Rhythms of Focus

Ever feel lost at the starting line, waiting for motivation or urgency to nudge you into action? In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we break through the myth that productivity is just about interest or deadlines and instead explore the deeper role of trust—trust in oneself, in emotions, and in the gentle rhythms of daily life.

Discover how acknowledging your questions and fears can open the door to meaningful engagement rather than forceful productivity. Learn to nurture agency as you’d cultivate a delicate plant—growing your ability gently, with care and play, instead of harsh deadlines or rigid routines.

• Practice pausing with kindness to heal the injured trust beneath procrastination and overwhelm.
• Embrace agency as the starting point for guided growth, letting agency serve as your compass in emotional storms.
• Replace forceful tactics with playful, mindful rituals that support reliable starts and creative fulfillment.

Enjoy this episode’s original piano composition, "Snow," weaving gentle three-four rhythms in C minor—a musical reflection of trust and play in motion.

Subscribe now and visit rhythmsoffocus.com for more tools to nurture your wandering mind.

Keywords: #ADHD #WanderingMinds #agency #mindfulness #gentleproductivity #trustyourself #creativegrowth #emotionalresilience #playfulfocus #RhythmsOfFocus

I just can't get started. Oh, but once I can, I'm good to go. It's a familiar refrain from many a wandering mind. Sometimes we work strong. The stars align whether by deadline or unknown, stumble, spark of novelty. Somehow we find ourselves in a deep dive.

In the immortal words of the Talking Heads, David Byrne, you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?  

Too often we say it's all about interest or urgency, something shiny or on fire. We throw up our hands and say, "without these we can't do anything."

But there's so much more going on than simply interest. Interest, after all, is a deeply complex emotion. In fact, it may be more about an injured sense of trust within ourselves.

The word "trust" itself might seem boring. We hear it so often, seems to have lost all meaning. I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

Trust is a sense of feeling that something will continue to behave as it has been, such that it might be relied upon.

It is a vital, vital concept that creates structure. Even words themselves. Our words exist because we feel that they will continue to behave as they have been within the ecology of the worlds in which we live inside and out.

What do I mean by trust when it comes to play and work?

Well, let's take an example. Let's say you see someone schedule themselves to do a thing from four to 5:00 PM. Four o'clock comes around, they sit down and they do it. What's the magic? It doesn't seem like we can do that. What happens if we don't feel like it? The feeling of even "feeling like it" is deeply complex.

Wandering minds often face multiple worries each, and evidence of the loss of trust in ourselves.

For example, let's say we try to set something at four o'clock and we might wonder a whole series of questions:

how am I gonna feel when that time comes? What will I be in the middle of? Would I be able to stop if I got started? Would I be able to get back if I need to set it aside? Would I even know what to do if I started? And what if I don't? What if other things come up while I'm working? Will I even realize it? Would I miss yet another important matter? What if I run off on a thousand tangents in the meantime? And many other possibilities...

Now, this is just about a thing at four o'clock. There's many other types of work, not to mention, balancing various things that we've got going on in our lives. Each of these questions have fears within them.

For example, "would I be able to get back to it if I need to set it aside?" Well, here we might wind up creating another pile that's incomplete.

Each of these questions have a fear within them,

 if there weren't, it's because we would already have the trust we needed. The questions themselves wouldn't come up. But the questions as they are unanswered, bog us down, or perhaps we've answered them in some negative sense and we don't even wanna look at them, in which case we can't even engage. Each of these are evidence that this is not just about interest, but of an injured trust in ourselves.

Years of experience have taught us that things can go very wrong very quickly. Why start?    

Unclear of what to do. We still have to make things happen. So until that hope for day that we can engage without fuss or that desire or that urgency or whatever will get us there, we rely on force using methods to induce those sorts of feelings.

Maybe we wait for deadlines. Maybe we wait until we feel like it. We hyper schedule our calendar beyond any developed practice. I've already talked about how scheduling one thing can be a problem. Here we make it even worse.

Leveraging the shame of past failures, yelling at ourselves verbally through post-it notes, through overburdened task lists. Ask others to remind us giving up our agency, tricking ourselves through hacks like false deadlines that we already know aren't real. Reminding ourselves again and again to "just start" forcing ourselves to stay in it while we're there. Either of those can make it worse for the next time that we wanna start, because those, I don't want our feelings grow even stronger.

Each of these are methods of force because we don't trust ourselves.

And while these sometimes work, they're often painful, unreliable, and create further problems down the line, including making those, "I don't wanna feelings" stronger.

Not the least of which, there's also the problem that when we use these, we effectively tell ourselves that we are untrustworthy because these are the only ways that we've found that work.

But what is it that we don't trust? We don't trust that there are other waves of emotion that we can ride, besides urgency.

Could we engage if we, for example, don't feel like it. That doesn't mean we ignore those feelings. Quite the contrary, the exercise becomes one of agency: that ability to decide and engage non reactively.

Maybe we don't even act. Maybe we decide we don't want to do it. But if we can do that from this place of centeredness, where we've considered the feelings and what's going on, well now we are acting in a place that feels meaningful to us.

The injury to trust is also the injury to agency. We scaffold that sense by pausing, that magic button, that most difficult thing, the thing that's hard to remember to do.

But once we can try, once we get there, on those rare occasions, perhaps- if we can practice something that feels useful, meaningful, if we can be able to start to nourish those gentle tendrils of trust, maybe in a wave of play or care, we might be that much more likely to pause again, that's the practice. That pause is what starts to heal, or at least answers some aspect of these questions of ability and competency.

It takes a certain bravery and we can be brave without being reckless. We don't wanna throw ourselves at a task become yet another method by which we attempt force injure ourselves further. We don't grow a plant by pulling it upwards until it uproots. We don't develop our muscles by benchpressing 300 pounds when we've never done it before.

We grow trust as we would something gently through time and care. I tend to use the tools of anchoring, regular visits, a visit guide. These sorts of things that I may mention here and there I talk about in other episodes, it may not be enough to simply tell you that these exist, and the reason is because it takes practice.

There's a growth to developing trust in yourself because it's a living thing.

The seeds of play, for example, this powerful force for learning mastery, meaningful work- stirs in those windows of challenge, sometimes light, sometimes strong. Too much. We're overwhelmed, too little we're bored.

When we can allow ourselves to simply be in that visit with the work where we can walk away at any time, it lets us connect in those deeper emotional levels where the trust needs to build, where those questions I mentioned earlier, all evidence in the tendrils of growth. It helps to better find those windows, those trellis peeking out at the light.

For a monotronic, myopic, magnified mind- a wandering mind- either emotion can swallow as whole as strong emotions can.

Check out episode 14 for more on how I expand the idea of a monotropic mind. But when we can, let's say leverage play, we can find the root of it as we're sitting there, even if we didn't have it to begin with as we approached, we might be able to find a feedback loop within it.

When we can trust ourselves to find those seeds, the world starts to open up. The heavy fog of impossibility begins to lift. We can not only be on top of our work, we can start more reliably getting to things that matter to us, feel more confidence in our visions and how we develop them and even improve our relationships.

We garden that spirit through risk and bravery, and we do so in a kind considered way.

Staring up to the sky. As the snow falls down, I think we can feel a sense of play between the flakes of snow and the wind. There's something whimsical in the blend of three- four time and a minor key, which is what I think tries to capture this idea. Today's piece of music is called Snow. It's in C minor.

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

Feeling swallowed by the waves of overwhelm? In this episode of “Rhythms of Focus,” Kourosh Dini invites listeners on a gentle voyage through the tumultuous sea of starting something new—whether it’s a project, a piece of music, or simply the next small step on the creative path. Rather than pushing for rigid productivity, Kourosh explores the art of recognizing emotions, honoring the body’s signals, and allowing overwhelm itself to become a kind of map, guiding the way toward mindful agency.

Listeners will discover:

- Why overwhelm arises and how to meet it with self-compassion, especially with a wandering mind or ADHD

- How agency isn’t about forcing focus, but about learning to navigate uncertainty and rekindling a sense of play within chaos

- Practical micro-strategies to move forward when the tides feel too strong

Key takeaways:

- Identify the emotional waves beneath overwhelm to turn anxiety into insight

- Use imperfect notes and tasks as trail markers, not obligations

- Find rhythm and enjoyment by honoring the present moment, rather than chasing an imagined “better way”

This episode features an original piano composition in C Minor, echoing the episode’s themes with swirling, heartfelt music. Subscribe and keep steering your own boat at rhythmsoffocus.com—where agency, mindfulness, and the creative spirit set the tempo.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #Overwhelm #FocusStrategies #SelfCompassion #CreativeAgency #EmotionalWaves #Agency #KouroshDini

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

Agency and trust are vital guiding currents in the sea of wandering minds. Instead of rigid productivity hacks, listeners are invited to chart their own course, embracing mindful practices that nurture self-compassion and creativity.

This episode explores:

- The hidden dynamics between past, present, and future selves, revealing how trust fuels sustainable change.

- Why shame-driven productivity sabotages agency, and how acknowledging "I don’t want to" can heal the cycle of procrastination.

- How the simple daily practice of a "visit" transforms tasks into invitations for growth, gently guiding momentum.

### Key Takeaways

- Replace the pressure of deadlines with the gentle rhythm of a daily invite—paying a mindful visit, then letting go.

- Build trust with your future self through repeated, compassionate invitations instead of self-criticism.

- Use habit trackers or one-thing lists to support playful mastery and meaningful engagement, one day at a time.

This episode features an original piano composition, echoing the theme of growth through rhythm and honoring the wandering nature of the mind. Subscribe and set sail with us at rhythmsoffocus.com—agency and creative potential await.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #Agency #Creativity #SelfCompassion #FocusStrategies #HabitBuilding #GentleRhythm #Neurodiversity

The Pressure to Not Break a Streak

Beating down the door, maybe haunting our dreams, or at least somewhere in memes there's a mascot of a particular language app.

This app, which shall remain nameless, is one I actually rather enjoy, but if I miss a day, I'll lose my streak and there's something of a burden to doing that. I imagine many of us have this sort of similar process of not wanting to break the chain. Is there an alternative? 

Chasing Pride

We do a thing every day and the number advances showing that I've added a new number to my streak. Haha, the number's growing. I grow proud.

There are, however, at least two occasions where I lost that number. Each time, it was somewhere in the hundreds, and I found much opportunity to practice my glowering in those days.

