If you give me an interesting problem, I’ll work on it for six hours straight, forget to eat or go to bathroom or any other life obligations that previously seemed important.

But a boring task? Even a really simple, probably-should-take-five-minutes task? I’ll stare at it for hours, my brain doing everything it can to avoid it.

It’s not that ADHD brains can’t do boring things. It’s that boring tasks are so unstimulating to our brains, that they feel impossible to start doing.

It’s the initiation of a boring task that feels like a brick wall.

When your brain runs on interest, the goal isn’t to force yourself to “care more” or shame yourself into taking action. We know that doesn’t work.

Instead we should try to bring in interest from somewhere else. This is the Captivate step of the 4 Cs of Motivation. Here are three approaches you can use:

1. Find your why. Don’t worry about anyone else’s why, or a why that they try to assign to you. That won’t motivate, you need your own reason to care. If you’re someone that values learning, maybe you can reframe a boring work project as a chance to pick up a new skill. Or if you feel most at home in a calm space, tidying up your desk area can be a form of self care. Connect the task with something you truly care about, rather than trying to will yourself into action out of obligation.

2. Borrow interest. This is one of my favorite approaches, picking a podcast or audiobook you love (or really want to check out) and make a deal with yourself: this is your chore podcast, you can listen to it whenever you want, as long as you are doing a chore while listening. Finish the chore and want to keep going? Find some additional work around the house. The goal is to associate those boring tasks with an interesting podcast or the latest Dungeon Crawler Carl book, something your brain actually wants to engage.

3. Add people. Boring alone can be unbearable. But boring with someone else is somehow... fine? Working alongside a friend (even if over a video call) can be just the trick your brain needs. Our brain finds people interesting, even when the task we’re doing with them (or in their presence) isn’t.

Congrats, with this great advice, you’ll finally become someone who loves doing boring tasks!

Or not.

But you will at least have a few new approaches you can try when the boring tasks are begging for your attention.

The goal is to stop waiting for interest to show up on its own, instead attaching tasks to the interests you already have.

Talking yourself into finding something interesting doesn’t work.

I’ve tried. Your brain knows the game and refuses to play along. This worksheet doesn’t ask you to suddenly care about that boring task. It actually assumes this isn’t really possible.

The trick is borrowing interesting instead. Finding it somew…

Read more

It’s by far one of my least favorite chores.

It’s boring. It’s monotonous. And it never feels like I’m really doing much of anything. It’s like many chores in this way, but for some reason it really strikes the perfect “I really don’t want to do this” balance.

The problem is, it’s pretty important too. There are only so many eating surfaces you can use as a substitute when your dishes are all resting, neglected in the sink.

Knowing how important the dishes are has never actually helped motivate me to get them done. Importance just doesn’t motivate the ADHD brain the way it motivates most people.

What actually moves us into action is interest, novelty, challenge, and urgency.

I’ve organized these into a framework I call the 4 Cs of Motivation.

Captivate: Make It Interesting

Doing the dishes is never going to be an interesting task to my brain. But I can manufacture or borrow interest and use it to help move me into action. Maybe I save a favorite podcast and reserve it only for dish washing time. Or a new album from one of my favorite artists - that goes in my Dish Washing Playlist.

That way, the chore becomes just something I do with my hands while I get the thing I actually want, the interesting podcast or music that captivates my attention.

Create: Make It Novel

Another way to mix up the chore of doing the dishes is by introducing a novel approach. You can load the dishwasher alphabetically (bowls, cups, forks, glasses, knives, plates, etc) or by color (red, orange, yellow, and so on).

It might sound ridiculous, but I’ve found that ridiculous-sounding ideas often are exactly the sort of thing that motivate my brain into actually getting stuff done. That novel approach can tickle the curiosity of our brain just enough to find some motivation.

Compete: Make It A Challenge

Set a timer and race it. Maybe it’s a mad dash to collect dishes throughout the house (including the 7 mugs at your desk). Or maybe you’re trying to see how many bowls you can get loaded in before the baseball game is back from a commercial break.

Complete: Make It Urgent

Urgency can be one of the most powerful motivators for the ADHD brain. The trick is to create urgency that doesn’t feel too fake, our brains are suspicious of fake urgency.

Sometimes a simple countdown timer can work (instead of timing yourself in a race, you’ve got the clock going in the opposite direction, counting down from 10 minutes to 0). Your brain may be resistant, but you can feel it when that countdown gets closer and closer to end.

