10 Ways to Survive and Thrive with Adult ADHD

If you know me, and you understand the diagnostic criteria for Adult ADD/ADHD (attention deficit disorder), you know I’m a textbook case. While there are many benefits to having an ADD mind, there are also many more challenges. If you have ADHD or know someone who does, you know that every single day needs to be approached as its own game to attack, and every interaction requires the energy to be able to engage in a conversation via listening and sharing at the right time without doing too much of one or the other.

Research has proven that people with ADHD have structural abnormalities in their brains. A lot is still unknown about ADHD, but it is said that people with ADHD may use dopamine less efficiently than people who do not have ADHD. It is said that 3 to 5 percent of adults in the United States have this disorder, so clearly I’m not alone. Yet those who hone their ADHD superpowers to multi-task and approach challenges differently than more linear-thinking types can be very successful, it just requires the ability to understand your strengths, fix a few important weaknesses, and allow yourself to accept that being “normal” is not possible nor desirable.

Is Adult ADHD Real?

For a long time, I was in denial about having ADHD (despite being diagnosed by a neurologist in fourth grade and again diagnosed a few times later in life.) In fact, I thought that it was a made-up disorder — an excuse for just being bad at all the things that we’re supposed to be good at as adults. ADHD symptoms include: Lack of Focus, Hyperfocus (ability to focus on one project for a long time and be extremely productive), disorganization, forgetfulness, impulsivity, restlessness and anxiety, and other, more destructive issues.

Here is a really great post on 23 signs you do not have ADHD. This post confirms that I have ADHD. Can you relate?

My Own Version — 5 Things You can relate to if you have ADHD:

1. You have reorganized your entire closet to be color coordinated while the rest of your apartment is entirely a mess. You may not have finished the closet reorg but what you have done looks like a beautiful rainbow.
2. You never know when it’s your turn to talk, and you know you talk too much but when you try not to you end up not talking at all.
3. Everytime you try to get something done, you end up switching projects and working on something else unless you make a very serious attempt to force yourself to focus.
4. You don’t feel good about solving one small problem with plenty of time to solve that problem, but you thrive on the adrenaline rush of impossible challenges and somehow figuring out how to solve them in what feels like almost heroic ways.
5. Time is a mystery to you. Either it goes too slow or too fast. You can get things done incredibly quickly if you’re at the top of your game, but you underestimate how much time things should take. Your biggest fear is having nothing to do.

As an adult, it’s just not o.k. to allow oneself to succumb to her diagnosis. Poor Executive Functioning is extremely challenging in most adult situations — it’s inappropriate and not helpful to overreact emotionally or get distracted that projects never get completed. Being a good, responsible adult means doing everything that ADHD isn’t. For some people this apparently comes easy. I’ll never know what that’s like.

This isn’t a sob story. There will always be days where I let my ADHD get the best of me, but I think embracing how my mind works to achieve peak productivity is more important than trying to fit into someone else’s mold of looking productive. I’ve learned that I cannot work in a company that does not allow me to do my work in a coffee shop or another environment that is less distracting than an open office space. I have embraced that I do my best work late at night and in the morning, and my objective should always be to produce the best possible finished products versus to just show up and not be able to focus. I’m very fortunate to have an employer who values my contributions and not necessarily where I complete them (within reason.)

I have not solved all the challenges of having ADHD yet, but these are 10 tactics that help:

