Chemistry First
ADHD has a biological cause and drugs are the first-line treatment for good reasons. There is no virtue in trying to beat it through willpower alone.
The first-line treatment for ADHD is stimulants. Everything else works best as a complement to, rather than as an alternative to, stimulant medication. In fact most of the strategies described here were only executable after starting stimulants. Chemistry is the critical node in the tech tree: the todo list, the pomodoro timers, etc., all of that was unlocked by medication.
Some people can’t tolerate a specific stimulant. But there are many stimulant and non-stimulant drugs for ADHD. Exhaust all the psychiatric options before white-knuckling it.
A lot of people don’t want to take medication for shame-based reasons. There is a lot of pill-shaming in the culture. You must learn to ignore it: we are automata, our minds are molecules in salt water.
Example: Melatonin
A motivating example for the “salt water automaton” view: struggling with sleep hygiene for a long time. Setting a 10pm alarm that said “it is time to go to bed” — never obeyed it. Always doing something more important.
What fixed it? Melatonin. An alarm goes off at 8pm to remind to take melatonin. The point of the alarm is not “now you must log off” (a very discipline-demanding task). The point is simply: take this pill. It takes but a moment. Importantly, you’re not committing to anything other than taking a pill. Thirty, forty minutes later, you want to sleep. The melatonin has changed your preferences. You don’t need willpower to close the sixteen Wikipedia tabs, because you want to sleep more than you want to scroll.
Internal and External Change
Personal growth is a dialogue between internal changes and external changes.
Internal changes come from medication, meditation, therapy, coaching, or practicing habits long enough. External changes are the scaffolding around the brain: using a todo list effectively, using a calendar, clearing your desk, journaling to notice patterns.
It’s a back and forth, where internal changes unlock external changes which unlock further internal changes. Like a ladder with alternating left-right steps:
- Internal change: starting medication unlocks…
- External change: using a todo list, which provides scaffolding for forming new habits, which unlocks…
- Internal change: new habits formed (make bed, brush teeth)
Taking Ritalin with no plan doesn’t work. An ambitious todo list will sit idle if your brain won’t let you execute it. Personal growth comes from using both.