Other times you may need to use some real urgency, and connect it to the specific chore you’re trying to finish such as trying to finish loading the dishwasher before a partner gets home from work.

Whenever you’re stuck on a task, I recommend going through these four Cs and seeing which one sparks. Think of it like a creative exercise.

You can use this template:

To get started on __________(the task), I can use __________ (captivate / create / compete / complete) to ignite motivation and build momentum.

Not every C is going to work on every task. Or even when one does work, it’s not going to work every time. You might find an incredible strategy that works great for 2 weeks, and then just stops being helpful.

That’s not a failure, that’s just how our brain works. It’s something to make note of, and then pivot to using another C to get back on track. If a strategy worked before and it’s been awhile, maybe give it another shot.

P.S. My friend Brendan Mahan’s new book Overcoming the Wall of Awful just released today! The “wall of awful” is one of the early concepts I learned about when I was diagnosed with ADHD, and am really excited to give this one a read.

The only thing more important than sales for a new book launch is reviews (authors LOVE getting reviews!), so if you get the book and enjoy it, don’t forget to leave a review to show Brendan some support.

Get It Here

Knowing that something was important has never actually helped me get it done.

What does help is one of four things: interest, novelty, challenge, or urgency.

I call them the 4 Cs of Motivation:

• Captivate (interest)

• Create (novelty)

• Compete (challenge)

• Complete (urgency).

The 4 Cs are how you add motivation to …

Read more

Filling one out takes maybe ten minutes. For most people. For me it felt like it would probably take ten hours.

I knew it was important. I often couldn’t get paid without it.

But I still couldn’t make myself do it. No matter how important it was, no matter how big the reward was, no matter how harsh the consequence was.

And the reason is that many of us with ADHD grew up hearing three big claims about how motivation was supposed to work.

For ADHD, all three of these are myths.

Myth 1: If it’s important to you, you’ll do it.

We knew that the time sheet was important, but knowing was never our problem. For our brain, knowing something is important just isn’t enough to push us into getting it done.

This often results in non-action, which others interpret as a lack of care or understanding of how important something is.

Myth 2: Bigger rewards will motivate action.

Reward can actually work for us, but only when they are immediate. Telling me about a big payoff weeks from now might as well be the promise of a payout in a completely different dimension.

Even if I really want the reward, when it’s too far away, it just doesn’t help me find that motivation to get anything done. Promises of “think how good you’ll feel when it’s done” simply don’t ring true for most of us with ADHD. I feel bad now, and it doesn’t seem to be improving.

Myth 3: Harsher consequences will give you more willpower.

When I have large, looming consequences for something I’m struggling to get done, it doesn’t motivate me.

In fact, it seems to sap any motivation I have for other tasks as well, essentially causing the exact opposite of the often intended effect.

Underneath all three of these myths is another: “just try harder.”

Oh how I dreamed of just putting in a little more effort and somehow all my dreams could be achieves. But like many with ADHD, I was trying harder than most people realized, and yet my efforts often seemed to be in vain.

The problem wasn’t effort, it’s that I was focusing that effort on the wrong strategies that weren’t built to work with my brain.

I needed to try, but try differently, not try harder.

Think of something you know was important, but you still avoided for weeks. Then think of something else you happily did that wasn’t very important at all. Then look for the difference in those motivating factors. Did one come easier because you tried harder? Or because it was more important, had a bigger reward, or a larger consequence? Or were you more motivated by something being more interesting, novel, challenging, or urgent?

That difference is your brain telling you what actually motivates it into getting things done.

P.S. You know that thing where you really want to do the thing, but you still don’t do it? ADHD Motivation Mastery shows you why and gives you the tools to start anyway, stay consistent, and finally finish what matters to you. Sale ends soon!

Most of us heard three common claims about motivation early on. Claims which stuck with us, even though they never seemed to fit with our own experience.

“If it’s important to you, you’ll do it.”

“A bigger reward will get you moving.”

“Harsher consequences build your willpower.”

This worksheet helps you disprove…

Read more

There’s another pile hidden under my nightstand. Probably a few more stuffed inside an old backpack. Nice shiny ones. Expensive ones.

I had a really fancy one shipped from Japan. It was beautiful. It had an elaborate setup of tags and index rules and... some other great ideas that were all abandoned just nine days in.

All purchased with great intentions, all dead within a couple of weeks.

For most of my life, these planners were evidence of an all-too-familiar story—I simply couldn’t stick with anything, no matter how much I tried.

The real problem? Traditional planners just weren’t built for my brain.

