How to Read Books When You Have ADHD
untappedbrilliance.com
untappedbrilliance.com
Here's the only useful paragraph in the article:
> This idea came from Megan, a guest on Hal Elrod’s podcast. Megan explained she keeps track of all the books she reads in a spreadsheet. Each time she finishes a book she adds it to her spreadsheet, along with the ONE thing she is going to implement. With each new entry she reviews the list. If she isn’t implementing her ONE thing, she goes back and rereads the book.
Perhaps we read different kinds of books, but I don't see the benefit of this. I read for pleasure, without taking notes or setting objectives. I feel like those would interrupt rather than encourage reading. Good books tend to stay with you either way.
I found that a good book in a good environment is all I really need to read more. It takes 5-10 minutes before my thoughts stop buzzing around and I can focus, but once I'm in that zone, I'm good for a while.
Looks like you found the ONE thing in this article.
(jk)
I do agree with you. I read for pleasure and to satisfy curiosity. it's hard (or pointless) to try to find one thing to implement from curiousity driven exploring.
I think there is a huge variance in how ADHD people process information. I am 100% this way as well, but know just as many ADHD people who literally cannot finish reading even a short book. They often report audiobooks and podcasts as being much better, but I can take about 5-10 minutes of auditory input max before I am completely done. If I'm not moving I'll fall asleep[1], if I am moving my mind will wander and I'll just have 20 minute intervals that I have zero recall of ever hearing.
1: This made college lectures quite challenging. For one particularly bad class where the professor dimmed the lights to use an overhead projector, I sat in front of someone who had ample reason to want to kick me and told them to kick me any time I fell asleep. In another one that was fairly small (maybe 50 students?) the professor seemed to get sympathetic noticing I was struggling to stay awake and would wake me up as needed.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/8/16/21371049/gpt...
No thanks to a spreadsheet though. Lots of adhd advice around bullet journals too, but that worked as well as every other past attempt to keep a journal in my life.
If I'm stuck insight, I'll light some candles and read on the couch, or run myself a bath. It's a great way to end the day.
I've noticed this with youtube videos. Sometimes I will search for something, and I get a video equivalent to this webpage, very generic/general with a synthesized voice. It's getting harder and harder to wade through the crap.
> but once I'm in that zone, I'm good for a while.
Yes, I thought people with ADHD had superfocus as well.
With non-fiction, it depends, if the subject interests me, I can become equally focused, if it doesn't, there's very little chances that I will finish it. But I also have weird interests, once I became obsessed with finding the best health insurance plan and read all the 100 of pages of terms and conditions of the different plans in a day (very dry material). I know that now that I'm no longer in the mood to do that, I would never be able to read a single page.
Struggling with ADHD is not a matter of not being able to focus. Part of the issue is directing and keeping attention on non-pleasant tasks that are stacked up against a brain chronically low on dopamine and norepinephrine transmission.
As someone with diagnosed and treated ADHD, these articles are misleading. In my opinion it's dangerous to claim "Do this ONE behavioural thing and your ADHD goes away (or gets easier.)"
After struggling with ADHD for 25+ years I can tell you: These life-hacks don't work. Please, consult with a medical professional instead. It'll save you years of agony and disappointment.
Again, if you have – or suspect – ADHD, work with a psychiatrist to discuss diagnosis and treatment options. Period.
Quoting Dr. Russell Barkeley "ADHD is one, if not the best-understood psychiatric conditions. We understand it for several decades now - it's also called the diabetes of psychiatry because there's treatment"[^1].
So, we know what it is and have known how to treat it. It's a neuro-genetic disease, and we have had working medications for – I think – 50 years including the obvious methylphenidate and dexamphetamines.
After reading the article and so many like it, I feel frustrated because I think they're predatory. They're targeting neuro-divergent people like myself. And boy, did I fall into those traps over and over again until I enrolled in actual medical treatment.
I'll assume that Jacqueline writes and published this in good faith to a point. My smell-test says otherwise - but please correct me if I'm wrong: The article smells like a classic "authority" post that's designed to generate leads for her mailing-list via the "free"-for-email ebook "YOUR ADHD STRENGTHS" just below. Once singed up I imagine I'll... [conjecture!] get an email drip campaign for a week providing "value" to join her community to eventually be offered an intro offer for $37 with an upsell for $197 etc.
I feel like this might be a dumb question, but what brand of medical professional should you go to? I've discussed with my GP, but those discussions usually don't have any meaningful advice.
I felt like my GP was really only good for getting the ball rolling: I asked her to refer me to a psychologist for testing and she did. To be honest, I think you could skip the GP step and just meet with any clinical psychologist to discuss with that person your concerns about ADHD. Their office should be able to tell you if they can do ADHD testing before you go in. Some psychiatrists may test as well. The difficulty, of course, is that psychologists are often out of pocket or are paid at a reduced rate by insurance.
After the testing is done many GPs are willing to do med management, though it's a pain, since the Federal government requires prescriptions to be for no more than 30 days and you can't refill it more than three days ahead of time. Personally I have my neurologist manage it, but I have epilepsy and it makes sense to me to go to her for all of my brain medications.
