Focusing TOO Much? Try this!

Hello Brains! One sec I'm almost done. What the heck? It's 5:30. It's what now? No! So it turns out, there's a lot of content out there about how to start a task when you have ADHD. In my defense ADHD can make it hard to get started on the things we need to do. But what about when we can't stop doing them?

Despite the name "Attention Deficit," there are times those of us with ADHD actually can't stop focusing. Hyperfocus, or a state of deep flow or perseveration those with ADHD experience as a result of our differences in attention regulation is a double edged sword. We can get a lot done, often in a short amount of time. But we can also end up stuck, unable to pull ourselves away, even for important things like food, bathroom breaks, or spending quality time with friends or family. Don't get me wrong, there are times when hyperfocus is amazing. It feels good to finish a big puzzle, make big progress on a paper, or write a New York Times bestselling book. But there are definitely times where even if we'd like to stop, we just can't. Which is why... it's important to have a set of tools to help us break out of hyperfocus when needed. No I guess that would technically work. While plenty of tools can help us break hyperfocus, it can help to select tools specific to why we're stuck in the first place. So for this episode, I'm going to talk about a few reasons ADHDers might have trouble stopping and a strategy for each. Starting with time blindness.

Sometimes we don't stop because we've lost track of time. We intended to doom scroll for ten more minutes before getting ready to leave, but didn't notice ten minutes came and went an hour ago. We never realized it was time to stop and now we're really worried about the elephants in Africa. What can help? Tools that help us "see" time. I have a whole video about that here, but basically clocks, calendars, watches, timers, alarms. Anything that can help us be more aware of the fact that time is passing and that we need to be wrapping up. Timers and alarms.

Le sigh. You probably know about this. I know about this. Every professional who has ever treated anyone with ADHD has recommended this. But when we're in hyperfocus, we often don't even notice these things. Even if we remember to set an alarm, we might not even notice it going off. Solution? Make them easier to notice. It is way too easy for me to hit snooze on my phone alarm. The one that's telling me it's time to wrap up without even realizing it. But this is a lot harder to ignore, especially if you put it across the room from you. So you have to get up to turn it off. Yeah. We're not going to need that. If you forget to check the time, you can set a digital clock on your phone and prop it up so it's in your line of sight. For calendars, rather than tabbing between what you're doing and your calendar app, which you will maybe forget to do, make it big and drag it onto a second screen, or use split screen so you can keep it up while you work. if your meetings tend to run over because other people don't realize they ended ten minutes ago, make setting an alarm the first item in your meeting agenda. The first step in being able to stop is realizing it's even time to. Of course, ignoring alarms is also a very ADHD thing. Lately, I've been using a warning alarm 15 minutes before the real one. It helps me know it's time to start wrapping up and mentally transitioning before my actual "stop" alarm goes off, so I'm more likely to listen to it. But what if seeing time is not the issue? You just can't stop until what you're doing is just right because of perfectionism.

Sometimes we have unrealistic expectations for how good the thing we're doing needs to be. With very few exceptions, whatever we're doing doesn't actually need to be perfect. When we think that it does, it can lead to endless tinkering. We don't feel like we can stop because our brain has convinced us that it's not good enough yet, even when maybe it actually is. I've literally spent hours rewriting the same sentence again and again without really making any progress on a script. Did the rewrite make the sentence better? Maybe. Could that time have been better spent elsewhere? Yeah, absolutely. So how do we break out of this? Step away. Perfectionism-fueled hyperfocus often sucks us into working on tiny details where then we can't see the forest for the trees. We're so focused on one individual aspect of whatever we're working on that we lose sight of the big picture. Taking a break, whether that's a five minute walk or sticking a manuscript in a drawer for a month, can give us perspective. So we're more effective when we come back. It can also help to have a clear finish line. This can be a deadline such as "I can make this video as good as I want, but it needs to be done in time to post on Tuesday. " Or, "I can research for X amount of time, but then I need to start writing. " It could be a checklist of what you want to get done. And when the checklist is done, you are done. But what if it's not perfect yet? Good. Exposure to putting things out in the world that aren't perfect, and seeing that nothing terrible happens, or that people actually loved your "imperfect" thing can help with perfectionism in the future. It makes it easier to stop what you're doing and move on. Speaking of which, it helps to know what you're moving on to. When there's no clear "up next," our brain can get stuck on what we're doing now, because that feels easier than figuring out a new task. What can help with this is deciding what to do in advance. This can be as simple as before you start, decide what one thing you're going to do as soon as you're finished. Or to make transitions even easier on your brain, you can map out your whole day, including when you're going to do things like eat and sleep. My favorite tool for this is Sunsama, which is why I asked them to sponsor this video Sunsama is a productivity system to help you get more done without burning out. It acts kind of like a personal assistant to help you plan your day. It has always been really helpful with that, which is why I've talked about it a lot on the channel. It's very ADHD-friendly, because it prompts you step by step what to do to plan your day. But now they have a new feature that's even more helpful. It's called Time Boxing 2. 0. And the way it works is you go to plan out your day. You write out what it is you're doing, how long you expect it to take, and it will automatically fill in when you're supposed to be doing that thing. And if you move things around, it will automatically move that around for you. It is so helpful. And over time, it learns what it is that you do, what category that thing tends to fall in, and how long it usually takes you. So it can start to offer more realistic suggestions as to how long something will take. It's really incredibly helpful, both in terms of knowing what is up next so that I don't have to think about it, but also in terms of seeing if my day is overloaded before I even begin. I can see that I have planned too much work and bump back tasks that can wait, and I can see that in advance so that I'm not in the middle of my day trying to figure out, oh no, like this took too long. What do I do now? I can very quickly, very easily plan my day. Catch if there are any issues in what I have planned, and see about what time I should expect to do certain things, which makes it extra easy when I'm working with a team where I need some of them to be on site for that so that I can see, oh, I need you here by 9:20, because that is when we are starting this task. I've loved Sunsama for a long time, I've talked about it forever. It gets better and more helpful all of the time. And. Yeah, they're really dedicated to being ADHD friendly, if you'd like to try some Sunsama and see how easily it can help you plan your day so that you can get more done without burning out They have a 14 day free trial period with no credit card required upfront. Just go to Sunsama. com/a/jessicafromhowtoadhd or you can click on my link in the description below.

