If You Suddenly Feel Like You Have ADD, You're Right
I'm writing you a special extra newsletter this week to bring more perspective from Dr. Ned Hallowell. Working in the digital age encourages jumping around and lack of focus. It's like living your life with too many tabs open at the same time.
I was reflecting on my day trying to field calls from my mom's doctors, check my Slack, check my email, check texts, do endless Zooms, load the dishwasher, and actually try to get an article in while my daughter's upstairs because school's out. Check LinkedIn. Check Instagram. My brain couldn't rest. I couldn't stay on task. It can feel hopeless and overwhelming because our digital demands won’t be decreasing anytime soon. ADD expert Dr. Ned Hallowell says the challenges are very real. The term is VAST, and it actually explains why a lot of us, especially those of us trapped in highly digital worlds, feel like we have ADD even if we don’t have a diagnosis.
Hallowell says he sees a lot of high-functioning people who don't qualify for the ADHD or ADD diagnosis, “but they are tremendously helped by the interventions that I can prescribe for them. I say they have pseudo ADD, or what I call VAST, which is Variable Attention Stimulus Trait, not disorder, but trait. Depending on how you manage it, it's either an asset or a liability. And it's usually a little bit of both. So my job is to turn it as much into an asset as I can and as little of a liability as possible.”
Hallowell notes, “If you define ADD by the DSM-5 definition, you don't have ADD. But practically speaking, the treatments we have for ADD minus medication would be very effective for you. Exercise, structure, coaching, having a creative outlet, pursuing your interests and not just doing what you have to do. So living your life as if you had ADD will help you. And so whether to call you ADD or not is sort of a moot point.”
So what can we do? Build our focus muscle. Hallowell: “Everything you do in life (except sleep) improves with focus. It reduces anxiety, it elevates you out of depression. It makes you a lot easier to get intimate with. It makes you a lot easier to manage. Everything gets better when you can focus.”
Here’s what I do when I’m drowning in distraction and need to get centered. I breathe, and then I re-organize.
Breathe: I simply count my inhales and exhales for a couple of minutes. 4 beats in, 6 beats out. That’s it. Why does this work? Learn more: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_focusing_on_the_breath_does_to_your_brain
Re-organize. I make a list or a very detailed work plan. I use a simple legal pad each day. Up top, I write all the to-dos for the day. If I have bigger to-dos I know I won’t get to, I write them on the next blank page in my planner.
Then, I block out the to-do’s. It could look like this:
9:00-9:30: Post on LinkedIn and design Canva graphics.
9:30-10:00: call Dr. A, shower, defrost chicken
10:00-1:00: Zoom time (Remember to eat at 12:50!)
Etc.
I might print out my calendar and write out everything I need to do. This calms any anxiety, which also depletes my ability to focus.
Breaking down tasks into bite-sized chunks makes it both easier to focus and builds in rewards during the day- a key piece of staying on task!
Morra
PS: But if I need to do deep work, it has to happen on a weekend or early in the morning or evening where there’s no digital disruption. I’m trying to get better but haven’t mastered deep work on a typical work day! Have you?