The popular method for creating this habit, if you will, is called "Don't Break the Chain." In essence, it's about doing a thing every day and then adding a tally to it every time. And as the number increases, you grow prouder of yourself and somewhere along the way build a habit. Many apps and admonitions for developing habit encourage this path.

Running from Failure and Shame

However, this method is also one that subtly uses the fear of defeat and consequently shame as motivators. If you happen to miss a day, the counter returns to zero. The worry of impending failure is always there. While we haven't failed yet, the voice that is inevitable is always behind us. Since all things must pass somewhere down the line, the chain will break.

What is a Measure?

Further, while we may grow proud of that number, there's something to consider in that comment by Goodhart, "when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." If I only go for that number, I can feel the stagnation in my learning.

But if I take the time to be and experience the words, the sentences, play with them until they feel like they're second nature.

Well, now I'm learning, but I also risk not meeting the requirements for that day's tick. In other words, the required milestone of work can stand against my learning.

The Thing Itself

So what's important is the thing itself, whatever it is, we're engaging the task, the hobby, the study, the measure that matters is our experience.

I describe a practice of a daily invite, in episode 24. In short, it means to one, decide to be with something, two, be and then three. Do that daily

The steps can seem quite obvious.

However, by separating the components, we can now practice them. We can consider what helps with any of these steps. Also, because there is no number, the loss is not a given. We can reflect on the effect of a missing day. In that reflection, we can better decide whether it would be useful to gently return ourselves to that habit, and then further, let's take that word "habit." Rather than be so harsh, if things miss here and there, we still have a rhythm.

One that fades in and out of our lives, weaving itself where it matters most. The importance is the experience, not the number. And because of this difference, we're no longer beholden to a number so much as a developing sense of whatever it is that we're building, both as a thing and in how we relate to it.

"Ascend"

As we practice a craft, learn something field of knowledge, there are often a zillion different components to think through.

We can't think of everything all at once, . We can't practice them all at once, but we can garden them over time. We practice one bit. See how that goes. Practice another, practice them together. Forget things, let them fade and bring them back. Somehow in the roots and irrigation systems of this underground unconscious, as we do this, ideas start to generalize within the whole field, within the knowledge that we gather, within the skills.

Sometimes if we're lucky, it starts blending even into the other words and worlds we inhabit.

As I get better with writing music, I might get better with writing words. As I get better at understanding creativity, I might get better at understanding the pains of when that system is blocked in whatever the field as I sit with a client, maybe.

The following piece is called Ascend, written in C sharp minor three quarters time.

I had originally thought of it as a scene of Devils and Angels arising and fighting each other. Somehow it turned into this title, ascend, eh, not sure what to make of that. Regardless, 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

Wandering Minds often blame themselves when struggling with time.

Instead of painting "time blindness" as a personal flaw, what if our struggles are a natural response to a world obsessed with rigidly measured seconds—rather than meaningful rhythms?

There is more to time than simply the clock. We have our own internal time. Rather than force our own natural time into something it is not, how could we instead find a synchronized, harmonic approach, where have our own while still meeting the world where it is?

Listeners will learn:

• Why the traditional clock can feel like a hostile force—and how to find harmony within its structure
• How connecting with nature’s own cycles can restore a sense of attunement and ease
• The Lighthouse Technique: a practical method for making transitions and cultivating agency, using moments of decision instead of alarms that startle and shame

• Reframe time struggles as differences in rhythm, not deficits
• Use “lighthouse” reminders to gently guide transitions, supporting agency and minimizing stress
• Anchor productivity in meaningful decisions, not force or alarms—tuning in to the natural waves of focus

This episode features an original piano composition, "Aging" in C minor, which musically explores the unfolding of time and its emotional textures. Subscribe and sail with us at rhythmsoffocus.com to nurture your agency and find your rhythm amidst the waves.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #Agency #MindfulProductivity #TimeBlindness #LighthouseTechnique #CreativeFocus #Neurodivergent #RhythmsOfFocus #PersonalGrowth

I got a thing today at 3pm. I can't do anything until then.

Wandering minds such as those with ADHD, often struggle with the clock. So many of our troubles seem to deal with time. Hyper-focused due dates, procrastination, scheduling, dealing with a schedule when life hits and things go awry. Hyper-focused time sink, if not wormhole, fearing that time sink, but then it turns out to be something small.

All of these have something to do with time.

It'd be easy to point at these difficulties and then call them "symptoms," the word synonymous with "something wrong with you." But what if it's not about being wrong so much as it is about being out of sync with this increasingly artificial structure of time that surrounds us.

 Let's consider a central unit of a clock for a moment. This idea of time being so important to our lives. The second.

The second was first considered as this thing, this entity by a Persian scholar, Al Biruni, around the year 1000, as some fraction of the lunar cycle. It's since been defined and refined to further experientially distant concepts, things further away from us.

Somehow in our scientific pursuits, we finally landed on something in 1967. The second was defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the Cesium-133 atom. And somehow this fundamental unit of time is how we're supposed to relate to each other.

Wandering minds often do better when in nature. The woods, the beach, the sun, the intense, the calm, all seem to work better within our rhythms there. Nature seems to ease concerns, scatter feelings of being inept, all being replaced with this attunement to the now. This depth of reality, relaxation into being.

What's strangely not obvious is that time itself is a matter of nature. It's experienced. Without consciousness, there is no time. Without time, there's no consciousness.

Our culture has adapted, churned, and twisted time to suit itself, much like the rest of nature. We look at seconds, minutes, hours, as if they had substance and they don't.

They're a human construct. Representations hollow in and of themselves. As humans, we're much more attuned to those things with which we have some direct experience. The breath, the day, the seasons of the morning, afternoon, evening, the wee hours of the night. Each of these have a much deeper experiential meaning than the seconds of a watch.

Our natural waves of focus and emotions crest into consciousness in their own time, swelling, and fading by their own existence.

The artificial hands of a clock and the demands they represent often strike through the moment, often creating the very turbulence that we then accuse ourselves of being "symptomatic."

Certainly the clock has its advantages. it helps us to synchronize as a society. I'd hardly be able to maintain my psychiatric practice, for example, without a clear idea of when I'd meet my next client.

We must still interact with this world carved as it is into these odd divisions, but I won't call them correct.

They're buoys floating in the waters. These divisions are entities with which I can have a relationship.

Beyond time, there's money, there's people, there's the world that surrounds us. We're still responsible for living in it, for finding where we can have a symbiotic, harmonic relationship where we can care and play, and the world would hopefully, willingly support us in turn. No easy feat.

But we don't have to say that one measurement is correct while others are not. Rather than accuse ourselves of deficit, we can then wonder how might my rhythms work with those around me? Where can I find some port to meet the world in some time that harmonizes synchronizes with that around me?

So what do we do? As many of you know, by now, I like to work by this unit of a visit where possible. Check out episode four for details, but the thumbnail is, it's a unit of work where we show up to something, standing at that edge of action where it's as easy to step away as it is to step forward. And we stay there for the single deep breath.

At that point, we now have full freedom to reflect and decide about what is in front of us and what it means to us. Whether we decide to set it aside, nudge it forward, or dive in. As the mind flows with a natural rhythm, a wave that cannot be turned on or off with a switch, we might then fear,

Hey, there's that thing at three.

How could we ever start knowing we might get caught in the rapids? Losing all awareness of other important matters. Alarms start to blare uselessly, as our eardrums seem to have signed off.

Many of us use timers, understandably so. In fact, rightfully so. But the fact that we often need to keep turning up the volume on them might say that we're not using them quite right.

Where we often fail is that we aim for a time rather than decision.

We aim for a time to pull ourselves away, to use some force based method rather than supporting ourselves in our agency.

A method I like to use here is what I call a lighthouse technique. At its simplest, it means focusing on a meaningful moment of decision. As an example, let's say you have an hour until the next thing, whatever the next thing is, rather than set the alert for an hour from now, let's say you knocked off roughly 25% of the time.

There's a lot more calculations and thinking through as you could go if you wanted to, but I find that to be a good rough number. The idea is that we can acknowledge the transition and more importantly, that decision as to whether we want to make that transition or not.

When we've set it up such that we have time, our own time to gradually wind down our thoughts, our feelings, our ideas, the emotions of the work of the now, allow them to rest where they be ready for you to launch easily next time, maybe even consolidate our thoughts for the now, maybe even have time to make it to the next thing and do so smoothly. Well, wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that smooth the waters? Wouldn't that allow you to have a more meaningful connection?

But further is again, that time for decision because now not only can we do all of those things. We can decide, you know what? I'm in a flow and I like where I am. The next thing maybe isn't quite so important. I can call them, I can email them, I can text them. I can let them know, "Hey, I'm on a roll right now. This doesn't work." Or we can acknowledge it to ourselves.

 We could decide, you know what? I'm gonna hold off. Instead of transitioning smoothly right now, I'm gonna transition roughly later. every moment trading an increasing amount of chaos for the time of the Now.

We have that decision now in front of us. We no longer lose that decision.

The alert now has meaning it's no longer this hollow clock, and the fact that it connects with something important within ourselves now means that we're much more likely to actually hear it. Whatever we decide to do, even if the default is to simply continue forward.

When we respect agency, this central unit, this idea of decision within ourselves, this ability to decide non-reactivity, we start to figure out ways where we can better communicate between our internal time and the one that surrounds us. 

Music has an interesting way of dealing with time. It's very medium, is that of time. Listen to what's called a drop in electronic music, dance music in particular, and you'll hear this build this tension that then crashes to this return of the regular rhythm. What created that tension? It's more than just a pitch, although that can often be in it.

But the shortening of a beat creates this transition of the nature of time within us. We feel time shift. There's a series of quarter notes that go to eighth notes to 16th, 30 seconds, 64th, bam. Sometimes there's a twist of silence, a funny noise, a something to disrupt the pattern, but these are just teases to this process.

The same thing happens everywhere in music. A four measure phrase becomes long only in the context of another phrase that's shorter, and it becomes short in the context of another phrase that's longer. While we can play with a metronome, we don't even have to do that.

Chopin's "rubatto" playing expands and shrinks the underlying nature of this sort of grid of time to convey its own emotions.

The following piece. Does what many if not all of music does, it plays with time. In repeating the first phrase that establishes one length, but a melody then shows up to say, Hey, what if we went longer while the first phrase continues underneath?