IIRC, psychiatrists don't have that tool in their toolbox, so would a psychologist or neurologist be better?
And to be clear, I'm not just looking to get meds. But I'd like to avoid pinging in between different doctors. So if I can go to one that has all available tools at their disposal, that would seem the most straightforward.
I'll comment on this, as a neurologically tested ADHD 30 year old with 2 decades of on/off medication experience.
"Treatment" is a spectrum, unsurprisingly, and a bit of a misnomer. While I'm not completely on board with the "ADHD is actually a superpower" train of thought, I do believe that there are some interesting tradeoffs that having it can benefit in some ways - obviously that's different for every person. If you start throwing away the concept of being binary "treated" or not, you can start thinking in terms of "what is working for me right now". Sometimes being medicated is a life changing benefit, and other times in my life I'm waaay better off without medication.
It's important to distinct the two, because what medication can get you is a better understanding of the daily patterns that work best for you, and it is (in my opinion) the best way to start building that understanding. Sometimes medication is the only way for me to reach a certain place I want to be, and no medication can do the same, but I firmly believe that the habits I build during medicated periods of time help me make the most out of my non medicated periods.
For what it's worth, when I talk about on/off periods -- I was medicated in middle school through high school, took my first two college years off, got back on the next two, final year of college was no medication, got back on for 2ish years when I entered the workforce, then took the next 4 years off. I'm back on it now. I don't really consider week or weekend breaks an off period.
No matter what, any good doctor will want to have you assessed by a psychologist or a psychiatrist. You may want to ask your GP if he or she is willing to prescribe the medicine provided a psychologist/psychiatrist diagnoses you. That's usually the easiest thing to do.
I mean, nobody can really tell you anything about your set of circumstances without you giving info. For some people under the NHS, with good doctors, they go to their GP and the GP listens to their reasons why and then refers them to a psychiatrist who can diagnose them formally, and they are given other interrim support in the meantime, along with the necessary doctors notes to explain things to work or whatever is required.
However, for other people whose GPs are overworked or just incompetent, they could be met with something like "Well you don't seem like you have that" (Personally, I had this with a fatigue problem I was experiencing).
The solution to this is already built-in to the NHS. You are allowed to choose your primary care provider. The solution is to do what most people with disabilities learn to do -- you "shop around" doctors until you find one that genuninely gives a shit about you and wants to work with you to help you diagnose and cure your ailments. While it can feel dirty, and sometimes mean to the individual doctors -- many incompetent people still have the best intentions -- ultimately they are there to help you and your health and quality of life is the primary concern here.
If you're worried it'll make you seem like you're looking for a diagnosis you'd like, be honest and up-front with them. Say, "I have a hypothesis that I have ADHD, I'm looking to have it confirmed or rejected, and in the latter case, to be directed towards a better one. Here is why I believe I may have ADHD...".
Here's what worked for me (EU) after suspecting ADHD early last year:
1. I searched for and found a local psychotherapist who is specialized in ADHD and had experience with adults[^1]
2. We met and went through several weeks of testing that resulted in a specific diagnosis[^2]
3. She referred me to a local psychiatrist who I've since worked with in regards to medication[^3] As stated below, psychotherapists can NOT (EU) prescribe medication.
Things I had wished I knew before:
1. To work with a psychotherapist in parallel because the diagnosis was both, very liberating and de-stabilizing and needed space to discuss. In my experience, the psychiatrist is NOT your talking buddy but a professional who you work together to find a treatment that works for you.
2. To not expect family or friends to understand the (positive) impact diagnosis and treatment have on you.
Hope this helps!
- [^1] While I also think that it's important to highlight and discuss "Adult" ADHD because we're adults here, it's the same underlying neuro-genetic disorder, so I don't personally make the distinction often
- [^2] See "Types" at https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/facts.html
- [^3] I'm intentionally vague here mostly to not suggest or recommend a specific class or product.
I then was referred to a psychiatrist to discuss treatment and to an ADHD coach.
I do know people who have gotten a very quick diagnosis with a 20 minutes questionnaire but I wanted to actually be sure of the diagnosis and not being diagnosed with ADHD just because I somehow self convinced myself that I had it by reading online.
I think your ADHD got the best of you today, because the comment you're replying to suggests working with a psychiatrist. :)
I don't feel guilty about not finishing books because most of the times if I force myself to finish a book that I don't find interesting enough, I don't remember the information in the book anyway.
Over time I have learned to trust my brain, and figured that it will remember the important parts I read. If the book bores me then probably there is nothing interesting in it for me.
Most of my life I read books without taking notes, and I would go through them thinking that I understand everything, but in the end I would miss deeper connections and wouldn't connect them to the information I already possess.
