Rhythms of Focus

Summary
This episode explores how ADHD and wandering minds can make “I don’t wanna” feelings so strong that even writing a dreaded obligation down feels difficult because, in doing so, we are admitting it exists.
To get over this hurdle, I introduce a foundational skill from the WAVES method called anchoring. This technique allows us to pause and write down what is happening and the pathhs available to us in the now.
We treat these items as options rather than tasks that fill us with overwhelm. When ready, we prepare to “launch” into an action by giving ourselves the choice of where to give our attention in the moment.
We end with a reflective piano piece called “Caregiver.”

Transcript
But if I write it down, that means I have to do it.
One of the struggles of ADHD, wandering minds and beyond is that it can be terribly complex navigating the, I don't want to feelings, for example. Maybe we get caught in the sense of where they come from, or more often than not, we're trying to outsmart them. Of course, that can lead to its own troubles. So what do we do?
"I don't wanna" feelings can run deep. Have a listen to episode nine to get a sense of what they can be about. One place they crop up is in even admitting that something exists. A report, the taxes, whatever it is, can become so dreaded that even writing them down becomes a terrifying enterprise. If we write it down that means we would admit to ourselves that there's this thing to do.
As odd as that might seem, it's simply human. We can expand that notion to the world of therapy, for example, if we give voice to a problem, maybe we're making it worse. I think we inherently, naturally gut level, know, that as we pay attention to something, some emotion, something that's stirring the back of mind, barely cresting into consciousness, we start to give it a form.
Words, thoughts themselves are this cresting of the emotions, this consolidation, crystallizing of them into our minds. "Did I just say something dumb in that conversation? Well, if I don't call it out, maybe no one will notice."
The same idea happens within us, even if there's no one to see, but ourselves.
One of the foundational skills in the WAVES approach to practicing ADHD, is that of anchoring. It's a simple pen and paper technique that I'll give you the rudiments of right now.
It's probably something you've done before, but didn't realize that there were some unwritten rules that were around it, and so it maybe faded out and you wondered what happened to it. You may have felt that success, but then it was fleeting, illusionary, like so many others.
But once you know its rules, well, then you can start to practice it. And you can use it at any time. You don't have to use it. It's there when you feel like it. It's particularly helpful when feeling scattered, confused, exhausted, really any negative emotion really. Or even a positive one if you wanna feel like I wanna focus a little more strongly in this direction or the other and not get lost on some rabbit trail.
So here's the technique:
First is to pause. Probably the hardest bit of all of this.
Secondly, if you have a pad of paper, you can use that as this anchor. If you, uh, don't already have this pad of paper around, you can, start a new one. It could be the back of an envelope if you like that.
Next, write in some attempt to acknowledge what your options are of this moment. Grounding yourself in the reality of where you are now. And we're doing this without following through on doing them.
You might have an idea, you might have a feeling, but consider any of these possibilities:
One, what are you doing in this moment? If you're multitasking, what are those multiple tasks? Or maybe you're spending time with someone at the moment, you can write the option to pay attention to them.
Secondly, what might be pulling at you? For example, maybe there's something you're hoping to remember to do. Examples might be something you want to do, something you might impulsively do. Maybe there's something that's gnawing at you, something you feel like you need to do.

