your attention in the moment. Aside from internal distractions, there are external distractions. You can think of these as your five senses. You know sounds in your environment, like the ping of your text notification or the people having a conversation right outside your office. Then there are the visual distractions, like the piles on your desk or yes, there goes the squirrel.
(01:42):
Then there’s the feel of the scratchy tags on your clothes, right? And what about the person sitting next to you with the strong perfume. All of these external distractions pull your attention away from where you want to be, whether you’re in conversation or doing a task that it’s important to you. So you may be wondering, well, so doesn’t this happen to everyone? What’s so special about adults with ADD and distractions? Okay,
(02:12):
So let’s go over that for a bit. One of the reasons you may be more prone to distractions is because of your challenges with executive function, including self-regulating. Because it’s a challenge to regulate your attention, it makes it more difficult for you to stay on track and not get way waylaid by the various distractions I mentioned earlier. Another reason is because of neurotransmitter imbalance, specifically dopamine and norepinephrine, which play a critical role in regulating your attention and concentration. Because of insufficient levels of these, it may be harder to yes resist distractions. Also, adults with ADHD tend to be more sensitive to sensory stimuli such as light noise or movement. This heightened sensitivity can again make you more prone to being distracted by environmental factors more so than your neurotypical peers. In addition, you know that it can be hard to start a task, and because of this, you may be more prone to distractions as you may turn your attention to something that is well easier to initiate.
(03:21):
Also, remember that you have working memory limitations. And working memory you can think of it as your mental sticky note. It stores information very briefly, just 15 to 30 seconds so you can use the information to complete task. While everyone has limited working memory capacity, that is a specific number of chunks of information they can handle without getting distracted. For ADHD adults, this capacity is even smaller, meaning that you can hold less information than those without ADHD. And this limitation can make it even more difficult to keep track of what you were doing, especially if there are distractions in your environment. Of course, there are other factors not directly related to your ADHD that may make you more prone to distractions. In fact, psychologists, Marcy Caldwell points to nine key reasons for internal distractions, which are stress, low blood sugar, not enough exercise or movement anxiety to-dos, not enough medication fatigue, rejection, sensitivity, and stress.
(04:30):
I’ll add boredom to the list. Let’s look at what this might look like in a hypothetical scenario at work. Okay, you get to work, maybe you’re a little late, you know, have a report due later in the week and you’re intending on working on it, but first you start responding to email. Then Marissa pops into your office as you’re emailing. While you’re trying to have a conversation with her, you’re distracted by the ping of email and text notifications. Then Marissa leaves your office and you still haven’t started on the report. You decide to just finish up the email because you have a meeting with Leo in about a half an hour. And you figure that’s just not enough time to make any headway. So you might as well wait until later to start it. You get back from the meeting and notice there’s 10 different Slack messages you need to respond to. So you do that. After communicating back and forth on Slack then it’s time for lunch.
(05:26):
You still haven’t started on the report. A colleague asks you to come to last minute meeting. It seems urgent. So you accept. After all you have till the end of the week to turn in the report. After that urgent meeting, you have two more back-to-back meetings. It’s three o’clock by the time you get back to your office and you need a break. So you read the paper for a little bit. And, as you’re reading the paper, there’s a topic that interests you. So you start Googling to learn more about it. What was supposed to be a 10 minute break, not bad in and of itself turns into a half hour. It’s 3:30 and you decide, well, maybe it’s time to start working on the report. You’re not sure where to start. You look for the meeting notes where the team talked about the report, but you can’t find them.
(06:13):
You’re frustrated. You try to work, and then you remember you need to write the agenda and send it out for your team meeting tomorrow. So you do that instead. I think you get the idea. The day just got away from you. The question of course is how can you manage these distractions and be more intentional about how you use your time? That’s what you want to know, right? So let’s get on with that. The first step is to create the best environment possible for yourself. This includes getting enough sleep, eating nutritious food, drinking enough water to fuel your body and brain. And, if you take medication, make sure that you time your work that has the heaviest cognitive load to when you take it. 30 minutes after taking your medication for most people is the optimal window. Next, you’ll want to engineer your environment to give you the best chance of avoiding distractions.
(07:08):
Here are just a few suggestions to start you off. First, remember, it’s not possible to give a hundred percent of your attention to your primary tasks. That is you have floating attention. ADHD adults have a lot of floating attention. And giving your floating attention a job to do by listening to music, walking on a treadmill or using a fidget will help you focus on your primary tasks like working on that report. Also, can you close your door or work in another location that has fewer distractions? Of course, if you’re working at a place where the culture is such that you’re not able to close your door, you’ll have to negotiate this. But whatever you’re able to do will depend on that culture. If you tend to be distracted by certain apps or sites, you might try an internet blocker like Rescue Time or maybe even deleting the app from your phone.
