Rhythms of Focus

This week I am joined by storyteller Neal Foard to discuss the act and emotion of care. Those of us with ADHD and wandering minds can often get overwhelmed by the negativity taking over our social feeds, looking at the news, or even just talking to those around us.

Neal reminds us that while compassion fatigue is real, it's also not all doom and gloom. Our algorithms are created for engagement, doom sells and our attention is our currency.

It's important to take a step back and look at the good things going on around us - even at a micro level. From the person letting you merge during heavy traffic, to someone turning in a lost wallet. Good things are happening all around us, and when we put more care into the world, more care comes back.

Learn more about Neal and his work on his website StoryFire.net

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

When the universe puts something fun or interesting in front of us, it can become a welcome distraction from what we are "supposed" to be doing. This can be especially true for those of us with ADHD and wandering minds.

We can easily be swept away, like a boat at sea, riding the current of thoughts and emotions taking us further and further away from our plotted destination.

Instead of going against the current, I propose a structured pause to reflect on where you are being pulled, as well as what is pushing you away.

Take a deep breath and notice your thoughts and the feelings flowing through your body. Then name and write down the activity pulling your attention towards it.

You can then turn tasks into options, allowing deliberate consideration for how you would like to precede and where to focus your attention.

We end with a piece entitled “Waves on Night’s Shore.”

Clunking down the stairs, dragging myself to the laptop, an idea or two rattling in my head.

I need to get back to that person. It's been a couple days since they emailed me. Starting to get rude not to answer.

Ah, but I still have to research something.

Pet the dog, pull out the chair. Wait, I need my tea. Grab the decanter, go through the motions of preparing a gong fu session of tea, this wonderful little art of creating tea, a shortly brewed small cupful at a time.

Finally, I crack open the laptop. Barely conscious whispers of that email evaporates as if I said, "I can wait. I have all day." 'Cause as I open that lid, that project I'd been working on, open overnight, greets me with its virtual open arms. "Hey, you, here's that next step ready to go. Just nudge me forward."

So here I am, dragged myself to the laptop. I had an idea of what to do, and it's gone as soon as the laptop's opened and there was something sitting there waiting for me. What would it hurt if I just tapped it forward? I do have all day, don't I?

And we all know where that thinking leads.

I've been working on a major project both using and exploring the potential of AI and more specifically, Claude Cowork, building what are called "skills" along the way.

Questions have been bubbling. Am I giving up my sense of agency? Am I harming the environment? W-I can do what now? This is the neatest thing.

Back and forth ideas go as I come to grips with the ideas of its impact on society as well as the minutiae of the moment's project. All wonderful problems to wrestle with and excite me along the way and distract me from that email.

I'm being pulled. Paraphrasing Dungeon Crawler Carl, "I can feel the river."

A wandering mind can easily be caught in eddies of emotion. Interest, passion, that regular visit to something that engages us, tantalizes, promises, develops a sense of meaning, flares from play into challenge along some paths of mastery.

Forget the dishes, forget that email. There's the thrill. We're doing something. Maybe we hadn't been doing something before. Maybe we're just pulling out of some period of exhaustion, some not only still but stagnant waters, and here before us is that feel, that pull.

For some, it's a game. For others, it's a book, a garden, an exercise, an event, a world developing within and without. May even be the dishes or cleaning beyond.

Whatever it is, we inherently sense that distortion that comes from that powerful emotion. Any emotion, particularly the powerful ones, passion or otherwise, distort that lens of the now.

For those with ADHD, we're already myopic, monotropic, magnified. This moment is already heightened, in the not now, meaning beyond current conscious awareness, flows along the periphery, shrouded in a fog we hardly even know to be there.

Maybe you have an overwhelming list of things to do. Maybe you have a meeting waiting to stare you down in a calendar. But those negative associations, themselves a rocky, thorny, ugly worry reflexively deflecting our gaze away, seemingly steer us even further into the rapids of that promised play.

I've often said we're not cars with poor brakes. We're boats floating on the seas of emotions, and there are no brakes.

The pause is vital, but my goodness is it the most difficult of all the productivity ideas, the executive function skills, whatever terminology you want to give it. Pausing is difficult in part because we haven't a clue as to what to do with it.

Do I look at the ceiling? Do I white-knuckle avoiding the thing I really wanna do? Do I force myself to do the thing I don't?

But how about if we frame a pause with the following?

One, first know the pull, the push, the joy, the anger, the worry, the fear, the care, the overwhelm, the whirling winds and waters ready to drag us about. Again, the hardest of all steps.

Second, take at least a single deep breath to be there, though to whatever caring degree makes sense. Give those feelings their space to be recognized as thoughts, felt as feelings, sensed in the body.

And three, name the thing of interest. What's pulling us? Maybe even write it down, optimally with pen and paper. In this situation, part of what's thrown matters off is that ease of access.

The laptop said, "Hey, I'm right here," as I opened it. The hope, though, is that we can then hold ourselves in that space so that we can better craft our environments. We can then raise the thresholds against those things that we'd prefer to avoid simply drifting into and lower the thresholds towards those things we'd like to engage more deliberately.