I like to use the mnemonic wind. WIND: Want, Impulse, Need and Drift or Do Nothing. So these ideas that are in your mind in this moment might feel like you are about to brainstorm, but this is not brainstorming.
Brainstorming is where you're associating. You're connecting one idea to the next, pulling to mind what might be there lurking there, but you're connecting one thing after the next saying, oh yeah, there's this I can do and that I can do it, et cetera.
Well, you could do that if you want, but uh, I might look at that as a form of in indulgence, if you will. It's in the meditational way of speaking. You're inviting a process to tea. To manage this, to avoid the brainstorming part of it, rather than feel like you have to hold back or something, you can write down the option to brainstorm.
Now that leaves then whatever is on our mind in this moment, including the option to brainstorm. Something else might come to mind, like something that you don't want to do right now. Something that doesn't make sense to do right now.
Well, you could write that down on the side. Maybe cordon it off and say, okay, that's for later. Maybe you're wondering what's on my to-do list. Lemme go there first and take a look. Well, that'd be something of an indulgence too.
Rather than dive there, you could write down consult to-do list. Now that's an option. The idea is that you are consulting your own mind. Now you might wonder what to do if something else comes to mind, something to develop, something to get into. Again, give those a separate space if you like.
A Today List. Sometimes you have one to two things that come to mind. Sometimes five or ten, maybe more. But at some point you've reflected where your mind is in this moment, and that's the moment you've anchored. Now there's a next phase to this if you'd like.
So now that you've anchored, there's also this idea of launching. So anchor and launch. So we get to this fourth step, which is where launch begins, which is at any point, circle an option that you feel makes sense to be with now and attempt to be with that thing you've circled.
And of course, you might wonder, what if I wander off? I'd be willing to bet that you'd wander off even the moment that you've circled it. Say, oh yeah, I'll come back to that. That's part of it.
What you can do, if and when you catch yourself wandering, I should say, return to the beginning and consider adding where you wandered off as a new option on your anchor pad. What that does is then it helps you to align yourself with your intentions.
It might take one time, two times. Might take several times, but somewhere things start to align. Lastly. When that anchor no longer represents the now, and this is important, and this is one of the places you may have gone off the rails with this that it didn't work out for you. Feel free to add things, cross things off.
Make them once again reflect the now and once it does not reflect the now, get rid of it, archive it, discard it, trash it, whatever makes sense. If there's something important on there that you wanna remember, okay.
Where do you trust that you would be able to come back to that? Maybe you just title it differently and say, this is an important thing, and you put that off to the side somewhere. That would be part of another type of practice.
Figuring out longer task lists and communicating with future you at a longer distance than what we're doing here now. Whatever it is, if that paper is no longer representative of the now, your mind in this moment, it's no longer an anchor.
Now this all might seem simple, and it is in some ways, but so is meditation, which in particular for wandering minds can be quite difficult. Fortunately, I find this much easier than the typical rest your mind on your breath type of meditation.
But one of the major muscles that are practiced in this is that as you're writing something down, here in this anchoring process, you're doing so as options, not tasks, and this is one of the important muscles to exercise.
A wandering mind tends to be zoomed in the periphery, the short term memory, that's all in short supply. Working memory, what we play with in this moment is in full blast. As a result, thoughts can pass by and we know they're short-lived and we'll lose them quickly.
If you've ever used a microscope, you can understand. If you see something, it's like, oh, better not lose it. The nature of the mind being a lens itself is that you forget that you've lost something. And as a result, we tend to hold onto things, jump from one thing to the next in near instant calculation of, do I have the momentum? Do I have the motivation to do it? Is this more important than what I'm doing? Or it might all boil down to this is shinier on fire and there's seemingly no thought process.
You may even find yourself there without having realized it. So when you do catch a thought, it immediately becomes this burden. It's this, I have to do this while it's on my mind. But because it can be so heavy, this affront to sense of agency, we might decide well, maybe I can let it go. If it's important enough, it'll come back to me.
Whether by floating back again into mind or by urgency of a deadline or somebody reminds you, whether we do it or not isn't the issue. It's that we're forced to make this decision then and there.
Because of that zoomed in nature of the mind,...

This episode focuses on the struggle of the blank page. How it can seem like a hack to use pre-existing content to spring us forward to a starting point that isn't "nothing."
But it can also build limitations to create something new and exciting when boxing ourselves in with the ideas of our previous work, past notes, or even AI. What seems like a great way to jump ahead can turn into a confusing mess that feels like it's missing your own voice.
The blank page is terrifying because it mirrors self-doubt, distraction, and exhaustion. Yet prematurely searching outside oneself can narrow thinking, block new paths, and reduce creation to what already exists.
Vitality in art comes from discovery and play—a resonance between self and world—rather than repeating what’s been done. Research and AI can be useful, but the unique seed of an idea must begin from within. Even the worst rough drafts are a necessary fertilizer for growth through revision.
We end with a piece called "Where Did the Table Go?"