Most people have what Dr. William Dodson calls an importance-based nervous system. They organize their lives around highlighting what is important in their life so they can act on it. Rewards pull them towards these important things, and consequences scare them in the right direction.

Nearly every productivity system is built on this engine—and for good reason! It works really really well for people with importance-based brains.

People with ADHD are not this way. Our motivation runs on an interest-based nervous system. Rather than being motivation by importance, we are motivated primarily by:

• Interest. If it’s fascinating to our brain, we’ll be unstoppable.

• Novelty. If it’s new to use, we can’t wait to try it.

• Challenge. If someone says it’s impossible, we’ll prove them wrong.

• Urgency. If it’s almost due, we can finally get started.

When you know about these motivators, the planner graveyard makes perfect sense.

A new planner is novel so it totally works, at first. When the novelty wears off, that importance is supposed to takeover, but our brain doesn’t ever make that handoff.

It’s not about discipline or willpower. We’ve just been trying to control our interest-based brain with importance-based strategies. And when they come up short, we blame ourselves.

Over the next few days, try this: when you notice that something is really easy to initiate and get started on (anything, even if it’s a video game or some other distraction), pause for a few seconds and ask yourself why it was so easy. Was it interest? Novelty? Challenge? Urgency?

You can use these moments to build a map of what works for your brain, what things actually help move your brain into action.

Building a map to your own brain is the key to understanding

This type of understanding is key to making positive change in your life, and a much more useful tool then buying another planner that’s just going to end up in the same place as the rest.

P.S. Super excited to announce that the panel I’m joining for the ADHD Growth Summit is going to be free for all to join! It’s happening just a couple hours after this email goes out, so make sure register at https://luma.com/52ga2que for free access.

There are going to be a ton of other great talks on ADHD, so sign up here for access to the rest of the ADHD Growth Summit.

No one buys a planner with the intention to abandon it a couple week later.

Yet we all know what happens most of the time.

It’s not about discipline. Planners are great at surfacing what is most important, but not what is most interesting, novel, challenging, or urgent. That’s what we need to actually start…

Read more

If you only want the more focused ADHD strategies and topics, you’ll still get those every Tuesday. The Tangent will likely be a bit more sporadic when I feel like I have something interesting to talk about (which may or may not always be ADHD-specific).

You can edit your notifications at extrafocus.com/account to control what you see.

So I’ve been building a lot of things lately.

In addition to completely redoing my ADHD course website, I’ve also been working on an app for staying in touch with friends and family, a writing app, a bluesky app, a video editing app, a baseball tracking menubar, an email client, a utility to control my AC unit, and I’m even learning a new programming language (Godot) to build a video game with my kids.

Oh, plus I have a family and a full-time job and I’m an author trying to spread the word about my book (and a second?) and a speaker and I do a couple of really cool podcasts (the latest, ADHD Live, has been super fun!) and more things I’m sure...

It’s a lot.

It’s always been a lot, that’s just how I’ve always lived my life.

But lately, it doesn’t quite feel the same.

In the past, I would have these crazy new ideas and I would get excited about them and maybe tell someone about them and then the dopamine would wear off and I could just sort of forget about that crazy idea that didn’t pan out.

I’d stick it in the drawer and forget about it for a year or two and that would be fine. I might feel guilty about abandoning that good idea, but it was usually little more than a good idea (and some purchased supplies) so letting it fade didn’t feel like I was losing too much.

It’s different now.

I know not everyone is into AI, and every individual is making their own decisions for how and where they choose to use AI in their life. As someone that has been building websites and apps for last couple of decades or so, I’ve found it pretty incredible to see how I can use this powerful tool to go from an idea into something completely usable in rapid time.

Features that used to take me months can often be built in a single hyperfocused afternoon.

And that’s really cool!

But also, it’s created a bit of a headache for me, because like many people with ADHD, I have so many good ideas and now they can very quickly be built into a real thing. Once it feels like a real piece of software, it becomes a lot harder to just let it fade away in a drawer.

This recent quote by Matt Pocock (a developer and online educator) really sums up a lot of how things feel right now:

Never been easier to feel busy and ship nothing
Stay focused

That’s the danger right now. Just like hyperfocus has always been—when I’m in the moment it’s easy to feel like I’m being super productive. But often once I’m free of the hyperfocus haze, I can finally see that I wasn’t actually making progress on anything worthwhile.

Okay, so you aren’t going to believe this.

In my infinite wisdom, I’ve decided that I’m going to fix this problem by… building another tool to help manage this.