We hope to guide ourselves.

So here in this pause, where we've written down this idea, we can consider also writing the words begin and wind down next to whatever idea.

So if I've been working on a project, I might write down wind down project with the idea that I would clear it out. Doing this, we've now created the options of one or the other, acknowledging that we can engage or deliberately consider how we can set it aside. With that deep breath, we can then more fully decide perhaps to wind it down, and let's say we did.

Now with a piece of paper again, I could write a title, play the game, garden, explore the AI. I can write down what's on my mind to do about this. I can write, if I were to put this away somewhere out of the way of other things that I find meaningful, maybe even out of sight, how would I get there?

How could I get there from this document I'm writing right now? Could it be a link? Would it be directions? Could I start putting things in places, hiding them so that they're out of the way of other things?

So that this thing won't jump out at me once I open the laptop, and then I can still get there from, from this piece of paper, from this document.

Once I've done that, maybe I can think, is there anything else about this on my mind? Can I even let it consciously drift from my mind?

If I can do that I'm acknowledging the momentum that's there, the strength, the power, the whatever it was that was, so fueling me in that moment, and with that, addressing that momentum.

Now, those questions that I just mentioned, those steps that I walked you through, create what I call a project map. That document, that object can now act as a portal. Makes it easy to get to everything, but keeps everything else out of the way.

You no longer have to rely on the thing to be the reminder of itself, a surefire way to distract or shame yourself as it continually sits there undone. Now you have this central place, and you can cross off wind down that you'd written earlier.

Pause. See what comes to mind. Maybe you still wanna dive in even after you've cleared it all out. But I also wonder if after doing something like this, you might have more mental room for other ideas to come to mind, other wants, other needs.

Maybe write those down. You have every right to dive back in. Those currents are still there ready to ride. But if you decide to do so, you'll be much more conscious of that decision.

Well, July just seems to be a month of improvisations. Years ago, I performed live on various stages. I remember one such performance about 20 years ago or so now at an electronics festival in Black River Falls, Wisconsin.

I was talking with other performers. One of them asked me about the bed I used. A bed in the musical sense is this sort of background rhythm, a beat, something that would go where, you know, you could, create things above it. Generally something in a higher register, a melody, typically, it was something pre-programmed. But I said I didn't have one.

Everything I did and continue to do is generated live. I take my inspiration from jam bands like Phish, who I admire greatly. There's an importance to underlying structure, but it needs to be able to match the energy, sound, rhythms, and the like of the melodies above, at least as I feel it.

Maybe that can happen. Maybe those pre-recordings need to happen, especially if we're recording in a studio. But something fun does seem to happen when, the background and the foreground reacts with each other. Same thing that happens when musicians play together live. In any case, I hope you can hear that in this following piece called Waves on Night's Shore, and I hope you enjoy it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

This week I welcome creative mind and graphic designer extraordinaire, Matt Strieby of New Leaf Design. I was first lucky enough to work with Matt in 2005, when he captured the vision for the art gracing the CD for my album, Ontogeny. We've been collaborating ever since.

We discuss the creative process for those of us with wandering minds and neurodivergent/ADHD traits, the importance of play balanced with structure. We also talk about embracing and learning from our earlier "cringe" moments, and the importance of sometimes literally walking away from a project to give space for our creativity to breathe.

We talk about Matt's personal process: reflection/visualization (often sitting quietly or walking), playing in the “sandbox” phase of sketching and experimentation, a refining phase that narrows options while preserving play, and a final production phase with technical, structured execution.

Matt’s design work is at newleafdesign.com.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

Frustration is an emotion that can be elusive in its origins while being capable of putting a halt to almost anything we're trying to accomplish.

We feel frustration doing something like putting together IKEA furniture. Sometimes it really is about the furniture. Other times we may have something entirely different lingering in the back of our mind making it difficult to use the hex key, thus derailing our ability to put the Früken shelves together.

We may buy a new tool or software that is supposed to make life easier, only to find it too complicated to use and too much of a burden or embarrassment to return. We may even feel a sense of failure tied to it.

Frustration is the feeling that arises when reality fails to meet a preconception, whether that vision is clear or blurry.

This week, we explore how frustration can be a great teacher if we pause to see what we can learn from it.

Ah, it's going all wrong. Order the pieces of whatever's lying about. A screw is sitting there. Where did that come from? Frustration at work is quite the companion.

Digital, physical, even mental piles of whatever sits about as we try to build whatever. How is this ever gonna come together? The garage, the report, the dishes. What do I do? So what do we do?

Demands from others pile on. The budget, the stakes, hidden or in plain view, all pile onto the pressure and overwhelm. A Camera, and a Decision Somewhere I decided, in the wake of completing the Waves of Focus materials, that I might work on my YouTube channel, maybe something to enhance the Rhythms of Focus podcast.

