Working and Earning With ADHD: What Has Helped Me

From one ADHDer to another, let's make our lives better.

Work and money have always been tangled up with my ADHD, long before I knew I had it. Some weeks I could get more done than I thought possible. Other weeks I could barely start. For a long time I thought that meant something was wrong with me.

Since being diagnosed at 45, I have started to understand my working brain a little better. This post is about the things that have helped me work and earn in a way that fits how I actually function. It is my story, not a plan for anyone else.

Energy matters more to me than hours

I used to measure a good day by how many hours I sat at a desk. That never worked. Some of my best work happens in a short, bright burst. Some of my worst happens when I force myself through a long, flat afternoon.

These days I try to notice when my energy is high and save the important work for then. The low energy times get the easy jobs, like tidying files or answering a quick message. It is not perfect, but it feels a lot less like swimming against the tide.

Short sprints instead of marathons

A whole day of work in front of me feels like a wall. A short sprint feels possible. So I break my work into small pieces with a clear finish line.

When I finish one, I stop for a moment. A cup of tea, a stretch, a look out of the window. Then I pick the next piece. On good days the sprints join up and I get lots done. On harder days, even one finished sprint counts.

Following real interest

My brain does its best work when I genuinely care about something. When I am interested, hyperfocus kicks in and I can work for hours. When I am bored, everything feels ten times heavier.

I have learned to lean towards work that holds my interest, and to be honest with myself when something just is not lighting me up. I wrote more about pointing that energy at one idea in my post on making a living with ADHD.

Keeping the boring bits small

Every kind of work comes with admin. Emails, forms, invoices, numbers. My brain will put those off until they become an emergency. That used to cause me so much stress.

What helps me now is keeping all of it in one place and doing it in a small batch, once a week, rather than letting it hang over every day. I use my Weekly Reset Planner for that. It has a life admin page, so the bills and calls and forms land on paper instead of living in my head.

Writing my ideas down before I chase them

I have always had more ideas than hours. In the past I would jump into each one straight away and then drop it when the next shiny thing came along.

Now I write ideas down first and let them sit. If one is still exciting a week later, I look at it properly. If not, it stays on the page and I have lost nothing. That simple habit has saved me a lot of half finished projects.

The pages I use for this are in my Making a Living with ADHD workbook. It is my own set of pages for mapping interest, sorting ideas and testing one small step at a time.

Being kind to myself on slow days

Some days my brain just will not get going. I used to treat those days as failures and beat myself up, which only made the next day worse.

Now I try to expect them. On a slow day I pick one small thing and let that be enough. Often the energy comes back a day or two later, and I can pick up where I left off without a pile of guilt on top.

Asking for what helps

Over time I have got better at noticing what helps me work well. Clear instructions in writing. A quiet space. Reminders I can see. Breaks that are actually breaks.

Knowing those things about myself has made work feel less like a constant battle. It has not made ADHD go away, and some weeks are still a struggle, but I understand the shape of it now.

Where I am now

I still have messy weeks. I still start too many things sometimes. But I no longer think I am lazy or useless. My brain works in bursts, follows interest and needs small steps, and I can build my work around that.

We are not broken. We are built for storms.

My lived story. Not advice, not therapy, not medical guidance.

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