This new tool’s primary focus is to help me manage what projects I’m working on, so things I think are important (like working on this game with my kids) don’t slip through the cracks because I got thrown off by some shiny distraction.

It’s helping me stay on target for the stuff I want to complete.

The focus isn’t output, it’s attention.

I’m not trying to build yet-another-supposedly-perfect-productivity-system, I’m just trying to keep tabs on which projects I’ve been paying attention to and which have started to fade.

Once I see a project fading, I can make a conscious decision of whether it is still deserving of my attention, or if I should shelve it for the time being.

I’ve been using it for about a month and it’s become my daily morning and evening routine to just check in and journal about where I’m at with various projects.

It’s already helped me decide that a couple of my projects were more of a distraction than anything, so I shelved them for now. Maybe I’ll pick one of them up again at a later date, maybe not. But now it’s released from my attention, I’m no longer feeling guilty for “another thing I abandoned” because I didn’t abandon it. I simply made a decision for where my attention was most valuable for now, and put it on the shelf.

I’m not sure yet if I’m going to release it or just keep it as an internal tool for my own use. But having something to help combat the “I’m starting new things every day just because I can” has been immensely helpful in feeling like I have a grasp on what is going on.

Are you feeling any of this way? I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments below or just email me directly. It’s always good to feel like you aren’t alone.

Thanks for reading.

— Jesse

P.S. I’m super excited to share that next week I’m speaking at the ADHD Growth Summit, put on by my friends at Shimmer! I’ll be on the Late Dx: A Lived Experience Panel talking about what it was like getting diagnosed as an adult, and mourning “what could have been” if only I’d known sooner.

There are a ton of other great talks available from some of the best speakers in the ADHD space. You can sign up here to check it out.

Teachers and bosses often told me I wasn’t “living up to my potential” or that I needed to “apply myself” or “try harder”.

I didn’t really know how to do any of that. I just knew something was wrong. Wrong with me. No matter what I tried, I always seemed to be falling short of everyone else’s expectations.

I needed to somehow be more than I was.

Since there was no other explanation, when people accused me of being lazy, I just assumed that must be the right name for whatever I was.

And then, in my mid-30s, I found that I had ADHD. I finally learned the difference:

Lazy = I don’t want to do the thing.

ADHD = I desperately WANT to do the thing, but I just can’t seem to START doing the thing.

Those are not the same. At all.

Laziness is choosing comfort over effort, and feeling totally fine about it! My version was full of guilt and self-loathing. I’d sit frozen on the couch and think about the task, stress out about the task, yell at my brain to get up and just do the task.

And that’s the difference.

Lazy doesn’t do shame spirals. Lazy is too busy relaxing!

With ADHD, your motivation runs on a different type of fuel. Most brains are motivated by importance: when something is important, you do it because it’s important. ADHD brains need interest, novelty, challenge, or urgency. Otherwise, it ain’t getting done.

No matter how important the task is.

This doesn’t mean it’s a character flaw, it’s just a different type of operating system. Once you know how your brain works, everything else about motivation starts to make a lot more sense.

Here’s my advice: the next time you find yourself reaching for that word “lazy”, swap it out:

Don’t think “I’m just lazy”, think “I’m having trouble starting”.

“I’m lazy” is a verdict, it’s final. But the other is a problem you can actually do something about.

What’s one thing you’ve been calling yourself lazy about? Leave it in the comments, and try reframing it not with a permanent “lazy” label, but a temporary “sometimes I have difficult with this” that you can strategize around.

Leave a comment

P.S. I just moved ADHD Motivation Mastery to a new home! The new course site is much prettier, faster, and easier to actually finish. To celebrate, it’s just $99 (normally $150) for the rest of the month. Check it out here.

The word “lazy” is a small word that does a lot of damage.

With just 4 letters, it declares a verdict. Once accepted, there’s nothing left you can do but feel bad about yourself.

That’s never helped you get anything done.

This worksheet helps you take the word and break down the damage it’s done. Wher…

Read more

Hey friends,

Happy New Year! 🎉

I think New Year’s resolutions have started to get a bad rap in recent years. And I get it! Sometimes they can become more of a source of guilt when we fall short, which is never helpful.

But even so, I still find that making positive intentions to kick off a new year can be an effective way to actually tackle some of those things you’ve wanted to prioritize. Too often the busyness of daily distraction details makes it difficult to think about anything else, so an event or day like New Year’s can help us rearrange our priorities going forward.