A teleprompter would help me look at the screen. A webcam as opposed to a DSLR would save me some money. Research mode engaged. Days, if not weeks later, I emerge victorious. Decisions have been reached. Decisions themselves, these weighty beasts, desires, visions, fears, more ideally rest in reflection until they settle with some clear option forward

But so often they don't. The ordered supplies sit there, and things aren't working. So I might wonder, do I know what I'm doing? Well, the answer is no, otherwise things would be moving forward.

Will I know what I'm doing? Well, I don't know. I can only put one foot in front of the next. I think I may have made a mistake with that camera I bought. No, let me see how I can make it work.

Frustration. The heart of it is frustration, the sense that appears when what is being realized is somehow not meeting that preconception, as clear or as blurry as that vision might have been.

It's the same gap we find in story, that space between wish and fulfillment that just doesn't seem to resolve. But let me keep trying. Isn't that productivity? Sometimes.

Sometimes it's a matter of an unconscious fight playing out on the stage of the now, this anger at IKEA furniture that represents the troubles of an unsolved chronic argument in a relationship that has nothing to do with this.

A confusion with a report that plays out at a sense of loss at work. Other times, it really is just the furniture itself. How do we know the difference?

So often we can either push ourselves through or run. Pushing becomes hyper-focused, this unrelenting, "I need to do this. I need to get this done." Everything else is ignored. Seems like we're thinking something through, but in reality, we're being driven by that force unreflected.

When we run, we look for anything else that's easy to solve. That temptation to jump into email where we can mark something as read, to look at a short video on social media for some easy sense of consumption.

But what we lose, what I lose, is a recognition of frustration as teacher

Pausing to rest the mind on that sensation of frustration, sometimes we find a clue. In consideration, I might think of where the pieces are now.

The camera's well-featured, but those features conflict with the setup. I've been trying to make it work. What if I freeze it in place this way? What if I get something to block the glare? All of them might be useful to experiment with.

But I gradually realize this resistance. I don't want to return it. Not only is it more time, but there's this sense of failure with it. Maybe imagined confrontation with the staff of the place that it's ordered from, the sense of mistake, error, part and parcel of the creative process.

And while I can consciously say that there might be some emotional part of me that just doesn't see it that way, there's another part that may. Once confronted, though, I can then say, "Oh, that's the point where I can apply bravery."

In retrospect, it seems simple. While the cost of returning something, the effort, the packing of stuff, yeah, it's there. It's the whatever that might come from conflict that blocks that true work.

Frustration, when managed well, has opportunity to become thought. In fact, psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion would say that thought doesn't exist without it. If mastery is an ability to do something without thought, frustration gives us the path there, a reflection that something meaningful is attempting to unfold.

Deliberately pausing with those sensations, allowing thoughts to form from the emotions beneath as we witness the process, lets us see them in greater relief, lets us see the ideas below the surface, the greater meanings, the greater places for bravery.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

This week we explore how ADHD-related working-memory limits create a bottleneck. While a scratchpad can help, it often fails without a mindfulness-based technique called “anchoring.” Anchoring uses pen and paper with three “unlocks”:

1) Shift your mindset from thinking of what is written as tasks and to-dos, to thinking of them as options.

This reduces wrestling with the “I really should” thoughts, reduces shame, relieves working memory, and increases agency. One mnemonic to help identify what's present is WIND(E) “want, impulse, need, drift, wind” (optionally emotion) helps identify what’s present.

2) While lists are useful, it is also important to recognize that lists decay. You must periodically return to update them, thus creating a conversation with your past self and building trust with your future self.

3) When a list no longer reflects the present, archive or discard it.

We close with an improvisational music piece, “In the Interim,” blending minor and major keys.

Transcript

One of the struggles of ADHD is this trouble with working memory that can be very small. Meanwhile, intelligence is trying to get through this bottleneck. It's a difficult situation.

One quick way that we tend to resolve this issue is by using a scratchpad. Write down a few thoughts about what we have to take care of and then go through them.

Often feels positive to do this. Sometimes we go overboard, write a gazillion things. Sometimes we're just able to capture what's on our mind in that moment.

Feels very empowering. At least for that moment, and then things often fall apart at that point. We can expand the use of this, though, through a mindfulness technique and what I call anchoring. I've mentioned it on several episodes before.

There are two or three, I wanna call them rules, but I also don't wanna call them rules. All right, let's call them rules.

Anchoring is a powerful way of bringing our mind to the moment using pen and paper. But there are a few different unlocks that need to be put in place before it really blooms, because otherwise we're just using pen and paper. So what are these unlocks?

Well, the first one is to transition from only writing tasks and to-dos to writing options.

All right, so what's that about? There's a sense in meditation that we are not our thoughts — a commonly mentioned phrase that seems mystical in nature.

Mystical maybe being another word for mystery beyond our understanding, unless we sit down and do this difficult thing every day. And especially for those with ADHD, that sort of meditation can seem well out of reach.