1. Break It All Down. If you have ADHD, when you’re working on a project you have trouble focusing on one piece of that project because your brain is constantly trying to solve for everything else that needs to be done. It’s helpful to quiet the brain by breaking out all the projects into comprehendable tasks that have a “home” in the future, so you can focus on the now. Make a list of goals, create deadlines for those goals, and then priortize the goals based on how important they are to other people. Break down each goal into microgoals and determine if any can be delegated. Highlight any microgoals that require third-party feedback or contributions and assign them deadlines even if they cause anxiety. Start with tasks that are easy versus the hardest ones — even though you’ll be drawn to tackling the hardest tasks first, getting a few things done will help you feel more accomplished and able to tackle the more challenging items while also getting through your list faster. Oh, and limit how many goals you have. It helps to group goals — have no more than four major goals at any given time. Any more than this and you’ll feel too overwhelmed. Even if you don’t get everything done, getting the most important things done will still be a huge win.
2. Be Realistic About Time. Break down an 8–10 hour workday using micro-goals that must be accomplished for the day. With poor executive functioning, it’s very easy to underestimate the time a project will take. I once added up all the hours I expected my day to take me and I had about 32 hours of work planned for one day. This was a wake up call. Even if I was extremely efficient I’d never be able to humanly get the work done. Understanding realistic timeframes for microgoals helps you better estimate how much time you really need to get things done, so you don’t overcommit (yet again.)
3. Don’t Know Everything. There is a tendency in people with ADHD to want to know everything about something in order to make progress. While a non-ADHD person would be able to gather a limited amount of information and move forward with their project, and ADHD person would be caught up in understanding every possible option and overanalyze the situation to bits. It’s ok to make decisions without knowing everything. Sometimes you just have to make a decision and move quickly — you don’t need to be an expert to get stuff done.
4. Listen more than you talk. I’m still working on this one. With ADHD it’s hard to control your impulses to speak. This can obviously come across to others as you aren’t listening to them or that you are being rude. It’s better to talk too little in a meeting than too much, but eventually you have to find the right balance. Most of the time I leave meetings feeling upset that I spoke too much and out of turn. When I am really on my game, I take a moment before the meeting to remind myself that i will pick 2–3 key moments when I can add value to the conversation, write down what I want to say or quickly bullet it out, and then speak up when the time is right to be as succinct as possible. I have not figured this out yet entirely, but I do think it is very helpful to pause before every meeting and focus on selecting 2–3 primary moments to interact.
5. Create mini rewards for yourself. With ADHD comes a lack of dopamine / intrinsic reward system for getting stuff done. With ADHD we’re drawn to adrenaline-filled rush to the finish line activities. Of course, that is really bad for most everything unless we’re in specific crisis-room roles. It’s so important to be able to find a way to feel good about completing each task. It sounds cheesy, but when you finish a microgoal thinking “go me” or “awesome job” or just forcing yourself to smile can go a long way. Taking a walk after completing a task also works, but you need to make sure your tasks are subtaintial enough or you’d be just using walks as an excuse to get up and not return to your next task.
6. Work where and when you are most effective. This isn’t always possible, but if you can figure out what time of day you are most productive, and what locations enable your productivity, work then and there. Not all roles enable this type of flexibility, but when you have ADHD you really need to find a role that does or you will have a lot of trouble being successful. Go ahead and leverage that ability to hyperfocus to get great stuff done fast. People often tell me they are amazed I can write so quickly about complex topics. Figure out what you’re good at and do more of that. Don’t obsess over being good at everything, because no one is good at everything.
7. Remind yourself that failure is not only ok, it’s necessary to be successful. I used to think that to be smart I couldn’t study because smart people were just born that way. I also realized that I had this great fear of working so hard and still failing, and I was too afraid of being found out for being dumb that it became even harder to focus. I’m not sure where this concept came from in my mind, but now I realize that with the exception of very few people, most “smart” people are smart because they have the ability to focus for long periods of time and good working memory. These are two traits that aren’t found naturally in people with ADHD, so you have to work harder at them, but that’s ok and doesn’t make you stupid.
8. Be Your Own Awesome. Do what you do best. Working in Silicon Valley, I constantly feel like a total imposter. People here are ridiculously smart and with that many have the educational pedigree to boot. I’m just this girl from New Jersey who hacked around with HTML in high school(shoutout to Geocities), went to college for theatre, ended up in Silicon Valley and somewhat randomly ended up reporting on startup tech at 22 leading to a varied career in marketing. I spent too much time being distracted by my own insecurities, which is a common ADHD trait and is exhacerbated by being in a community of high-IQ overachievers. Yet, being different can be a good thing. Being creative and being able to see larger patterns and identify opportunities that others can’t necessarily see can add value in a culture so focused on testing and optimization which, when overemphasized, becomes synonomous with improving the status quo but failing to innovate.
9. Don’t Be A Hero. This is probably the hardest challenge for someone with ADHD. We aren’t satisfied with just doing good work. We have to do great work. We have to be extraordinary. It is a curse and a blessing because it’s what drives so many people with ADHD to do great things.Some have clamed that ADHD is the entrepreneur’s superpower.“What do business mogul Sir Richard Branson, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, and JetBlue founder David Neeleman, have in common? Well, besides being monumentally successful, they all have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and, like other entrepreneurs and CEOs, some will even tell you that they are successful largely because of the “diagnosis”, not in spite of it.” Still, it’s extremely important to channel the ability to bounce around from one project to another. Learn how to delegate and how to feel a sense of success and satisfaction not just for your own contributions but for your ability to inspire the best out of others. If you really want to do great things with ADHD, become a great manager.
10. Be Healthy. This is easier said than done, but cutting back on sugar, eating real, nutritious, high-quality food, getting a good night’s rest and exercising regularly (even just going for a walk a few times a week) can help with your focus and productivity so much. Be good to yourself and it will pay off. Medication can help as well (I choose not to be medicated as I don’t like what ADHD meds do to me) but I am very aware of how bad my ADHD symptoms are if I am not taking care of myself. If you want to start getting a handle of your ADHD, start by getting a good night’s sleep. For me, that starts right now. Goodnight.