And so there's this new world that's created.

On the one hand, we have this world where there's one time and that contrasts with another world that has two times, and those times are in contrast with each other. The piece is called aging. It's written in C minor, 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

Discover the secret rhythms that guide a wandering mind—especially when the “energy goes poof.” In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, Kourosh Dini dives into the emotional undercurrents that make lists and to-dos feel overwhelming, unraveling the real reasons our energy fizzles out and motivation slips away. Rather than rigid productivity, explore why tuning in to the present moment—like adjusting the strings of a well-loved instrument—fosters lasting agency and self-compassion for adults with ADHD and wandering minds.

Listeners will uncover:

• The hidden emotional loops that sabotage progress with to-do lists, and how to break them.
• A practical, mindful approach for tuning choices in real time, empowering daily momentum.

• Revitalize your to-do list by updating it as a living tool, not a harsh judge.
• Reframe frustration as the start of a conversation with your past, present, and future selves.
• Treat decisions as “sharpening the ax”—practice tuning your actions to the moment rather than pursuing perfection.

This episode features an original piano composition, “Winnie,” capturing the spark of creative beginnings.

Subscribe to Rhythms of Focus and visit rhythmsoffocus.com to continue your journey toward agency, mindfulness, and a rhythm that’s truly your own.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #Agency #DecisionMaking #ToDoLists #DailyRhythms #SelfCompassion #FocusStrategies #PianoOriginal

Up in the morning, ready and raring to go. I don't know what I'll do yet, but I've got the energy.

I know what I'll do. I'll take a look at my list and just start taking things on. Ah, wait. Here we go. Alright. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I already did that. I, I forgot about that. Oh my goodness. The deadline for that one's. Oh my goodness. It this long pass. This is coming right up. What does this even mean?

I am horrible at this.

Lemme just go lie down for a second and maybe I'll watch something. It'll come to me. I know. I, I, I'll do something.

The energy we once had has now gone poof. What just happened?

One of the biggest mistakes in managing our lists, our tasks, is about how we approach them.

There are many task managers out there. I use one myself, OmniFocus, which I've written a book on, it's pretty darn good if I do say so myself. There's things, there's to doist many, many other possibilities including pen and paper, which I also use. All of these promise in some way or another to help you get things done.

And you'd think that this promise is that it's linked to somehow it'll tell you what to do. Just tell me what to do already. You want to look at this thing and just have a way to move forward. Why wouldn't we want that?

Decisions are heavy. Have a listen to episode 18 if you're interested in hearing about quite how heavy they can be.

But of course, we look at that task manager and it never seems to happen. Instead, even when we've poured our heart and soul into some list, hoping, dreaming that we'll be able to focus where we want to or need to, while everything else patiently waits for us to appear at just the right time. Somehow it doesn't work.

We meticulously work on it. We delve into some hyper-focus attention tunnel to make that perfect system itself, this meta productivity of sorts. And once we step away though, there it is falling apart. No matter how well we've curated a list, when we get back to it, there are things on there that are still not done seemingly mocking us. There are things that need to be in a completely different order, uh, things that shouldn't be there until something else happens. The wording of things are somehow wrong.

What's going on? Is it our past self? That's once again betrayed us?

Is it our present self that's somehow a failure?

Either question is just a way of leading to some more damage of self-esteem by hitting us where we think we should have had it together, but for some mysterious reason, just don't. Whatever motivation we once had is lost.

What's truly throwing us off isn't that the paper is somehow wrong, that the way we've written things is off. It's not even a belief that it should be the same.

It's how we interpret the emotions that happen as we approach that list. When things are different, when some vision is not where we thought it would be, we hit frustration, confusion, among any number of other feelings.

This is the way minds work. Somehow something's appearing differently than we'd hoped, and there's some emotional response to that.

But because of so many of the struggles a wandering mind can go through in life- whether we've forgotten things, we've dropped things, we've lost things we've had to try to force ourselves to make things happen- we take that feeling of frustration, confusion, whatever it is that says that things did not go the way we thought they would go and conflate it with failure.

It's not failure, and I can say that, but trying to practice that is another story. The practice is

to recognize that that feeling of frustration is only the beginning of a conversation between ourselves through time, our past, present, and future selves. That is the challenge.

Task systems will not line up with reality. The moment we walk away, regardless of how tuned they are, they decay. They fall apart because reality changes while the list doesn't.

Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, as much as we may like it to the task system, the list, these will not make our decisions for us. They won't lighten the load that decisions have other than holding them in place. All the list can do is to now show us what we once thought was important to help make our decisions for the now.

So what's the point? Why even have a list? It seems like it's a whole lot of work for nothing, and some of us do come to that conclusion and toss the thing, just kind of drift and do what comes to mind. Obviously that has its own share of problems.

But when we work on that thing in front of us, when we think about our decision in the moment, we are tuning it for the moment. We are trying to make it reflect our reality now, what we want to do, what we need to do, making estimates as to how to get information back to us, when and where it might be useful.

In this process, we are in fact doing the work of making an informed decision for this moment.

In this way, it's like tuning a guitar. Every time we come to it. We'll need to make some adjustment. We need to listen to it, consider how the sounds fit together, twist the pegs until they have some harmony that we need to have it. Be there for us to help us do something with it. Certainly, the better we get at it, the less time it takes to tune to the moment.

The more steady the conditions, the more reliably the guitar or the list might even hold its tune over time. Instead of thinking a list or task should be perfect. We can realize instead that of course it needs to be updated. The world has changed.

Our lists are ideas, meaning itself, decays, just like anything else. They're always growing, beginning as seeds, growing and blooming, changing, shifting, adjusting the ecology around it. That realization changes everything.

It may seem daunting. Because it is daunting. Freedom is daunting. Decisions have weight, but we are now free.

Free to make changes. The list doesn't work for you. Fine. Change the list. What about it doesn't work anymore? What's new?

There is a bravery to confronting it because now we see where problems are a little bit more clearly, perhaps. Where have we over promised ourselves? More subtly maybe, we might see where feelings of guilt have resulted in squeezing out things we wanted to do. More positively, we might realize that several ideas can come together into a new single action.

It's all about making that solid decision, for this moment. A solid decision is a powerful foundation on which we can take action. I like the Abraham Lincoln quote. Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I'll spend the first four sharpening the ax. Making that decision is a sharpened ax. Working on the list in the moment is the act of sharpening it.  

There's something magical to the freshness of an idea.

I had this old comic book by Berkeley Bretford, author of Bloom County and his, uh, lovely characters of Opus and Bill the Cat among others. I remember in the forward of one of these books, uh, he included sketches of his characters early, sort of just pencil sketches, and he said much the same as what I'm saying now, that there's something magical to those first sketches, and really, there was something cool about it, something ah, on fire something, a light, something electric. It's when the ideas are brightest. I think that's part of why we often like to dive into something when the muse strikes.

We're not holding onto the words or figures or symbols or images to help us figure out what it is we're talking about.

We have some thing in mind, some feeling already there and some inchoate state. Something that we're trying to put into words and paper and whatever. As an audience, we can more directly feel the origin of those waves when we see those thoughts and the like just crashing onto the paper, as undeveloped as they are.

This piece of music is early in its creation. There are things I'd change and adjust and move this there and make this louder or softer or whatever, but I know that if I did that, whether by practice or through adjustments on the editor, I know the piece would lose something of that magic. So I don't. The piece is called Winnie, 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

In this episode, we delve into the roots of procrastination with Dr. Fuschia Sirois, a professor of social and health psychology at Durham University, who has over 25 years of research experience in procrastination and its relationship to emotions. The discussion covers how self-compassion can play a critical role in managing procrastination, the impact of societal norms on our productivity, and the importance of addressing emotional responses to improve motivation and reduce procrastination. Dr. Sirois introduces her TEMPO toolkit, designed to help individuals manage procrastination by addressing the emotional causes behind it, providing practical strategies and exercises for better emotional regulation. This episode offers valuable insights for anyone looking to understand and overcome procrastination through a compassionate and emotionally intelligent approach.

00:00 Introduction: The Mystery of Avoidance

01:45 Special Guest Introduction: Dr. Fuschia Sirois

02:02 The Procrastination Conference Connection

02:36 Understanding Self-Compassion

03:51 The Role of Responsibility in Self-Compassion

08:46 Cultural Norms and Self-Criticism

16:46 Global Perspectives on Self-Compassion

27:25 Procrastination and Social Norms Research

28:39 Generational Differences in Procrastination

29:14 Self-Perception and Social Norms

30:07 Financial Procrastination and Its Impact

32:26 Introducing TEMPO: A New Tool for Managing Procrastination

33:35 Understanding and Addressing Emotional Roots of Procrastination

39:59 The Role of Perfectionism and Creativity

49:39 Planning, Risk, and Self-Compassion

52:02 Defensive Pessimism and Contingency Planning

54:41 Conclusion and Resources

Procrastination, Self-Compassion, Emotional Intelligence, Productivity, Mental Health, Overcoming Perfectionism, Personal Development, Behavioral Psychology, Mindfulness, TEMPO Toolkit

https://fuschiasirois.com/

https://durhamuniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eJzXFb6SBwNPI46

https://www.youtube.com/@fuschiasirois601

What is it that makes us avoid the thing to do? Is it the fault of social media? Are we inherently lazy? Is there just something wrong with me? Well, what if I were nice to myself? Would that do something, and how could I even do that in some way that I felt genuine? Would that do anything?

Dear listeners, I've got another special treat for you today. We're joined today by my special guest, Dr. Fuschia Sirois. Fuchsia's, a professor in social and health psychology at Durham University, with over 25 years of research in procrastination and its relationship to emotions.

We'd connected actually at the procrastination conference in Utrecht, Netherlands, in the summer of 2025.

A lovely city, by the way.

At the end of one of the lectures, sitting in the audience, she had made this comment about self-compassion, and that self-compassion shows up in recognizing responsibility, taking it on, and maybe the pain that can come with that. That's where self-compassion really starts to shine. I thought, I get it. This makes sense.

So later on that day, I approached her, had a conversation with her, and she really had this way of, um. Recognizing the importance of emotion, not just in procrastination, which is her field of research, but really in who we are.

Again, it really resonated, and I said to myself, I've gotta have her on the show. So here we are. We had this wonderful conversation spanning from individual to societal, from the creative task to the concrete task, and much more. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Here it is.

Today, we've got, uh, uh, Fuchsia Sirois on the podcast today. Am I pronouncing your name correctly, by the way?

Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah.

Oh, wonderful. Fuschia, Fuschia I met in, um, uh, at the, the procrastination conference in just, we had recently in 2025 and in summer, and we may have met even earlier that Did you go to the procrastination conference that was in Chicago? I can't remember if you.

No, I didn't get to that one. Unfortunately. I was sort of not. I really wanted to go, but I think I was in the middle of moving or something, and I wasn't able to come.

Ah, okay. Very good. So this was our first time meeting then. Fuscia is a, uh, a, a social health, um, psychologist at, uh, Durham University. Um, and, uh, professor there. And, um, what got me going was I, with, with fuchsia, I think, uh, we were sitting at, in a lecture and, uh, at the procrastination conference, and you had said something that just kind of struck me, which was about the relationship between self-compassion and recognizing your own responsibility. Do, do you remember something about this?

I think it, it was maybe, if I'm remembering the correct instance, I think it was around the idea that, um, with self-compassion, really doesn't kick in. It doesn't actually, it's. It's not activated until people are struggling with something, until they're realizing, you know, coming face to face with their own personal shortcomings or flaws or difficulties, you know?

Um, it's not like you walk around going, Oh, I'm being self-compassionate. Like that's just. You can be self-loving and self-kind, but self-compassion is kind of a bigger package, and it is a response to difficult, challenging, stressful situations. So, as a response, there has to be something to trigger it. Um, yeah

I love that way of looking at it. Yeah. And that's, that's where, uh, yeah, that's totally what it was. And, I think it was in the context of that, recognizing personal responsibility, recognizing like your own sense of, oh, I'm, I'm there, there's something about this I gotta take on, some charge I gotta take on, and how difficult that might be.

And that's where a good component of that self-compassion kicks in.

Right. Yeah. I see what you mean by responsibility because yeah, if something. Where there's, you know, so easy when we make a mistake to kind of be in denial, right? Or to kind of go, yeah, that's not on me. That's because of other circumstances and all that. Um, but yeah, once you take responsibility for it, you're right.

And kind of go, right, I screwed up. Right? Or I could have done this differently.

Yeah.

Um, that would've, would've led to maybe less difficult circumstances for myself and others. So once you're right, when that responsive part of that is responsibility, sometimes not always responsibility, but that is one way of looking at it, the acknowledgement of that responsibility is, is difficult.

And that can be a good opportunity then to sort of practice self-compassion instead of, you know, often people do the other way, which is, oh, what's the matter with me? I'm, I messed everything up. And, you know, going to the extreme of responsibility, which, you know, psychologically, um, to me is like blame, right?

Like it's, it's taking, it's going too far with it to a point where you're just sort of wallowing in those self-critical thoughts, uh, for the sake of doing that. But it's actually not very productive in terms of changing behavior or coming to new realizations about oneself.

absolutely. No. That part of you that can really, um. Seems to think that we can fix things, get better about things through, uh, through whipping ourselves in some way, shape, or form. You know, like if we just whipped ourselves hard enough, maybe we'll fix it, you know? And doesn't seem to work.

No, no. It backfires, and, and, and you know, it might work for a very small percentage of the population, I would suggest. I think for many it backfires and there's also a significant. Proportion of the population for which it actually does quite, it's quite harmful. It backfires and, and, and sort of can, um, get you into a further downward spiral or

Absolutely. And, the other thing that you bring up here, and this is all in context of, um. Procrastination, but I think it even grows broader than that. You know, it's like, it's really about, um, uh, you know, in the context, one of the things I appreciate is this, how you relate procrastination and that relationship with oneself.

You know, that, that, um, that self-compassion idea that, um, that something you're, you're hinting at, there is that habitual aspect of beating yourself up. That, that like. You really need to, uh, there's a practice in catching yourself in doing that, and then trying to figure out, okay, now what? Now what do I do so that I'm not doing this?

You know, because it's easy to beat yourself up for beating yourself up, if that makes sense, you know, or

Yeah. Exactly, so that meta level of self-criticism.

Yeah. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on that? How do you, how, how does one, I don't know if habit is the right word, but it's something along that automatic level. Where does, where does that come in? How do you start to introduce the idea of, I don't need to be automatic in this, and what can I do differently?

Does that make sense?

You mean in terms of sort of your response to difficulties.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's a great question. I think there's probably a number of different processes. I mean, one of the things, and I'm this sort of comes to mind for me because this is an area I'm really actively researching right now, is I think a lot of it is driven by those sort of unspoken and internalized social norms that we have. Right about, you know, what is good behavior, what is bad behavior? What makes us a good citizen or a good person, and what makes us not a good person? How will other people view our behavior or what we're doing? You know, we've always, you know, the sort of social cognitive perspectives. We're not operating in a vacuum, even with our own internal thoughts.

These are driven and shaped largely by society and the norms and the cultural factors around us that kind of are there and come into play when it's like. You know, help us judge, should I be doing this? Or shouldn't I be doing this? Is this a good thing or is this a bad thing? Um, how this will look to others is often a reference point that we might use to make that judgment about whether this is, is something good or bad, for example.

I mean, you know, not, you know, I mean there's obviously gray areas, not meaning to polarize it here, but I, I think that those internalized norms, especially around procrastination, you know, um, that those can kind of kick in right away and make us self-critical way, just sort of an immediate response as opposed to if we had, imagine.

You know, a utopian world where we had, um, strong cultural norms around being self-compassionate because we know the value of self-compassion and we know that being self-compassionate makes you more motivated, more productive, a happier person, a healthier person, you know, all these things. If we had this, you know, imaginary society where those were the norms.

Then that would be the automatic, I, I would say is that's where we would kick in. We would screw up on something 'cause we're human. And that's, you know, part of being self-compassionate, that common humanity component is recognizing that we're imperfect and we all make mistakes. But, you know, it's how we respond to those mistakes that makes a difference.

Right. Um, in terms of self-improvement, self-awareness, uh, you know, uh, reaching our goals, et cetera. So in that society. If you were to make a mistake, I would argue that your default would be right. Don't be so hard on yourself. You know, everybody else makes mistakes too, and I've gotta learn from this and go forward, but because we are, you know, living.

In, at least in Western society anyway, where those cultural norms are very much around productivity. Like all these books, like Uber Productivity, get more done in a day, add an extra hour to your day, be more productive. All these types of, you know, sort of drivers, uh, as to what makes for a good person, someone who's contributing to society.

Those are what get activated. Like procrastination has so much to do with productivity, right? We use. These labels, like laziness to describe people who are, um, procrastinators, but those are just, you know. Um, socially constructed, derogatory terms to shame people who are not being productive into being more productive, right?

So everything is in the context of those social norms. If we didn't have those social norms about being super productive, right? And, and you know, at least to that extreme, I, I don't think, you know, I'm not saying it's not good to be productive and reach your goals. We know, you know, the large literature out there about the link between reaching one's goals and, and, and wellbeing.

The extent to which it's really pushed to the limit there, so that it becomes the be-all and end-all of our existence, is to be productive. Um, I think that drives those social norms around feeling ashamed and feeling bad and being self-critical when we procrastinate. And that's where that default comes in when we make a mistake.

Interesting. So. You see it as the sort of like the, there, there's the social world that we live in. The sort of, uh, very, and I agree, there's this sense of, um, action as being, um, valued, uh, more so than, um, reflection more so than, uh, consideration more than, um, meaning, for example, reflection

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

You know, there was, it makes me think of, um, uh, I'm blanking on it.

I, I did a, I did a bit on it. I forgot who had originally said it, but there was this theme that had kind of developed in, uh, in, not only in research, but in, in, in academic, but just in, in corporate and in the world in general. The sense that the only things that matter are things that can be measured and, um.

I think most of what matters cannot be measured. You know, I think most of what's meaningful, it really can't be. And, along those lines, this, you know, most of what can be this, this, I think false way of looking at it is I think exactly what you're talking about, this value on action. I can see action,

Yeah. Yeah, it's true.

And what you see somehow becomes more, more.

Valued externally to us and we lose what we can see internally. Um, so that sense of, um, self-awareness, you know, is, um, there's practice to it. You know, there's just still reflecting what you're saying. I, I, I think of two, uh, like two, two people. I quote. One is Bob Ross, the painter,

Yeah.

the happy accidents.

What a lovely phrase that is. You know, it's. It's still like, I, I still love that phrase. And um, and the other one is Miles Davis, who would say there, you know, don't worry about mistakes. There are none.

Mm.

But his, maybe even both, they're, they're describing a, a, a process of mastery. You know.

There are mistakes until you figure out how to make those mistakes, not mistakes.

And, and I think what, okay, I, I think I'm finally figuring out what I'm, where I'm going with this. Um. Which I think you're doing in, in some way is the question of how do we approach self-compassion in a way that's not like, I dunno, if you remember Saturday Night Live with Stuart Smalley, this character that was played by um, Al Franken, who would look in the mirror and he would say, um.

He, he would, it was like a joke about self-compassion. It was kind of, um, he would look in the mirror and say, uh, uh, I'm good enough. I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me. And then he would just, it.

It was like this. I guess the question is, how do we get ourselves to that genuine state of self-compassion?

How do we get ourselves practicing along that path and that skill? That's what I'm trying to get at.

yeah. No, I see what you're saying. Um, yeah, I mean, a lot of it. You know, so if we go to like, you know, um, Kristen Neff's website self-compassion dot org, right? Like, you know, one of the first things that she always says is you have to become aware of your internal script. So what's your internal script when you screw up something, when you make a mistake, or when you're unhappy with something in your behavior, or something doesn't go your way, right?

Um, what is that script? And most people aren't aware of that internal script.

Yeah.

Um, you know, it, it's, it's just there operating, right? Like a default, just an automatic drive. And so, you know, the first thing is to be aware of how you respond to difficulties, and you, 'cause you can't change anything until you can respond.

But I think, you know, like what you're saying about the things that we don't value, things that aren't as seen. Um, and maybe that's one of the reasons why we don't. Think about being self-compassionate. Um, but yeah, I, I mean, short of changing those value systems, but I think also some of these are, are, are linked to other work ethics, you know, the protestant work ethic and things like that.

