ADHD And Technology: My Story

I wanted to start this blog off by introducing myself and why I decided to write about ADHD and technology. First, I am a teacher at Utah Valley University and have been teaching college courses for almost five years now. I have seen students who have succeeded in class one day and then struggle the next. I have talked to many about the struggles that they have had with their ADHD or other conditions and trying to be a student at the same time. This has made me think about how I, as the teacher, can work with these students to find new techniques that let them flourish as much as possible, while studying in a system that was built for a different type of brain.

I am also a parent of three children, so I wonder in what way I can help my own children work through their conditions and find ways to succeed in classrooms. Especially with the increase of use in technology in the classroom, there is always a worry that I will somehow be making an error in how foster an environment at home to harness my kids’ energies and let them focus on their studies.

With all of that, however, I was also a student, who went to college and got an MA during the first year of COVID, when all my learning went online. At that time, I had no idea that I had ADHD, but just thought I wasn’t focusing hard enough, or feeling of never being able to “achieve my potential”. I will discuss my ADHD journey in more depth in a little bit, but when I finally was diagnosed, I was able to put a name to the condition, move past the shame, and become a different type of productive, and happier.

But why ADHD? Well, ADHD is becoming more and more diagnosed with improved understanding of the condition. It is no longer just a condition to explain hyperactivity or “laziness” but a diagnosis that is very much on a spectrum. My therapist describes it as every person with ADHD has their own “flavor”. But one major symptom is difficulty with regulating the use of technology because ADHD brains are very easily overstimulated by screens. Doesn’t make the struggle impossible, we just need new strategies to help our students succeed.

My ADHD Journey

As a student, I had always done well. I only fidgeted some, and I often was able to come up with creative and well thought out solutions to problems. I was in the top 10 of my high school graduating class but often I was described as either “gifted” or someone who wasn’t “living up to my potential”, especially in English class. I struggled being able to put my thoughts on paper and structure my ideas in a coherent manner. When I entered college, I had difficulties working through harder and harder classes, especially when it was so much easier to just not do the work. I stopped going to school after a year and did not return until I was 25. This was my undiagnosed ADHD in full force.

I also had difficulty regulating my emotions and dealing with depression for most of high school and was not diagnosed with depression until my first child was born many years later. Looking back at my high school and early college career, my struggles could easily be explained by my conditions. I was ashamed that I was not able to succeed where my peers seemed to acclimate to college life so easily. From the top ten to dropping out, I felt loads of shame, which just compounded with my undiagnosed depression. When I had my first child at 27, I was finally able to be diagnosed with depression (this will matter shortly).

Now, when I went back to school, I still struggled, but I was able to develop techniques to compensate for how my brain worked. I had a partner who would sit with me while I worked, I was able to set time and make an environment that benefited my studies and helped reduce distractions. It was all done without any knowledge of my ADHD. But, in the past couple years, because of social media and influencers being open with their experiences being diagnosed with ADHD, I started seeing similarities of my experience with theirs as well. I had issues focusing, wanting to work, only being able to work hard when there was a deadline looming over me like a guillotine.

When I finally brought my suspicion to my therapist that I might have ADHD, we were able to talk and discuss what it meant to have ADHD, and how naming it could help me tame it. Since I was diagnosed, I have been able to find new and helpful strategies to increase my productivity, remove harmful thoughts, and improve my mental health tremendously. I have not become “lazy” or relying on my diagnoses, rather I have been able to become more successful, even if that success looks slightly different than I thought it would in my younger days.

Those with ADHD Struggle Normally

Without even adding technology, those with ADHD struggle to succeed in classrooms, relationships, and work—not fail to succeed, just struggle. Some of the ways we see this is in comorbidities that happen often alongside ADHD and shame that is created in our modern world due to ADHD. Other issues are that much of the “productivity advice” has been created for a certain type of brain and does not (always) work for the ADHD brain. Adding technology and screens to this equation can feel like a Sisyphean struggle, always watching our progress slip back to an earlier state.

