Maintaining focus can be a real difficult for an adult with ADHD. The endless distractions keep the ADHD brain from focusing on a task as we struggle to get things done at work or try to complete tasks around the house. You are not alone, this is common for adults with ADHD, the trick is finding strategies that can help your mind focus and stay on task. Here are some ways to maintain focus with adult ADHD
Keeping Your Focus – First things first, why do you need to focus? Do you want to clean the clutter in closet? Do you want to write a book? Do you want to go back to school and earn a degree? Knowing the reasons why we need to stay focused can assist us in pushing through the difficult and boring parts of task/project. That is when our ability to be focused is tested and needed the most.
Reduce the madness of your day by focusing on 2-3 tasks/projects– If you have multiple projects/tasks you need to do every day, how effective do you really think your focus ability would be? Horrible right? You cannot except to do all those things if you are scatterbrained. Focus only on 2-3 tasks/projects (even one) but no more than that. It is all you will need to take the steps that you need to take towards accomplishing your goals.
Do Task As Soon As Possible – In order to get the 2-3 tasks/projects done, you would have to start them early. It is difficult to do tasks/projects early, but waiting to do them only invites distractions to take over. Those distractions will appear, and will drain your willpower. This will make working on your task/projects more difficult, so don’t wait to, do them as soon as you can
Focus on the small parts of your task/project at once – A simple way to break your focus is to see the big project/task that it is. Most tasks/projects can take a few months to a few weeks to accomplish, and having that in mind can make it feel like it will never get done. This may cause you to do two things, first you could become discouraged because the task/project is too big, and you visualize about what it will feel like to finish. So what can you do? Focus on doing a small minimum amount instead. The key word here is minimum. Why? The probability that you will push past them, and eventually your minimum will increase and you will slowly improve your chances of staying focused on bigger tasks/projects
Skip What You Don’t Know – This is a strategy that I don’t see enough. If you hit an obstacle in your project/task just go back to it later. Focus your attention on what you CAN do, don’t stop working. In other words, is that you should focus on the easiest part of the task/project first. Eventually, you can go back to the more difficult parts of the task/projects, hopefully then you will have built up enough energy that you won’t lose your focus when you go back to it
Improve your discipline with focus practice – There are a few focus techniques you can try to improve your overall discipline. First, is to meditation, which is basically the definition of focusing. It is a good method for increasing your focus abilities, de-stressing and a better control over your emotions. Second, use positive self talk to help you focus. Positive self talk can be very useful when it is easy and direct such as I can do this.