Now, I read non-fiction books with taking notes and taking notes makes me stop and think about what I am reading and enables me to make deeper connections with what I already know and improves retaining. Also shifting from reading to note taking and going back helps my ADD brain. I read a couple books at a time, and when I get bored of one, I shift to another one that interests me. I choose my books around one topic, and this topical similarity makes my ADHD a boon because this way I can make those books talk to each other and improve my understanding of the subject. I used to take all my notes longhand before, but now I type really fast and writing longhand feels antiquated now. I also love to be able to search my notes and use my notes as a second-brain.
I read both from kindle and paper-books. The change from kindle to paper also helps my brain. The variety increases my concentration.
When I am reading fiction, I try to visualize everything I read because if I stop visualizing, it turns into eye training, I think other things, or just read and don't remember anything. If I figure out I am eye training instead of reading, I stop reading the book and come back later.
I hope this helps.
This is a great example. I liked this book, but it could have been a blog article, or hell, even a single sentence: Konmari can also apply to obligations.
I love books that make me think along, and take me a lot of time to finish. James N. Frey's How to write a damn good novel is my example for that kind of book.
I would love to hear the books you have studied thoroughly.
Rarely, when I come across an interesting sentence structure or a great way to express an idea I write the exact words that is in the books.
Usually, I paraphrase what I have read, and jot down why I find it worthwhile. If the idea leads to new ones I follow those as well. I used to skip these thoughts because I thought reading the book was more important, but now I am focused on getting the most out of a book and following my thoughts, and thinking about the information is part of it.
Before, the title of the notes used to be the book's title and I would organize my notes based on titles. But for a couple years I have been taking notes around subjects. Since I also read around subjects, my note taking and my reading support each other nicely. If you consider starting to take notes while you are reading, I'd suggest going with subject based organization. If a note can be part of more than one subject, I copy the note to the other notebooks.
This subject based note taking also helps with understanding my interests, because some subjects grow dramatically while others grow marginally.
It also works as an early alert system when you are slacking off on areas you have to know but skip because you find them boring. This early alert system is extremely important for people with ADHD. I don't know about you, but I tend to over-focus on areas that I find interesting and don't touch areas that I don't. Then I try to make the areas that are important more interesting.
Occasionally I’ll also use an index card as a bookmark and write page numbers with 1-2 word summaries of big ideas.
For me, there is a big difference of how effective the meds are during the week because I have gone light over the weekends.
Establishing and sticking to a formal program to read books is literally the hardest thing he could do, but when he finds a book he likes, he'll stay up late to read it, and would stay up all night if we let him.
The best thing my parents did raising me (and it wasn't easy) was to put a lot of effort into exposing me to books I was interested in and to exercise a very light hand in terms of how late into the night I read. The combination of reading habits and a practiced ability to educate myself from books has served me very well in the decades since. It's operated as both a coping mechanism for the drawbacks of ADHD (such as habitual inattention to in-person communication) and, as my other skills have caught up, a key tool that some of my peers are lacking.
Daily routines were more difficult for me, and took a set of experiments in my early 20s (think daily alarms/calendar events on the order of "wake up" ... "work out"... "eat breakfast" ... "take shower/brush teeth" increments) to really lock into place (although they have taken a blow in the last year).
Despite the cost, doing the full neuro-psych evaluation was the best thing we've ever done. It helped us (the parents) really get insight into how his brain was working, which completely reset our own ideas of how to best help him.
More seriously, I think that people have a tendency to mix up broad, high-level symptoms of ADHD with the more specific ways that those symptoms manifest for them.
For some (not all) people with ADHD, acting on their motivations is very difficult; so the technique they come up with to help is to either drastically increase their motivation (moving up deadlines and hyper-stressing about tasks, or rewarding themselves, or whatever), or to try and decrease the barriers of entry to the task (automating parts of it, getting help from another person, etc...)
So it sounds like this author falls somewhat into that category, and one of the specific reasons they've found for them personally that's a barrier to reading is guilt over the idea that they aren't finishing books. And what they've done is given themselves permission not to finish books, which allows them to read more overall. Which, great. Genuinely glad that works, and it might work for other people too.
But lots of people who fall into that category of struggling with executive dysfunction are not going to have the same barriers over reading. For many of them, turning reading into a chore will actually be counterproductive. Having a document that you forget to review every week might increase guilt. "Read to find one improvement" might not even line up with why they're motivated to read books in the first place.
And that's obviously ignoring that ADHD also covers people who struggle with inattentiveness and other problems that could also be a barrier to reading more -- but the point is, just because a solution works for one person with ADHD, it might not be applicable even to other people who are struggling with the same problem, because the general issue "I can't act on my motivations" is still going to manifest differently and have different solutions depending on what the individual's barriers are to a specific task.
Try telling a deaf or blind person that their assistance devices are "crutches" they'll eventually not need and see how that works out. Would you say a paraplegic in a wheelchair is an addict? Do you expect them to somehow magically grow legs and be able to walk, if they could just "give up" the chair?
That's what accusing people who need pharmaceuticals to function sounds like. It's implying they are morally inadequate for needing their drugs.
Right now people like me with ADHD can easily get drugs. But why should I assume I might not be struck by misfortune. If I end up poor and on the street, unable to afford nice drugs. If I have learned how to manage without a drug that would genuinely help me I’d probably be better off in that case.