(08:05):
And how about those random thoughts that come up that you just feel you need to tend to. Don’t. Write them on a piece of paper that you have next to you and address them later. And remind yourself, I’m doing this and not that. If you’re in an office environment and people tend to pop in, could you tell them, I would really like to talk to you about this. Can we set up another time to do it? Maybe three or four o’clock. And then if you have an in-house messaging app such as Slack, could you review it on the hour or the half hour? Again, what you’re able to do will depend on your workplace culture. You might also work in short spurts like Pomodoro’s by setting the timer for 25 minutes and then taking a short break. The last suggestion I’ll give regarding the environment is working with an accountability partner, either in person or online.
(08:59):
It can be somebody or a service like Focusmate. Many of my clients have used focusmate with great success. These are just a few of the ideas that you can use. There are many more I’m sure. But the idea that I want to get across is that you need to be proactive in making sure both you’re feeding your body and brain and engineering your environment so you can avoid distractions. Because remember, your ADHD brain is a stimulus seeking missile, so to speak. If there is a distraction, your brain is going to head right forward. So think about what will put you in the best position possible to focus and avoid distractions in addition to the suggestions I already gave you. When it comes to working on a project such as the report I’ve been mentioning, the next step you’ll want to take to avoid distractions is to have some sort of execution plan.
(09:57):
Now, that doesn’t mean you have to know or flush out the whole plan from beginning to end. But you do want to have at least enough clarity to be able to begin each time you work on it. Otherwise, as you saw in the example I gave, without this clarity, it’s just too easy to get yes distracted and give into progressivity, which is doing an easier tasks like emails, slack, preparing for a meeting, maybe organizing your desk, et cetera. While these other tasks are distractions, you may convince yourself it’s okay because well, they have to get done anyway, right? And you might also tell yourself, I’ll figure it out later. Though you have no idea when later is. It’s just not now. In these instances, you’re likely deferring the discomfort of doing the hard work, of figuring out the what, how, and when you are going to do the tasks such as the report.
(10:58):
To avoid this and get the clarity you need, ask yourself first, what are the objectives or objective of this task or project? You should always be able to envision the outcome you want so you know where you are heading. The second question is, what are the next actions or action? And then the third one, when is the next time I can start and work on this? So for example, you might decide for the report that the objective is to have all the materials you need to get started on the report. So the next action might be, of course, to gather all the materials you need, including meeting notes and emails. Then you would want to schedule some time, which might be maybe a Pomodoro or 25 minutes on your calendar for when you’re going to do this. Of course, if you can get your work done by doing it when you feel energized, you should do that.
(11:57):
It’s easier than swimming upstream for sure. But if you’re not getting it done, it might be time to schedule a specific block to do it. Just make sure you’re beginning at the beginning, wherever that is. So do you know the objective next action or actions and work time for your current task and projects? When it comes to managing distractions, aside from planning out how you’re going to execute on specific task or projects, you also want to plan out your day. Otherwise, you know that you’ll likely get distracted and default to whatever feels the most interesting or urgent.
(12:38):
And when you don’t plan your day, it may end up getting dictated by the pull of other people’s agendas. It’s so easy for this to happen when you have no idea how you want to use your time. There are a few ways you can do this in addition to the meetings that are already on your calendar. One is to time block by scheduling blocks of time on your calendar for certain tasks. I also know that this just doesn’t work for some people because it feels like too much structure. And if that’s true for you, another way to structure your day is a method created by Alex Kako, which is to choose five small tasks, three medium tasks, and one big task for the day. If you find that’s too much, maybe because you have a lot of meetings in any particular day, you can adapt it to suit your own needs.
(13:30):
Maybe on a particular day. You have one big task, two medium tasks, and three small tasks. You can decide not only how many tasks fit in these buckets, but also what constitutes a small, medium or large task. However you decide to plan your day, you just want to make sure you have some sort of structure. And you also want to make sure that you externalize this plan so you can see what you intend to do, whether it’s putting it on a calendar, as in the case of time blocking or on a list, as in the case of the 1 3 5 method. Otherwise, I know you may just work off a long task list, which is overwhelming. Because there’s too much on the list and you don’t have a good sense of whether it’s possible to get everything done. So your task list may end up functioning more like a wishlist, and if you’re having a hard time doing this on your own, please ask for help. Maybe by processing aloud with an accountability partner.
(14:35):
I know you want to be intentional about how you spend your time. And it can be really hard with so many internal and external distractions in your environment. To give yourself the best chance possible. You’ll want to take care of your body and brain and then engineer your environment to minimize distractions. And do just enough planning, not too much that you can start and follow through on what you intend to do each day and have an idea about how you’re going to spend each day that is in alignment with your values and goals. That’s it for now. I am really glad you joined me and stayed until the very end. If you’re interested in learning more about my work with adults with ADHD, check out my website, marlacummins.com. And if you’ve learned a thing or two from today’s podcast, which I hope you have, pass along the link to anyone else in your circles you think might also benefit. Until next time, this has been Scattered, Focused, Done. And I’m Marla Cummins. Wishing you all the very best on your journey to re-Imagining Productivity with ADHD.
