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Picture this: I’m staring at a stubborn piece of code that won’t work, my browser has twelve tabs open, and I’m genuinely stuck. What do I do? I put on my noise-canceling headphones and blast “Psychosocial” by Slipknot.
Most productivity advice would tell you that’s exactly wrong. Aggressive metal music while trying to solve complex problems? That sounds like a recipe for distraction, not focus. But here’s the thing I’ve learned about my brain since my ADHD diagnosis: what works for me doesn’t always match what’s supposed to work.
I’ve spent years figuring out my actual problem-solving rituals, the weird collection of habits that genuinely help me think through challenges. Some of them make sense, others probably look strange from the outside. All of them work better than the generic productivity advice I used to force myself to follow.
Fidgeting as Focus
When I’m stuck on something, my body knows before my brain does. I start unconsciously cracking my fingers, petting my beard, or playing with my hair. For the longest time, I thought these were bad habits I should stop. Turns out, they’re part of how I think.
There’s something about that physical fidgeting that helps my brain work through problems. It’s not nervous energy, it’s thinking energy! When I try to sit perfectly still and focus, I actually get more distracted. But when I let myself fidget, my mind settles into a better thinking rhythm.
The real breakthrough came when I noticed that productive procrastination actually works for me. When I’m stuck on a work problem, sometimes the best thing I can do is fold laundry or clean the house. There’s something about the repetitive, simple, physical tasks that lets my subconscious work on the real problem. I’ll be organizing a closet and suddenly the solution to a Python function I’ve been wrestling with just appears in my head.
Environment Tweaks
I have a headphone hierarchy for different types of thinking. Regular earphones are for when I need a soft disconnect. I remain aware of my surroundings but creating a small bubble of focus. Noise-canceling headphones are for when I need to disappear into deeper work.
And then there’s the music choice that surprises most people. When I need to concentrate or solve problems, I reach for Slipknot, System of a Down, All That Remains, Muse, Thirty Seconds to Mars. The more “aggressive” music actually helps me focus. I think it’s because the intensity matches the mental effort I’m putting in. Calm, ambient music makes my brain wander. But what others would consider “too much” seems to keep me locked in.
I know it sounds counterintuitive. Friends have asked how I can think clearly with heavy music playing. But my ADHD brain craves stimulation, and the aggressive music provides just enough background intensity to keep me engaged without being distracting.
When Problems Get Too Big
Sometimes a problem feels bigger than what I can hold in my head all at once. That’s when I switch from trying to think my way through it to getting it out of my brain entirely.
If I have too much swirling around mentally, I do a brain dump straight into Obsidian. No organization, no structure – just everything that’s bouncing around in my head gets typed out in my daily journal. Once external, I can see patterns and priorities that were invisible when everything was just competing for mental space.
For complex technical problems or big decisions, I still reach for pen and paper. There’s something about the physical act of writing that slows down my thinking in a good way. Digital tools are great for capturing and organizing, but when I really need to work through something step by step, handwriting forces me to be more deliberate.
When I’m procrastinating or jumping between tasks without making progress, I use pomodoro timers to create structure. I actually built PomoBar as an Obsidian plugin because I needed a timer that stayed out of my way but was available when natural flow breaks down. Pen and paper is my backup plan when everything else stops working.
What Doesn’t Work
Here’s what I’ve learned about my ADHD brain and traditional productivity advice: most of it assumes a neurotypical brain that operates on predictable schedules and consistent motivation levels.
My motivation fluctuates throughout the day in ways I can’t predict or control. Some mornings I wake up with laser focus and can tackle complex problems for hours. Other days, I struggle to concentrate on simple tasks until later in the day. The emotional rollercoaster is real! Rigid scheduling that doesn’t account for these natural fluctuations just sets me up for failure and frustration.
Time blocking is something I’m experimenting with, but it only works when I build in flexibility. I can’t schedule “deep work” from 9-11 AM and expect my brain to cooperate just because it’s on the calendar. Instead, I try to match my planned tasks to whatever mental energy I actually have in the moment. Sometimes that means the task scheduled for the afternoon gets done in the morning, or vice versa.
Final Thoughts
The biggest lesson I’ve learned about problem-solving so far, is that the rituals that work for your specific brain matter more than following someone else’s system. My combo can look chaotic from the outside, but it consistently helps me work through challenges better than any productivity methodology I’ve tried to force myself into.
Your problem-solving rituals might be completely different. Maybe you need silence and stillness. Maybe you think best while cooking or in the shower. Maybe you need collaborative conversation or complete isolation. The point isn’t to copy what works for someone else, it’s to pay attention to what actually works for you, even if it sounds weird to other people.