Speaking of the comorbidities, those who have ADHD, like myself, are often diagnosed with one or more other conditions, especially depression, anxiety, and OCD. These conditions are ways that the brain has tried to deal with the world without realizing that it works differently than other brains around it.

With depression, the brain has dealt with shame and guilt over never achieving the goals and ideals that we have set for ourselves. They might be unrealistic or just not for us. It is hard to see the world do so well at things and us seemingly failing at doing those simple tasks.
With anxiety, the brain has internalized the negative stereotype of the attributes often associated with ADHD being something that will either harm themselves or those around them, so fear has become a natural reaction to those attributes. The body then worries and panics over not being able to control or react “correctly” to the world.
With OCD, the brain sees the lack of control, and as a method of trying to protect itself, it puts everything in boxes, controls all the variables and does its best to follow familiar patterns that have worked in the past.

The other part of the struggle is that of “normal” advice and how it is literally built for a different brain. Like stairs and those with the use of their legs, we wouldn’t be upset with the inability to use an apparatus that was not designed for them in mind. This is the same for those with ADHD. When we are given productivity tools, they aren’t built with our brains in mind. Some of these pieces of advice are as follows:

The 2-minute rule- this advice is as follows, if a task that comes up and it will only take 2 minutes, then it is totally ok to drop whatever you are doing to do this quick task. Which seems reasonable, until you consider the weakness in time estimation, the task might seem like 2 minutes but could take much longer, and that isn’t even considering how you will have to remember what you were even doing afterwards. This means that the “2-minute task” could take even more time with the transition and not coming back to the original task.
The next is the “eat the frog” technique. How this works is when you look at your day, and the first thing you do needs to be your least favorite or most dreaded task. Just look at it and do it. Makes sense, except that every person has variable energy—both physical and mental—which means if you aren’t a morning person, this technique will become overwhelming. If you try and complete this task and you struggle to complete it, your motivation drops, and then it becomes even harder to complete other tasks. So, instead of doing the worst task on your list, those with ADHD can get their momentum going by doing smaller, easier tasks and working up to the harder task.
Lastly, the pickle jar. The idea is this; imagine your day is a jar and fill it with the big, awkward shaped pickles first, and then fill in the other time with the liquid, which is the smaller and quicker tasks. This assumes that the way to “succeed” is to make sure every second is used and doing more is always equal to success. This is an impossible standard. Doing more doesn’t always make you thrive. Doing what is most helpful will do that.

With all these difficulties, it is hard to imagine a way to succeed, and this is before we even consider technology and screens. Technology has become a tool to find ways to procrastinate the hard tasks, the ones that we are dreading. At our fingertips, we don’t even have to stand up to be distracted but can do so in the exact same position in which we were before. This ease of access makes technology even more difficult to deal with these difficulties that those with ADHD must handle. But here is the good news, most advice and help for those with ADHD can be used with technology as well.

General Tools to help a student with ADHD

Here are some of the techniques that I have used and found to be beneficial in my work and life, especially in making sure I get tasks done that are necessary. Not all of these will work for everyone, but hopefully there will be something here that will resonate with you and your students that can help give you the confidence to move forward with your ADHD.

The first that has helped me not feel so overwhelmed with my giant list of things to do every second of every day (with my kids, my house, my job, my hobbies, etc.) This first is called “brain dumping”. You sit down with a piece of paper (or on a computer) and start listing off every task that comes to mind that you have on your plate. This includes tasks that are on repeat. You just write it all down and then after it is all out of your head you begin to organize these tasks by priority. Is shopping necessary? Is it higher or lower than doing dishes? Making that batch of cookies? You can then write which dates are more pressing (is it due today or due next week?) and finally add such things as categories of how fun you find these tasks. Studies show that just putting your ideas on paper, making sure you know that not ALL of your tasks have the same priority helps your brain deal with the fatigue. An ADHD brain like mine needs to get it out of my head, because it then can help see the problems and solutions easier. (Sidenote: this is also why I struggled in English for so long, I couldn’t write a paper until I had all my ideas out of my head either verbally or physically to help me see what I was thinking).

Next, you will want to build an environment that is productive to the work needing to be done. You can do this in multiple ways.