Like, it's just really like just go, go, go right and, and, and be hard on yourself. Um. You look to, um, and I can't remember if we, we had this conversation after the conference, but you know, there was a study that looked at, um, self-compassion levels across, uh, three different parts of the world. So they looked at self and they compared the mean values to see.

So as a nation, which was more self-compassionate, just 'cause it's gotta get a glimpse at maybe how different cultural values were, were, might be operating and shaping, uh, people's, uh. You know, default levels of self-compassion. So they looked at them in the us, um, in Thailand, and I believe it was Malaysia. Now, which country do you think would have the highest and which would have the lowest of self-compassion? Just taking a guess there.

I'm voting the lowest self-compassion with the us, but the highest, I can't guess. I, I, I, I would, uh, I don't know. But then again, I, I, these are generalities obviously, and I'm, I'm sure that there's someone in the US who's highly self-compassionate, and of course, ones who are not.

Yeah. These are, you know, these are nationwide main scores. I mean, there's always, you know, deviations within that. But as a looking at that level, it does tell you a little bit about the culture. So, um, no, the US wasn't the lowest.

It wasn't. Okay. All right. I even got the know a lot of people. wrong.

Yeah, a lot of people say that. So, actually, the highest scores were in Thailand.

Okay.

Because that is the seed of Buddhism

Ah,

Self-compassion as a concept is rooted in Buddhist philosophy.

Sure.

Right about kindness, you know, mindfulness and common humanity, right? And those are three strong principles. So you have a culture that's pretty much indoctrinated into that way of thinking. You know, there are other religions in, in Thailand, I've been there, and there's, there's certainly a, you know,...

Ever felt your mind swept clean, like cobwebs brushed away, simply by admiring true craft? In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, I invite you to explore how the art of meaningful work—whether in a beautifully designed board game, a shared conversation about football, or the deliberate crafting of music—can nourish even the most wandering minds. We’ll journey into “The Unconscious Mind” board game as a living metaphor for navigating the playful, intricate decisions woven through daily life.

You’ll discover:

• How appreciating and creating craft—and noticing its layers—can provide sustenance and grounding for adults with ADHD or restless focus
• Why “the confusion barrier” is a vital threshold in learning and creativity, not a flaw
• New ways to recognize meaning and resonance in everyday moments, from the symbols on a board to a fleeting improvisation

Plus, this episode features an original, never-to-be-repeated piano improvisation: “Morning Bird”—a gentle musical reminder that mastery and play grow together.

Subscribe and explore more at rhythmsoffocus.com—reclaim your focus, your rhythm, and your creative spark.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #Agency #BoardGames #Mastery #MeaningfulWork #Neurodivergent #PianoImprovisation #Resonance

A colleague once told me that when she'd look at a piece of art, she'd feel the cobwebs of her mind swept away. I find the same thing happens when I admire any real craft- a fine meal, an expert dancer's, effortless appearing feats, a well-made fountain pen, drifting across quality paper.

All of these we can feel. All carry that depth of play and care brought through time. This practice of bringing the spirits of mastery and meaningful work through some development into a bloom. Particularly for wandering mind, I find that mastery, meaningful work can be nourishing.

  I was once at a party finding myself in a room entirely full of men. I only say that because you kinda get this feeling of the masculine energy in a room. They were all shouting periodically at a television screen, watching this football game.

Now I know the rules of the game. I have a sense as to what's going on, but it's never really turned me on. Last time I watched with any real interest was the Super Bowl, 20 Chicago Bears as the Super Bowl shuffle was playing on the radio near nonstop.

Other than that, when I encounter such environments, I generally slink into the corner, maybe look for some task to relieve me like getting a snack or maybe tidying the place up. But if neither of those are available, I wait for the pain of boredom to subside into some world of daydream or solving puzzles that come to mind, or something like that.

On this particular occasion, though, things were cleared, dishes were done. I was tired of the gummy beers sitting there, which says a lot.

For whatever reason, between those synchronized shouts, I turned to the gentleman beside me. I made deliberate eye contact, not an easy feat, and asked , what do you enjoy about this game?

And he paused as I knew he would. You know, it's not often I was aware for someone to ask such a pointed and odd question perhaps. I decided to search for craft. "What do you enjoy about this game?"

With a little more than a pause. Maybe sensing that sincerity, he began to talk about the battle on the field, the nuance of strategy, the importance of the individual players and their own histories. He thought about his own relationship with his family and his youth, and how they would share the game together.

His excitement was palpable. I enjoyed hearing him out. He'd even lose a couple of seconds in that synchronized shouting as he continued to explain certain moments, seeing that I was there with him. And I could follow and appreciate the beauty that he saw behind the strength on the field.

Now, I still don't watch the game. I have other interests. I have other things going on, but I appreciated the gift he offered.

It reminded me of someone's comment about relationships. If your partner's into basket weaving, you don't need to be into basket weaving, but you do need to be into the fact that they are into basket weaving.

And so just as he shared with me, I'd like to share something with you so long as you're up for it. Of course. Now this following bit is not a paid advertisement, but I do get into it.

I was on this trip overseas and I was at the Freud Museum. I found this board game called out to me.

It's called the Unconscious Mind. How could I resist?

I do love a good board game, but what makes for a good board game?

They are these restrictions of reality. These playgrounds of the mind built with the Lego blocks of decision. The more meaningful the decisions, the deeper the consequences of thought, the more profound the gameplay itself.

Within games, We play with the structure of decision itself. Whether we're dealing with the emotions as they flow into us quickly like on the sports field, or we have a moment to sit and think like chess. We explore, push and pull through confusion and assertion. We gather our working memory to hold multiple possibilities, decide and then act.

And then if you're anything like me, you wonder why the heck did I just do that?

Looking at the box of this game, this Unconscious Mind, I wondered, is this another cash grab? Some light connection of theme to some poor gameplay. But no, I found craft.

After purchasing it, putting it in front of me. I look at it. I look at the art. The pieces are well portrayed. It's clear that the artists cared about their craft and how they would present the material beyond simply just covering of the pieces. They meant something.

Part of the game is about curing patients. There are these cards that are dreams, but not just dreams themselves. They're latent and manifest dreams. These are real concepts in psychoanalysis, and they find a way into the gameplay itself. A manifest dream. That's the stuff that comes to mind when you're dreaming the latent is what you can meaningfully interpret from it.

Now this is a point of some contention within psychoanalysis. I, I think some people look at it and say, Hmm, what do dreams have to do with anything? You know, what does the interpretation have to do with anything? Are they right? And I'd point out that that question of. Are the interpretations right to be a wrong question in and of itself?

A better question is the same as with any interpretation I make in sessions with clients, which is, "does it resonate with you?" Does it connect to you? Do you feel something within you When we talk about whatever, when we look at whatever, and the same thing can be said about Dream.

One mentor of mine nicely described dreams like paintings. He said, you can return to them. Discover new ideas, new themes, new meanings. You might even create meanings in the act of interpretation. After all, psychoanalysis is much less about, "Hey, look at that thing I found in your head" so much as it is about learning to author your life going forward.

looking at these clients in the game, you work their way through those dreams, generating insights. There are different units of insights. There's three types and three levels. It's almost laughable how much detail there is. But what's truly funny is that it all makes sense within the scope of the game. There's actual connection between theme and mechanic.

You've generate enough of those insights in the right configuration, and you can remove this clear plastic layer that's over the card. It has the sort of Rorschach image to it that represents grief, and as you remove that, this neat mechanic, starts coming into place, which is not only does the client change, but now so have you, whether in the game mechanic of what happens with the ideas as they form or in the final scoring of the game.

Wincott another analyst from the, uh, sixties or so, he wants nicely wrote in his forward of one of his books that he thanked his clients for teaching him, and he's right. The moment you stop learning from your patients is the moment you stop being a good doctor.

The fact that this theme is woven so nicely into the gameplay tells me that designers have not only done their homework, but they've probably enjoyed the process of doing so. You know, without care play, I'm not sure there is any soul to a craft.

It goes further in the point of the game. You know how you win.

There's this representation of how you earn points, and that comes from the history of psychoanalysis. Freud would gather with his colleagues and friends to discuss psychoanalysis and where it was going and what it was about every Wednesday. He made rings for the crew. Kind of silly, uh, totally cringe, but totally relatable too.

And to win in the game, you gather points through influence, you gather in treating patients, doing research, writing papers, all in the interest of becoming this distinguished colleague of Freud's. Again, totally irritating and goal, but as also seemingly resonating. True and hilarious. I love it. The theme of the game runs even deeper.

In the center, you have this notebook. Every player gets this ink pot to use as a marker. This lovely little fidget, to boot, that represents what aspect of the notebook you're working with when connecting to your patient. And you build that notebook with ideas placed at various intervals, each having its own effect, and you can modify them with units of coffee.

My daughter pointed out, she wondered if the coffee was really a proxy for cocaine. Freud himself had a stint of using it for a period of time. And before you go, uh, slighting Freud for this, it's, uh, useful to know that Coca-Cola had used coca leaves in its drink somewhere through the early 19 hundreds.

Beyond the art the symbols used have meaning. Every shade, every shape where things are placed all have meaning, quite endearing to the game's material itself. I mean,

symbols are powerful. These are objects that hold a message that touch off this emotional burst within us. Whether it's a small one that directs us to go here or there or really create something that changes the nature of what's going on in our consciousness in the moment.

You might wonder, this all seems a bit complicated, doesn't it? Well, yes. Yes it does. It's not the heaviest game in the world, but I imagine it would be a tough place to start for the hobby.

Complication for complication's sake is often garbage, this headache in a box. But when complexity is born of simplicity, when we see the tendrils of growth from some singular seed gathering and living in some harmony, well that's something else entirely, and that's how I see this game.

Every game, every craft for that matter, has what I would like to call a confusion barrier. When we're first learning it, when we first listen to a piece of music or a new genre, for example, there's this period of getting lost.

Within a game it might look like, what does this have to do with that? What's that thing? What am I supposed to know already? Did I already read about this?

I wind up having to flip between pages, look things up online. For goodness sake, I didn't realize that there were these four pages of symbol interpretations included as a guide in the box.

Once I found that, wow, okay, now I know what I'm doing, sort of. But even through it all, I felt like I could follow and hit those moments of frustration and then follow them into the next window of challenge and get through my first game.

The work as a whole from instruction through art, through mechanics, it's clearly that of a passion. The creators had to live within the characters, the ideas, and connect deeply.

The Vital Importance of Craft, Passion - Mastery and Meaningful Work

I am not trying to sell the game. As I mentioned, though, I do realize I'm giving it praise.

What I am trying to do is talk about the importance of craft and how I think of it as this artifact of passion and mastery and meaningful work. It is far too easy to look at what one client of mine described as the CHINUP emotions- challenge, interest, novelty, urgency, and passion, as described by Dr. William Dodson, and then focus too much on one of these interest, for example.

Here we might skip past passion. Admiring craft, participating, creating over time- these are healthy nutrients for a wandering mind, that mastery and meaningful work. Certainly there's concern in overdoing it, fixating on one thing, well beyond even our own care, perhaps doing so as a way to defend against feelings of inability in other spheres of life.

But I think that in many cases, there are ways to practice balance much as we would with any diet.

Now, on the flip side of consuming and appreciating craft is creating it. There's just something grounding to connecting with that play and care within, making craft, connecting to things that we hold deeply.

There's that measure again of does this resonate? When it does, we can go from that simple something to find a complexity that really becomes admirable.

The following piece of music is a simple piece, but I hope it generates that sense of complexity from it. It's a single improvisation never to be played the same way again. In fact, I'm not sure I'll ever play it again at all.

It's called Morning Bird, 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

Ever feel like your creativity is both a gift and a juggler’s challenge—especially when you’re navigating the winding paths of ADHD or a wandering mind? In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we’ll explore how confusion is vital in creativity and how, by embracing it, you can uncover mastery, meaningful work, and joy along your journey.

Discover:

• Why passion is more than a flash of excitement—it’s the steady, nurturing rhythm beneath mastery and meaningful work.
• The powerful role confusion plays in creative growth (and why learning to “hold” it can lead to breakthrough insights).
• How daily rhythms of engagement—not rigid productivity hacks—can transform decision overload into meaningful flow.

Takeaways:

• Learn strategies for befriending confusion, using it as a stepping stone rather than an obstacle.
• Practice the “daily visit” approach to creative work, supporting your mind’s natural curiosity and growth.
• Recognize moments when play turns into overload, and discover gentle ways to restore clarity and self-compassion.

Plus, this episode features an original piano composition—“Flagrant Air Biscuit”—capping off our exploration with musical playfulness.

Subscribe to Rhythms of Focus and visit rhythmsoffocus.com for more episodes, resources, and inspiration fostering mindful, agency-driven creativity.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #Creativity #Confusion #MindfulProductivity #PlayfulFocus #MasteryJourney #MeaningfulWork #DailyRhythms #PianoComposition

Challenge, interests, novelty, urgency, passion. These are often considered five grounding ideas for a wandering mind as Dr. Dodson once mentioned.

But I find that passion is not often talked about. It's about mastery, meaningful work, craft skill, and exploration over time, when we feel that we are developing mastery and meaningful work in our lives, there's a sense of regular engagement, motion, this organizing foundation to our days. It helps bring the inner critic to a quieter place. The seas seem more settled.

On the other side of it too, what we create. I think there's a phrase for it, which is "good work". So how do we foster good work?

A listener recently wrote to me about my writing process. He read my book, Taking Smart Notes with DEVONthink. He thought it was a good book. Several people have told me so. If I may be so bold, I think it's a good book, too.

So the question then is how do you write a good book? It's really the same question that goes into doing anything you try to do well.

My answer, which I gave to this listener and which I liked enough to save for this podcast, was that I dragged notes from DEVONthink, this file management and note management software into Scrivener, this software for writing, and then cut up those notes, rearrange them, look for commonalities between pieces, see if some structure starts to arise, and then realize it doesn't work or it's boring, or I've said the same thing multiple times.

I don't know where to cut. The order of parts is plain wrong, and so sometimes I scream, sometimes even internally. Then I go to sleep. Then the next morning, something new comes to mind. I write that material, realize I now have more to cut and edit, scream again, rearrange the stuff, try it all again, sometimes in that order.

At some point my internal compass says, dude, that's enough. So I slap a price tag on it, put it up for sale, and have a panic attack, and then you have a book. Sometimes it's a good book.

The short answer, however, is that I've learned how to handle confusion. I've learned how to hold confusion, and that is a vital skill for a wandering mind, particularly when you want to find mastery and meaningful work. Good work.

Wandering minds are often wonderful at creating things. They're the master Lego builders. They take apart the instructions and say, oh, let me see what I can build myself. They often have this incisive wit. They see things, others don't. They can have this powerful curiosity ready to mine new discoveries.

They are creative.

And what does creativity, other than this discovery of what you're making and the act of making it? We play and care nourishing this creative tendril into mastery and meaningful work.

Play is this essence of creativity, a connection and exploration between self and world. Cultivated well, it's this reactive, creative, laughing, sometimes timid, sometimes bold, appearing most often when conditions are favorable. But when it arrives, it fights for its existence and brings this needed vitality to genuinely engage our surroundings.

But play doesn't happen on its own. Often we struggle through confusion.

Wandering minds often have this overabundance of some emotion distorting the lens of consciousness, as I mentioned in episode 14. This distortion often creates the problems we have, and sometimes that emotion can be play itself.

Play can often appear when we feel safe from demands and from the like. Risks are somehow okay if not inspiring, meeting us in this window of challenge.

When we get interrupted though, by demands, by questions, by lack of clarity, we lose some of that sense of safety. We might not be able to trust our environment. We may not be able to trust ourselves to support the seeds of play.

We grow bored, overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious, all the things that threaten that playful self. The trouble that a wandering mind can encounter is that the play itself can interrupt us.

I am engaged in flow here, but what about that? What if I organize this better? What if I found this better tool, this app? What about this thought? This reminds me of that. Where do I start?

Juggle enough of these and exhaustion seeps in. Soon enough, we collapse on the couch where decisions can be made for us by one screen or another. The play itself created a decision overload, leaving us in confusion, unclear of the next direction.

Sitting in silent suffering, that pain of potential unrealized, we can't simply say, "well, I guess I won't be confused, how if I'm just not?" Or we might say, "I'm, I'm just gonna go that way."

But then we leave behind this important part of ourselves and the sense of emptiness follows in the wake. In order to find that play and care, we need to engage with a fuller sense of self. We need to bring that part of us with us. We must hold onto the confusion because it is a part of us. And it may even be a part of us that's trying to say something important.

Confusion's an odd duck. Sometimes it appears subtly. We might easily allow it to pass by in conversation or in reading.

Sometimes we don't even realize we've been confused. The mind simply goes poof, such as when we get lost in conversation or when we're reading the same passage over and over.

Confusion can also be brash, heavy handed, completely dumbfounding us, unable to move forward.

Whether it's subtle or brash, the intensity of that confusion may not reflect the depth of importance behind it.

What appears to be some small inconsistency, it's really this crack belying, this massive gorge underneath. I may have stumbled into something deep, larger than my current understanding even allows to fully acknowledge.

On the other hand, what appeared to be a complete mess. Might only be a trick of the light. I push this one tiny piece and everything falls into place.

What is confusion? Well, I think we need to start with working memory. Working memory is the contents of consciousness. It's not just some number of things we can remember. When we hold multiple things in mind, we can't help but weave some meaning between them. And in so doing, we create the singular object with several parts.

It's not just holding seven plus or minus two items together, as some might say, it's about some singular item or some small number of items that are rhythmically bouncing in and out of conscious awareness. And when two things don't connect a cloud of probability forms, things can connect this way, things can connect that way or not at all.

And these considerations themselves are not entirely conscious. In fact, I would posit mostly not conscious.

And that new probability cloud, that feeling of confusion is now one more object for your mind to juggle.

For a wandering mind, our focus tends to rest in the smaller constricted, though magnified place. The sensation, the emotions grow large. Further, they take up a lot of space. Psychic RAM, effort, or whatever unit of description you want to use.

Painful as confusion can be, sometimes stimulating feelings of shame, irritation, and the like. These build on that sense of confusion and the scatter can grow. It's no wonder we might have that feeling of wanting to run away, find somewhere, anywhere that has us feeling productive, engaged, and meaningful in some other direction other than, oh my goodness, this one right here, right now, because I can't take it.

We might hope that some cloud of confusion would just take care of itself. Maybe the author will explain away whatever problem I'm having, if I can only make it there. But they also might not. In fact, by ignoring or pushing that sensation away, might even be losing an important point of discovery, engagement, something that would mean something to ourselves.

When we can rest our mind in that confusion, much like any emotion, we start to develop associations, the meaning behind it, the cracks in the confusion. The places where we realize, "wait, I know why this didn't make sense. I know why it does make sense." We discover meaning, and as we do, we become enlivened.

Sometimes even a new challenge forms that tickles us just right.

Our role then is to hold on to confusion where sometimes we can find that breakthrough into a new plateau.

So how do we hold confusion?

Well, the first thing I've already given you in episode four, which is a daily visit, a regular return. Creative work in particular, is powerfully supported by the daily visit.

It's where we can support our ability to feel that confusion, irritation, anger, delight among many other possibilities. The visit's about sitting there with those emotions. Not necessarily acting though sometimes too, if you'd like. Sometimes even as we sit, perhaps after we've done some work, we feel overwhelmed.

When we have a way to let go and return, and particularly at that primal daily cycle, it means that we can let it go for the time being and return the next day. We have a way to titrate that feeling. And then, having exposed ourselves to those emotions, we now have our unconscious mind working for us, puzzling things out.

Motivation. This sum of emotional fields, internal waves gathered in favor of some intention if confusion or other negative emotion is working against us. That motivation, that flow from the daily visit begins to gather the winds and waters such that we can meet confusion, if not embrace it and begin to tack through.

And then within the visit, when we catch ourselves confused, we can pause. We can be with that sensation. What does it feel like? Can we allow the time for that sensation to come to some settled place where it's contours are well felt, where no new information about that feeling comes to mind.

When warming up to a new book, there's that period of confusion -who's who, what's what? In allowing those thoughts to have their own time, often we read slowly at the beginning. In doing so, we form the foundations for future understanding. When we find ourselves sailing through a book, it's often because we've started somewhere slow. We took the time somewhere to understand what we knew and didn't know as well as we could in those early moments.

