HyperFocus: The Underdeveloped Skill of ADD

Finding the Flow in ADD

Have you been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD? Well Congratulations! You might just be the next great genius. Some of the greatest minds in the world were known have ADD and Dyslexic trait and the key is not to see it as a learning disability but rather a difference in cognition. I wrote about the advantages of being dyslexic in a previous blog here. There’s no need to use prescription drugs to help you focus on the task at hand, all that’s really needed are healthy adjustment to you’re diet and a tweak in your plans when its time to tackling that next big project. It’s not that people with ADD/ADHD can’t focus, in fact that’s exactly the opposite of the problem. Most people with ADD/ADHD just aren’t using best practices of the latent but powerful power of mind, the ability to hyperfocus at will.

Hyperfocusing is this intense form of mental concertation or visualization that focuses consciousness on a subject, topic, or task. In some individuals, various subjects or topics may also include daydreams, concepts, fiction, the imagination, and other objects of the mind. Hyperfocus on a certain subject can cause a side-tracking away from assigned or important tasks if not used properly.

This power is used with most athletes when the games getting tight or even as a fight of flight response once danger comes near, taking advantage of instinct and long term memory information of mastered skills to perform at peak position to gain the upper hand in tense situations. So, how do we apply that benefit to the dullest of tasks?

Just Go With the Flow Bro

Some say when they feel the flow of hyperfocus that it’s something like a “Tunnel Vision”. Feeling like your in “The Zone”. The trick is to pay attention to your gut, what re you feeling right now? Why are you feeling that way about the task and where should you be heading?

It’s all about the “Flow”, that moment when you feel like your making progress, your doing something that matters and you see the benefit of the completion and it’s something you can feel at the moment of it’s occurrence, that focus. This is something one can gauge with understanding the perceived challenge level to the task and the perceived skill level of the task.

Know Yourself: Leave out the negativity

There are plenty of theory’s, steps, and ways to go about getting into flow and staying there, but it’s entirely dependent on the person, their preferences and the task at hand and the dedication to developing patience to approach the current set of tasks in a way that keeps one engaged and interested. With that being said, the first and foremost step is to leave out all negative thoughts before getting started. Negative thinking already puts you in the red zone just before worry on the flow chart, and that kind of linking stress will cause you to bail altogether. Relax, it can be done. This is a skill after all and it can be developed, it just takes practice.

Know the Tasks: Pump up the Positivity

Flow theory postulates several conditions that one should keep in mind to stay fully engaged in the task. Go into the task with a boundless confidence that you can and will get the job done.

Following Schaffer’s proposed 7 flow conditions, simply ask yourself and think about it:

1. What do I need to do?
2. How do I do it?
3. How well am I doing?
4. Where do I go? (In cases of navigation being involved)
5. How challenging do I feel this is?
6. What level are my skills for this task?
7. Have I removed as much distraction as possible?

Keeping the questions in mind while feeling out your thoughts in the process is good practice for mental preparation for the flow. As cheesy as this sounds, you gotta question them feels.

Take a Break, Pat yourself on the back, grab a cookie

Let’s be real, zoning out is what we do, sometimes because we’ve reach our point of not giving a crap if only just for a moment, and sometimes it’s for the benefit of processing what we need to do subconsciously without realizing it, either way, we have to increase some of that dopamine. It’s proven that rewarding yourself every 30 or so minutes after intensive focus gives you that feel good of making progress. Put it like this, if nothing else, you did indeed think about how you’re going to tackle the task with seven important questions, and that’s a great start

Note the Tasks: Breaking things down step by step

This might be perhaps one of the most important habits to build. WRITE IT DOWN! Goal setting before attempting to go into hyperfocus is extremely important and writing them down gives you a visual that is reminded to you every time you take a glance. Write down what you need to do. Write down how to do it. Write down all of the proposed 7 flow conditions thought about earlier and break those down into further steps as checklists. The point of this is to keep a record of your progress releasing more of that dopamine and reminding you of the progress being made from a “big picture” perspective.

Practice, repeat, research, find what works for you

As I’ve said before these are just the base conditions to keep in mind as you delve further into understanding how to get into that flow state and hyperfocusing. It’s important to condition yourself to be motivated and using dopamine definitely helps. Reward yourself in between breaks and meeting some of the goals written down. Be sure not just to write down the big goals/checklists but break them down into smaller bits with every question you have so that you condition those neural pathways as the path of least resistance for your mind to trigger motivation. This is a mental strategy that will take time to develop but hopefully if you weren’t made aware of its potential, you now know a few tricks to get you started. It’s all about the flow.