With that in mind, I’ve got a couple of deals that can help you kick off the new year:

ADHD Motivation Mastery is 50% off

If you’ve been wanting to get unstuck and start taking actions on those things that matter, this is a great time to do it. The ADHD Motivation Mastery course teaches you how to stay consistent and actually finish things, using strategies designed to work with your ADHD brain instead of against it.

I’ve also just updated the course to be fully self-paced (thanks to previous students for sharing feedback about this 💙). So now you get the entire course unlocked immediately and can move through it at whatever speed works for you!

Get ADHD Motivation Mastery

Get Wavepal for 25% off

If one of your goals for 2026 is to stay better in touch with the friends and family you care about, Wavepal can help with that! It was designed to help you remember the people that matter in your life, track all those important details, and just generally be your partner in better fostering your relationships.

It was created out of my own personal frustration with how much I truly do care about those people in my life, but my brain just doesn’t do a great job at remembering to reach out or keeping track of those important dates, names, etc.

Wavepal is still waitlist-only, but through this deal you can skip the wait and get access right away (for a nice little discount too).

Get Wavepal Access

Plan Your Extra Focus Year workbook

If you want to reflect on the past year and set some of those positive intentions for 2026, the Plan Your Extra Focus Year workbook can help. It uses the SPARK model to guide you through celebrating what went well, picking a focus for the year ahead, and mapping out how to actually make it happen. It's available for all paid subscribers or as a one-time purchase. More details are available here:

One more thing (workshop date change)

Speaking of, I’m also doing a Plan Your Extra Focus Year workshop for anyone who gets the workbook, but it’s been pushed back a week (it turns out scheduling it right after New Year’s was a bit too ambitious on my part 😅).

It will now be next week: Friday, January 16th at 3pm PST. I’ll send out the calendar link next week to paid subscribers and anyone who grabs the workbook from Gumroad.

— Jesse

This last year was a wild one for me.

It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind, and not one that’s wrapped up neatly with a bow at the end of the year. I’m still very much in the messy middle of a life transition and I have no idea where it will end up. I have no idea what the next year will bring.

Someone asked recently if I was doing my annual workbook and workshop this year and to be honest, I’d kind of forgotten about it!

When you’re still in the middle of things that are still unsettled, it can be hard to even think about taking time to reflect.

But often that’s exactly when reflection is most important.

While traditional planners have always felt too strict to be realistic or very useful, I’ve found that doing some reflection and celebrating of what went well, and deciding on a specific focus or theme for the year can be especially valuable.

I’ve given this much more structure in the Plan Your Extra Focus Year workbook with the SPARK model.

The SPARK model is a unique framework that guides you through 🌟 Spotlight, 🔍 Prioritize, 💭 Aspire, 🗺️ Roadmap, and 💪 Keep Going – each step a conversation with yourself to foster introspection and practical planning.

You can check out this video walkthrough of the SPARK model:

Here’s how you can download your copy of the Plan Your Extra Focus Year 2026 workbook:

Paid supporters:

Thank you so much for being a supporter! 💙

• Simply scroll to the end of this email to find your download link. ⤵️

Everyone else (2 options):

• Become a paid supporter to unlock the download link in this post

OR

• Buy as a one-time purchase from Gumroad

Live Plan Your Year Workshop

I’ll also be hosting a live workshop right at the start of the year where we can walk through the workbook together and body-double as we work on our plan for the upcoming year.

The workshop will be on January 2nd, 2026 at 3pm PST.

In the week leading up to the event, I’ll send the calendar link out to paid subscribers and anyone who gets the workbook from Gumroad.

Stay curious,
Jesse J. Anderson

Download the Plan Your Extra Focus Year 2026 Workbook Here

Read more

Plan Your Extra Focus Year - 2026 workbook

Embrace Your ADHD Journey with Plan Your Extra Focus Year 2026, a uniquely designed workbook that turns the ADHD journey into a path of self-discovery, achievement, and personal growth.

Dive into a guided experience that understands the ebbs and flows of your world, helping you celebrate successes, set meaningful goals, and stay motivated throughout the year.

Read more

If you don’t have ADHD, it might be hard to know how best to communicate with your friends/family that do have ADHD.

Even with good intentions, you may say something that unintentionally triggers some deep shame and pain.

This guide is a quick lesson on some of the things you should avoid saying to people with ADHD.

“You don’t seem to have any problem focusing on [video games, tv, your phone, etc]…”

This misunderstands how ADHD affects attention. Despite “Attention Deficit” being part of the name, people with ADHD don’t actually have a deficit of attention. We have an abundance of attention, but it is dysregulated attention which means it can be difficult to aim.

