I’ve spent a lot of time thinking I had one.
Because sometimes I can sit in front of something important and simply not start. Not because I don’t care about it. Sometimes I care about it enormously. That’s what makes it so confusing.
Then another day I’ll begin working on some problem and six hours disappear with almost no effort.
Same person. Same desk. Same project, occasionally. Completely different relationship with the work.
ADHD makes a lot more sense to me when I think about it this way. The problem often isn’t: I don’t want to work. It’s more like: my brain has an extremely unreliable transmission.
The engine works. Sometimes very well. Getting power to the wheels is another matter.
I’ve tried solving this with discipline. Schedules. Task systems. Planning systems. More detailed planning systems. Systems for maintaining the systems. There is probably a small abandoned civilization of productivity infrastructure somewhere on my hard drive.
Some of it helped. Most of it worked until I stopped using it, which is a rather important characteristic for a productivity system.
Lately I’m trying something different. Instead of asking, why can’t I behave consistently? I’m trying to ask, what exactly is making this difficult right now?
Maybe I don’t know the first action. Maybe the task has quietly become enormous. Maybe I’m bored. Maybe I’m afraid of doing it badly. Maybe I’ve lost the context. Maybe another idea has stolen all the oxygen. Maybe I’m simply tired.
Those are different problems. Different problems deserve different solutions.
I’m trying to become less interested in fixing my personality and more interested in designing around how I actually function. I don’t know yet how far that gets me, but it already feels more useful than spending another decade trying to become somebody with a different brain.