SFBT Procrastination Neuroscience | Sirois Procrastination Research | Amygdala Delay | Present Bias Brain |

Psychotherapist Aygul Tatlici

There is something I would like you to consider before you criticize yourself again for not being able to “just focus.”

What if the problem has never been that you cannot pay attention?

What if you have been trying to use the wrong key?

If you have an ADHD brain, you probably already know that you can concentrate.

Perhaps you have spent nine hours completely absorbed in something that genuinely interested you. You may have forgotten to eat. You may have looked at the clock and wondered where the entire evening went.

And then, on another day, you may have stared at an important email for forty minutes without being able to begin it.

How can both things be true?

This is where a different way of understanding attention can become incredibly relieving.

The question may not be:

“Why can’t I pay attention?”

It may be:

“What helps my attention come online?”

That is a very different question.

And sometimes, a better question creates a better possibility.

Your attention is there. Let’s look at what it responds to.

One of the most useful ideas in the material we are exploring comes from Edward Hallowell and John Ratey, who have described ADHD in terms that move away from simply thinking of it as an “attention deficit.” Their work emphasizes the variability of attention and the role of stimulation in determining where attention goes (Hallowell & Ratey, 2021).

The important distinction is this:

You may not have too little attention. Your attention may be allocated differently.

For many people, importance is enough to activate attention:

“This is important, therefore I should be able to focus on it.”

But ADHD often involves a stronger response to four particular conditions:

Interest.
Novelty.
Challenge.
Urgency.

Think of these as four switches.

When one of them is turned on, something can suddenly become easier to begin.

And perhaps this gives us a more compassionate place to start.

Instead of asking:

“What is wrong with me?”

You can become curious:

“What helps my brain engage?”

That is very close to the spirit of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy.

SFBT does not begin by assuming that a person is broken and needs to be repaired. It looks for possibilities, exceptions, resources, preferred futures, and moments when things already work—even if those moments are small (de Shazer et al., 2007; Berg & Dolan, 2001).

So let’s try that together.

Think about a time when you were surprisingly focused.

Maybe you were working on something you loved.

Maybe there was a deadline.

Maybe somebody was depending on you.

Maybe you were learning something new.

Maybe you were competing with yourself.

Maybe you became curious.

What was different about that moment?

And perhaps even more importantly:

What does that moment tell you about the kind of environment in which your attention becomes your ally?

You don’t have to create a completely different brain.

You may need to understand the brain you already have.

What if hyperfocus and distractibility are not opposites?

One of the confusing things about ADHD is that people often experience both extreme distractibility and extreme concentration.

It can seem contradictory.

“How can I have an attention problem if I can focus for hours?”

The network explanation discussed by Hallowell and Ratey offers one way of understanding this experience. Brain systems involved in externally focused tasks and internally directed thought need to coordinate and switch appropriately. In ADHD, switching between these modes may be less reliable.

That means the person may find it difficult to enter focused attention when they need it—and difficult to leave intense focus when they finally have it.

So hyperfocus and distractibility may not be completely opposite experiences.

They may represent difficulty with switching.

And suddenly, the question changes again.

Instead of:

“Why can’t I control myself?”

we might ask:

“What could help me make the transition?”

 

The executive-function piece: when knowing isn’t enough

Russell Barkley’s work provides another important part of this picture.

His model places response inhibition—the capacity to pause between an impulse and an action—at the centre of executive functioning. From that ability to pause, other functions become possible, including working memory, internalized speech, emotional self-regulation, and holding future consequences in mind (Barkley, 2015).

This helps explain something many adults with ADHD know intimately:

Knowing what to do and being able to do it are not always the same thing.

You can know that the form needs to be completed.

You can know that the assignment is important.

You can know that the bill is due.

You can know that you should leave the house.

And still somehow not move.

That experience can be incredibly painful when it is interpreted as a character judgment.

“I am lazy.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m irresponsible.”

“I never finish anything.”

But what if we separated the difficulty from the verdict?

What if unfinished paperwork was evidence of a difficulty with executive functioning—not evidence that you are a bad person?

That distinction matters.

Because when we turn a difficulty into a judgment about ourselves, shame enters the room.

And shame rarely helps us begin.

When the future doesn’t feel close enough

Barkley’s discussion of time blindness is particularly useful here.

Some people with ADHD experience difficulty estimating duration and experiencing future consequences with the same motivational force that they have in the present moment (Barkley, 2015).

A deadline three months from now can feel almost unreal.

Then suddenly it becomes tomorrow.

And suddenly the urgency arrives.

And you think:

“Why do I always do this?”

Perhaps one answer is that urgency is one of your brain’s strongest attention switches.

This does not mean you have to live in crisis.

It means you can begin to engineer urgency intentionally and compassionately.

Instead of waiting for tomorrow’s panic, you might create a smaller deadline today.

Instead of saying, “I have to finish this eventually,” you might say:

“I will work on this for twenty minutes before I meet my friend.”

Instead of keeping a task entirely inside your head, you might make the next step visible.

It is not a weakness.