Sometimes we can even hyperfocus on things, which is a type of directed attention that’s so intense that we don’t notice other things around us. Things like people calling our name, the passing of time, or that we haven’t had anything to eat or drink for hours.

“People with ADHD are just lazy.”
“You just need to try harder.”

This is an extremely hurtful thing to say to someone with ADHD, because it labels the difficulties that come with ADHD as some sort of moral failing, as if it’s a conscience choice.

We often desperately want to do the right thing but there is a brain blocker that can make it feel impossible to move into action.

“Why did you do it like that?”
“No, you’re supposed to do it THIS way.”

ADHD brains often have a different way of thinking, especially when it comes to problem solving.

While in a given situation, there might be what some would consider the “common sense” approach, that’s often counter to how the ADHD brain works. Rather than judging the method, pay attention to the results.

The divergent thinking that comes with ADHD often leads to finding alternative ways of solving a problem, which can even be an improvement on the common sense approach. And even if not, it may be the way that is easier for OUR brain, even if it makes less sense to someone else.

“You’re too smart to have ADHD.”
“You can’t have ADHD, you [graduated college, have a great career, etc].”

This can be hurtful to hear as it dismisses the lifelong struggle that someone with ADHD has had to go through in order to reach any of those achievements.

Having ADHD doesn’t preclude you from taking on big challenges in life, it just means that it was likely much more difficult and a lot of the struggles were hidden behind the scenes.

“Have you tried using [a todo list/app, a calendar, a planner, etc]?”

Even though this is usually well-intentioned advice, it can be insulting and belittling to suggest something so obvious as using a planner.

When I spoke to my doctor about ADHD for the first time, he beckoned me over to his desk like he was about to show me some life-changing knowledge about ADHD that would change everything for me. Instead, he just showed me the outlook calendar on his laptop, as if using a calendar app was a brand new concept to me and was going to cure my ADHD.

I promise you that someone with ADHD has tried just about every single productivity trick you can think of to help with motivation, planning, time management, etc. They probably own dozens of planners, todo apps, calendars, etc.

We know “what” we should do, the problem is that ADHD makes it difficult to do what we know.

What else should you keep in mind when speaking to a coworker, friend, or relative with ADHD?

I think one of the most important things to know about people with ADHD is that our intentions are usually in the right place.

We are trying so hard to do the right thing.

One of the worst parts of growing up with ADHD is people seeing the way your ADHD presents itself and thinking that you are just trying to be difficult or bad or whatever on purpose. Many children with ADHD (especially those with hyperactive-impulsive presentation) are labelled as “bad” kids despite them trying so hard to be good and fit in.

It’s like you’re constantly being quizzed in a class despite never being taught the material, so every day is just another failure and you never really understand why.

People don’t see that you are actually just struggling to fit into what people want of you because your brain doesn’t work the same way as most other people.

Another way of saying all that is, assume the best intentions of people with ADHD and you will almost always be right.

— Jesse

P.S. I’m currently selling my ADHD Motivation Mastery course at half price to celebrate ADHD Awareness Month! It’s a much deeper dive into how to make motivation work for ADHD. Helping you get unstuck so you can start taking action, stay consistent, and finally finish those things that matter.

It’s a super ADHD-friendly 7-week course with short videos, worksheets, and transcripts available for each lesson.

Sign up now while it’s still half price, the month is almost over!

​

P.P.S. My book Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD is still available for free for the next couple of days!

You can download a copy for free here.
(comes with both the PDF version and EPUB version).

Hey friends,

October is ADHD Awareness month!

So for the rest of October, I’m giving away my book, Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD!

You can download a copy for free here.
(comes with both the PDF version and EPUB version).

Why am I giving it away for free?

A couple of reasons.

One. Extra Focus is the book I wish I’d been given when I first got diagnosed with ADHD. I wrote it to truly be a quick start guide, just the essentials you need to understand ADHD and how to take practical action with that understanding.

This recent review sums it up well:

Basically furious that this book (or something like it) wasn’t prescribed to me when I started asking mental health professionals whether I had ADHD, twenty-plus years ago.​
​
​It fills a gap that neither meds nor the denial of meds can fill—basic information about ADHD from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.

I really just want to make sure that anyone who could use a copy of my book can get a copy.

Two. I’m hoping that if you love it, you’ll gift a copy to friends and family with ADHD. If you want to purchase a copy and support me, you can buy it anywhere books are sold (including direct from me).

