Always on the cusp of something

One of the hardest-to-name feelings I live with is the sense that I’m always almost there — on the cusp of a thought, a breakthrough, a deeper understanding. I can feel the shape of an idea forming, but it slips just out of reach before I can hold onto it. It’s like trying to tune into a radio station (if you even know what a radio station is, lol) that’s just barely out of range — you catch the melody, but not the lyrics. I don't know if its the ADHD brain, but it's something I've struggled with all my life. ...

April 13, 2025 · 2 min · Aaron

Reminders, ADHD, and Siri

I heavily rely upon Siri (and Google Home sometimes) to set reminders for myself. I have ADHD. I have hundreds of thoughts flying through my brain throughout the day, all at the same priority and speed. Once in a while, I catch onto something that I need to remember. ADHD brain says “oh hey, it’s important, there’s no way you’ll forget it!” - where my mindful brain says “lol, you’ve already forgotten it, jerkface!”. ...

December 22, 2022 · 1 min · Aaron

When my brain goes on a little adventure

It me. What a funny (and accurate) way of describing the mental float during conversations when my ADHD is ramped up. This cracks me up! I feel like there should be some background sound effects with this. A nice animated parallax effect would finish it off. 🤪

December 28, 2020 · 1 min · Aaron

A letter from your ADHD friend or family member

I worry a lot. Let me rephrase that - I worry often. Additively I think my worry amount is low, as if there were any way to measure worry definitively. Having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, to me, shatters my day into so many small moments of time. When I worry about something, it doesn't last long because my brain is moving onto some other concern or input. What do I worry most about? People and relationships. ...

June 28, 2020 · 6 min · Aaron

The Impact of Sixty Seconds as a Kid

I have memories from my childhood but most of them are fragmented with how my ADHD brain works. There have been plenty of times talking with family about things that happened when I was young and I have no memory of it. I suppose my crappy attention & focus made it hard to store contiguous memories. There are some things that are very clear in my head, though. One of those clear memories is of my dad and it lasted exactly 60 seconds. ...

February 15, 2020 · 3 min · Aaron

Mondays through the Eyes of ADHD

August 14, 2017 · 0 min · Aaron

Vacuum the Brain with Morning Pages

I've blogged a lot about my struggles with attention and focus over the years since I started working remote. I continue to find tools and adjust my behaviors tiny bits at a time to help align me with the world I work in. I've been doing mindful meditation daily, usually in the morning, to help calm the brain and prepare for the day. Just yesterday I was introduced to a fun practice called Morning Pages to help organize my thoughts in the morning to start the day. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, uses morning pages to spill out thoughts and ideas from her head onto three pages of paper. The daily practice involves stream-of-consciousness writing (or commonly called free writing) three full pages of handwritten text. Topic is unimportant - it's whatever comes to mind. Julia says some of her students call it "mourning pages" as it usually turns into a bitch session. ...

July 20, 2017 · 2 min · Aaron

Being Mindful for 122 Days

It's been nearly four years since I started the journey of understanding how my attention & focus work. Along the way I've learned several things that have been key factors in developing tools to modify my behaviors to perform better. Most importantly any tools/habits you use or create are ephemeral. The tool may or may not work for you. Maybe the tool works for you for a couple months but then it becomes a hinderance. Possibly even the tool feels like it has always worked but something lets you understand it never really did help. The key thing to realize is your toolbox will and should continually change with you over time. No matter what people say you're a continually changing person - even old dogs learn new tricks. It's okay to throw things out and to try new things. Don't try to change too much too quickly. This is probably just as important as the first key but it's not very obvious until you start trying new things. If you try to change too many things or switch a habit drastically it's much easier to abandon when you don't feel immediate successes. Instead try to incrementally change towards something longer term. I've always wanted to have a meditation practice and make it part of my daily regimen. I felt it was the one missing piece to my daily routine with exercise that could help curb some of the ADHD symptoms. The problem was I didn't know where to get started and was really afraid of being a failure. I've always had a very open heart and mind when it comes to spirituality - if I couldn't "get" meditation then that would make me question a lot of things. I realized that my biggest fear was based upon my perception of how meditation can work and look. Mindfulness meditation is one of the many ways you can practice meditation. Specifically it focuses your mind on being present in the moment - to be aware of what you're doing but not getting overwhelmed or misdirected by emotions, memories, and other inputs. My husband started meditating with the Calm iOS app to help with his challenges with anxiety. I learned that meditation doesn't require hours of effort every day and having an app on my phone made the barrier to entry super low. It also helped that he broke the ice by starting the practice and the two of us support each other with motivation to try to get a session in every day. ...

May 20, 2017 · 4 min · Aaron

Flash Talk: Working Remote Saved my Life

Every year at Automattic's Grand Meetup we're required to give a flash talk of up to four minutes on any topic. This past year I gave mine on a subject related to my post "How Working Remote (Probably) Saved My Life". I'm actually developing a much longer talk to dive deeper into what's been involved with my successes and failures. Until then, here's my flash talk for your enjoyment. [wpvideo M5HpGRy1]

April 27, 2017 · 1 min · Aaron

Focus & The Non-Permanence of Pencils

I've been trying to brainstorm ideas on paper lately before committing to an approach on how to solve a problem. For some reason I wasn't getting a ton of satisfaction switching back to pen & paper - it wasn't helping my focus. Then I realized something from my days in school. I used to prefer pencil over pen because of the feel of the graphite on the paper and the non-permanence it implies. ...

February 7, 2017 · 1 min · Aaron