Finding specific times in the day when the student is high energy (early morning? Right after school? After dinner? At night?) and making that the time to work.
Body doubling. This means finding a person to sit with and work with the student. This can be you, another child, friends who have the same class, and making it to where it is the time to work, and clearly setting that idea. ADHD brains do well with such things as outward validation and camaraderie. The simple act of having people there helps motivate those with ADHD to not be distracted.
Having music or white noise present (depending on what the student prefers.) My partner—who also has ADHD—cannot work with any noise, while I do better with simple music with no lyrics. I know some that need a white noise or a familiar soundtrack that can play in the background. The reason this works is that with ADHD it often feels as if there are multiple parts of the brain trying to do multiple tasks at the same time. Music can help distract some of the baser parts of the brain and help your brain focus on a single task.
The only screen nearby should be the screen that is currently being used. Even if a phone or TV is off, the presence can distract the ADHD brain, and having more screens just adds to the noise.
Global rules that the entire house must follow. If the student must sit in the kitchen and work for x number of hours, be there with them, answering work email, working on dinner, doing a sudoku or crossword puzzle. You are in this together, and the child with ADHD doesn’t have to feel singled out for their condition.

All of these can be used to help build an environment that is conducive to working and can create a structure and routine that helps direct the effort and motivation in the right direction.

My favorite technique is the Pomodoro Technique. It works well, but I was suggested to use a variation, if you are familiar with the method. The original mode of the pomodoro is that of taking time to build up your momentum in increments. You start with a ten-minute timer working, then a 10-minute timer break, then a 20 minute working, 10 break, 30 minute timer working, 10 break, 40 minute work and then a 15 minute reset break. This structure helps build up good momentum and has worked for me in the past.

The biggest struggle though, was by time I hit the 3^rd timer, it was hard to get back to work after the break. The altered version that has been most helpful has been 10 minutes on 3 minutes off ratio, where with the 3 minutes break I make sure that it is a low stimulus break. No screens whatsoever. I can do my dishes work on straightening the room, close my eyes, and then can get back into the rhythm without losing the momentum that I would lose during the 10 minutes. You repeat the 10:3 ratio 3 times then take a 15-minute break. You continue this until your momentum picks up and you can add 10 minutes to the work timer, remembering the breaks. You don’t want you or your student to burn out with this.

Specific Tools with Technology

All the techniques that I have discussed are not technology specific, but I do have some that can help immensely. There are several apps that help those with ADHD focus while working on their devices. Some of my favorites are what we can call “monk mode” apps. These are apps that either limit your access to certain programs, websites, or apps, or limit your access to your computer. Some cost money while some are free, but they all do a great job of making sure that when it is time to work, it is much more difficult to go to that distracting social media app. Some of my favorites are as follows:

All these block access and limit your usage, but RescueTime also goes beyond and tracks your usage, so you know what and where you are using your time. This helps develop skills with your student or yourself to know where and when you need to improve.

Other apps can help motive as well such as Forest. You start by picking a flower and when you want to be off your phone, you set goals and when you reach the goals, your flower grows. The more time you have not picking up your device, the more the flower will grow. This helps because often the ADHD brain has trouble not distracting itself because there is no external motivation. The flower can help be that external motivation.

Lastly, figure out what apps and programs are the most distracting. Give yourself extra steps to get those programs! Take them off your desktop, your homepage, your bar, put them in folders, whatever it takes to just add extra steps to the process. This helps because when your student with ADHD wants to distract themselves from their work, it is because it is an easy distraction. The longer it takes, the easier it will be to have the students remind themselves that they should still be focused.

Accommodations Help Everyone

With all of this, this advice is not just for those with neurodivergent brains like those with conditions such as ADHD. There has been much research done that states that ADA accommodations in universities benefits any student that it is given to. All these techniques might be geared toward some, but we can adapt them and help all our students succeed.

In the end, you don’t have to take all of these and apply them. Find the bits that work for your flavor of ADHD. Make sure you are doing what is best for you and your student. Hopefully something here can help you and yours succeed.