Focus is not broken. It is hard to aim.

ADHD is less a lack of attention than trouble directing it. The same brain that drifts can lock on for hours.

The short version: try one today

• Decide what you are focusing on before you sit down.
• Remove the one distraction that wins most often.
• Work in short blocks with real breaks.

Need to focus right now? Start a body doubling session in Priori and work alongside someone. (We make it. It's free to download.)

You read the same paragraph of lecture notes six times this afternoon and took in none of it. Last night you spent five straight hours researching the full history of a reality TV feud and forgot to eat dinner. Both of those are ADHD focus. Same brain, same attention, pointed at very different things.

So the supply is there. What's hard is the steering. ADHD makes it difficult to choose where attention goes, hold it there when the task is dull, and pull it away when something shinier shows up. The good news is that steering can be supported from the outside.

What's going on with ADHD focus

Attention with ADHD tends to follow interest. When something is new, urgent or fascinating, your brain can lock on so hard that you lose track of time. That's often called hyperfocus. When something is important but dull, the same brain slides off it as if it's been greased.

This is why being told to just concentrate has never helped. Directing attention on demand is an executive function job, and that's the part ADHD affects. Many women go years without a diagnosis partly because they could focus sometimes, on some things, so the struggle got read as not trying. If that's your story, the inconsistency was a clue all along.

You can't force the aim. You can make the target clearer and the distractions weaker.

Decide the target before you sit down

Sitting down "to work" is too vague. Your brain will pick whatever's most interesting on the screen, and that will be your inbox or a tab from yesterday. Choose the target before you touch the chair.

Make it specific enough to be obvious. Read pages 40 to 55 and highlight three things. Reply to the two emails from your manager. Write it on a sticky note and put it where you'll see it when you drift. You will drift, and the note is how you find your way back without having to remember what you were doing.

Then open only what that task needs. One document, one tab.

Remove the one distraction that wins most often

Skip the perfect environment and deal with your top offender. For most of us that's the phone, but it could be the flatmates talking in the next room, your email pinging, or the bed two feet from your desk.

• Phone: in another room, or zipped in your bag
• Noise: headphones with something steady and wordless
• Notifications: off on your laptop for the length of the session
• Bed: work somewhere else, even the kitchen table

Pick one and sort it today. If you remove the phone and find yourself staring at the wall, that's fine. Boredom with nothing better on offer often tips you into the task. There's a lot more on setting up your space in distraction is a design problem.

Short blocks, real breaks

Holding your aim is tiring, so don't ask for hours. Work in short blocks with a timer you can see. Twenty-five minutes is the famous number, but fifteen is fine, and so is ten on a rough day. Pomodoro, adjusted explains how to find your own length.

The break has to be a real one. Stand up, get water, look out of the window, stretch. Scrolling is a poor break because it hands your attention to something far stickier than your essay, and getting it back is hard work.

Some days the aim won't hold, even with all of this. Sleep, stress and, as many women report, the point in your cycle can all play a part, though research there is still early. On those days go smaller: one ten minute block on one tiny target. Then stop and call it done.

Quick questions

Why can I focus on some things but not others with ADHD?

ADHD attention tends to follow interest, novelty and urgency more than importance. That's why you can lock on to something fascinating for hours and struggle to stay with a dull task for five minutes. The difficulty is in directing attention, and it's a recognised part of ADHD.

How can I improve my focus with ADHD?

Choose one specific target before you sit down, remove the distraction that most often pulls you away, and work in short timed blocks with proper breaks. These support your attention from the outside so you rely less on effort alone. If focus problems are seriously affecting your life, a clinician can talk through further options.