Organising Chaos – The ADHD Brain

Our mind is constantly generating thoughts and ideas – we couldn’t stop it if we wanted. But what we do with these is up to us.

Do we transform them into reality, forget them, commit them to memory, or leave them running around our mind? We do all of those things.

Ideally, we take the thoughts and ideas that serve us and we transform them into reality. And we do this through our behaviours – the actions we take.

When we want to take an action, we draw upon past experiences and use this hindsight to gather lessons learned and guide us. And we use foresight to anticipate the outcome of those actions. We then organise all of this information in our mind and create a plan for our action based on what we aim and expect to achieve. That can happen in a split second or take much much longer. How long depends on the context.

How hard would it be to turn thoughts and ideas into actions if you:

► Had no hindsight so you don’t remember what you did, nor what worked and what didn’t?

► Had no foresight to imagine what the future outcome might look like?

► Struggled to simulate multiple options for planning and problem-solving?

► And can only hold a small amount of information in your mind and ready for use at any one time?

This is the ADHD brain.

What does this mean for someone with ADHD organising their world?

Well, the inability to organise and enact behaviours over time means they are reacting to the now with no consideration of their future-self i.e. what is in their best interests in the future – whether that be 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 months, or 5 years from now.

The fact is, we need our behaviours organised over time to progress towards and attain our goals. For the ADHD person to organise for their future, they need to bring the future into the now and act upon it.

That's where motivation is needed – our next post.