ADDulting: a New Horizon

Seven years ago, I sat down in a psychologist's office to get my first full neuropsychological evaluation.

A few weeks later, a piece of paper landed in my inbox. The information wasn’t a surprise, but seeing it in black and white triggered far more emotion than I had expected. I had always understood certain aspects of myself, but now they had a name: ADHD.

The diagnosis wasn’t a revelation — on the contrary, I had long noticed my struggles with time management, focus, and staying on task. But having it formally acknowledged raised new questions. Do I tell people at work? Should this change how I spend my time? What do I need to do differently? Is medication something I want to consider? (A tough one for me, since I barely like taking Advil.)

I’ve always considered myself an accomplished, driven person. And yet, the moment I saw that diagnosis, I felt exposed, like someone had pulled back the curtain, revealing everything I’d worked so hard to keep together (and hidden from view). But the nice thing about getting diagnosed with ADHD in your 40s is that you have some lived experiences and perspective. As I sat with it, I realized that being “successful” and having ADHD were not mutually exclusive. If anything, acknowledging it gave me the power to work with my brain instead of against it.

The Perception of Success and ADHD

When I first started sharing my diagnosis, my mom was skeptical.: “You can’t have ADHD,” she said. “I’ve seen plenty of kids with it, and that wasn’t you.” And she was right — in the traditional sense. I wasn’t the kid bouncing off the walls or constantly interrupting class. Instead, I was always moving in smaller ways: leg tapping, fidgeting, finding reasons to get up, pacing while on the phone.

I still do all of these things.

For me, ADHD means I need multiple things going at once to stay engaged. As a kid, that looked like solving fractions while doing spelling homework. As an adult, it means structuring my workload strategically — one main task that I must finish, alongside smaller tasks I can check off for momentum. It’s a balancing act that takes practice, but it works for me.

Time Management: A Work in Progress

One of the trickiest aspects of ADHD is my non-linear sense of time. My days feel wide open, full of possibilities, but that also means I struggle with prioritization. “Right after this” doesn’t always mean the same thing to me as it does to my wife.

Traditional planners don’t typically work for my brain. Lists of times feel abstract. I’ve tried every system imaginable, but the one that finally stuck is a rotating between a few different systems. What used to feel like falling off the habit-wagon is actually a cue from my brain that it needs something different. A little flag waving, saying, “more novelty, please!”

So now I have a visual planner, these great “Analog” cards from Ugmonk, a stack of lined sticky notes, and the Reminders app on my phone. When I start drifting away from one system, I just shift to the next. Whatever system I’m using, I do always lay out my days and my week visually so I can “see” the time blocks. In theory, this keeps me from going down too many mental rabbit holes. If an idea pops up, I jot it down and park it for later.

The Trap of Doing Too Much

My love for new things and my tendency to overestimate time means I often overload my plate. Every new project feels like it will enrich my life, so I pile them on, thinking I can manage them all. The reality? I end up dropping the tasks that only affect me. From the outside, I look like I’m juggling everything beautifully, but internally, I feel like I’m failing on multiple fronts.

This is what people mean when they talk about invisible disabilities. What seems effortless to the outside world can be a daily struggle behind the scenes.

And yet, I remind myself:

Your capacity isn't fixed — it's constantly expanding when you honor its current edges. – Simone Grace Seol

This realization has reshaped how I approach my time, energy, and commitments. Instead of berating myself for falling short of an impossible standard, I’ve started focusing on respecting my own limits—while knowing they’re always evolving.

Sleep: The Underrated Superpower

Managing ADHD isn’t just about focus—it’s about taking care of my body, too. Three things make the biggest difference:

• Eating well

• Exercising regularly

• Getting enough sleep

Sounds simple, right?

Not so much. ADHD often comes with sleep disturbances — racing thoughts, difficulty falling asleep, waking up multiple times at night. I tend to sleep fairly well, but when my brain is active it’s a cruel Catch-22. I try to turn off screens early (though I’m not great at it) and read or do a yoga nidra to quiet my brain before bed. When I get enough sleep, everything else is easier to manage.

Should I take medication for my ADHD?

The million dollar question. When I first got my diagnosis, the psychologist assumed I was getting tested so that I could get medication - she seemed genuinely perplexed when I told her that no, I just wanted to understand my brain better. About two weeks after the letter came, I decided to try a daily supplement with bio-identical ALCAR, sacha inchi seed, and CoQ10. I wanted to see if I could support my brain naturally before considering medication.

A Moment of Clarity …

A few months into that journey, I found myself in the middle of an intense work season. My job at the time involved a lot of reading, proofing, and editing — tasks that require deep focus, which has never been my strong suit. In the past, a typical session would look like this:

• Sit down to work

• Get up for a glass of water

• Check email

• Read a sentence

• Resist the urge to get up

• Read another sentence

• Remind myself to finish the paragraph

• Eventually finish the paragraph

• Get up, stretch, start a load of laundry, check in on something else

You get the idea. I got it done, but it was exhausting. Then, one day, something different happened. I sat down, started working, and an hour later, I was still there. No tab-switching, no distractions, no jumping up to move.

And I burst into tears.

I wasn’t crying because I missed the frenetic energy :). I was crying because, for the first time, I knew what it felt like to sit down and just do something.

Just that one thing.

And to get it done without feeling like I was crawling out of my skin.

And then …

I changed jobs. I no longer had the external structure of a 9-to-5 job and while I was getting a lot done, I also often felt like I was inside a mental pinball machine.

I very quickly found myself sitting in my doctor’s office, having a detailed discussion about the half-life of Adderall. She graciously reminded me of the conversations I so often have with clients:

• If you don’t like the way it feels, it’s out of your system in a few hours and we can change it.

• If you need to have a creative, go-with-the-flow day, skip it.

• It’s not replacing your own growth or skill-building - it’s fixing a legitimate dopamine deficit that’s getting in your way.

• There’s no glory in the struggle.

And let me tell you, the quiet in my head was like magic. The constant mental list-making and talking through my next steps out loud was gone. It was like the experience I described above, but longer lasting and consistently replicable.

The Takeaway: Help Isn’t Weakness

There are still days when I choose not to take my meds, either because I’m on vacation, I need a day to create and flow, or because I just want a break from the productive overdrive. And I’m really grateful to modern medicine that there’s a synthetic replacement for the dopamine my body doesn’t make quite enough of on its own.

There is zero shame in finding what works for you. Whether it’s medication, supplements, exercise, meditation, therapy, or some combination of all of the above—supporting your brain and body isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom.