Have You Just Tried Focusing?
People love to say, “Why don’t you just focus.”
They have no idea how complicated that is when your brain feels like a speeding car with dodgy steering and no brakes.
Focus has always been treated as a moral trait. The ability to sit still, pay attention and complete a task on time is rewarded from the first day of school to the last line of a performance review. Those who cannot do it easily are told to try harder, to be more disciplined, or to simply concentrate.
But focus is not a character strength. It is a function of the brain, one that depends on regulation, energy and environment.
ADHD was badly named. It is not a deficit of attention. It is a dysregulation of it. Most of us do not struggle to pay attention. We struggle to control where our attention goes and for how long. Too much, too little, too scattered or too intense. It is not inconsistency of effort but inconsistency of access. Some clinicians and authors, including Dr Edward Hallowell and Dr John Ratey in their book ADHD 2.0, have suggested a different name for it: VAST, Variable Attention Stimulus Trait. It is not an official diagnosis, but it describes the lived experience more accurately. Our attention varies with interest, novelty, emotion and safety. Once I understood that, I stopped seeing my attention as flawed and started seeing it as something I needed to work with instead of against.
For those of us who are ADHD or autistic, or both, like me, focus is not a switch we can flip on command. Our brains process attention differently, balancing a constant tension between too much stimulation and too little.
In ADHD, focus is powered by interest, novelty and urgency, the things that light up the dopamine system. Tasks without those qualities can feel almost physically impossible to begin. In autism, attention is guided by monotropism, a natural pull toward depth and single-channel immersion. Attention narrows intensely onto one thing, which makes switching to anything else physically and emotionally costly. Together, these create the unique AuDHD experience of attention: total absorption one moment, total resistance the next.
This is the paradox of focus. It is not laziness, distraction or lack of willpower. It is biology. But that biology collides daily with workplaces, schools and expectations designed for neurotypical minds.
And here is the part people often miss. AuDHD focus is not broken. It is specialised.When something captures my interest and my nervous system feels safe, I do not just concentrate. I disappear into it in the best possible way. Hours feel like minutes. Ideas connect effortlessly. There is a sense of belonging inside the work.
I have felt it while drawing detailed dog portraits on long-haul flights, creating music in my studio late at night, diving into neurodiversity coaching, or immersing myself in a complicated work project for days, weeks or months. These moments feel like oxygen. They show me that my brain is not inattentive. It is exacting. It will give everything it has when something matters.
When I told a boss I might take a day at home to finish a document without interruptions, he said, “Or you could just mark yourself off and exercise discipline.” It landed like a punch in the face. I was not asking for time because I lacked discipline. I was trying to create the only conditions where my brain could work on an overwhelming task. I have never been good at writing on demand, and I have recently screened positive for dyslexia, which explains a lot. Writing these articles is different. They flow out of me like nothing I have known. The passion and interest provide the motivation and focus to write every week.
Words matter. That comment hit hard. It confirmed what I had feared for years, that people still think focus is a choice, a matter of willpower, when for me it is a matter of wiring, motivation and careful crafting of the right conditions to let it flow.
You do not tell a dying houseplant to try harder. You move it closer to the window and give it water, light and air. The difference is not effort. It is environment. Focus works the same way. I cannot force it to grow in shade or chaos, but give it the right light and it thrives. For a long time I thought everyone else’s discipline was the sunlight I lacked. Now I know I just needed a different window.
The science explains a lot of this. Focus depends on a group of skills known as executive functions, planning, time awareness, working memory and self-regulation, all coordinated by the prefrontal cortex and its connections to deeper brain regions. For most people, these systems act like a quiet manager, sequencing tasks, holding priorities in mind and keeping energy balanced.
In ADHD, those same circuits are different. Dopamine and norepinephrine levels fluctuate, which means the brain’s ability to start, sustain or switch attention depends heavily on stimulation and emotion. Autism adds another layer, making attention deep, narrow and sensitive to interruption. Together, these create the AuDHD paradox of focus: either total immersion or complete resistance, with very little in between.
Traditional productivity advice assumes these systems are steady, that you can turn concentration on like a light. But for us, the light is motion activated. It only turns on when something truly engages us and leaves us scrabbling around in the dark at inconvenient times.
Recent research also helps explain why attention feels variable. The brain moves between two main states: the default mode network (DMN) and the task positive network (TPN). The DMN is where we daydream, replay conversations and plan the future, a kind of internal movie reel running when we are not focused on the outside world. The TPN activates when we engage in goal directed tasks. In neurotypical brains, these two networks take turns. When one switches on, the other powers down.
In ADHD, that switch is faulty. The DMN often stays active when it should rest. It keeps the brain busy with internal chatter, pulling attention away from what is in front of us. That is why quiet work can feel impossible and why the mind drifts mid sentence. It is not distraction by choice. It is the wrong network running the show.
ADHD does not always look like restlessness. The hyperactive stereotype hides the quieter, more internal version, inattentive ADHD, where the turbulence happens inside. The DMN runs overtime. The mind jumps tracks. The person appears calm but is mentally miles away.
This version is more common in women and often overlooked. Boys who cannot sit still get flagged early. Girls and quiet boys who zone out or overcompensate with perfectionism often do not. By adulthood, many mask so well that their exhaustion reads as anxiety, depression or simply being burnt out.
I recognise some of that in myself. Years of chasing dopamine to drive focus that I did not have left me running on fumes. Understanding this difference, that attention can collapse inward rather than explode outward, has helped me stop confusing stillness with control.
