“Ms. G? Ms. G? I’ve been trying to get your attention for 5 minutes. The meeting’s starting.” ─ the unlucky student sent to get me before a group meeting regarding purchases.

For someone with ADHD, I can focus pretty well when I need/want to. And thus, a lot of people have asked me for advice on how to focus and go deeper when working on a project. The thing is, it’s a bit of smoke and mirrors and a wee bit of lying going on. I’ll explain.

The ability and desire for focus and work for everyone comes and goes. We have high points of our day when we know we can focus on high energy things that require a lot of engagement, but there are other times of day when we just… can’t even. Sometimes this goes in weekly, monthly, or even seasonal cycles. You know what your cycles are even if you haven’t outright confronted them. You just have to pay attention to yourself.

The secret is to time the types of activities you do with these cycles.

So pay attention, 007.

There are two things you need to pay attention to: Your own energy levels and how much energy something takes.

When you get up, are you the type to wake up quickly? Or does it take you a few hours and a pot of coffee before you even realise that you got dressed and made it to work? Are you up and at ’em on a Monday, or are you more of a middle of the week type of person? Do you drag when the weather is overcast but bounce off the walls when the sun is streaming in?

While you’re doing a task try to gauge how much energy it takes you. This is both a mental and physical energy, so be prepared for a bit of “fuzzy” quantification with that. What I mean is that you probably won’t get exact for a while ─ partly because life happens and things are always changing, but also because something will feel like more effort if your personal energy is low when it really doesn’t. Let me show you what it looks like.

I wake up moderately fast, but I have low energy. When the alarm goes off in the morning I lie in bed with my eyes closed stretching my feet, then legs, and slowly move my body. I don’t open my eyes for a while just because they are tired ─ but my mind is awake. Within 10 minutes I’m up. I know I can get dressed and start some moderately energy intensive activities, like planning the day and getting things in order. Low energy things like sipping a cuppa while meditating over a beautiful sunrise would put me right back to sleep. High energy things like unloading a truck or working out a page of stoichiometry would leave me thinking my brain had been turned to pudding.

After a trip to the gym and a cup of coffee, I’m ready to take on the world. At least until lunch time… then the energy plummets.

You get the point.

But what do you do with this info?

Application of this knowledge is the secret. And that means scheduling things when you have the energy to do it. (Duh, right?)

You’d be surprised how easy it is to let life carry you away instead of stopping for a second and saying, “I can do X task in the afternoon when I’ll be more efficient.” I should know, I still sometimes fail to schedule myself correctly and end up flailing a lot. For the most part though, you need to schedule your tasks for times when you’ll be efficient at them. A good way to do this is called block scheduling.

Example of my blocks.

And, yep, it’s exactly what you remember from school. It’s just that instead of a scheduled class you hate, you’re blocking things that serve you better. Maybe you wander into the lab, coffee in hand, bleary-eyed, and wondering what you need to do and where you left off yesterday. If that’s the case leave a note for yourself before you leave with a few low energy tasks that you can do while you nurse your brain into gear. Then, schedule all the high energy stuff for the afternoon after you’ve woken up.

If you are the type of person to bounce in the labs and dazzle everyone with your ability to juggle tasks, then definitely avoid those low-key tasks in the morning. Stick with the high energy tasks until you run out of steam, then slow down and chill.

Weekly, monthly, and seasonal ebb and flows count too.

Some people ─ people not me ─ have the ability to waltz into the work week and kick ass. That’s why on my sample block above you see that the beginning of the week is different from the middle of the week. It takes me a couple of days to wind up to doing bigger projects. However, come Wednesday, I’m fully focused on getting big chunks of projects done before the weekend interrupts the flow.

Now, I don’t have a monthly ebb to my energy, but I know many that do ─ men and women. (And no, I don’t know if has anything to do with hormone changes. It’s possible, but that might be a spurious correlation.) I do have seasonal downs, though. I’m practically allergic to dark days; if it weren’t for a HappyLight, I’d be SOL and miserable.

Take control. Learn your highs and lows, schedule your work load around it as much as possible. Even if that means telling people you’ll do something later.

What are your secret weapons to staying productive and focused? Do you scheduling tricks or just shut the door in people’s faces? Share and enlighten us in the comments below.

Want more of this type of this type of growth? Check out our metacognition class.