Saying he is shaming those who use drugs is just covering your ears and wanting to pretend that there are no negative effects. Me saying if you learn to live without Netflix you’ll have more fun when the power goes out, isn’t meant to say Netflix is a wrong way to entertain yourself, simply that if you rely on it for entertainment it can be hard to find entertainment if the lights turn off.
Calling it an addiction, doesn’t mean that addiction is worse than the alternative. By reacting as you do, you paint addictions as something reprehensible and shame those who have them.
Perhaps, but it's a non sequitur -- A says "medication", B immediately says "addict"?? -- and especially with the first two sentences it presents like somebody with a "psychopharmacology is an evil conspiracy" axe to grind.
My second point is that we have a system where the capitalist incentive structure is driving the drug seeking. People need these drugs to “function” only in the sense of attaining better wages or holding a job. That has nothing to do with medical need. It is capitalism perverting medicine, defining mental health as employability seems misguided at best.
Lastly, neurolink. Do the the math.
I reject this entirely. The same meds give patients the ability to pursue their hobbies, self-care, and lifelong learning effectively, which can be vital for self-esteem, quality of life, and avoiding depression.
So I do see ADHD medication as similar to eyeglasses or hearing aids. A correction for the way our brains work.
Most of the time, I can't function. I'm exactly as they describe they are without medication. The only way I get through it is by doing things that need to be done faster.
And thankfully for me it's not as hard to focus on programming. Actually programming is probably the thing I'm best at, despite my inattentiveness costing me. It's everything else that is the issue.
Marriage made that harder. Kids even more so. Meds made it so much easier to have consistent productivity.
So people without ADHD, take Ritalin, hit 5, get a buzz, smash out that project.
Then there's people with ADHD, who're starting at -5. They take the drugs, hit 0, don't get a buzz, and maybe actually start that project now that they're better able to ignore the delights of Wikipedia articles on the role of headwear for class signaling in Victorian England.
There's people who take morphine to get high, and there's people who take morphine to treat pain. Same shit.
If you've a better one, please do share.
> 1. Create a Word or Google document to track your books if spreadsheets fill you with fear.
> 2. You don’t need to read the whole book. Write down your ONE thing from the part of the book you did read.
> 3. Review the document weekly, to keep the ideas fresh in your mind.
> 4. If you find that you stopped implementing your ONE thing, go back to the book and either continue reading where you had left off or reread the part that you already read.
I'll go read the entire article some other time.
I built a whole business around giving straightforward answers. I remove superfluous text, and I use formatting to make my content easier to skim. There's no clickbait, no cookie notice, no newsletter prompt, no author bio and no sidebar content. There's just you and the answer you came for, and it loads in under 500 milliseconds.
This is working so well that it makes me wonder why other websites go out of their way to hide their answers. When I have simple gardening questions ("how much sun does [plant] need?", I have to click 3-4 results and scroll a few pages to get the answer. Even with a finely tuned ad blocker, the experience is infuriating.
oh, btw: haven't you forgotten to mention the Outbrain Ads that look like articles in the bottom of the page?
Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book provides a decent framework for dealing with the variety of books out there. There are also tools like Polar[1] that provide an easy way to do incremental reading[2] which may help when attacking a book piece by relevant piece.
With my last book, I expanded on a couple areas in a new edition and I feel better about the overall information density. But in the original, I definitely felt I was padding here and there to hit a page target.
I like the idea, not because I dislike reading, but because it's handy to have an "idea map" of a book. The ToC is ostensibly that, but it's hard to figure out what their points are from the titles alone.
Wish I could remember what the company was called, but whatever. Haven't used them myself, but it struck me as a neat concept.
For people who want to actually get through books, I'd recommend this tool [1], which I created several years back. It has become fairly popular in the ADHD world and is recommended at top universities (Stanford/Yale/Dartmouth) to students with ADHD and dyslexia. It works with Kindle books as well as many websites.
The Chrome extension comes with a 2-week free pass and I'm happy to send a month-long pass to any HNers out there who can benefit from it.
1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-reader/ifj...
1: https://www.insightbrowser.com
2: https://programaudioseries.com/0-the-program-comes-for-us-al...
Imagine reading Moby Dick, and the author goes into a long boring diatribe about 19th century cetology. If you're sitting at home reading a physical book, pushing through is a long, difficult process that requires continuous effortful willpower. But when you're running a 10km, at worst you just zone out util the chapter's done. It's not like you have anything else to do. Sure, it's not optimal in terms of reading retention, but it's better than giving up completely because you can't force yourself to turn the pages.
I really do need a book in text form, because it allows me full control over how quickly or in what order I consume it. I learned a long time ago that reading books linearly doesn't work for me, so reading as I do involves a thorough look at the table of contents, then a lot of skimming and jumping back and forth to find the most interesting/stimulating bits and assembling that into a coherent view of the book.
I also listen to lectures and so on at higher speeds! People I know think I'm crazy when they walk in and hear someone yammering about some dev topic in a chipmunk's voice, but I just get so impatient with slower speech.
