Click Gazette

Stuff that helps RIGHT NOW

(with some cash + 10-ish min)

ADHDers don't see time.

(and checking the clock won't help)

You look up at 3:42pm.
Meeting is at 4:00pm.
You have 18 minutes.

Brain does the math, files that info somewhere, and then you're back in your email.

Next time you look up, it's 4:08pm. How?

(Good old ) time blindness (we know and love) 🤭

Your brain doesn't register time passing the way other people's do.
Clocks show what time it is - not how much is left.

Visual timers fix this by making time a SHRIKING thing you can SEE.

Get a Time Timer MOD ($35-40 on Amazon)
Or the free "Visual Timer" app on iOS.
Both show time as a red disk that shrinks as minutes pass.
Set it before your next meeting.
Don't calculate how long work will take, just set 25 min and start.

The red disappears whether you're watching or not.
Your peripheral vision catches it even when you're deep in focus.
No math, no good judgement required.

Took me weeks to make a routine and remember to set it.
Missed two meetings in that time.

*Disclaimer: I am not affiliated to any products.
This share is to save you the research and cause it can help.

Deep dive: on inconsistency

There's something strange about ADHD that the standard explanations don't quite capture. The same person who can't reply to an email for three weeks can spend twelve hours building something complex without a break. The same brain that loses track of time mid-conversation can recall intricate details of a random Tuesday from 2007. If this were simply a deficit, it would be consistent.

It's not.

That inconsistency is the interesting part.

The Standard Model

The conventional understanding of ADHD centers on executive dysfunction. The prefrontal cortex - the brain's planning and impulse-control center - doesn't regulate attention and behavior in the same way as in neurotypical brains. A 2021 meta-analysis in Neuropsychology Review confirmed these differences are measurable and consistent across studies.

The logical response follows: strengthen executive function through medication, behavioral training, and external systems. Structure compensates for internal dysregulation. And this approach can work - clinical interventions do show improvements in organization, time management, and task completion. The research supporting this model is substantial and genuine.

Right 🤔

The Wrinkle

However, there's something this framing doesn't explain.

If ADHD were purely about weakened executive control, we'd expect uniform struggle across all tasks requiring sustained attention. Instead, we see WILD variability.

Hyperfocus exists - hours of unbroken concentration that neurotypical brains rarely achieve. Crisis performance exists - the ability to produce exceptional work under pressure that seemed impossible the day before.

The deficit model treats these as anomalies. But they happen too reliably to be anomalies (ask anyone with ADHD - they'll describe this pattern immediately). They're features of the same system.

A Different Allocation

What if we're looking at this wrong? The pattern makes more sense when you stop thinking about attention quantity and start thinking about attention rules.

Different criteria.

Different gatekeepers.

A 2023 paper in Frontiers in Psychology described this as "interest-based nervous system" functioning. In neurotypical brains, the prefrontal cortex weighs abstract factors - importance, obligation, future consequences - and allocates attention accordingly. In ADHD brains, this top-down regulation is weaker.

What fills the gap?

The limbic system - the part of the brain that responds to:

• Immediacy - what's happening right now

• Novelty - what's new or different

• Emotional salience - what feels urgent or important

• Intrinsic interest - what genuinely engages

Call it a different allocation system. The brain is still prioritizing - just using different criteria. Importance and obligation don't generate the neurochemical signal needed to activate focus. Interest, urgency, and emotional engagement do.

The inconsistency suddenly has a logic to it. Email doesn't engage the limbic system. Complex problems do. Routine maintenance doesn't. Crisis response does.

What About it?

This changes how several puzzling patterns make sense.

• Body doubling works because it adds social immediacy to otherwise abstract tasks.

• Artificial deadlines sometimes help because they convert future importance into present urgency.

• Gamification appeals to ADHD brains because it makes engagement criteria explicit rather than relying on internalized importance that doesn't register.

It also raises uncomfortable questions about how we've structured work and education. Systems built around delayed gratification and intrinsic motivation toward abstract goals assume a particular kind of brain. When someone with a different allocation system enters those structures, the mismatch looks like (and has been defines as) pathology.

That's not to dismiss the real difficulties ADHD creates - it does create them. Subscriptions linger on. Opportunities slip away. Relationships strain under forgotten commitments. The costs are there. But the frame of "broken executive function" versus "different prioritization logic" leads to very different places when thinking about what might actually help.

Sitting With It

I don't know what the right scaffolding looks like for interest-based brains operating in importance-based systems. But I'm fairly certain it doesn't start with "try harder to care about things that don't engage you."

It probably starts with accurately understanding what the thing actually is.
Attention that answers to different masters.

Inconsistency might be the most honest description of the ADHDer, for a good reason.

ADHD as a high-variance OS

(context over cure)

ADHDers connect things that don't belong together. ALL OF US.

You're in a meeting about budget allocation and your brain serves up an idea about product naming. Ottoman history links to mushroom foraging links to - who knows what. Your brain filters less, so more gets through. More raw material for combinations nobody else is making.

You see the pattern before others see the pieces. Forest before trees. The typo on page 12 you missed? That's the cost of the trend you caught three weeks early.

Those half-finished projects, the abandoned hobbies, the graveyard of Duolingo streaks - that's rapid learning in action. The same brain absorbs new information faster than anyone expects. (Yes, even when you can't remember where you put your keys five minutes ago.)