But what if it turns out that you've spent three hours on a paragraph of your latest fanfiction not because of perfectionism or because you don't know what you need to do next, but because it's providing you some enjoyment or stimulation. ADHD brains crave stimulation, which can make it especially hard to stop doing things that are fun or otherwise stimulating. We might play "just one more round" of our video game. Have "just a few more chips," or start the next hour long episode at 11 p. m. on a work night, even when we know it will likely have negative consequences. So what's a stimulation-craving brain to do? Put up some barriers. Just like we can remove barriers if we want to start doing a thing, we can add barriers if we want to stop. If you want to be hardcore about it, have your TV automatically shut off at a certain time using a lamp timer. Serve yourself one serving of chips and give away the rest. Or take your laptop to a cafe without a charger. Make it so you literally can't keep going. Prefer something gentler? Try limiting yourself to a certain number of episodes and turn off autoplay or attach a timer to your remote so when it goes off, you know to turn it off. Divide up those chips into single servings so you can get more if you want, but it would be a hassle and a mindful choice. Take your laptop charger with you, but leave it in the bag. People can make good stoppers too. You can schedule something with someone so you have a hard stop time, or ask someone if they're able to help you transition out of what you're doing. Pets are also great for this. If you don't have a pet, there's always Clocky It's an alarm clock on wheels that you have to chase down to get it to turn off. But sometimes the reason we have trouble stopping is ironic.

It's because we have trouble starting. If we stop now, we are worried that we might not be able to get started again, because we might forget where we were going with it. It could take too long to get started again, or we're afraid of losing our motivation entirely. But when we're working on big multi-day projects, eventually you're going to have to eat and sleep. So what can you do to alleviate the fear, stop what you're doing, and get yourself back on track when you need to? leave yourself breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are like little morsels you leave for your future self to help lead you back to where you were. You can leave these breadcrumbs on a post-it note, in your bullet journal, or by sending yourself an email, just to give a few ideas. Not like, literal breadcrumbs. Metaphorical breadcrumbs. For your first "crumb," note where you left off. What did you just do? For your second crumb, note what you would have done next if you'd have continued. A bonus tip? Look for natural stopping points. Writing your novel? Stop at the end of a scene or a paragraph. Cleaning out your wardrobe? Stop once you've gone through a full drawer. Bingeing a series? Pause at a scene change. But ideally, choose a natural stopping point where you are also looking forward to the next step. That way, you're more likely to have an easier time getting back into it. For more tips on how to get started, you can check out our video on that here. Of course, there are times when we literally can't stop because consequences will happen where we've procrastinated up until the last moment and we risk a failing grade, a write-up at work, or even losing our stuff. So we can't stop until we're done. If what you're working on is important to you, or you don't have a lot of time left to get it done, yeah, it might be worth working through dinner time and eating at your desk. That said, when I talked to Dr. Ari Tuckman about this, he made a great point. Be aware of if this is happening a lot. If it is, maybe it's time to put the work down and go out with your friends, even if you're not done in time, because connection and rest matters too. Thank you to our Brain Advocates

and all our Patreon Brains for supporting work like this. I'm so excited to be back into our regular sci-com content and have our Brain back as well! Is there anything I missed? Do you have tips on how to stop when needed? Let me know in the comments below. Like, subscribe, click all the things and I will see you next video! Bye Brains!