##Transcript
The Anxiety of Starting from Scratch
All right, I gotta write this thing. I gotta make this thing. How can I make this thing with as little time as possible? Okay, maybe I'll ask AI. Okay. I look through my past notes, I'll research what I've already done. Minutes go by. Oh, what is this? What am I, I can't, no, this doesn't make sense. Hours go by. This is a mess.
We all have things we need to create the work, the repeated work, the blank page. There's schools of thought around writing, for instance, that promise never having to work from the blank page.
We can dive into our past notes nicely cultivated, and pull out some inspiration. Or perhaps we have a project we can pull up the mighty internet or the promises of AI to outline the work for us. But then something can feel missing.
What is that? What's missing is us, the creative self. Why would we run from that? But there's some reason. That blank page can be terrifying. It holds up this mirror that says what you think you're creative? Do you think you know what you're talking about? Do you know how many other people know more than you about whatever it is you think you're talking about?
Every comment pummels us as we sit further and further back into the chair, if we can even manage to stay there. A wandering mind, ADHD or beyond can certainly find reason to run here. Distraction, exhaustion, collapse all nipping at our heels, if they haven't gotten us already.
One of our methods of relieving that tension is in the search for what's come before. Un-blank, the page.

The Complications of Pre-Existing Paths
But there's so many troubles that can come from other paths of premature search. If we look at existing research our mind is pulled to what exists. If we look at past notes, we might block new paths. If we ask AI, we really only see the average of what already exists.
Whatever it is, we lose the seed of discovery in creation and it is in discovery where we find vitality. When I play a piece of music that I've played a hundred times before without variation, there's no feeling in it. It gives both me and the audience a headache.
When I can play with a sense of finding something new, well, now we're talking. That sense of vitality comes through in the notes. That's what we're listening for. That's what feeds back on itself.
But discovery itself is only an artifact. Its vitality comes from play. Something deep within a connection and exploration of self and world reacting, but guiding. A creative building sense of fulfillment, meaning, and more. In other words, discovery is a resonance between world and self building from within.

Nurturing the Seed
It's not to say that research, previous writings or even AI should not be consulted. On the contrary, any one of these can be powerful themselves, bulging with their own caches of knowledge and more.
But the seed of an idea, a sentence, a blurry vision from within is where it all begins. While a conceived egg is tiny, it is so powerfully unique unto itself. It can gather whatever it can from womb to world, from that epicenter, all the while remaining powerfully unique unto itself.
So for a moment, it's useful to hold that tension of the blank page and see what comes to mind. Of course, you might be worried, what if it's terrible? What if there's nothing unique? What if I've got nothing to offer?
Where There is Shit There is Growth
In the wonderful words of Earnest Hemingway, "The first draft of anything is shit." And what I love about that phrase is the dual meaning. The first draft is no good for consumption. Whatever is, there is a sketch, a start, maybe even ugly.
But shit is also a fertilizer. It's what gives the ground the nutrients of growth. We need it to be there for the second and third drafts and beyond where matters flower and bloom.
We visit and revisit building and practicing facing the blank page to write again. Somewhere something is written, but beyond something changes within ourselves, as we practice, we create ourselves. And maybe that's even scarier. That's the pause for bravery. But when we can. We can start from within and go from there, because that's where it's alive.