Confusion may not be dispelled as we sit with it, but we do gain this ability to start pointing at it and asking, what about this is confusing? Simply pointing has at least some power in deflecting the spell of confusion. It's tendency to say, "Hey, look over there instead."

What does this have to do with that?

Often confusion relates to two or more areas that seem to conflict or do not connect. As I mentioned earlier, there's that cloud of probability that forms between sometimes going beyond our working memory. But we can start to reign it in when we ask, "What does this have to do with that?" We look at the parts that don't connect and start asking how they relate. 

In that process, associations form. The object of thought starts to form. Parts of a conversation, parts of a passage, things start coming together.

Somewhere there was a break, and if you look at it consciously searching for and calling out that disconnect, whether you can connect them or not, reduces the fog, condenses it into the singular object, if not held within this question.

Questions themselves after all, whether answerable or not, have a wonderful way of encapsulating the choking cloud of confusion. And we can now better feel that probability cloud, maybe even starting to collapse it into certainty. When we hold the details, see where they come together, we can often create impressive new creations, thorough with new ideas, things we may even be proud of.

Mastery and meaningful work are often a byproduct of a journey, perhaps even tangential to our original intentions. Just as we master walking by having places to go, we might master writing by having things to say. Conversely, just as we may find places to go when we master walking, we may find we have things to say as we learn to speak more clearly.

To find new paths of mastery and meaningful work, roots to our sense of being, we must consider and cultivate that development of our own play and care towards maturity, but we often need to sail through those seas of confusion. Staying with confusion, at least to the point that it can feel settled, is a cultivating practice sometimes even nourishing the sense of play and care in turn, that soul of mastery and meaningful work.

There's something about the beginning stages of creation that are so vital, so vulnerable. Little ideas you didn't think would be all that big somehow stick They become a part of it. When I write music, especially when I've written a new piece, I let my mind drift here and there in search of a title. I just let myself be and see what comes to mind.

I try not to push it in any direction. I simply let it appear. And afterwards I reason with myself that, you know, if I don't like this name, I can change it later. But that seems to be almost as good an argument of how you'd name your kids somehow. You're not gonna change it later. It sticks. It's there.

In any case, the following piece is called Flagrant Air Biscuit. It's written in a flat major, and I hope you enjoy it.  

Passion - one of the five grounding ideas for a wandering mind - is not often talked about. It's about mastery and meaningful work, a craft, skill, an exploration over time.

When we sense we develop mastery and meaningful work in our lives, we have a sense of engagement, there's motion, there's organizing foundation to our days.

Another phrase for this is "good work."

But how do we foster good work?

_____Intro jingle____

A listener recently wrote to me asking about my writing process. He'd read my book Taking Smart Notes with DEVONthink. He thought it was a good book. In fact, several people have told me so. If I may be so bold, I think it's a good book, too.

The question is though, how do you write a good book? It's the same question really that goes with anything you try to do well.

I promise this has something to do with ADHD and wandering minds....

My answer, which I liked enough to save for this podcast was that I drag notes from DEVONthink into Scrivener, cut them up, rearrange them, looking for some commonalities between pieces, see if structure starts to arise, I then realize it doesn't work, or that it's boring, or that I've said the same thing multiple times and I don't know where to cut, the order of parts is plain wrong, and so I scream sometimes internally, perhaps go to sleep, the next morning, I realize something new, write that new material, realize that I now have more to cut and edit, rearrange the stuff, try it all again, sometimes in that order.

Keep doing that until some internal compass says, dude - enough. Slap a price tag on it, put it up for sale, have a panic attack. And you have a book. Sometimes, it's a good book.

But the short answer is that I've learned how to hold confusion.

And that it is a vital skill for a wandering mind...

Wandering minds are often wonderful at creating things. They are the master lego-builders, taking apart what the instructions say, learning what they mean, and coming up with the new.

They often have an incisive-wit. They see things others don't. They can have a powerful curiosity ready to mine new discoveries.

They are creative.

What is creativity other than a discovery of what you are making in the act of making it?

We play and care nourishing creativity into mastery and meaningful work

So what's play then?

Play, this essence of creativity, is a connection and exploration between self and world. When cultivated well, play is reactive, creative, laughing, sometimes timid, and sometimes bold. It appears most often when conditions are favorable, but when it arrives, it fights for its existence and brings a needed vitality to genuinely engage our surroundings.

But, I didn't start this podcast with the idea of play. I started with confusion.

But wandering minds often have an overabundance of some emotion, distorting the lens of consciousness as I mentioned in episode 14.

Sometimes that can be play itself.

Unless it's defensive, Play often appears when we feel safe, from demands and the like. Risks are somehow ok, if not inspiring, meeting us in a window challenge.

When we get interrupted, by demands, by questions, but lack of clarity, we lose that sense of safety - we cannot trust our environment or ourselves to support the seeds of play. We either grow bored, overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious, all threatening that playful self.

One trouble with a wandering mind is even play itself can interrupt us.

I'm engaged in flow here - oh, what about that? What if I organized this better? What if I found this better tool, this better app? What do I with this thought. This reminds me of that?

Juggle enough of these and exhaustion can seep in. Soon, we collapse on the couch where decisions can be made for us by one screen or another. The play itself created a decision overload, leaving us in confusion, unclear of a next direction.

Sitting in silent suffering, the pain of potential unrealized, we cannot simply say, I guess I won't be confused.

We might say, "I'll just go that way." but we then leave behind an important part of ourselves, a sense of emptiness following in its wake.

In order to find that play and care, we need to engage with a fuller sense of self.

And so, we must hold...

We often focus on “information overload”, but we’re often more caught in decision overload.

Discover the deeper reasons behind that compulsive scrolling and indecisiveness, and learn how moments of mindful pause can help you reclaim your agency and bring relief to your wandering mind. Here’s what you’ll uncover:

• The hidden connection between decision-making, emotion, and the experience of overwhelm for ADHD and creative thinkers

• Why seeking relief, rather than just a dopamine hit, drives compulsive behaviors—and how to channel that toward agency

• A practical anchoring technique to hold options in mind and lighten decision fatigue, even in the busiest moments

Key Takeaways:

• Learn the anchor technique in brief

• Identify the emotional undercurrents behind your toughest choices, rather than blaming “willpower”

• Practice settling into silence after considering your options, building the clarity you need to move forward

And as always, enjoy an original piano composition, “Veranda,” inspired by the rhythms of thought and the calm that emerges when scattered moments coalesce.

For more mindful agency and creative flow, subscribe and join us at rhythmsoffocus.com.

Resources & Links

• Podcast Home: Rhythms of Focus

• Waves of Focus Course: wavesoffocus.com

• Author: kouroshdini.com

• Anchor Technique on Youtube

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #decisionoverload #mindfulfocus #agency #creativity #anchoring #emotionalclarity #productivity #originalmusic

We're not in a state of information overload. We're in a state of decision overload. What does that even mean?

 "Uh, I can't even get off TikTok or Instagram or any of these things."

We have so many things coming at us. We're looking at so many different ideas and jumping from one thing to the next, trying to figure out what's the next best thing?

Scrolling through our phones, we can wonder, okay, is it dopamine again? And as I've described elsewhere, we tend to use dopamine as this metaphor for those things we can't control, this button embedded somewhere in our brains connected to sex and food, hijacked by present day technologies.

But drifting off somewhere into these things that stimulate our minds- it's not new. The internet's just the most readily available latest thing. The ancient game of Go, this fantastic game that dates back thousands of years, once referred to "Go widows", the wives of husbands whose entire days were consumed by the game.

Look at a picture of people on a train from years ago, and you'll see most if not all of them, with their faces buried in newspapers. It's not just dopamine. If we stay with that word, we tend to lose meaning. We're not just looking for that quick hit.

We're also looking, I theorize here for relief.

What from? Relief from decision.

"Where do you wanna go for dinner? I don't know. Where do you want to go? Can't someone just decide?"

Decisions are heavy. It's nicely pointed out by author Charnas, in his book Work Clean, the word "decide" shares its origins with "homicide" and "suicide." The word means to cut. We examine a ball of options and then cut. The decisions quicken when we engage in some related action.

This is by no coincidence, quite related to how I define "agency," and you might wanna listen to episode nine for more on that.

But as we cut off options, we lose fantasies of what could have been. To decide well, we need to mourn the loss, taking the time that mourning takes, recognizing the pain, giving it the time it takes.

Many small decisions are barely even noticeable in terms of that mourning a moment or two, if that, for small matters. But there is some time involved.

Every time we make a decision, we walk into unknown and possibly risky territories. Whether we're deciding on dinner, considering what to watch next, or making some major life decision, we are weighing risk and loss.

Without either of these, risk or loss, we wouldn't have a decision. We would simply act without even knowing a decision were there. But if we look at it even more deeply, decision's not only about cutting. There are those who act impulsively, who seemingly make decisions, never look back. Maybe they're calloused against these feelings of sorrow and regret.

I would prefer my decisions to be well made.

Interestingly, while the origin of the word "decision" involves cutting, another important meaning evolves somewhere in the late 14th century, at least according to the internet:

In one sense, settlings about settling a dispute.

You have these two different things, people, ideas, battling out, and where do things settle? Does one side go this way? Does one side go that way? Is there a compromise? Is there some synergy?

We can take the word beyond that idea though, because it does involve even the battle of ideas within one's own mind. I see settling as this means to achieve a type of "silence" where we can acknowledge everything that can be acknowledged perhaps about a decision, at least for this moment.

You see behind options, behind words, behind the logic are the winds and waters of the mind. Emotion that which crests into and forms consciousness is emotion. Our sense of being that little boat that floats on the sea of emotions only forms in the moments of awareness and decision.

At least from one neuropsych analytic point of view, consciousness only exists for decision. And to decide, we wait, we pause, we sit with those thoughts, sensations, feelings, anything else that can come to mind about that experience, that decision, we allow it to come to mind.

We pause and wait.

And when we do, that information gradually becomes less and less new. It starts to still, it starts to repeat. Nothing new comes to mind about the situation, about that decision.

My goodness. That takes work. Not only does it take work, it takes courage. It takes bravery.

I mean, do we really want to face these feelings and these ideas that can come to mind? What if I'm thinking about the projects I'm not doing? What about the family I haven't called? What about that shameful thing I did or said last week, last month, 20 years ago that still haunts me? What if I think about death and mortality? What if I think about the people I'm letting down around me? What does any of this have to do with deciding on what to have for dinner?