I now have a lot of unused Audible credits because of the recent lockdown here which is lifting on Friday!
I always describe multitasking this way as needing two different stimuli. I need something to engage my brain, and something to engage my body. I went though a phase of learning a Rubik's Cube while watching movies. That helped me focus greatly while it lasted.
I try to slot everything I can into one of those two categories. Things that take little thought, and things that require little physical action. Then I can mix and match them.
The advice in the article pertains specifically to non-fiction, didactic literature, and hints that most books of this nature really are full of fluff. For those there's a few take-aways that you could have gotten from a concise article, instead of getting stuck in someone's ramblings.
Don't you just scan ahead and jump to the next bit? I have a problem with doing this with novels I like, if it's getting intense then I'll want to skip/scan-read to get to the next tranche of "action". I do the same with TV/films, if there's a filler scene, just skip to the next scene.
This for me is the true value of much literature as it applies to me personally. Of course, on a basic level this is perhaps not quite as rewarding as reading a book cover to cover and becoming intimately acquainted with all the characters, stories, facts, figures, and/or arguments inside. But in my approach to a life filled with an absolute abundance of ideas from so many brilliant minds - indeed, there are most likely more men and women of utter genius alive today than have existed in the whole of antecedent human history - I decided that it would be a shame not to become acquainted with as many perspectives and ideas as possible. Sure, I sacrifice the rewards that come with truly coming to understand some objects in depth, but my hope has been that in doing so I have assumed some breadth in the understanding of the world, its affairs, and a great many of its inhabitants' ideas.
Here is the one thing, that works for me, if I must read a text:
While reading I use a Text-To-Speech-Engine to read out the text at the same time. TTS-reading speed should be at least 1.5x. It should not be too easy to keep up.
I have no explanation why this works, but it does. Maybe someone else with ADHD finds it useful.
I've found that the ideal accompaniments to audiobook listening are taking a walk and playing Nuclear Throne, which is the only video game that I've both found to be endlessly engaging, and requires absolutely no cognition. It's $12, runs on windows/mac/linux, has DRM-free versions available, and would probably perform adequately on your toaster.
If anyone knows of other games that work in this niche, please share. As much as I love occupying my hands with Nuclear Throne, I wouldn't mind mixing things up.
Reading novels is not a chore for me, depending. I typically find an author I like and then read the the hell out of his writing. Stephen King short stories are a pretty good place to start imo if you want to get into reading (again), though I started with Vonnegut myself.
I am a famous re-reader of books btw. Its like slipping into a comfortable "another world" for me. Pure escape.
The benefits of ADHD far outweigh any of the negatives for me. I wouldn't trade the Hyperfocus I possess when I drive and/or race with being able to tell my right from left (without consciously thinking which hand I write with) or being able to find my way across towns without navi For ANY amount of money.
I did try ADHD meds for a few weeks once--but it wasn't for me. I am who and what I am.
But in those that do, it's like a superpower. I spent several years training my hyperfocus to the point where, barring externalities like lack of sleep or food, I can engage it at will.
For challenging or creative tasks, it's like a superpower. I can go at levels far past most people's ability to focus. My entire mind will be engaged and thriving at full blast. Presentations, writing, designing, and creating I can do as easily as breathing.
There are real downsides, but I wouldn't trade them for anything.
Please do share your suggestions. Hyperfocus isn't the problem for people suffering ADHD. It's applying hyperfocus selectively on worthwhile tasks. "Neurotypicals'" best advice is usually "you just have to will it".
How I implemented this was to find a job that required me to take a train into work. This train was light commuter rail, only about 25 minutes. I brought a laptop with me and would sit with it balanced on my lap in a shaking (sometimes quite loud) train. At first it was very difficult to get into focus, but over a year I just found it easier and easier.
I think if I was to do it again, I'd probably find some dumb reason to leave the house every day. Perhaps I'd never keep breakfast food in the house and have to go walk or drive to the store every day for that day's breakfast, then sit in the parking lot or store cafe for thirty minutes. Perhaps I'd make a daily Starbucks routine, ensuring I'm there thirty minutes early every day. Or I'd convince myself to get to work early to beat the traffic, but then sit in the parking lot for 30 minutes.
It doesn't much matter how, all that matters is outcome.
What you're describing sounds a lot like the concept of "Deep Work" as popularized by Cal Newport. Unfortunately this is exactly where people with ADHD fail (or maybe it's just me).
I've been trying to set up a work routine, like the one you describe, for years now. Without much success so far. It doesn't even matter how high the stakes are or how close the deadline looms, I simply can't "force" myself to focus. It feels like every day the dices are rolled anew.
For over 20 years now, I've also been (on and off) trying to practice meditation and mindfulness even before this got popular and I still can't go 2 minutes without my thoughts wandering to what I want to do next.
But I nevertheless respect your effort and the results you achieved. There's a current thread about the application of Psylocybin to depression. Perhaps that one is interesting to you as well:
I am currently willing to try anything (except drugs) to help my attention. Pomodoro and meditation have helped me enormously in the past. But now, with kids at home, everything has taken a beating.
