Focus or Hyperfocus?

That is the question, isn’t it.*

Focus is a commonly misunderstood aspect of ADD.  Anyone with ADD can tell you of the many many times they’ve been told, “but you can’t have ADD!  I’ve seen you play video games for hours without getting bored!”  Folks with ADD know that that their inability to pay attention when they need to is often complicated by an ability to hyperfocus … often when they should be working on something else, or it’s 3 in the morning, or whatever.

For many of us, this issue arises in new and exciting ways when we find a medication that works for us.  Suddenly, the ability to self-initiate, to see a task needs to be done, or to start that languishing project is within our control.  For the first time in our lives we can do what others do so easily — we can just do it.

And so, we dive in.  We just do it.

And, we keep doing it and doing it and doing it, because the medication has in essence enabled our hyperfocus.  We don’t know when to stop doing it.  We don’t know when we’re done.  We don’t know how good is good enough.

Like many people with ADD, my concentration is either nonexistent, or it’s turned all the way up to eleven.  This is true whether or not I’m on medication.  The main difference between being on meds versus not being on meds is how easy it is for me to start doing something.  A secondary difference is that I’m able to keep doing something even if it’s boring.  Sometimes this is a good thing — for instance, today I got hyperfocused on cleaning the kitchen, to the point where I actually took apart the gas burners and cleaned off a few years’ worth of cooked-on gloppiness.  I removed a stain from one of the burners that I had once thought permanent.  All I’d meant to do was run the dishwasher, wipe down the counters, and clean the stove top.

Being able to continue a boring task isn’t always a good thing though.  There have been plenty of times when I’ve started a cleaning project and gotten sucked into it, only to realize that the afternoon was gone and with it, the time I’d promised myself to spend in the art studio.

I don’t know how much of this is medication and how much of it is attention-shifting skills that non-ADD people learn along the way.  It seems like other people can say to themselves, OK, I’ve wasted enough time on YouTube for one day, now it’s time to get back to work.  Or, the living room is clean enough for now, it’s time to pay the bills.  Or, I’ve spent all day setting up my file cabinets, so now I’m going to spend the evening chilling out in front of the TV and come back to it tomorrow. Maybe it’s not my brain, per se, maybe I just never learned the skill of stopping.

I’m trying to acquire this skill by observing myself as I begin and finish tasks.  Earlier today, I was actually able to check in with myself about whether I wanted to spend my time in epic battle with my stove top.  I thought a bit about what I needed to get done today.  I thought a bit about what I wanted to get done today.  And then I decided, hey, it’s Saturday; I can spend it however I want!  Let’s get this stove top clean!  Yeah!

Hmmm… maybe I need a life.

*I only steal from the best!