People think ADHD is a focus problem. It's not. Not really.
ADHD is a focus bottleneck. It's the inability to control where the focus goes, when it moves, or how long it stays. It's like having a firehose of attention that only turns on when it wants to—and when it does, it sprays everywhere.
There are days I can lock in and work for six hours straight without realizing I skipped lunch. And there are other days where answering a single email feels like trying to run underwater.
Most people don't see the good days. They just see the inconsistency.
The ADHD Productivity Loop (and Crash)
Here's how it plays out for me:
1. I get a new idea. It's exciting. Novel. Full of possibility.
Dopamine spikes.
2. I start building. I'm in flow. I'm productive. Maybe even
brilliant.
3. The novelty fades. The dopamine crashes. The thing starts to feel
hard.
4. I stall. I distract myself. I tell myself I need a "break."
5. A new idea shows up. Dopamine returns. I chase it.
Rinse. Repeat. Burnout.
It took me decades to realize this wasn't just a personality quirk. It wasn't laziness. It wasn't lack of discipline. It was undiagnosed ADHD.
High Functioning, Low Stability
For years I looked like a high-performer. I led teams. I shipped products. I worked at great companies. But inside, I was exhausted.
The cost of maintaining that output? Frustration. I'd drop balls constantly—miss follow-ups, leave threads half-finished—and then feel irritated that no one seemed to understand why. It wasn't because I didn't care. It was because my executive function had a limited budget, and I was already spending all of it just holding myself together. Watching teammates fumble on things I thought were obvious—or needing to explain something for the third time—only made it worse. I wasn't just overwhelmed. I was resentful.
If I spent too much time doing high-focus work, I had nothing left for the basics.
And people don't see that. They just see the missed deadline or ghosted message and think, "This guy's disorganized." They don't feel the frustration I feel—at myself, at them, at the system we're all pretending works. I was often furious that no one else seemed to notice how broken things were, or how much effort it took to keep even part of it together.
They don't realize it took everything I had just to get the real work done. And when I did, it looked great. High-quality. Sharp. I had a reputation for just getting things done. But what no one saw was the toll it took—how every delay, every team dependency, every moment waiting on someone else chipped away at my patience. My real struggle wasn't the work. It was slowing down enough to match someone else's timeline or ability without boiling over in frustration. I always felt like I was racing against the clock—not external deadlines, but my own neurochemistry. I knew even then that the dopamine would run out. The novelty would fade. My brain would move on to the next thing long before the rest of the team crossed the goal line.
Systems, Not Grit
Once I understood that I was working with a focus bottleneck, things started to change. I stopped trying to hustle my way through burnout and started building systems that reduce friction.
Here's what's helping:
- Time blocking to protect energy, not just time
- Dopamine layering (fun > hard > fun) to sandwich
low-reward tasks
- Outlining work in public so feedback becomes part
of the dopamine cycle
- Daily low-pressure check-ins (with myself or a
friend) to break paralysis
I also stopped being ashamed of my inconsistency. It's not a flaw. It's a feature. It just needs the right operating system.
If This Is You
If any of this sounds familiar, you're not alone.
ADHD doesn't mean you're broken. It means you're wired differently.
You don't need more hustle. You need better infrastructure. Build supports around the bottlenecks and you'll be shocked how fast the water flows.