I'm very proud in some ways, so training my mind is satisfying to me on several levels. I love knowing that short of a knock on the head, no one can take this away from me, that I've forged this thing myself. It's only mine, can't be faked or bought, only earned through hard work. That's appealing to me. Likewise, I train my body, with heavy lifting, grueling rucking, challenging gymnastics, and fast running. I love that I can change parts of this form I inhabit to be my own, both inside and out. Sure I still have to wear my glasses and get sick etc, but I get a tremendous joy improving those things I can.
When I’m not sure if interested, I read texts like a prefix stream in JPEG-decoding: look only at the first sentence in a paragraph. If it hooks me, I’ll read the next. Otherwise skip to next paragraph.
It is yet faster than reading every noun as in regular cursory reading.
Honestly who cares if you finish a book. There's no magic in just turning the pages to the end of the book. The question to ask is: what new ideas did I acquire?
Books don't have the ease of re-use. There's too much friction involved with a book. So I read whatever I please and give up frequently. Reducing this friction, in every domain, but especially in the sciences would have big impacts on my contributions to the field. If you could visualise and make learning slippery, ADHD people would likely perform much better. But the diligence is still needed. My musical ability has benefited enormously from knowing what I'm playing and recording the things I do play. The same thing can apply with learning. Technology can really shine at doing all of the boring stuff that your irregularly dopamine-ized brain refuses to do. We just havent gotten around to doing it. But it is necessary if you want to do great work.
For ones I've already read, they're in a shelf right behind me. Not line of sight, but a 180 degree turn. Same as my guitar. It works very well. (It took a while to get my partner used to books lying around everywhere, but it was worth it)
Some examples of books I keep going back to many times over and still find valuable as someone with ADHD:
- "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu - Any time I'm on any kind of competitive game kick or just thinking about competing in general, I always find something applicable to my situation. It's super short too.
- Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" - it's massive and not something I could ever read straight through - but it's so dense with interesting applications of a super simple concept (and great images of those applications), I can jump between the chapters and get something interesting to chew on every time.
- "The Federalist Papers", and also "The anti-federalist papers": They're great from a "oh, so this is why America is set up like this" perspective, and also from a "Let's see how close or off these guys were from predicting the future on specific topics! (ie, economic and social predictions mostly). I also like that the English used is not actually terribly hard to understand, despite being older.
- "Learn to Read New Testament Greek" - Really great smaller intro book to Koine greek with good exercises inline. Greek is one of those languages that shows up in so many places, that it's really satisfying to see it in historical perspective and then learn to recognize it elsewhere. This book also scratches some of my personal interests around the history of early christianity.
I also do the same process for some religious texts (New Testament and Nag Hammadi Scriptures).
Just as you said, things that require pure diligence don't usually work out for people with ADHD, but some books out there are straight up great for dopamine if you can find them. I think the core tings to look for are:
1. Super information dense yet still good for jumping around and digesting small pieces. You shouldn't have to re-learn the core premise every time.
2. Should feel different and novel when you come back to them after time away. Some of the greatest writers, especially philosopher-types, express ideas in an intentionally ambiguous way. They ensure that a part of their intended meaning is accessible to anybody on first read - but the more complete interpretation requires some degree of context and re-reading. A reader's interpretations of texts like that change and grow based on their own life experiences, and as a result it often feels like you are finding new things each time.
Is it aimed for a teenager with low self esteem, or a functionning adult?
Different books needs different levels of attention. An academic article needs several readings, while most articles (this one being a good example) are so crapy that you can decide after 3 paragraphs that the rest is very likely to be crap.
Also we should alway remember that ADHD is a differential diagnostic, which means that you need to deal with all the other possible problems. The comorbidity rate for attention deficit makes one size fits all solutions near impossible. Do you have supportive relationships? Are you in a field which interests you? How is your self esteem and global mental health? Physical health?
My brain is constantly in an obsessive state, meaning that I get an obsession about something and my brain just focuses on that single topic for some variable amount of time (days, weeks, months) until I get a new obsession. I'm quite unable to think (or do) anything else during that time.
Last November I experienced something that I have not experienced before. My mind was at peace. I had no obsession for at least two weeks. It felt amazing, I was so content.
I started to read Wizard of Earthsea, which I finished few days later. Then I read Tombs of Atuan in a few days as well. I read The Farthest Shore about halfway before my brain rebooted into its usual obsessive state. This was the most I'd read in almost 10 years!
I wish I could experience that peace of mind once again.
I keep a bunch of books from all topic( kubernets, python, ML, Design, Investing, HTTP, Cooking) and since my interests fluctuate(one day I like investing the other programming etc) then if today I'm interested in investing, then I'll read a investing book, mark some parts of it to be made into flashcards, mark the boring parts with another color(so I can read later) and then(another day) I make de flashcards and read the boring parts.
I have also noticed that I get 'sick' of a book after reading for some time, then I need to either stop reading or go to read something new.