Where Did the Table Go
Titles for music seems silly when I realize I've created a new piece. I tend to sit in silence for a moment after playing it, and I wait until some title comes to mind. Sometimes it makes sense, though many times it doesn't, and I keep crafting it. This is part of the art itself, I suppose. So while I had a previous piece called, "Where Did the Table Go?", well, this one perhaps, surprisingly, came to mind as I think I found the table. I hope you enjoy it.
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I am delighted to be joined by speaking coach and producer Rachel Hanfling, who has coached everyone from shy speakers to Fortune 500 leaders to help them find their authentic voice.
In fact, she was instrumental in helping me shape my course, “Being Productive,” and the ADHD-focused adaptation that came after. We discuss how people with wandering minds often struggle to express ourselves under pressure and how effective speaking is a learnable skill requiring guided practice, not an innate trait.
We discuss communication with a focus on the wandering mind. Hanfling shares how the foundation of helping anyone sound like the best version of themselves, starts with understanding both the audience’s needs and the speaker’s intent. We also get into using nonverbal elements of communication like eye contact, body language, voice, and energy.
You can learn more about Rachel Hanfling at her website. And if you're interested in learning the tools to find your authentic voice, make sure to check out her upcoming course, Own the Power of Your Story.
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This episode explores the concept of "doing nothing", which, ironically, is still an act of doing "something." In fact, “doing nothing” is a valuable practice where thoughts wander, tensions release, and ideas form.
When you think about the usefulness of empty space in an uncluttered closet you can draw parallels to the clutter of our own minds.
We continue questioning what “nothing” really means. A teenagers’ common response to what they've been doing, “nothing,” reveals that phone time, games, and chatting still contain connection, creativity, humor, and art.
Life is hectic and there is always something to do, which may make "doing nothing" one of the most important parts of your day.
The episode ends with an extended piece in C-major titled “Wind at Play.”

Transcript:
Vitamin Nothing

Eyes closed, thoughts wander by, an idea connects...
Whether returning from vacation, waking from a nap, or riding a single deep breath's trailing exhale -- energy flows, tensions release, and ideas form from what seemed to be nothing.
Doing nothing can of course be a good thing. Maybe it's a trope by now. But let's see where we can run with that trope.

But, What Is Nothing?

There are parallels of practicality to nothing.
A closet, for example, when overfilled makes getting to things difficult. What we can get to is either wrinkled or just in front. Meanwhile, when there's empty space, getting to what we want becomes much easier.
There must be a parallel to engaging our lives, work, and play.

But, What Is It to "Do Nothing?"

Turning to what may be our resident experts, teenagers, we hear with rare exception, in response to what they've done with their day,

"Nothing."
But nothing cannot simply be staring at a wall. Even sleep has active components.
So I ask,

"What does doing nothing look like?"
"I'm on my phone," "playing games," "talking to friends,"...
Asking further eventually reveals worlds of connection, creativity, music, art, humor, and more.
So even nothing is something.
Still, what then is "nothing"?
Is it a sense of release from responsibility? A responsibility to others? from ourselves? Could anything beyond responsibility be just one of a myriad species of Nothing?

The Art of Nothing

Such a practice must be a rhythm of structure and a lack thereof. Some even find it useful to schedule unstructured time, particularly as the weights of adulting accrue.
But then, how much is too much Nothing?
Is it when we feel good and ready to do Something? Is it when the world demands Something from us? Is it only when we parent ourselves through a proxy of lists, calendars, and timers to say,

"That's enough for now"?
Personally, I add "leisure" (perhaps another word for "Nothing"?) as a deliberate part of my daily visits. (See below) That Nothing may last a few minutes or hours. But once a day, I must acknowledge to myself, this is my time.
Is that it then? Is Nothing when I have the sense that I own this moment of time?
Whatever it is, when I cannot make it to Nothing, my day feels crowded, strained, or perhaps better said, unhealthy.
Nothing, in this way, is both a vital resource and a useful measure. Somewhere, I need my daily dose of Vitamin Nothing.
Kourosh

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Growing up in the 1980s, heavy metal hairbands were rock gods looked up to by kids and adults alike. While studying piano and awkwardly attempting early compositions, I wanted to hurry and get to the "rocking out" part of my musical prowess, just like the bands I admired so much.
It's so easy to fixate on an immediate reward that you forget practice is what helps us climb the ladder to success. It takes us to another level of connecting with ourselves and with our art.
Improvisation still depends on structure. It's the balance of chaos and structure that allows you to create your own "voice" that becomes authentically you. Mastery comes from loving the craft itself.
We end with an improvised piece in C minor called “A Flavor of Slop.”