This is the core framework from ADHD Assets the book.

"ADHD Assets" tells you to skim.

And that's by the design.

We built this book knowing you don't need to read it all.

It's called the Fast Track.

Page 5 literally says:
→ Skim the trait names
→ Read the 2-3 that fit you
→ Jump to scripts when you need them
→ Done in 30 minutes

No pressure to finish.
No pretending you'll read all 6 trait chapters when you only need yours.

We designed it that way.
Because whatever you skip in reading, you make up for 10-fold in the micro-coaching that comes with the book.

The book gives you the map.
Pick your route. Skip the rest.
Micro-coaching makes it best.

Could't resist the rhyme 🤫

"ADHD Assets" wasn't written in my voice.

Because ADHDers don't need more words.

We need fewer, better ones.

Stay with me or a second.

The book has no-nonsense messaging.

Low friction.

Direct.

You get the trait. How it works.
Where it helps, where it hurts.

What to do with it.

No wading through metaphors.
No extra cognitive load.
We did that on purpose.

And that's why we chose Yavo's voice as co-authors.
An not mine 😶‍🌫️

Yavor's voice is clean, efficient, direct.

Mine can be anywhere between dramatic and poetic.

But always intense.

Works great for making the neurokin feel seen.

Doesn't work for frameworks you need to use.

So we wrote it in his voice.

"ADHD Assets" uses direct, no-nonsense, low-friction language because ADHDers need clarity more than poetry.

So I let this one slide 🤫

That confident feeling when you tell yourself "I'll remember this."

You won't.

It's not pessimism. It's pattern recognition.

I used to believe my brain would hold onto important things. Phone numbers. Appointments. The brilliant idea I had at 2am that would change everything.

Gone. All of it.

What changed wasn't my memory. What changed was accepting it would never work the way I wanted it to.

Now I write things down immediately. Not because I'm organized. Because I've been burned enough times to stop trusting the lie.

That moment when you think "this is too important to forget"? That's the exact moment to write it down.

The more important it feels, the faster you should capture it.

Your brain isn't broken for forgetting. It's just doing what ADHD brains do - moving on to the next interesting thing before the last one gets stored properly.

The system isn't the problem. Expecting a different result is.

Write it down. Right now. Whatever you're thinking about that seems too obvious to forget.

Future you will thank present you.

Turn off most of your notifications. Seriously, just do that first.

I counted my phone buzzes once. Embarrassing number. Gloria Mark at UC Irvine has this research—takes about 23 minutes to refocus after each interruption. You do the math on how much focus that costs.

Why Willpower Won't Work

If resisting notifications feels impossible, that's probably the dopamine thing making distractions extra grabby. Not willpower. The science says so, but honestly it just feels like betrayal.

Willpower won't fix this. Remove the trigger instead.

Here's the Boring-But-Useful Part

Set up Focus mode. Let through family and calendar alerts. Block Slack, email, Instagram, texts.

• iPhone: Settings → Focus → Work
• Android: Settings → Digital Wellbeing → Focus mode

Takes 10 minutes maybe.

The first few days you'll still reach for your phone constantly. That's a tangent, sorry—point is, after a couple weeks you stop. That's it. That's the whole thing.

"ADHD books give you theory".

No, this one comes with ongoing ADHD coaching.

Most ADHD books end at the last page.

You understand the concept.

Then life happens and you're on your own.

We didn't want "ADHD Assets" to be just another book.

When we mapped the 6 core traits +
how they combine, where they work, where they hurt.

We INSTANTLY knew that wasn't enough.

ADHDers need more than concepts on pages.

We needed more than concept on pages.

So we built some ADHD micro-coaching flows.

6 traits × 3 levels each.

Which means:
→ You get the book
→ you pick a trait
→ you get all 3 micro-coaching flows on adhd-assets dot com

The flows help you work with the concept.

Integrate it into actual life.

Navigate the contexts of your traits.

Yavo and I tested every flow on ourselves.

Some we rebuilt many times because understanding a trait and living with it are a different thing 🤫

The book gives you the framework.

adhd-assets dot com gives you the micro-coaching.

Both launch on Jan 10th.

Your ADHD isn't the same as mine.

(even if most support acts like it is)

Every book, article, and tip list sees ADHD like one thing.

It's not.

Yours might make you brilliant in crisis and terrible at routine execution.

Mine makes starting impossible but finishing unstoppable.

We both have ADHD.

We need different support.

You can't personalize support when you're treating everyone as "ADHD."

That's what we mapped with "ADHD Assets".

→ 6 core traits.
→ How they interact.
→ Where they help.
→ Where they hurt.

It's the only way to build support that fits variety.

Generic ADHD advice will mostly miss.
(duh)

Assets isn't a positive spin on ADHD symptoms.

(that would be toxic positivity)

Here's what I mean:

Deficit framing says:
"You can't focus on boring tasks."

Asset framing doesn't say:
"Actually that's great! You're creative!"

It says:
"Your brain needs novelty to engage.
Structure tasks accordingly."

One pathologises.
One observes mechanism.

Does it always work? No.

But naming the mechanism gives us better options.
(and I'll die on that hill)

ADHD is different processing, we all know by now.
Maybe we didn't when we were growing up.
Maybe the labels got to us.

And maybe this sort of reframe changes what solutions we look for.