Practical Tips For WFH Life With Adult ADHD
I’ll be honest, when the world first went remote back in March 2020 — *insert obligatory “that was 10,000 years ago” joke* — I was jazzed. I’ve long wished for a world free of pants with buttons, with a 0-minute commute, where I could co-work with my cat, but I quickly realized that a silent corner of my small, crowded apartment was a recipe for distraction for my recently diagnosed adult ADHD.
My job in “the before times” was in a trendy, but poorly designed, co-working space in Brooklyn where there were about a million different spots to set up my laptop and grind away in the company of wonderfully interesting people. It was a pet-friendly office so there were often dogs running around, and conversation bubbled up organically in the spaces where we did our work. Finding a quiet corner to take a call or have a meeting was nearly impossible, it was always some variation of boilingly hot or numbingly cold, and the coffee was a bitter, weak bean-tea that we only drank in moments of true desperation, but looking back on it now, after nearly a year of isolation, what may have felt like a chaotic environment to someone with a different brain than mine, was actually a wonderfully stimulating place to do my work.
I was diagnosed with ADHD in my mid-30’s, and for me, the constant activity of our former office helped me to focus and stay on-task. White noise has a long and documented positive-effect for people with ADHD, and while everyone is different, the buzz of activity in my former office gave my distractible brain just enough stimulation to actually focus on the task at hand.
A few months into the pandemic, our CEO announced we would be transitioning permanently into a “remote-first” company. That meant that we could live anywhere, work anywhere, and and, if we chose to, travel the world while still keeping our jobs. For many, this announcement was met with enthusiasm, but for me, it was devastating. I had found, after only a few months of sweatpants and zoom calls, that working from home for me, meant 8 hours of beating myself up and feeling terrible about not being able to focus, followed by 20 minutes of sloppily answering emails when I got my end-of-the-day energy spurt. I felt useless, stupid, lazy, and sad. All things that I know I am not.
I wish I could say this is some sort of transformative, “I felt like a bag of shit and then I discovered a sad lamp and now I’m never sad!” essay, but it’s just not. I still hate working remotely. I still miss my colleagues, and the office dogs, and even that dirty-bean-water I never drank. I often feel lost and sad, and getting work done is still a struggle, but with the guidance of my therapist, I have established some remote-work best practices that have really helped me, and so I thought I would share them here in case they might help you too.
5-tips for not feeling like a bag of shit when you WFH w/ ADHD
- Multi-station working: One of the things I loved about my old office, is that I could break up my day by working in multiple locations. That’s a lot harder in a small NYC apartment, but it’s not impossible. It really helped me to identify a few places to set up shop throughout the day and then designate each of them for a specific purpose. When I’m doing emails or spreadsheets I’m at my desk because that work feels formal. When I’m writing, building presentations, or doing other creative work I sit on the floor in the living room so I can feel casual and open, and when I’m taking one of the 10,000 Zoom calls I have to take, I sit in front of my gallery wall so that people think my apartment is nicer than it actually is. Moving around throughout the day helps me feel like my day has structure and matching my spatial setup to a type of work helps me feel connected physically to what I am doing.
- Find the right meds: This one is pretty simple. Work with your doc to find the right meds (or find out if meds are right for you), and then take ’em. For me it’s Wellbutrin, which is prescribed off-label to treat ADHD, but it also helps with my pandemic depression. It’s like a 2-for-1 deal for my brain chemistry.
- Lists motherf*cker!: Pretty much every resource on adult ADHD will tell you to make lists and prioritize tasks, and that’s because it works, but list-building can also be a slippery slope and it’s easy to fall into a cycle of building lists about your lists. I found that adding a tactile element that made it feel special helped me keep my lists simple and concise. I bought a few really nice pens from my favorite Japanese paper shop and because they were kind of expensive, I don’t want to waste them on a bunch of useless crap. Every day I pick two colors and build a single list for the day. I use my best handwriting to write out what I need to accomplish, and each time I cross something off, it feels like a treat. At the end of the day, I throw away my list, even if there are undone tasks on it. The cult of bullet journaling and other purveyors of productivity porn, would tell you to carry that task forward to the next day, but for me the guilt of an undone task is a bigger barrier to productivity than the actual undone task, so I made the decision early on to let go of what I didn’t accomplish each day, so I can move forward without guilt or shame.
- Commute: I never thought I would say it, but goddamn I miss my commute. As a super spatially oriented person, commuting helped me prep my brain for a change in operating mode. When I was heading to work, the bustle of the train and the warm coffee cup in my hand was a physical reminder that I was transitioning into focus-mode, and on the way home, some good tunes or an engrossing podcast got my brain ready to relax or socialize. In the absence of a commute, I found that the edges of my day bled into one another and my boundaries with work were getting pretty fuzzy. A few months ago, I started “commuting” to and from work by leaving my apartment and walking around the block. In the morning I walk one direction to “go to work” and in the evening I go the opposite direction to “come home”. It always feels a little dumb, but it truly helps reset my brain for the next stage of my day. This is also great for people who are managing the nightmare of remote school with their kids because it can mimic your daily walk to the bus stop.
- Admit to yourself when it’s just not going to happen, and let that be ok: This one is huge. All year I’ve been battling a little voice in the back of my head that is constantly screaming “you’re a sack of shit because you didn’t answer that email!” or “why can’t you get anything done!? I bet it’s because you’re garbage!”. I know I am neither a sack of shit, nor am I garbage. I am a curious, creative, hard-working and intelligent person who just happens to struggle with working from home. Some days the productivity isn’t going to happen and it’s important to be able to tell myself that is ok. I am a human being, not a machine for our capitalist overlords, and sometimes no matter how hard I try, I just can’t muster my focus. We’ve all hopefully learned a bit more self-compassion during this awful time, and on the days when the work isn’t going to get done, I’m better off admitting it to myself and moving on, than spending all day beating myself up and still not doing the work.
I still have some very real concerns about this new remote work lifestyle. For the first time in my life, I worry about being left-behind professionally by a more tech-savvy, isolation-adapted generation. I also worry that not interacting with management in person will make it easier for them to view me as expendable when my output doesn’t measure up to my neurotypical colleagues. I’m not happy working this way, and I won’t pretend to be, but the adjustments have helped me get through in an environment that is challenging for my brain.
I don’t miss pants, but I do miss people and when it comes time to take the next step in my career, it’s important to know that I want to work in a shared workspace. Bring on the background noise and dirty bean water.