It is designing the environment around the way your brain actually works.

Your calendar is not a sign of failure

If your internal sense of time is unreliable, why would we expect you to keep time entirely inside your head?

Put it outside.

Use a visible clock.

Use a visual timer.

Put tasks into calendar blocks rather than relying exclusively on a long list.

Set alarms to interrupt hyperfocus.

Use one reliable place to capture important information.

The principle is beautifully simple:

If your brain has difficulty reliably holding something, let the environment hold it for you.

A calendar can become an external memory.

An alarm can become an external transition cue.

A visual timer can make invisible time visible.

These tools are not evidence that you are incapable.

They are supports.

The source material describes them as functioning almost like “prosthetics” for an internal function that is difficult to manage consistently.

You would not feel ashamed for wearing glasses because your eyes need assistance.

So perhaps you don’t need to feel ashamed because your executive system benefits from external structure.

And then there is the part we don’t talk about enough: shame

Many adults arrive at this conversation carrying years—even decades—of messages:

“You’re careless.”

“You’re unreliable.”

“You’re not living up to your potential.”

“You’re so smart. Why can’t you just do it?”

Often these messages came from people who cared.

Parents.

Teachers.

Partners.

Managers.

Sometimes they didn’t have another explanation.

But when a message is repeated often enough, it can become an internal voice.

Eventually, the person stops hearing:

“I am struggling with executive functioning.”

and starts hearing:

“There is something wrong with me.”

That is a much heavier burden.

Your source material describes this shame layer as potentially becoming more disabling than the executive-function difficulty itself because shame can lead to avoidance—and avoidance makes it even harder to use the systems that could help.

Think about that for a moment.

You create a planner to help yourself.

Then you miss a few days.

Then you look at the planner and think:

“See? I failed again.”

So you avoid the planner.

The very tool designed to support you becomes another piece of evidence against you.

This is why compassion is not an optional extra.

It is part of the intervention.

Let’s try a different sentence

Instead of:

“I am lazy.”

Try:

“I am having difficulty initiating this task.”

Instead of:

“I am irresponsible.”

Try:

“My executive functioning needs more external support here.”

Instead of:

“Why can’t I just do what everyone else does?”

Try:

“What conditions help me do this successfully?”

And perhaps the most important one:

“This is executive functioning, not character.”

Say it slowly.

Not because repeating a sentence magically solves ADHD.

But because language can change the relationship you have with yourself.

And when the relationship changes, the next step can become possible.

 

Think of a task you normally struggle to begin.

Now ask yourself:

When is it slightly easier?

When do you procrastinate less?

When do you finish something?

When do you become absorbed?

When does your environment help rather than hinder you?

When have you surprised yourself?

What were you doing?

Where were you?

Who was around?

What was different?

What did you do that helped, even a little?

 

How could you make a little more room for that condition in your life?

You don’t need to reproduce your best day perfectly.

We are looking for something smaller.

A clue.

A pattern.

A possibility.

In SFBT, small differences can become meaningful because they show us that the problem is not equally powerful in every circumstance (de Shazer et al., 2007).

So perhaps your goal this week isn’t:

“Become perfectly organized.”

Perhaps it is:

“Discover one condition under which starting becomes easier.”

That is a goal you can actually investigate.

The Four Switches: Let’s make them work for you

Take one task you’ve been avoiding.

Don’t tell yourself to “try harder.”

Instead, ask:

1. Can I add INTEREST?

What genuinely matters to you about completing this?

Who benefits?

What are you curious about?

Can you connect the boring task to something meaningful?

Sometimes interest doesn’t have to be inside the task itself.

It can be connected to the person, value, goal, or future that sits behind the task.

2. Can I add NOVELTY?

Change something.

Work somewhere different.

Use paper instead of a screen.

Change the order.

Change the time of day.

Try a café.

Stand instead of sitting.

A familiar task in an unfamiliar environment can sometimes feel surprisingly different.

3. Can I add CHALLENGE?

Give yourself twenty minutes.

Ask:

“How much can I do before the timer ends?”

Can you beat yesterday’s amount?

Can you complete one section?

Can you make the first step ridiculously small?

The goal isn’t perfection.

The goal is activation.

4. Can I add URGENCY?

Don’t wait for panic to create urgency.

Create a gentle deadline.

Tell someone you’ll show them what you’ve completed.

Schedule a short appointment with yourself.

Create a reason for the task to matter now.

The question isn’t:

“How can I pressure myself more?”

It is:

“How can I create enough immediacy for my brain to engage without punishing myself?”

That is a very different kind of urgency.

What about body doubling?

Here is another simple experiment.

Choose one task.

Ask another person to work beside you.

You don’t have to work on the same thing.

You don’t even need to talk about your task.

You can sit together in the same room.

You can work at a café.

You can use a video call with the sound muted.

They do their work.

You do yours.

That’s it.

This is called body doubling.

The source material is careful to note that body doubling comes largely from ADHD coaching practice and that the formal clinical evidence base is thinner than the striking amount of practical experience surrounding it. Possible mechanisms include social activation, external structure, and reducing opportunities for unnoticed mind-wandering.

So rather than asking whether it “should” work, you can conduct your own small experiment:

“What happens when I don’t have to start alone?”

You don’t need to judge the experiment.

Just observe.

Move your body. Protect your sleep.

Attention does not happen in a floating brain disconnected from the rest of you.

Exercise has evidence supporting improvements in aspects of executive functioning and attention, with some effects especially noticeable in the period following activity. Sleep is equally important because insufficient sleep can further impair executive functions that may already be under strain (Hallowell & Ratey, 2021).

So sometimes the intervention is surprisingly ordinary.

Go for a walk.

Move your body.

Get outside.

Protect your sleep.

Notice what happens to your attention afterward.

And again, instead of making this another rule you can “fail,” approach it as an experiment.

“What happens to my attention when I move in the morning?”

Curiosity is often more sustainable than criticism.

Is ADHD a superpower?

I would be careful with both extremes.

You don’t need to convince yourself that ADHD is a superpower.

And you don’t need to convince yourself that it is a catastrophe.

Certain ADHD-associated characteristics may fit particularly well in some environments—for example, contexts involving novelty, rapid action, uncertainty, or divergent thinking. But ADHD can also involve very real impairment.

Both things can be true.

You can have creativity and struggle with paperwork.

You can be entrepreneurial and struggle with administration.

You can be brilliant and miss deadlines.

You can care deeply and forget to respond to someone.

You can hyperfocus and struggle to begin.

You can have enormous potential and need significant support.

There is no contradiction.

Perhaps the more compassionate question is:

“What kind of life allows my strengths to be useful while giving my difficulties the support they deserve?”

That is a much more interesting question than:

“How do I become more like everyone else?”

A small experiment for this week

Choose one task.

Just one.

Then choose one switch.

Interest: Connect it to something you genuinely care about.

Novelty: Change the environment or method.

Challenge: Give yourself twenty minutes.

Urgency: Create a small, immediate deadline.

Then choose one external support.

A visual timer.

A calendar block.

An alarm.

A visible clock.

A body double.

And finally, choose one compassionate sentence.

Perhaps:

“This is executive functioning, not character.”

Then notice what happens.

Not whether you became perfect.

Not whether you completed everything.

Just notice:

What became slightly easier?

What helped?

What would you like to repeat?

And if nothing worked, that is information too.

You haven’t failed the experiment.

You’ve learned something about your system.

One final question for you

Imagine that over the next few weeks, your attention cooperated with you just a little more.

Not perfectly.

Just enough.

What would you notice first?

Would you start your mornings differently?

Would there be fewer unfinished tasks?

Would you answer messages sooner?

Would you feel less overwhelmed?

Would you have more time for your family?

Would you finally begin something you’ve been postponing?

Would you feel less ashamed?

And if that small change happened, what would it say about you?

Perhaps it would say:

“I was never incapable.”

Perhaps:

“I needed a different strategy.”

Perhaps:

“I can learn how my brain works.”

Or perhaps something entirely different.

And that answer belongs to you.

You don’t need to become someone else

I want to leave you with the idea that began this conversation.

You can pay attention.

You already have evidence of that.

The question is what your attention responds to.

Interest.

Novelty.

Challenge.

Urgency.

Once you understand that, you can begin designing your environment instead of constantly fighting yourself.

You can put time outside your head.

You can work beside someone.

You can use alarms.

You can move your body.

You can create smaller deadlines.

You can make boring things more interesting.

And most importantly, you can begin putting down the old verdict.

The verdict that said you were careless.

The verdict that said you were lazy.

The verdict that said you were wasting your potential.

The verdict that confused an executive-function difficulty with a character flaw.

That verdict was never a diagnosis of your worth.

You are not your unfinished paperwork.

You are not the email you forgot to answer.

You are not the assignment you started late.

You are not the day when your attention wouldn’t cooperate.

And you are certainly not the criticism you absorbed before you had the language to understand yourself.

Maybe the next chapter isn’t about forcing yourself harder.

Maybe it is about becoming more curious about yourself.

What works for me?

When does my attention come alive?

What am I already doing well?

What small difference would make tomorrow easier?

And perhaps, as you answer those questions, you may discover something important:

You don’t have to fight your brain every day to build a meaningful life.

You can learn its language.

You can build around its needs.

And you can become much kinder to the person who has been trying so hard all along.

This is executive functioning—not character.

And there is a great deal of hope in knowing the difference.

A gentle invitation

If you recognized yourself somewhere in these words, you don’t have to figure everything out at once.

Sometimes the most useful place to begin is to become curious about one small moment when things went a little better.

What was different?

What did you do?

What did your environment provide?

Who was there?

And how could you create a little more of that?

Small changes can become meaningful changes.

And you don’t have to carry the whole process alone.

Psychotherapist Aygul Tatlici

This newsletter is educational and is not a substitute for individualized assessment or treatment. If you believe ADHD may be affecting your functioning, an appropriately qualified professional can help you explore assessment and treatment options.

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