All links are available at extrafocusbook.com.

I know this book has made a difference for so many people, and that truly fills me with such joy and fulfillment.

Hearing that the book has helped some people better understand their daughter or their boyfriend or spouse or coworker is one of the coolest feelings in the world. Because I know just how hard it is to be that person that others don’t seem to understand.

Just knowing I’ve made a difference in these lives means so much.

Thank you.

— Jesse

P.S. It’s not too late to get the early bird discount for the NeuroDiversion conference in March. But it’s almost too late so claim your spot now and get that sweet $100 discount for signing up early.

Hey friends,

There’s a bunch of exciting things happening right now!

• NeuroDiversion 2026

• ADDitude Live Webinar: Men with ADHD

• A Productive Conversation with Mike Vardy

• Update on Wavepal

NeuroDiversion 2026

Earlier this year, I attended the inaugural NeuroDiversion conference and it was incredible!

I loved it so much I wrote this at the time:

NeuroDiversion was more than just a conference—it felt like finding my home with the people that truly understand me. I didn’t have to worry about hiding my true self or being “too much” or anything like that. I was just hanging out with people who understood me.
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The talks were exceptional and very action-oriented, but the real magic was connecting with everyone else between sessions. It was validating and energizing and empowering, a community I’m happy to be part of and I can’t wait to see everyone again at the next one.
​
It’s a must attend for anyone who is neurodivergent and seeking both practical insights and genuine connection and acceptance.

Early bird tickets just went on sale for NeuroDiversion 2026 and I’d love to see you there! There’s something magical about meeting people in person and no longer feeling like you need to mask just to be around other people.

​Claim your spot now and get yourself a sweet $100 discount for signing up early​

That’s an affiliate link so you’ll be helping me out by using it (thx! 🙏), but seriously this is the best conference for ADHDers and I absolutely cannot wait to attend again in 2026!

ADDitude Live Webinar: Men with ADHD

Really looking forward to this panel in partnership with ADDitude Magazine, The Hidden Complexities of Men with ADHD.

We go live tomorrow (Tuesday, Oct 7th) so don’t miss it!

You can register for the free panel here:

​https://www.additudemag.com/webinar/adhd-symptoms-in-men-roundtable​

A Productive Conversation with Mike Vardy

I met Mike in person for the first time a few years ago at the Craft + Commerce conference in Boise and we hit it off right away. It was so fun getting to chat on his podcast, especially with a live audience asking questions in the chat just to make it extra fun (and maybe just a bit distracting 😂).

This conversation was so much fun as we talk about the challenges of attention, time, and motivation.

​A Productive Conversation - Episode 625: Jesse J. Anderson Talks About ADHD, Extra Focus, and Finding Flow​

— Jesse

P.S. I’ve been working hard on Wavepal and we just launched a private beta version of the iOS app.

If you don’t know about Wavepal, it’s an app I’m building with a friend to help me remember to stay in touch with my friends (cuz “out of sight, out of mind” means I forget to reach out to people I care about).

Want in? Email hello@wavepal.app and tell me what’s hardest about being a good friend, or what usually gets in the way of staying in touch.

Hey friends,

I took 5 cold showers this last week.

Five ice cold, chilling-to-the-bone, miserable showers.

Not as a brag, not as some sort of challenge or effort to make my skin healthier or embrace my inner hustle culture.

No, I took 5 cold showers because I’m bad at maintenance.

Last week, I noticed some standing water in the corner our garage. It was coming from the water heater. I looked around and it didn’t seem too bad, the garage wasn’t flooded or anything, but it was a concern for sure.

The next day, the water had reached a little further and started to seep into those boxes we’d packed up in a previous move and had sat in the garage ever since.

Not good.

The source was our water heater, a slow-but-steady drip was coming from underneath. We had someone come out to take a look and it turns out that there are a few steps I should have been taking for the last 7 years... like flushing the tank at least once a year, checking the anode rod, etc.

Without that regular maintenance, when a water heater dies, it’s done. Too late for repairs or anything to try and salvage it.

So after a couple (6) trips to the hardware store, we eventually got a new heater installed. (I say “we” but really my dad did everything while I mostly watched and handed him tools)

Unfortunately, after we finally got everything installed, we discovered that the BRAND NEW water heater had a manufacturer’s defect... and I had to make some phone calls (aka my personal hell) to schedule someone to come out and take a look.

The back-and-forth took several days (and bickering about money, another of my favorite activities) and we finally got the heater fixed after just under a week.