Wouldn't it be a relief to not have to decide or at least have decisions that are lighter? Even better make the decisions trivial, artificial, chewing gum.

Clicking on the next thing to watch, nicely organized so it doesn't overwhelm my working memory. Hey, I saw that funny bit a little while ago. I'll click on that.

So I argue it's more than dopamine. It's relief.

For wandering minds, ADHD, the exhausted the brain fog, the creatives and the like. Were often consumed in the moment, magnified and constricted in the now. Our emotions are themselves magnified, often crowding out the others, if not leaving us with some confused conflation of multiple emotions as they throw out one thought sensation and more after the next.

To make a decision, let alone a settled decision, is that much harder.

It's no wonder that so many wandering minds fall into the social media, into the games, into more, where all the decisions are nicely laid out. We sense a relief from the heavier weights of decisions, those that mean something deeply.

The decision not only of the moment, but of the work to do of the things we're not doing and well beyond. Decisions are heavy. They are what create us. They take power to wield an exercise of free will itself. We delegate decisions to others, asking them to remind us about things, not only because our attention doesn't hold them, but because we reduce having to consider our options.

It's also no wonder that those with ADHD complaint of lacking quote, willpower end quote. But if we look at it from this perspective of trouble and decision and not in action, we have a new vantage.

We can support our ability to make a decision.

When we make a decision, we have multiple options that we then cut away.

We hold these options in mind before we cut them away. But the trouble for a wandering mind is that this work table is constricted. Many things can knock it off quite easily. Any emotion can make it such that we forget one thing or lose the other thing and act impulsively here before we forget. Say I've gotta do that thing before I lose it.

Using a very simple technique, we can support holding these options. I call it anchoring and essentially it's this: taking out a piece of paper, writing down our options, not tasks, but our options of what we'd like to do, only for that moment, for this moment of the Now. Doing this freeze, the mental energy that is used to hold the options and now is available to make the decision itself.

There's a lot more to it than that, but that is the essence of it. I do get into it in quite a lot of detail, a couple of hours worth in my course, Waves of Focus. I've also put a brief video about it on YouTube that I'll add to the show notes.

Even more deeply, though the essence is again about supporting that sense of decision. So here's the takeaway.

The next time you catch yourself, somewhere in TikTok Land or Instagram or Reddit or wherever it is that you find yourself "mindlessly" being, see if you can pause for a moment and ask yourself, is there a decision I'm not making? And even deeper than that, consider, what are the feelings? What are the images? What are the fantasies? What comes to mind around that decision?

Can you wait until those ideas come to some standstill, to some degree of silence, where you've acknowledged it? I'm willing to bet that if you can do that maybe once in a day, once in a week, whenever you do it, I can bet that whatever you do next, will have more conviction, will have less scatter.

So much in music reflects the goings on the mind and in life. I like to sometimes start off a piece with something that feels like scatter and somewhere you realize that what you felt to be scattered isn't scatter. There's actually a structure to it. There's something behind it. It's in those moments that something coalesces, that the ideas come together and it's like,

"oh, that's where things are going."

It has me realize that it's, it's not about forcing myself to do a thing. It's like, oh, I'm not thinking well enough. I'm too scattered. I'm too overwhelmed. I'm too this, that, or the other. While those things can be the case, sometimes it's just that I haven't seen the order behind it yet.

Pausing, being with those feelings, those thoughts, those ideas helps me recognize where the lay of the land is, and then I'm in a better position to start moving forward.

This next piece of music called Veranda is brand new, just in the last month or two. I've created it  July of 2025. If you're listening to this in somewhere in the future, which of course you're listening to this in the future.

'cause I guess that's the way time works. Uh, um. In any case, it's in a minor key. I like minor keys. It starts in this sort of scattery, sort of like, what is going on here? And then you can start feeling where, where it comes together. Anyway, 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

Have you ever wished a hack or clever trick could spark your momentum—only to watch it fade just as quickly? In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we gently unravel why shortcuts can undermine our confidence and how true agency is built on self-trust and mindful practice, not fleeting novelty.

Join me as we explore the honest path to sustainable motivation for adults with ADHD and wandering minds. You’ll discover why “faking it” or relying on tricks often sabotages our systems and how deep, rooted confidence grows from repeated, intentional practice. Together, we’ll navigate:

- The hidden costs of tricks, hacks, and novelty-seeking in our personal systems

- How genuine trust in oneself—not force or self-deception—lays the groundwork for true confidence

- The transformative power of embracing gentle, manageable risks as part of everyday growth

Key Takeaways:

- Recognize why relying on hacks often erodes your sense of agency

- Practice building trust in yourself through small, consistent actions (“daily visits”)

- Embrace gentle risks as stepping stones to confidence and mastery

This episode features my original piano composition, “Running on the Sun”—a musical frame for the hopeful risks we take in growth.

If you find this episode resonates, subscribe and explore more resources at rhythmsoffocus.com.

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #Agency #SelfTrust #DailyPractice #GentleRisk #Confidence #Neurodivergent #IntentionalLiving

I just don't feel like it. If I only had a hack, if I had a trick, if I had something novel, a new, something different, that'll, something just gets me to start. Ah, once I start, I'm good.

The trouble with these approaches, it's not that they don't work, it's sometimes they do. Ultimately the seeds of the destruction of our systems are there, in the beginning of these sorts of approaches where we've just found some trick. We lead ourselves down some destructive path, something that will eventually fail.

Why does that happen? How does that happen? And then what does work?

What's wrong with a trick or a hack? Why can't we just make these things happen so that we can start and make ourselves work. Well one trouble is that they often rely on some novelty of some sort, and novelty by definition will fall apart. And perhaps we argue so long as we can keep this roulette wheel of novel possibilities around, we'll be good.

Okay, look, if that works for you, wonderful. Please go right ahead and do it.

The trouble I have though is that I find that trying to trick my unconscious , that part of me that's deep, it doesn't work. It knows already that it's not going to work. Essentially, it goes into this conversation of,

"Well, if I somehow manage to trick myself into showing up, chances are I might even do something. And I don't wanna do something, and so I won't even try."

So the approach in this way would fall apart immediately.

But even in the case that we do succeed in tricking or forcing ourselves, the trouble is that we've effectively told ourselves that we cannot do things without tricks or force. In this way, tricks rot our systems.

Trust is the foundation of any relationship, and most importantly, with the relationship that we have with ourselves. Psychoanalyst Eric Erickson notes the first task of infant development is Trust versus Mistrust. We try to know what we can rely on, and that goes well beyond infancy into our everyday world.

Trust, as I'm defining it, is a developing belief that something will continue to behave as it has been, such that we can rely on it.

As I tend to do, I like to repeat my definitions and I know I've presented trust before, but I'm gonna do it again. Trust is a developing belief that something will continue to behave as it has been behaving, such that we can rely on it.

If we look at that idea of developing belief , it means that it's forming over time. That it's a belief, means that it's resting somewhere in our experience. It's a feeling that we can reflect on. It's not something we can wish into existence.

This idea of trust is fundamental, and this relationship of trust with ourselves, that's where we get into the word confidence. Confidence is a trust in our skill or ability within ourselves. By definition, confidence cannot exist without that trust in ourselves. And for this reason, at the very least, I find the suggestion to "fake it till you make it," causes me to wretch not only with a disgusted sense of irresponsibility, but also with this admonition that we need to be dishonest with ourselves in order to grow.

When we engage a trick, we tell ourselves we do not trust ourselves. We do not believe that we can do a thing from our own sense of volition, undermining, and further injuring ourselves every time we use that trick. We collude in the decay of not only our systems, but our own sense of confidence.

Tricks cannot last because fundamentally for us to gain any real traction, to have a sense that what we're doing is meaningful, engage from some depth of self and agency, we need to be able to do so from a sense of honesty and trust with ourselves.

The question becomes "how do we learn to trust ourselves to make a decision and then engage? How can we approach something, something we may not want to do, for example, in a way that feels genuine?"

We might have hope that we can develop that trust. We might hope for that ability and that confidence. Now, the answer, a pithy answer, but still the ultimate answer is practice.

Beyond hope, in order for us to have a chance at developing that trust in ourselves and our abilities, we can look again at trust's definition, that sense that something will continue to behave as it has been such that we can rely on it.

When we experience something, for example, that I can play the piano, that I can write a newsletter, that I can handle rejection, and more- sometimes that experience helps us develop that tendril of confidence.

So what if we then deliberately arrange ourselves, arrange our environments such that we can have those experiences?

And if we could do that regularly, well then that would build in time forming a genuine confidence, one that resonates deeply.

But there is no true hope without risk. Every real stretch beyond what we trust involves risk. In other words, risk is the leading edge of confidence of that trust in ourselves.

We don't have to be reckless. We can be calculated, but somewhere there is risk. When we go out on a trip somewhere, we haven't been, when we work up the courage to ask the boy or girl out, when we try reaching for that new ledge, it's through that challenge where we gain the experience. We risk falling on our faces.

And as we do something again and again, hopefully- it doesn't always happen- but hopefully we start to grow that trust in our own skills and our knowledge. Also known as confidence.

In this way, I think it makes it clear that that recommendation to "just be confident" rings hollow because it is hollow. It must be developed through time and repetition, the very foundations of practice.

If you're engaging in some daily visit, as I often recommend, this is the medium of practice. Something where you show up, stay for only the moments where you can genuinely say you are there, maybe just for a single deep breath- you start to develop that trust between the past you that said, Hey, I'm inviting you to make a visit, to that future self that was then, to the present you that is now, that's now making that visit.

In that visit now, and here's the takeaway, i'd say maybe can you take that next step and ask yourself, what's the gentle risk I can take here?

I find art, music, or otherwise to be a framing of an experience. We basically point at a thing using a frame and say, "Hey, look at this thing."

Often as I'm writing some piece of music, I'll wonder what does this resonate with? What? What is this frame? Of course it's something within me. It came from me, but hopefully it's something within you, too.

And for that to be the case, there has to be something universal to it. Something universal in its nature.

This piece that I'll play for you now is called "Running on the Sun." It's about the flares that I see in the pictures of the sun, somehow that just comes to mind. But running on the sun? That sounds kind of risky, doesn't it? I'm not sure I'll get much out of taking that risk either, but eh, whatever. In any case, it's written in E flat minor, and I hope you enjoy it.

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