So what is that? One of the troubles with ADHD is that we tend to wrestle with our thoughts. For example, we have this idea of a thing we "should do," the laundry, taking care of the fridge that's starting to rot, other things that may or may not have deadlines. Usually the ones without clear deadlines are the more insidious.

And then we might try to push them out of our minds, try to focus somewhere else.

Acknowledging them in one sense, for example, writing them down, can be a difficult proposition because now we're even more directly facing this thing that we don't wanna do.

We don't know where to write it. We don't know how to convince ourselves to do it. We're enraged by it, among other possibilities. Meanwhile, it may shame us, worsening matters.

When we can write a list as options, for example, if we have the option to start cleaning the fridge using a small, tiny step forward rather than cleaning the entire thing, among other possibilities, acknowledging what's on our mind, we're relieving our working memory. That's part of us that's already strained.

This allows us then to have more ability to decide. Not only do we have more ability to decide, but now we have more energy to face the difficult emotions, the storm of emotions that are waiting for us around these difficult matters, whatever it is we decide to do.

The point is that we've heightened our sense of agency. We've not forced ourselves one way or the other to do the thing or not do the thing.

I like to use this mnemonic: want, impulse, need, drift, wind. There's also this optional E at the end of it for emotion, if you like. So windy. It's useful as you're getting a sense of what those winds are, what's on my mind in this moment.

When we practice that sense rather than writing our tasks, we then get to more, uh, clearly decide which direction to head. We have more resources to make that decision as we're not trying to push ourselves against one or the other. In this way, we're not our thoughts. We're not being driven by the thoughts.

The thoughts and the emotions behind them are messengers.

Now, the second thing that happens, second rule maybe, second unlock, occurs when we realize that the list decays. Not only do we realize that, but we acknowledge it, and we do something about it.

Let's say we've chosen something on this list to visit. We've circled one thing. We've gone ahead and made that visit.

If we can return to the list, when we are able, if we haven't lost our way, we have this benefit. We can see who we were before that session, before that visit that we'd engaged in.

We're now in this position to say, "Hmm, what's different?" Maybe a little, maybe a lot. We can cross things off, add them, update things in whatever way, shape, or form so that it now reflects the now.

As we do that, we are engaging in this conversation with our past self. That process develops a trust over time that we can use for our future selves. We can recognize, "Oh, I can hold onto an idea and come back to it, even if it's for a brief moment." It's a practice. Trust is something of a muscle that we form.

It's a sense that something will continue to behave as it has been, such that it might be relied on, and developing that is a muscle.

Now, the third unlock is that once this is no longer representative of the now, we can trash it. We can archive it. We can get rid of it. It's no longer an anchor.

These three unlocks move a scratchpad from a simple thing to a very powerful ally in our day-to-day, helping us reduce scatter, manage exhaustion, connect to our task lists if we have them.

We're getting more buckets of email and all the rest all the time. It helps us manage those as well.

For example, we can write something like, "Visit the inbox." That can be one way of acknowledging, "Oh, there's a thing."

Today's piece of music is called In the Interim. It's an improvisation oddly written in both minor and major keys, sometimes with minor in the lower registers and major in the higher. Other times, there's a full-on transition to the major. At first, uh, you know, you might think that music doesn't allow for this kind of transition.

But somehow, if you commit to it, it does. But that commitment isn't blind. It isn't like, "I'm gonna do this no matter what." That's often a recipe for might makes right type of a disaster. Instead, it's an acknowledgment of both the major and minor, respecting both as they are. I hope you enjoy it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

This episode I am joined by Waves of Focus community member and fellow wandering mind, Brett. As a software developer, he is no stranger to technology, and as a creative mind with many ideas, he is also no stranger to getting lost in the mounting pile of notes and files that continue to accumulate.

Some of his latest experiments in organization have led him to exploring ways that AI can help as a personal assistant managing his workflows and preparing Daily Engaged list based on his energy levels.

While he is getting some good results based on he prompts he has built, we also talk about some of the pitfalls of AI and the need to refrain from outsourcing all of our thoughts and creativity to a tool that has been programmed to be a "yes man."

I hope you enjoy and will share your experiences and thoughts on using AI as a productivity tool.

You can find Brett at @ebrett on GitHub.

• Obsidian
• Claude City
• Personal AI Infrastructure
• Cowork
• Claude Code
• Pai
• Antinote
• Setapp

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

In this podcast episode, I reflect on boredom. Boredom is a restless, sometimes frightening emotion that can feel like an indictment of a life being wasted. This leads some of us to run toward distractions, productivity tools, or urgency.

The problem as I see it, isn’t boredom, but the avoidance of it. Shaming ourselves with “shoulds” and infinite task lists amplifies the dread. Instead, how about taking a different approach by pausing to acknowledge boredom as a signal rather than a driver.

Can we look for small glimmers of life to sow seeds of play within the necessary chores or uninspiring moments which are simply part of living?

I end the episode with a piano piece blending two of my other compositions, “Herd” and “Alight”, both in F minor. As with all of my music, it is ever-evolving.