Starting a task that does not interest me feels like wading through glue. I will tidy the kitchen, clear my inbox, even dive into work training just to avoid it. My brain leaps to the next least boring thing as an escape. But once something captures my interest, it consumes me. I vanish into it completely, like my mum when she plays piano, her eyes half closed and her mind somewhere else entirely.
I forget time, messages, food and even my family. Once, on the Friday before Christmas, I got a call about a production issue for a system I no longer owned. I worked straight through until Monday morning without sleep to fix it. By the time it was done, I was wrecked for the holidays. Hyperfocus looks like dedication from the outside. From the inside, it is all consuming, often to our detriment.
Music helps me regulate the swing between avoidance and obsession. Silence does not. I have tinnitus, and the absence of sound is unbearable. I always have a fan running or music playing. Rage Against the Machine, particularly “Killing in the Name,” is my anti distraction anthem. The line “Forget you, I will not do what you tell me” becomes a message to my own brain. EDM works too, the repetition pounding like the rhythm of a galley drum. I have wide music tastes and keep my genres on separate streaming platforms so the algorithms do not confuse my moods. It sounds excessive, but it gives the autistic part of my brain the order and consistency it craves.
Silence is not calm for me, but neither is unpredictable noise or movement. The sound of people talking loudly, phones ringing, people chewing, doors slamming or someone veering too close can make my whole body recoil. It is a physical repulsion, a sharp overwhelm that fries my nerves. I often have to leave the situation before I can think again. People often assume impatience or moodiness or think I am angry at them for no reason, but it is self preservation. Predictable sound and personal space is scaffolding.
Video calls are another battlefield. I am hyper aware of how I look and sound, constantly analysing my own face on the screen, wondering how others read me. Firms that insist cameras stay on for connection do not realise they are forcing some of us into sensory overload. I can either pay attention to what is being said or manage my own image, but not both easily.
Auto captions help me keep up. Many autistic people dial into hybrid meetings from within the room just to get captions. It is the only way some of us can focus on what is being said without being overwhelmed by our other senses.
Driving is another test of attention and focus. The ADHD brain struggles most with tasks that require sustained alertness without novelty, and driving is exactly that.Research shows adults with ADHD are two to four times more likely to be in car accidents, not from recklessness but from lapses in sustained attention.
Long drives make me ache. I clench my jaw and shoulders the whole time, forcing focus through my body. By the time I arrive, I am physically sore and exhausted. It is not carelessness. It is the energy cost of vigilance.
The hardest part of focus is not always starting or sustaining it. Sometimes it is stopping. Switching between tasks feels like dragging a handbrake. My brain resists change, even when I want it to. Going from one meeting to the next or from work to home demands a full mental reboot.
That is the hidden tax of monotropism and executive dysfunction combined. Once I am deep in one mode, it takes real effort to climb out. I cannot instantly switch from strategic planning to a team meeting or from driving to family dinner. It is not for lack of wanting. It is lag, a kind of cognitive jet lag.
My decompression walk each evening is not a luxury. It is a bridge that lets my brain cross safely from one world to another.
After any deep focus session, whether work or driving, there is always a crash. My body feels heavy, my mind fogged. Sometimes recovery takes hours, sometimes days. I have learned to build decompression into my life. The short walk from my car to my house each evening is sacred. It is where I let the noise and speed of work fall away before I face my family.
It is a reset ritual. I have built similar boundaries into everything now, routines that keep me hydrated, fed and rested, guardrails that stop hyperfocus from consuming me.
Even reading has changed. I cannot sit still with a book anymore. I listen instead. Audible or Speechify turn text into sound, and I walk while I listen. In the last six months I have read a book a week that way. It is movement as meditation, motion as focus.
Focus, I have learned, is an ecosystem that you have to build. It is not something you switch on. It is a relationship between body, brain and environment that needs creating.
For some, that means noise cancelling headphones and quiet rooms. For me, it is music, captions, low light and motion. These are my sunlight and water.
My surroundings matter more than I used to admit. The ADHD side of me thrives in creative mess, piles of notes, projects half finished, cables and Post its everywhere. It is a dopamine playground, full of potential and stimulus.
But the autistic side of me craves order, clear surfaces, symmetry and quiet. Too much clutter makes me overwhelmed, but too much tidiness leaves me restless. I am constantly trying to find the line between chaos and control, and I do not always succeed.
My desk looks different depending on the day. Some mornings I need the comfort of perfect alignment, lights even, cables tucked away, fan at the exact right angle. Other days I need the spark of mess, the sense that I can touch a dozen ideas at once. Both states are valid. The work is in noticing which one helps me focus and giving myself permission to change it when it stops working.
When my focus wilts, I do not tell myself to try harder. I move closer to the light. Accommodations are not indulgence. They are cultivation. Focus does not grow through willpower. It grows through care, attention and the right conditions.
If you struggle with focus, start by noticing when it does work. Look back over the last week and write down the moments when you were fully absorbed in something. Where were you? What time of day was it? What did your surroundings feel or sound like? Were you hungry, rested, moving, listening to music, alone, connected?
These clues are your blueprint. The next time you need to focus, do not start with the task. Start with the conditions. Try to recreate some of what helped before. The sensory setup. The rhythm. The level of interest or urgency.
Focus is not about trying harder. It is about remembering what helps your mind feel safe enough to begin.
If you have spent your life being told to try harder, maybe it is not effort you need. Maybe it is light, quiet, rhythm or rest. Focus is not something to summon. It is something to grow, to tend, and to nurture.
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