Bad at Maintenance

I’ve never been good at maintenance. Homes, health, relationships, etc. I’m really good at the start—energized and armed with the best intentions. Learning everything I can and taking action.

But over time, I lose focus (or more accurately, my focus shifts onto something new and fun and shiny). Efforts of maintenance are never super satisfying so they quickly fall to the bottom of my imaginary todo list.

Spoiler alert: I never get to the bottom of that list.

Now that I know about the maintenance required for the water heater, I’m trying to take some action, something that will help me take the action I won’t remember to take on my own when my focus shifts and the enigma of time keeps on... enigma-ing.

Setting reminders

I use an app called Due which is excellent at nagging you and nagging you until you mark something as done. You can just keep snoozing it, which sounds like it would be a problem but is perfect for me. It allows me to stick to a hard rule that I never EVER mark something as completed in Due unless it’s fully done.

Maybe I snooze something 20 times, but since I never ever mark it as done until it’s done, it never completely falls out of my brain like things tend to do sometimes.

I’ve added recurring reminders to flush the tank and check the anode rod, now that I know those are important.

Taking notes (because I won’t magically remember)

Sometimes a reminder pops up that is intimidating because it feels like it’s going to be a bunch of work. I once avoided filing my business’s annual report because I was scared it was going to be bunch of work. Turns out, it was super fast and easy!

I’ve since updated the reminder to now say “File WA LLC Annual Report (it’s easy!!)“ so when it popped up earlier this month, I was reminded that it’s an easy process and I just immediately took care of it instead of avoiding and dreading it for weeks and weeks. I’ll likely do the same with the water heater tasks once I’ve done them.

These things will definitely help, but I also know that maintenance is just always going to be a struggle for me.

I take steps to help mitigate it and plan for it, but I also just need to be a bit forgiving of myself. I know that when I forget to take care of something like this, it might mean I have to deal with some frustrating (and often expensive) consequences. But I don’t need to add “feeling bad about myself as a person” on top of it. That’s not going to help me or anyone else.

The goal is to do what I can to plan for the future, and hope that a few reminders might help save me from more cold showers in the future.

Those cold showers were soooooo miserable, it felt like the water was coming straight off of a glacier.

But that hot shower I finally got to take when everything was finally done? Heaven.

— Jesse

Hey friends,

When I say “you should just do it right now...” what is the task that immediately comes to mind?

There’s probably something you’ve been avoiding that just lingers in the back of your brain. It may even cloud over your thoughts, looming in the background.

The “Do It Now” principle is simply the idea that as soon as you think of “that thing” you should immediately start doing it.

“I have to put away the leftovers tonight”
​Do it now!

“I need to renew my business license”​
​Do it now!

“I haven’t texted my friend in awhile”​
​Do it now!

The reality is, when you’re thinking of those things in the moment, it’s likely because you know it’s important or it’s something that you’ve forgotten to do in the past, so it jumps out for a moment in your mind to try to grab your attention.

But just because it’s important, doesn’t mean we’ll magically remember or be motivated to do it later.

With ADHD, we need to seize those opportunities when our brain tries to get our attention. Try to act on instinct and respond immediately to those little thoughts.

Even if you can’t complete the full task, get it started so you can make forward progress instead of hoping for that magic moment later.

— Jesse

Super excited for this new video on why focusing is so difficult when you have ADHD, including 3 strategies for better focus!

You'll want to check out the whole video, but here's a quick preview of the strategies I talk about:

1. Use External Filters. We can't rely on the filters in our head to block out distractions, so we need to make external filters to keep those distractions from reaching out senses.

2. Add Guiding Bumpers. In addition to blocking out the distractions, we need to add pointers that reflect our focus back to the thing we're intending to focus on. Writing down your intentions, using visual timers to remind you that it's focused work time, etc.

3. Don't Be Efficient. This might sound counter-intuitive, but I often fall into the trap of trying so hard to be efficient, that the goal of efficiency actually becomes my primary distraction. I can't multitask my way into perfect focus.

— Jesse

P.S. For parents of ADHDers, an exciting FREE event is happening next week, TEFOS: The Executive Function Online Summit for Parents.

I'm super excited to be a speaker this year!

TEFOS was one of the first resources I found many years ago when my daughter and I were first diagnosed with ADHD, and I learned so much about how to help support my kids with their executive function challenges thanks to the incredible experts at this virtual conference, so it's an honor to be a part this year.

​Sign up for free today and don't forget to mark your calendars for August 15-18th!