This is called incremental reading and has significantly increase the amount I read.
on edit: obviously I was able to spend all day reading books back when I was single.
Can you read a book that's necessary, but dull?
Your comment about "as long as the task is interesting enough" is why I ask.
I found the medication made a big difference for me in doing the boring, but needful.
hmm, probably not. I would have to take lots of breaks. probably end up reconsider whatever had taken me to that point in my life I needed to read something dull.
1. Poor reading comprehension.
2. Disqualified completion. Disqualified completion means the inability to differentiate poor completion rates (actually completing the material) from a loss of interest resulting in poor completion thereby believing the material is completely read when either it was never read or is entirely lost from memory.
The behaviors are interesting to observe because the child with ADHD appears to read with ease even if there is nothing to show for it, as in no memory of the material. I have raised children with dyslexia who struggle to read anything but know exactly what they have read, an opposite behavior.
Notes and hints do not appear to be a solution for the ADHD related behaviors. What we are trying to work on is persistence such that an uninteresting focus becomes excruciatingly exhausting very quickly. We try to remove talking, excuses, bullshitting, and unrelated movements from the event of focus to practice increasing focus duration.
Eventually we want to get to a spot where the child can self identify when focus is lost so that they can stop the focused activity at hand, take a quick break, and then resume the activity. We aren’t there yet. The biggest challenge is eliminating excuses and justifications that prioritize the distractions over the activity of focus. In a person without ADHD these sorts of qualifiers would come across as deceit or lies, but for a person with ADHD these behaviors appear to be a self regulator for emotional continuity that occurs arrhythmic to the focus by which emotions are generated.
Does the kid have the same trouble following material heard read aloud that they have for material they are reading themselves?
* * *
Anecdotally the times in the past when I would forget material I was reading came from either being profoundly sleep deprived (e.g. pulling an all-nighter in college) or mentally highly engaged with some other idea/problem and therefore extremely distracted while trying to read.
More recently (I have a 4-year-old) I have been doing lots of reading of kids books, and have developed the new ability to read a familiar (or unfamiliar but simple) picture book aloud including funny voices for all of the characters etc. from start to finish, while working on an unrelated problem in my head, and end up with no memory of what I read in the picture book or what happened.
Reading picture books is apparently (sometimes) now separate enough from my conscious attention that the effect is almost like short-term memory loss.
On an unrelated note playing games with the child results in conditions that look like sleep deprivation. They cannot slow the game down with excess talking or bullshitting and after about 10 minutes become utterly exhausted forgetting the game rules and wanting to lay their head on the board. I do understand that some level of mental fatigue is common to children that age, but it appears intensely amplified in the child with ADHD especially compared to dyslexic children who seem to have a longer period of focus than normal.
It’s not clear to what extent these board game / reading issues are related to ADHD per se. Plenty of people with ADHD are excellent at learning/playing board games and are fast fluent readers with careful attention to detail and excellent retention of what they read.
But what did really work for me:
1. Read the book as soon as I just found it and was interested in it. If it is short I would finish it directly. If it is long I'll eventually fail halfway and it's okay.
2. Top-down reading. Skim through books quickly, multiple rounds, each round goes deeper. In this way, I can stop anytime and still get some insights, instead of stuck in chapter 2 failed and time wasted. I can also always come back later.
3. No additional overheads, no notes, no plan, no to-do lists, or write down 'The One Things'. Try to use the brain instead of tools, tools usually give me leading I hate everything and gave up earlier. Also, practice this way you'll also find brains are better than people perceive them - people used to recite phone numbers.
4. Read when I feel like, at least don't read the same book when I started to struggle - try switch to another book, or else just go out and do anything you want.
In essence: 1) read when you feel like 2) read incrementally so you can stop anytime 3) avoid negative feedback loop
I read for escapism, or to explore other worlds in my imagination. Reading gives me something fantastical to think about. If I want something real to think about I use the internet. Books have never filled that role, and I've never really considered them for it. Am I missing out? Should I try and shake my prejudice against non-fiction?
[1]: Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
Then it told me to continue doing that but write it down when I do, creating a reference of failing attempts at reading a book.
What a strange piece of advice.
Personally, I just use audio books now but still collect paper in hopes some day I'll find the time to sit still
I think what I've decided is that the value from books is an accumulation of some ideas from all the books you read, and you should just set your expectations accordingly. My bet is that people who listen to audiobooks while working on a treadmill desk are just fooling themselves into thinking they've lived a sufficiently productive life, when really you should really read on your own accord, and go to the gym; getting to the end of a book isn't remotely as important as getting the value you set out to get from the text.
TL:DR; "I finished x books this month" is worthless, determine the value a book has before or during your reading of it, and adjust accordingly.
My problem isn't the actual reading of words or the investment of time. There are stimulants that work wonders for me and allow me to do it.
It's the parsing of all the unnecessary information to get to the point of the material. Part of that might be because I'm on the spectrum and struggle with understanding context, though.
Fun anecdote: 30% of people with ADHD/ADD are somewhere on the spectrum; 70% of those on the spectrum are ADHD/ADD.
