Adult ADHD and multitasking

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How the ADHD brain works

When adults like myself struggle with ADHD, there are several different areas of our lives that can be affected.

One area I notice I struggle with the most is , multitasking.

Multitasking with ADHD

Personally, I always thought that my ADHD symptoms made it easier for me to multitask because I was able to switch from one task to another easily. After doing some research, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Task switching may seem normal to us “ADHDers” because we are constantly looking for something new or exciting. I thought that meant all the new skills I was able to do simultaneously meant that I was just skilled at many different things! For example, all the candle making items I have and months I spent trying to “perfect” candle making but never actually getting it quite right. On to the next thing, making air fresheners. Several hundreds of dollars and months later to be just “good” at something but never really hanging on long enough for it to be a true talent or hobby. You get the point.

Why does this affect us?

Since we are constantly looking for something new and exciting to give us a “jolt” of new information, we are constantly switching from one task to another.

According to research by Stanford, the brain can only truly process one task at a time. While we may believe we are doing two different things simultaneously and doing them both equally as well, we are wrong. Multitasking has been proven to cause inefficiency, impairs decision making, and in turn causes more stress.

Looking back on my life, I now can see some of the side effects of these symptoms. Sloppy homework, silly mistakes made due to lack of detail, not being detail oriented, or rushing through things too quickly to be able to start the next task.

The take away

I feel like I just kind of rambled on and on during this post! ADHD brain right?

The point I feel like I was TRYING to make….

Rather than flying through different tasks feeling all high and mighty because I can do so many things at once, I would like to be able to take a step back and realize, doing one thing very well and in detail, is far better than multiple things done for a lack of better words “half assed”.

Let me know your thoughts about ADHD and multitasking!