Transcript

Ah, boredom. What am I gonna do? Nothing to do? Ugh. It seems as if boredom has a sense of a exhaustion to it. Restlessness? But it's base, I think it can feel quite scary.

Some can even view it as this indictment against themselves. Of, somehow this reflection of an empty life. And so we might look to occupy ourselves with the next productivity tool, the next craft, the next project interest, whatever.

Well, to put it more bluntly though, we run from that feeling of boredom. But the trouble isn't the boredom, it's the running.

Whenever we dismiss, cutoff, any emotion, we cut something from ourselves. Sometimes we shame ourselves with the shoulds. I should be that person. I should have done more in my younger years. I should do the laundry. I shouldn't be bored.

We use the should as this sort of knife. Any of these emotions can be painful, and so we distract ourselves. Sometimes we become overwhelmed standing at the edge of some work, some field of knowledge, the gaping maw of some effectively infinite task list.

Just start. Just start might be the admonition here. One I'm certainly not a fan of, especially as it can easily touch off more of the, "I don't wanna" feelings.

Running from boredom can sound like, well, I better act now and get rid of that feeling. The feeling is like it's pesky. Something to push away. As we dive into another activity, often fueled by and further fueling some sense of urgency, but if we pause, pay attention to it, allowing it to be neither indulging nor ignoring, we might acknowledge its power, it's grip.

Sometimes it's a small tingle, but other times it's this existential dread. A sense that life itself is being wasted. And now we add on that we only have our shameful selves to blame, effectively compounding the problem.

Some of those boring things, taxes, laundry, dishes, and the like, yet need doing. And when we pause without running, we can hear that emotion as a signal and less have it become our driver.

When we pause, we might be able to consider, "How can I find some life, some flow within whatever it is that might be boring? What tiny plant of play perhaps can I find in here and nourish?"

The answer, of course is not obvious. Sometimes it's not even possible. But what we do start doing is we stop avoiding the things that are causing us boredom and troubles, and instead start recognizing that we can try to find life within them, and that that itself is a practice.

When I returned to the piano on those days that I'm not feeling it, I'll still sit with it. I'll breathe it in. Feel the moment as it is. Maybe just maybe lightly brush a key with a gentle touch, and then maybe just maybe press a key. I'm not acting, I'm not "faking it until I make it," a phrase that makes me otherwise nauseous.

Instead, what I'm doing is I'm listening for the life. Within that note, can I hear that? I'm not trying to defend against the space time, distortions of boredom and other strong emotions, but I'm trying to integrate it, sing through it with it, form with it. I am where I am in the mush of the moment. And can I hear the beauty of that single sound in a single note, in that mush?

And if I can find that itself, not a simple task, but if I can, even if the entire session is about that, somehow something unlocks. Whatever comes next, somehow rings more deeply, whatever's left of that session, even if it's only for a few moments that I'm playing something, somehow it feels more engaging and powerful than had I spent hours pounding away at the keys.

Next sessions, both at the piano and in other things of my life throughout the day, somehow carry a different confidence. This confidence that's born in the bravery of facing that stalwart foe of boredom once again.

It is a challenge, but it's a worthy one, and it's one that's rewarded not by some pot of gold at the end, but by a return to where work itself feels alive. If we can find that life, that play, that care, then we're also finding maybe the mastery and meaning in the moment.

It's not solved in a day, and I don't have a hack for you, but I do have a suggestion. The wandering mind wanders, not least of all through avoiding flaring and difficult emotions, but also we can guide it with practice engaging emotions like boredom again.

In this way, it becomes less driver and more messenger. The next time you might feel that wave of boredom approach even envelop you, can you be with it? Can you be with it at a place that engages you in that boredom?

Can you do so not to a degree that overwhelms you, but also not so little in such a way that you pretend it doesn't exist. Can you do so to whatever caring degree makes sense to you? And if so, what does it have to say?

Maybe it says nothing beyond some vague feeling. I wonder how you might experience making that next decision. What would your next session be like, whatever you decide. Might it not be richer than if you simply acted?

The following piece is a mix of a couple of, uh, pieces called Herd and Alight, both of them in F Minor. They're both, I suppose relatively old, a couple decades old. But as with all of these pieces, they tend to evolve. I like the, um, structure that's formed in these that they, um still allow for a flow and a change from one performance to the next.

Sometimes I repeat one thing more often and another thing less often and I vary here or there, but still that structure's within it. Anyway, hope you enjoy this piece, that's kind of meld between the two. Um, sometimes I'll think of these pieces as something of a garden, if you will. You know, one grows and another thing fades. Sometimes they combine, sometimes they become two. Anyway, this is called Herd and Alight.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

This episode explores how those of us with ADHD and wandering minds often link our “scatter” to creativity. Of course, turning creative ideas into finished work requires managing motivation, energy, time, and life rhythms. And when scatter turns into "error", we can become completely derailed.

It may seem counterintuitive, but I would argue that "error" is a vital part of creativity. That being said, while Bob Ross’s “happy accidents” and Miles Davis’s attitude toward mistakes can be inspiring, this mindset tends to only ring true for masters of their craft.