For some personality types, it's easy to get intensely interested in reading something, but it can be hard to keep up that intensity.
I built a web app for making goal boards, and it's perfect for getting yourself to read a little bit every day https://javaboards.com
non-fiction: read chapters last to first / back to front. there is usually only one big idea and most of the book is the writer sounding it out themselves.
fiction: treat it like a piece of music. If it's not as good as music, let it go.
technical: start with a hypothesis and use the book as a reference tool for discovery.
spiritual: the bible and others are the thinking person's magic 8-ball, so if you are searching, you are searching when you should probably be listening.
why not intrigue the reader in the first paragraph ( with actual content ( the ONE thing concept, (badly summarized : learn something useful and feel free to get distracted or go away)) not a description of a common behaviour )
..than go deeper explaining the concept instead of buring it deep in the page ?
I also find myself saving things to read, because I struggle to read them while sitting, but never quite get around to reading everything.
* Borrow books from a library to put an artificial time limit on your reading
* Use a bullet journal or similar note taking system to keep a list of things you want to read, so that something on the list will grab your interest
* Use an e-ink device, not so much for the display, but because it'll be less likely to have other distractions and more likely to let you jump right back into where you were in a book quickly.
I think it gets at the same thing this article is getting at: have an objective for reading.
And btw, it works for other habits too. Having goals or milestones to strive for.
I thought of my personality, my interest shifting to various things as my shortcoming, but I will apply the concept of "One Thing" to my life and try to gather information what is useful to me from my daily life.
Step 2: download original source books on LibGen. E.g., complete works of Kant.
Step 3: keyword search to find relevant passages.
I read so many books now. Let's go ride bikes!
I’m an avid reader and in spite of my ADHD, I manage to read hundreds of pages a week (if not a day), between books, stuff online, and periodicals.
My tips:
Embrace reading multiple things at once. I’m often in the middle of three or four different books at once. Some I’ll finish immediately and some I’ll let sit for ages.
When returning to a book or long magazine article or something you haven’t finished, don’t be afraid to go back a bit to refresh yourself. I sometimes take notes in my Kindle app to remind myself where I left off. I have an eidetic/photographic memory (yes, yes , I’m aware claims of both are disputed but I’ve been tested many times over the years and have a better than average memory and the ability to recall where things were on a page/details about what I read long after I read it — provided I found the subject matter interesting), so I can often recall where I was once I get my context again, but sometimes it’s helpful to have a note about the context attached to where I left off.
I tend to try to read fiction relatively quickly, either consuming it all at once or over a few successive days. When I’m reading fiction, I try to keep myself to one fiction book at a tile. Whereas with non-fiction, I can often juggle multiple books at once and even leave non-fiction books for months before I finish them.
Audiobooks are amazing. I can read significantly faster than an audiobook, but it requires a lot more concentration. I can’t listen to audiobooks while doing another focus-heavy task (like writing or coding), but I can play a game or build a keyboard or do something else with my hands while listening to an audiobook. That can really help me focus because half my brain is doing something else “mindless” and I can really get sucked into the book.
On that same note, Audm, a service that does professional voice readers for newspaper and magazine content (from sources like The New Yorker, Wired, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Atlantic), is probably my favorite subscription. I subscribe to many of the news sources Audm covers, but I find myself much more able to consume the content aurally. Back in beforetimes, Audm replaced podcasts on my daily commute to work.
I also find having a dedicated reading device like a Kindle or an Onyx Boox device really nice because it gives me one less way to get distracted by a notification on my phone.
I used to frequently send Instapaper articles to my Kindle and I don’t do that anymore, but I do read nearly every book I can on either my Kindle or my larger Onyx Boox Note Air (it’s good for technical papers or legal documents), because it helps me focus more.
Don’t feel compelled to finish. If something isn’t clicking, go to something else. You can come back to it or just say “fuck it.” Reading should be for pleasure, above all. Yes, there are sometimes things we need to read for our jobs, but this whole notion of adults trying to feel compelled to read on a schedule like in high school or college is stupid. Read for pleasure. If something isn’t pleasurable, stop.
If you don't accept that you are going to fail at certain things or at certain times, then your failures will feel like your fault -- if only you had tried harder, if only you had worked more. By accepting that you have real limitations and will sometimes fail, each new failure doesn't have such a strong sting anymore. Instead, you are able to recognize it isn't your fault; you can pass the blame to your disorder, so to speak. Then, redefining what success means for you allows you to celebrate victories again. Ten years ago I never would have considered things like "I haven't been late to a meeting in two weeks" as a success to be celebrated, but now I do, so I'm able to extract some sort of satisfaction out of life with this janky brain instead of a never-ending series of disappointments.
Somewhat satirical with a hint of truth - the article purports to solve the problem of ADHD reading stacks. It did so in a long windy form going all over the place which is generally the opposite of it's own advice. My summary fixes that by applying the article's premise to itself.
I generally have strong agreement with the article. This is as someone that has a significant amount of partially read kindle titles on the go right now and who recently managed to get his browser open tab count down to single digits for the first time in years.