ADHD Won’t Steal Your Day Today

I was spiraling through Wikipedia, stress, and weather stats. Then I wrote this

Some days slip away without warning. Others fight you from the first hour. If this piece helped you hold onto your day a little longer, please consider becoming a paid subscriber if you’re able to. It helps keep this space open for anyone trying to create something small and real before the hours vanish again. It’s not about reaching perfection. It’s about not letting the day disappear.

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It’s a new day. What time is it where you are?

As I write this, it’s almost 9 PM here. By the time this goes out, it’ll be much later.

I already know what’s going to happen.

I’ll sit down, fix a few lines, check one more thing, think of something I could add.

Hours will pass before I hit publish.

It seems to be perfectionism, bur in reality, it’s avoidance. Something that wears a smarter mask.

It’s also ADHD, but with a beautiful shirt so it feels productive.

I do this most days. I tell myself I’m working. But I end up sitting in front of the screen, scrolling through things that feel important in the moment.

Social media. Wikipedia.

Mostly Wikipedia, actually. That’s the one that gets me.

It’s not just reading. It’s falling through a trapdoor of links. One topic leads to another. One word sends me chasing something else. It feels like I’m learning, so it feels allowed.

But by the end, nothing’s done. I’ve just wandered through another maze that doesn’t lead back to what I meant to do.

Today, for example, I interrupted this very draft to check the weather.

Just a quick peek. Just curiosity.

But somehow that turned into looking up the coldest town in my state. Then the hottest. Then the place with the highest elevation. Then the lowest. Then a whole table comparing average temperatures by altitude.

I lost 40 minutes and didn’t even notice. The only reason I know is because my Pomodoro timer went off.

That’s ADHD. That’s how fast it slips away.

You don’t see it leaving. You only hear the bell, if much.

This isn’t new.

When I was a kid, my grandmother gave me a set of encyclopedias. Twelve huge volumes. Hundreds of pages in each. I read them all. Every single one.

People said I was a genius. My parents said it. My aunts and uncles did too. I believed them, how I couldn’t? And I finally started to believe I was special.

As you probably familiar with somehting similar, it didn’t last.

School got harder. The work stopped being about memory. I needed routines. Focus. Study habits and systems. I didn’t have any of that.

I started falling behind, and I never really caught up.

No one knew what was happening. I didn’t either. I just knew something changed, and I couldn’t fix it.

Now I understand. It was ADHD.

It still is.

It’s the reason I sit for hours, doing everything except the thing I need to do.

It’s the reason I always feel like I’m late, even when I start early.

It’s the reason I open a document, feel completely blank, and then somehow end up researching sea level variations.

I’ve tried to explain this to people. Some understand. Others think it’s just laziness or a bad habit. But I know what it feels like inside.

I know the noise. I know the guilt.

It doesn’t come from not caring. It comes from caring so much that it freezes me.

Most days, I lose hours.

I chase topics that don’t matter. I answer emails too late. I research things that have nothing to do with what I should be working on.

And the day slips.

ADHD isn't just forgetfulness. It's a full-body experience.

It scrambles your focus, distorts time, and tricks your brain into thinking you’re being productive when in fact, you're lost .

It’s been like this for years. The stress piles up. My hair’s thinning. My sleep is a mess. I feel the pressure in my body. Maybe some of that is just getting older, almost 46 you know, but I know this disorder is part of it.

It wears me down in quiet ways.

So I’m writing this now because I don’t want this whole day to vanish. I want to turn it into something. Even if it’s not the task I was supposed to finish. Even if it’s just this.

If you’re reading this while avoiding something too, that’s okay. You can still use the time. You can still write something down. You can still give shape to the mess.

It’s not brilliant, and it couldn’t be more distant from the task I was supposed to do.

But it’s real. It’s mine.

And who knows if it helps someone else do the same.

If today’s the day you can’t get yourself to start, write it down.

Make your distraction into something.

Turn your delay into a record.

Say, “this is what my brain is doing,” and give it shape.

At least then, we’re not wasting the day.

We’re transforming it.

💚 If this feels a little too much like your own browser history today, feel free to share it with someone who’s also five tabs deep into weather maps and wondering where the day went.

💚 And if you’ve got something to say, whether it’s “same,” “ouch,” or “I’m currently Googling mountain elevations too,” drop a comment. I already lost an hour to Wikipedia, I can definitely deal with the comment section.