Perfection paralysis and self-accusations about mistakes can cause harm and prevent us from moving forward or even starting in the first place.

But I like to define creativity as discovering what you’re making over time. This should leave no room for what may be perceived as a mistake, whether in art or even in practical tasks.

So when we are confronted with a perceived error or mistake, I invite you to pause, acknowledge any emotions coming up, and use error to realign rather than ignore it.

We close out with an experimental music piece, “Inspawn,” which is a combination of "inspire" and spawn". It gives you a glimpse of how I learn jazz techniques through play and letting creativity take me on a journey with no mandatory destination.

Transcript

Those with ADHD, wandering minds and the like are often creative. Sometimes we attribute that creativity to the feelings of scatter itself. This idea, that idea, they all jump in and suddenly there's a connection.

But there can be troubles with creativity. Guiding it to a conclusion means several things, including managing motivation, energy, time, balance in the rhythms of our lives and more. Today I thought we can consider the vital role of error in creativity.

Pithy statements from Bob Ross. Talks of "happy accidents." Or Miles Davis who talks about not fearing mistakes as there are none, sound wonderful. They can even resonate as true. But really mainly is true for a master in their craft.

If I were to pick up a paintbrush, and by some amazing luck was able to create the Mona Lisa, but then somewhere I, I dunno, threw a splash of red paint across it because that's really where my painting abilities are, that might be a mistake.

But the truth in those pithy statements is that we can create more trouble for ourselves by accusing ourselves of making mistakes.

Anyway, let me back up a moment. Creativity. What do I even mean by creativity?

Creativity is this development of something over time as a discovery. We discover what we're making in the act of making it. We don't know the steps there. We don't know what the end will be. There's some blurriness to the vision.

We don't know, maybe both the steps there or what the end might look like. In this way the information, the skills, it's not entirely within our conscious awareness. Some aspect of the work is outside of us. And in this way, the act of creativity is about discovering something as we make it.

That doesn't have to be about art then, it could be a budget, a report, fixing a door that's stuck. Whatever it is, we try to envision something and then take some gentle step forward. That idea of a next action of breaking off, a small piece, of slowing down, of searching for the simplicity, the fundamentals, but then there is error.

Somewhere we discover that whatever we're doing is deviating from that blurry vision, making it worse. We don't know where we're heading, but where we're heading doesn't seem quite right. Many with ADHD end up berating themselves somewhere here.

The so-called perfectionism may have prevented even reaching that first step, as effective as it is in defending ourselves from the shame that might arise when we're looking at trying to complete a thing. As we are a creative, we weave together this unknown as we resolve this vision.

Let me take another side step for a moment and define emotion.

I've defined it in other episodes, is that which comes to mind. Admittedly a different definition than what you might be used to, but it allows for a different point of view that can be helpful here.

For example, words, thoughts, even logic. These are the cresting of emotion into consciousness. We're trying to understand what we can trust to exist, for example, when these thoughts then are the manifestation.

Now what does that have to do with ADHD? If we define emotion this way, every emotion has discovery within it. There's this unknown becoming known, and this transition can touch off other emotions. When we're in flow, things are building. It can be delightful.

We're moving through those windows of challenge. Neither overwhelmed nor bored. But when errors appear, that deviation from vision, because emotions are involved, they have this tendency to find their way through the windows that are open now.

The "I should have known," it leads to this wave of regret. "What don't I know," can touch off fear. "What does this say about me that I don't know?" Well, this wave of shame can grow.

The shoulds, the woulds, the potentials, and all the rest, entwine with anger, if not rage, themselves finding lightning rods in ourselves and the worlds around us. These feelings might have been born in the early years of being chastised and accused of being lazy and whatever. They all echo. Finding their way through those channels that are now open to consciousness.

What can be most helpful, as it is often most helpful, as it is also often most difficult, is to first pause. Within that pause, we can now practice acknowledging those emotions as they come to mind. As we're in those sessions, in those visits.

Because as we do that, we can see those symbols, the stories, the ideas, whatever they are that relate to the vision or not. We can engage this lifetime practice of care, bravery, and mastery.

Whatever the craft, you can see that pain of lacking perfection. And in so doing, we see that error that's inevitable. The path will always deviate from the vision. The mistake is ignoring it. The lesson is in acknowledging it 'cause that's where we can realign and engage once again.

Today's piece of music is called Inspawn. It's kinda like inspire and spawn mixed together as a word that probably isn't a word. Anyway, that's what it is. Um, I've been experimenting a bit with, with, uh, jazz, trying to learn it.

As if that's a thing I can actually completely learn. It's not, it's, it's another vast field, mountain range on which to, to try to climb. But you can hear a bit of the dominant major, or major sevenths I should say, and maybe some, uh, as well, some ninth chords in here.

It starts to grow more into the jazz realm when you start adding more of those higher, harmonic registers. Anyway, just learning it. And when learning, I think it's always about, uh, trying to integrate play in some way, 'cause that's the way you make it a part of yourself.

