Clear the workspace — and separate work from fun

People with ADHD are steered more by their immediate visual and sensory field than by internal intentions, so anything stimulating within reach competes for attention and keeps pulling you off task. The remedy is environmental, not willpower: physically clear the fun and distracting things out of the space where you work. The strongest version is to separate the surfaces entirely — keep one computer loaded only with the apps you need for work, and a different computer (or device) for games, social media and entertainment, so the work machine never offers an exit ramp.

One finding cuts against the grain of ‘remove all stimulation’: soft background music of your own choosing can actually improve focus, because tuning it out raises your alertness and concentration and pulls you into the task. So the rule isn’t ‘silence and bareness’ — it’s ‘remove the things that pull you away, and you may add a low-level, self-chosen audio backdrop that pulls you in.’ (Framing: Russell Barkley.)