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Hey friends,
I hope you've had a lovely weekend.
Here are your actionable tactics, routines, and habits for a rich, happy, and healthy life.
Please enjoy our latest edition of the Elixir.
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Living with ADHD and Being Productive
Give yourself all day to write an email…
…and somehow it becomes an all-day email.
This is Parkinson’s Law
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
Give a task three hours?
It finds a way to take three hours.
Give it twenty minutes?
Suddenly, you stop wondering whether “Hello” sounds too formal.
But for someone with ADHD, there’s another layer.
The problem isn’t simply that the deadline is too generous.
The deadline may be too distant, vague and invisible.
“Finish this by Friday” sounds clear.
But Friday isn’t happening now.
There’s no obvious first step.
There’s no immediate consequence.
And there are 700 other things competing for your attention.
ADHD can affect attention, organisation and the ability to keep on task.
Research has also found differences in how some adults with ADHD perceive and manage time, although this varies from person to person.
So your brain doesn’t necessarily hear:
“Start the presentation.”
It hears:
“Begin a large, undefined process with no immediate reward and several opportunities to feel inadequate.”
Naturally, you decide to clean the fridge.
Why urgency suddenly makes you productive
Most people plan work like this:
“This presentation needs to be finished by Friday.”
But your brain may hear:
“We have until Friday to begin feeling nervous about this.”
So Monday disappears.
Tuesday becomes “research”.
Wednesday is spent searching for the perfect template.
Thursday brings unnecessary formatting.
And Friday becomes a live-action emergency.
Now the task feels real with immediate consequences.
Now your brain knows exactly what matters.
This doesn’t mean you’re lazy.
And it doesn’t necessarily mean you “work best under pressure”.
It may mean accountability to something bigger than you, and pressure is your structure.
My strange productivity superpower
I noticed that I’m incredibly productive before a flight.
I’m also incredibly productive before I need to pick up my girlfriend from the train station.
In forty minutes, I can:
Reply to five emails.
Tidy the kitchen.
Finish a document.
Make a phone call I’ve avoided for six days.
And somehow take the bins out.
Why?
Because time has become real.
The plane will leave.
The train will arrive.
Someone will be standing on a platform wondering where I am.
There is a clear ending.
There is an immediate consequence.
And there is no time to redesign my entire productivity system.
Don’t build your life around panic
There is a tempting conclusion here:
“I should leave everything until the last minute.”
Please don’t.
Emergency-level urgency can create focus.
It can also create stress, mistakes, missed deadlines and exhaustion.
The goal is not to manufacture more panic.
The goal is to borrow the useful ingredients of urgency:
Make the deadline “REAL”
R for “Reduce” the task
Define what needs to be done, then break it down.
Break it down again, to its smallest first actionable task.
Writing a book could be “fine and amazing journal you love to write in.”
Yes, that's small.
Make starting stupidly small.
E for “Externalise” time
Get time out of your head.
Use a countdown timer.
Block a short sprint.
Set an alarm every 20 mins.
Make time real!
A “Accountability”
Be accountable to someone else with a time deadline.
“I’ll send it by 3:00.”
“Let’s have dinner at 6 pm”
This makes the task count more.
L for “Limit”
Decide when to stop.
You need to rest.
You need to switch off.
If you found yourself thinking, “Oh, that’s me”…
Try these strategies, keep what works, and forget the rest.
Have a great week ahead
Kia Kaha and Love
Chris Xx
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