And, and so that's what I'm doing. Anyway. Hope you enjoy the piece, it's not exactly jazz, but you can hear some of the little echoes of jazz in here perhaps.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

This week I have a discussion with Michael, a Waves of Focus group member, about living with ADHD and a wandering mind and how he refines tools and routines to manage distractibility, interruption sensitivity, and RSD.

Diagnosed as an adult six years ago after years of being mischaracterized with learning issues, Michael gained clarity through ADHD community resources (including How to ADHD and Waves of Focus). He describes “refinement” as narrowing and consolidating workflows across methods and tools.

We discuss trust vs. doubt in systems, keeping clutter out of daily view, the emergence of AI, and preserving autonomous thinking and human creativity.

You can see more about what Michael Porter is getting up to at his website.

Obsidian

Jira

Waves of Focus

OmniFocus

DevonThink

Due reminder app

Todoist

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw

Summary

This episode explores how ADHD and wandering minds can make “I don’t wanna” feelings so strong that even writing a dreaded obligation down feels difficult because, in doing so, we are admitting it exists.

To get over this hurdle, I introduce a foundational skill from the WAVES method called anchoring. This technique allows us to pause and write down what is happening and the pathhs available to us in the now.

We treat these items as options rather than tasks that fill us with overwhelm. When ready, we prepare to “launch” into an action by giving ourselves the choice of where to give our attention in the moment.

We end with a reflective piano piece called “Caregiver.”

Transcript

But if I write it down, that means I have to do it.

One of the struggles of ADHD, wandering minds and beyond is that it can be terribly complex navigating the, I don't want to feelings, for example. Maybe we get caught in the sense of where they come from, or more often than not, we're trying to outsmart them. Of course, that can lead to its own troubles. So what do we do?

"I don't wanna" feelings can run deep. Have a listen to episode nine to get a sense of what they can be about. One place they crop up is in even admitting that something exists. A report, the taxes, whatever it is, can become so dreaded that even writing them down becomes a terrifying enterprise. If we write it down that means we would admit to ourselves that there's this thing to do.

As odd as that might seem, it's simply human. We can expand that notion to the world of therapy, for example, if we give voice to a problem, maybe we're making it worse. I think we inherently, naturally gut level, know, that as we pay attention to something, some emotion, something that's stirring the back of mind, barely cresting into consciousness, we start to give it a form.

Words, thoughts themselves are this cresting of the emotions, this consolidation, crystallizing of them into our minds. "Did I just say something dumb in that conversation? Well, if I don't call it out, maybe no one will notice."

The same idea happens within us, even if there's no one to see, but ourselves.

One of the foundational skills in the WAVES approach to practicing ADHD, is that of anchoring. It's a simple pen and paper technique that I'll give you the rudiments of right now.

It's probably something you've done before, but didn't realize that there were some unwritten rules that were around it, and so it maybe faded out and you wondered what happened to it. You may have felt that success, but then it was fleeting, illusionary, like so many others.

But once you know its rules, well, then you can start to practice it. And you can use it at any time. You don't have to use it. It's there when you feel like it. It's particularly helpful when feeling scattered, confused, exhausted, really any negative emotion really. Or even a positive one if you wanna feel like I wanna focus a little more strongly in this direction or the other and not get lost on some rabbit trail.

So here's the technique:

First is to pause. Probably the hardest bit of all of this.

Secondly, if you have a pad of paper, you can use that as this anchor. If you, uh, don't already have this pad of paper around, you can, start a new one. It could be the back of an envelope if you like that.

Next, write in some attempt to acknowledge what your options are of this moment. Grounding yourself in the reality of where you are now. And we're doing this without following through on doing them.

You might have an idea, you might have a feeling, but consider any of these possibilities:

• One, what are you doing in this moment? If you're multitasking, what are those multiple tasks? Or maybe you're spending time with someone at the moment, you can write the option to pay attention to them.
• Secondly, what might be pulling at you? For example, maybe there's something you're hoping to remember to do. Examples might be something you want to do, something you might impulsively do. Maybe there's something that's gnawing at you, something you feel like you need to do.

I like to use the mnemonic wind. WIND: Want, Impulse, Need and Drift or Do Nothing. So these ideas that are in your mind in this moment might feel like you are about to brainstorm, but this is not brainstorming.

Brainstorming is where you're associating. You're connecting one idea to the next, pulling to mind what might be there lurking there, but you're connecting one thing after the next saying, oh yeah, there's this I can do and that I can do it, et cetera.

Well, you could do that if you want, but uh, I might look at that as a form of in indulgence, if you will. It's in the meditational way of speaking. You're inviting a process to tea. To manage this, to avoid the brainstorming part of it, rather than feel like you have to hold back or something, you can write down the option to brainstorm.

Now that leaves then whatever is on our mind in this moment, including the option to brainstorm. Something else might come to mind, like something that you don't want to do right now. Something that doesn't make sense to do right now.