Transcript
Ah, the 80s Growing up in the eighties, Friday night music videos, then MTV, these were the big things I'd get so excited to see. Aha, Billy Idol, Michael Jackson, Madonna, the rest. Big hair metal was amazing. Guns and Roses was still underground. Metallica was counterculture.
Practicing my scales, arpeggios, playing green sleeves on the piano with my teacher. I drift off to wonder how do these people, how do these musicians make the music they do?
My First Compositions
It seems so far off from whatever it is I'm doing. I try to make up this, that, or the other. My first composition was something of a series of notes running up and down a scale and some key that I made sure to include sharps and flats, just to make sure it was complex enough.
Eagerly I'd show it off to my piano teacher and she patiently, kindly, maybe even sincerely said something along the lines of, "That's nice," followed by a "Now, let's get back to work." And in my mind, but, but I'm not rocking out like Poison yet.
It's Not About the Reward
We're so accustomed to reward. The end goal, the vision of whatever we think will bring us joy, happiness, if not some unconscious fantasy of immortality. And we see it in our psychology with Skinner who linked stimulus and reward. We push it in our science and medicine when we implicitly say that the only thing that matters is what can be measured.
We say it in our day-to-day lives when we believe that we only need that hack or trick to make something work. We do it to ourselves when we aim for a score in that language app, rather than using the app to connect with our own voice within.
The trope of focus on a journey over its reward persists as a trope because we so often don't live it.
We Practice ADHD
Students often wonder about the WAVES approach to dealing with an ADHD mind. But it's not about "dealing with", it's practicing. We're practicing ADHD.
Well, what good is that? Well, when practicing the piano, we do eventually find a place of ease within the notes, we discover a voice.
Regularly I hear others tell me that they can instantly recognize my style of playing. It's not that I deliberately sought that out. I got there by practicing the fundamentals. The voice came of its own accord.
Over time whatever unique bubble I represent in the current wave of existence manifests on its own. It's just the way it happens. My job is to be aware and remove impediments where I can regularly over time. It's also known as practice.
Real Practice Helps Us Find Our Voice
Not only that, but the thing is I enjoy it. I enjoy that process. I enjoy the engagement of challenge in the small and large, finding a possible trailhead of mastery where I can.
Feeding the play that comes with that, that resonates with the sense of meaning within and often with others. The same thing happens when we practice our way of being.
ADHD for example, is this flow through a thin passage of the now. Strong and powerful, or stumbling and turbulent. It's like air within a flute, bow across a string, a tap on a drum
We don't manage ADHD, we practice it. And in so doing, we can find our strength and power, and more importantly, our own voice.
When hearing the simple ease of Frank Sinatra's, almost spoken, but clearly sung tunes, and we watched the smooth moves of Michael Jackson's feet.
When we know those moments of care, calm, play, and mastery, all hidden in that gentle, barely perceptible smile of a craftsperson at work, we know that they're in love with the craft, the practice itself. And when we bring that joy to the moment's challenge, we bring that self into the work.
The funny thing about improvisation is that it rests on structure. Without structure, we'd only have a mess. As I say, there's something interesting that does seem to happen at this interface between chaos and structure.
Whatever systems we build have to include the nature of our wandering, that flow of thought, that delight in play. Otherwise, we ourselves are not there. We're simply acting as some automaton.
So much of those, "I don't wanna" feelings are about rebelling against being that automaton. When we approach structure, when we practice. When we look at the study of others, their systems, their views of the world. There can be something powerful about pausing, and aligning this with our own voice, with our own moment of challenge, which then lets us take in whatever it is we're studying to grow our own voice.
The following piece is an improvised work, but it rests in a very clear structure of C minor, a particular set of notes. And as a home of C, that root note and the notes and the structures of the notes themselves all form something.
But all of those notes, all of those ideas, all of the ways this sonic building has come to be over the eons, if you will, has been brought in into that studied place in order to become play, which I hope you can hear between the notes.
The following piece, it has a silly name, it's called "A Flavor of Slop". I like that name. It's in C Minor, as I mentioned, and I hope you enjoy it.
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