Some of my best ideas don’t arrive on a schedule. They show up in the middle of conversations, in the shower, or when I’m already knee-deep in a completely unrelated project. Living with ADHD means living with unpredictability—and for a long time, I didn’t know what to do with that.
I struggled to trust my own process because it didn’t look like anyone else’s. My focus was inconsistent. My energy came in bursts. I’d have days of extraordinary output, followed by stretches where I could barely make a decision. It was frustrating. Not just professionally, but personally too. I wanted consistency. I wanted reliability. Most of all, I wanted control.
Eventually, I realized that what I needed wasn’t control—it was alignment.
I began designing my days around my energy—not the clock.
I spent years forcing myself to work inside someone else’s structure: 9 a.m. deep work blocks, back-to-back meetings, late afternoon creativity “on demand.” But my brain doesn’t work that way, and it never has. Once I started paying closer attention, I noticed patterns. Mornings, for example, are often when I have the most mental clarity. Late afternoons? Not so much. Evenings, surprisingly, are where a lot of my creative work thrives.
So I stopped building my calendar based on productivity hacks and started building it around me. I began protecting the early hours for strategy and writing, saving less demanding tasks for later, and giving myself grace when energy dipped. It wasn’t perfect. But it was sustainable—and that made all the difference.
I created systems that work with spontaneity instead of stifling it.
There’s a myth that ADHD means chaos. But I’ve found the opposite to be true: people with ADHD often crave structure—they just need it to be flexible. I don’t do well with rigid plans or endless checklists. What I do respond well to are systems that catch my thoughts when they fall out of my brain at inconvenient times.
That meant setting up a few anchor points in my day: a digital notebook where I dump stray ideas before they disappear, a recurring review session where I sort the good ones from the noise, and a habit of pausing long enough to ask myself, “What’s actually important right now?”
These systems didn’t make me more productive in the conventional sense. They made me less reactive, which for me, was a much bigger win.
I stopped shaming my style—and started owning it.
For a long time, I tried to emulate other people’s work habits. I read the productivity books. I downloaded the planners. I thought if I just tried hard enough, I could eventually “out-organize” my ADHD.
But the truth is, I don’t need to be more like everyone else.
Some of my best work happens because my brain refuses to take the conventional path. It skips steps. It questions the default. It makes connections that aren’t always linear—but often end up being more creative, more human, and more effective.
I’ve learned to stop apologizing for how I work. I’ve stopped hiding my whiteboard walls and scattershot brainstorms. I’ve stopped calling myself “messy” and started calling it multi-dimensional.
Final Thought
ADHD hasn’t disappeared. I still have days when focus is hard to hold onto. I still lose track of things. I still occasionally burn out from going all-in on the wrong project.
But I no longer see ADHD as the thing holding me back. It’s the thing that taught me how to pay attention differently, how to build with feeling, how to create from the edges instead of the center.
And honestly? That’s where most of the good stuff lives anyway.