Well, you could write that down on the side. Maybe cordon it off and say, okay, that's for later. Maybe you're wondering what's on my to-do list. Lemme go there first and take a look. Well, that'd be something of an indulgence too.

Rather than dive there, you could write down consult to-do list. Now that's an option. The idea is that you are consulting your own mind. Now you might wonder what to do if something else comes to mind, something to develop, something to get into. Again, give those a separate space if you like.

A Today List. Sometimes you have one to two things that come to mind. Sometimes five or ten, maybe more. But at some point you've reflected where your mind is in this moment, and that's the moment you've anchored. Now there's a next phase to this if you'd like.

So now that you've anchored, there's also this idea of launching. So anchor and launch. So we get to this fourth step, which is where launch begins, which is at any point, circle an option that you feel makes sense to be with now and attempt to be with that thing you've circled.

And of course, you might wonder, what if I wander off? I'd be willing to bet that you'd wander off even the moment that you've circled it. Say, oh yeah, I'll come back to that. That's part of it.

What you can do, if and when you catch yourself wandering, I should say, return to the beginning and consider adding where you wandered off as a new option on your anchor pad. What that does is then it helps you to align yourself with your intentions.

It might take one time, two times. Might take several times, but somewhere things start to align. Lastly. When that anchor no longer represents the now, and this is important, and this is one of the places you may have gone off the rails with this that it didn't work out for you. Feel free to add things, cross things off.

Make them once again reflect the now and once it does not reflect the now, get rid of it, archive it, discard it, trash it, whatever makes sense. If there's something important on there that you wanna remember, okay.

Where do you trust that you would be able to come back to that? Maybe you just title it differently and say, this is an important thing, and you put that off to the side somewhere. That would be part of another type of practice.

Figuring out longer task lists and communicating with future you at a longer distance than what we're doing here now. Whatever it is, if that paper is no longer representative of the now, your mind in this moment, it's no longer an anchor.

Now this all might seem simple, and it is in some ways, but so is meditation, which in particular for wandering minds can be quite difficult. Fortunately, I find this much easier than the typical rest your mind on your breath type of meditation.

But one of the major muscles that are practiced in this is that as you're writing something down, here in this anchoring process, you're doing so as options, not tasks, and this is one of the important muscles to exercise.

A wandering mind tends to be zoomed in the periphery, the short term memory, that's all in short supply. Working memory, what we play with in this moment is in full blast. As a result, thoughts can pass by and we know they're short-lived and we'll lose them quickly.

If you've ever used a microscope, you can understand. If you see something, it's like, oh, better not lose it. The nature of the mind being a lens itself is that you forget that you've lost something. And as a result, we tend to hold onto things, jump from one thing to the next in near instant calculation of, do I have the momentum? Do I have the motivation to do it? Is this more important than what I'm doing? Or it might all boil down to this is shinier on fire and there's seemingly no thought process.

You may even find yourself there without having realized it. So when you do catch a thought, it immediately becomes this burden. It's this, I have to do this while it's on my mind. But because it can be so heavy, this affront to sense of agency, we might decide well, maybe I can let it go. If it's important enough, it'll come back to me.

Whether by floating back again into mind or by urgency of a deadline or somebody reminds you, whether we do it or not isn't the issue. It's that we're forced to make this decision then and there.

Because of that zoomed in nature of the mind, further weighing down our ability to make a decision, that pressure of time makes it that much worse. And this can become the majority of our experience when it comes to decisions. Particularly with those things that we might be avoiding.

But with this anchoring process, the idea of transitioning from task to option lifts that burden, it's a practice. It's new, it's not familiar, but with some attempt at it, it becomes familiar and it becomes something that's not required. It's no longer a thing you have to do. It's a suggestion at the moment, but later on it becomes, oh, this helps me.

Another way to think about anchoring is like creating a menu for this moment, only this moment. By writing the options down. That short term memory, that part of us that's trying to hold on so tightly to the multiple possibilities, that probability cloud of the next, that muscle can now relax.

And the energy that's now available because of that relaxation is now there to help make the decision. It's there to help consider the option as an option rather than hold onto it for fear that it's going to run away.

So as a takeaway, maybe try anchoring, pause with a piece of paper, reflect on where the mind is in this moment, and don't forget to trash it, destroy it, get rid of it. Archive it when it no longer reflects the now. And further. Can you feel the difference of creating options over tasks?

Several episodes ago I described the spirit and practice of care. It's one of those episodes people will bring up to me regularly saying it touched something. It's episode 41 if you wanna check it out.

Care is not simple. It pulls on us every which way. Whether we're caring for the work in front of us or the people in our lives, we're limited in our resources and that can have its own effects, its own emotional reverberations through us. The following piece is called Caregiver.

It's an attempt to reflect that melancholy that we might find ourselves in when, in that position. So I hope you enjoy it. I hope it's something that provides a point of reflection.

Mentioned in this episode:

Waves of Focus YouTube Series

Look out for new episodes of the new Waves of Focus YouTube series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpQS5q6yvRw