Fuck ADHD. The inability to focus when I want to has always been a real pain in the butt for me, but I'll keep trying and gradually become better.
I've come up with an acronym mnemonic and a few steps that seem to be helping myself getting over ADHD from time to time. However, it turns out that a lot of the times it is still very difficult for me to fully focus unless an immediate due is imminent. As a university professor, I am still struggling to get my job decently done, and this has been bothering me since people suffering from ADHD (or at least myself) gain the most motivation through the sense of accomplishment and personally I get greatly demotivated from the sense of failure and not being able to finish a job in a certain pre-specified time table. To make things worse, I am a perfectionist, yet extremely unorganized.
Nevertheless, my specific acronym mnemonic is as below:
R. - Remove distractions. (Step 1)
External distractions have always been ruining my focus, almost completely. Preferably, a complete removal of distractions, or even better, a complete isolation from distractions would be very beneficial for me when I try to get things done. Personally, I am very easily distracted and I am so forgetful that a tiny distraction could ruin my focus and stuff like Facebook Reels could keep me mesmerized for hours, and that brings the second letter up.
S. - Selfly awareness. (Step 2)
Ok. First off, I am not a philosopher or a psychologist (my area of expertise is actually in natural sciences) and from what I know, terms like self-awareness and self-consciousness mean totally different thing than what I am trying to convey here. The thing here is that there are a lot of times that I am not even aware of what I am doing. For instance, I could be watching Facebook Reels or YouTube Shorts for hours before I even realize that holy shit I've been doing this shit for hours. I have wasted so much time for nothing. Most of these short videos (or other distractions in general) provide scarcely anything useful aside from the entertainment purposes. However, if I keep myself reminded about the task that I am currently focusing on; i.e., if I am aware of what myself is doing all the time without being lost in thoughts or entertainment, I would be able to identify the distraction and go back to step 1 and get rid of it before I return back to work or study. I find this to me very helpful personally.
T. - Timed study / work. (Step 3)
For people suffering from ADHD (or I could be just speaking for myself :'), it is usually crucial to keep track of time and to attempt to finish tasks in time. For an unorganized person like me, this is actually extremely difficult to achieve. This is to say that the reality is usually very different from the expectation. I expect myself to do this, this and this in the next hour, but usually what happens is that I struggle to get even one of them done. Still, keeping track of time tends to psych me up, and the limited amount of time (which is also relatable to our lives since "There is only a finite amount of time in life", quoted from one of my favorite professors during my PhD time) brings tension and the urge to get things done, which usually is good. As someone suffering from ADHD (or it could just be me), I always feel like I need more pressure and I am living my life too cozily. TBH, I have enough shit to worry about in life, and theoretically that should be keeping me busy, but I just tend to be carefree and not worry about shit. Sometimes, I worry about shit that just doesn't matter instead of focusing on the thing that I should be worrying about, and that's some next-level shit. Anyways, I feel like I got distracted again. Back to step 1?
T. - Talk to yourself. (Step 4)
This may sound silly, but a conversation between me and myself actually keeps me engaged and concentrated on what I am currently on. I feel it's like a life hack to me, like just another person that came out of nowhere trying to help me, and surprisingly (or not) that person is myself! In rare circumstances, this might turn into a self interrogation since sometime I do find myself exasperating, but hey we are this one person anyways. By talking to myself, I am able to give myself clear and detailed instructions about what's gonna happen so that it would be easier to keep track and less likely to get lost.
W. - Write it down. (Step 5)
I am actually not completely positive that this should be viewed as Step 5, since through Steps 1 - 4 we should already have been writing something. Specifically here, I am talking about writing down a plan, or just some brief schedule that resonates with Step 4. To some people, writing things down may help them better than just having a conversation with themselves. Writing things down is also particularly effective when you have a big-ass task that requires multiple steps. These tasks usually sound intimidating and can often times be overwhelming. Breaking it down into small steps helps relieve the hesitance, and a lot of times gets us started. Hey, believe it or not, sometimes our minds can be unstoppably amazing as ideas can just keep popping up and a lot of times we forget about self-appreciation. Find a mirror and look into yourself. You should be appreciating how awesome we are. It is great to be born as a human being, and we should really see this as a privilege. We are able to form much more sophisticated thoughts compared to animals and that per se is worth our appreciation.
I hope this would appear helpful to someone (or maybe it's just confusing? IDK). This is my first blog and I feel like this is cool and it kind of calms me down from the pain that I'm suffering, the self-created meaningless pain LoL. English is not my native tongue so I apologize if this is terribly written. I used to blog something in Mandarin Chinese (my native tongue) but it was a while ago (maybe junior or senior high?). I miss the feeling of writing so much, and I am glad to finally write something on this 12-year-old Tumblr account. God I am feeling so fucking old and I still do not have a kid LMAO.