Psychologists once thought of ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) as a disorder that mainly affects children, but we now know that at least 60 per cent of children with ADHD continue to experience symptoms as adults, and latest estimates indicate that approximately 3 per cent of adults worldwide have an ADHD diagnosis.

Whether you were only recently diagnosed with adult ADHD, or you have had the diagnosis for some time, we want to empower you with essential knowledge so you can navigate this multifaceted and lifelong condition with skill and understanding. We will also share practical self-help strategies to help you manage life with ADHD.

ADHD in adulthood often looks different from ADHD in childhood. Instead of the hyperactive or distracted child, an adult with ADHD might struggle with inner restlessness, chronic disorganisation and lateness, and an ongoing sense of being stressed and overwhelmed.

Consider the story of Lisa, a stay-at-home mother who, throughout her life, has often experienced forgetfulness, disorganisation and feeling scattered. Many times, she tried to get motivated by telling herself ‘What’s wrong with you, get it together!’ yet often she’s felt too mentally drained to do her tasks or sort through the clutter. Her college-age son Alex had recently been diagnosed with ADHD after struggling with chronic procrastination on assignments and concentration difficulties in lectures. Could her lifelong struggles also be explained by this condition?

Lisa sought her own evaluation – and, to her surprise, was also diagnosed with ADHD. Looking back, she saw how it had shaped her life in ways she’d not previously understood. She realised how much she had struggled in silence, blaming herself for being ineffective, overly sensitive and indecisive. She often had to work twice as hard to keep up and felt different from the other mothers who seemed much more organised than her. She felt frequently misunderstood, exhausted and overwhelmed.

For both Alex and Lisa, knowing they had ADHD was a relief: the diagnosis provided an explanation for lifelong struggles. Realising that ADHD is not a character flaw – rather a neurodevelopmental condition – was life-changing. Alex started therapy focused on developing some key organisational skills. Lisa decided to try ADHD medications which she found very helpful. However, both continued to have some questions: how do I understand my ADHD fully? What else can I do to manage my symptoms? This Guide is about the approaches you can take to help yourself, alongside any professional support or treatment you receive.

Before we share these practical strategies for managing your ADHD, here is some important background information that will help you apply the strategies more effectively:

ADHD is about more than difficulty paying attention

Having ADHD won’t affect only your ability to pay attention, but also your thoughts, emotions, motivation, time management, planning and engagement in tasks (so-called ‘executive function’ skills). Here’s the complete picture:

Attentional problems

Despite its name, ADHD isn’t really a deficit of attention, but rather a challenge managing or regulating attention. ADHD can make you feel scattered and unable to focus at some times, especially on tasks that you consider boring or non-urgent. Yet, at other times, especially when you’re very interested in the topic, you may find you actually become laser-focused, even hyper-focused! Depending on the context, this can be a problem (for example, you forget to check on a boiling pot), but it can also be an advantage (for example, you complete a long report in one sitting).

Emotional problems

Many adults with ADHD describe experiencing impulsive or intense emotions that can be hard to regulate or balance out. You may be prone to quick temper, overexcitement, irritability, impatience or boredom. You may have rejection sensitivity or a high sensitivity to injustice, which can sometimes manifest as sadness, anger or hurt that is difficult to shake off. As with attentional regulation, your emotional sensitivity can also have upsides. Experiencing big emotions can lead to positive spontaneity, deep caring for others, or well-channelled passion or advocacy.

Difficulties with planning and motivation

You might find complex, cognitively demanding tasks a particular challenge. This includes multi-step projects, such as organising a closet – or calling your doctor to make an appointment or get a refill of medications. Your relationships might be affected if you delay following up on texts or emails because you may feel stuck and/or do not know how to start. Stress or the ‘cognitive snag’ of self-doubt, worry or perfectionism – all of which are common for adults with ADHD – can make day-to-day problems, stressful events and life transitions (eg, a new job, promotion, finances, moving, relationship conflicts) even more difficult to navigate.

Implications for mental and physical health

ADHD ‘rarely travels alone’. If you have ADHD, there is an increased likelihood that you also have autism, dyslexia or another learning disorder. Mental health difficulties such as anxiety and depression and addiction disorder are also more common in people with ADHD than the average, as are certain physical conditions, such as asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines and sleep disorders. The good news is that better managing your ADHD will have far-ranging positive consequences by helping you live more healthily and deal with any other conditions you have.

ADHD is a form of neurodiversity

If you have ADHD, you are neurodiverse – your genes and early environment shaped your brain to work differently from most other ‘neurotypical’ people. We take a neurodiversity-affirming view of ADHD, which means recognising ADHD-related traits as differences rather than solely defects, and seeing the potential upsides that the condition brings, such as creativity, unique thinking and heightened sensory awareness.

This perspective is integral to the self-help approach we’re going to share with you because it helps encourage self-acceptance and compassion. At the same time, it’s important not to downplay the difficulties you might face. ADHD is not just a biological difference but also a neurodevelopmental condition that can lead to significant challenges, especially if your symptoms are at the more extreme end of the ADHD spectrum. Those with ADHD often require personalised support, such as specialist information, medication, therapy, coaching, lifestyle changes and peer support to fully thrive with ADHD.

In this Guide we’re going to share an approach to managing your ADHD that’s based on what we call ‘mindful self-coaching’ – it’s a form of self-help that you can use alongside other forms of support you receive from medical professionals or family. We’ll share the general approach and then show how you can apply it to a challenge that’s particularly common for adults with ADHD – procrastination.

Use mindful self-coaching

ADHD isn’t a lack of knowing what to do, but a challenge in doing it. The way you talk to yourself, especially in tough moments, such as when you just can’t get started on a task or you experience intense emotions, is just as important as the strategies you use.

That’s where mindful self-coaching can be so beneficial. It shifts your inner dialogue and encourages positive skills for self-regulation. If you are like many others with adult ADHD, you may find that you engage in a lot of negative self-talk that’s filled with harsh judgment, shame or a defeatist attitude, which only worsens your procrastination and stress. Like Lisa or Alex, you may react to ADHD struggles with self-criticisms: Why can’t I just do this like everyone else?, What’s wrong with me?, I can’t do anything or I always screw things up!

When you experience this kind of self-talk, mindful self-coaching invites you to pause and reflect with a more compassionate, curious perspective. It helps you to respond with awareness and flexibility, instead of criticism and pressure.

Mindful self-coaching can be done anytime, anywhere – in the midst of your daily moments. You may have assumed mindfulness involves formal meditation – which might feel out of reach if you have ADHD – but this isn’t the only way. Mindful self-coaching is a simple, accessible alternative that can help you with common challenges in life such as distraction, emotional intensity or procrastination (which we’ll focus on in more detail shortly).

Let’s take the three steps of mindful self-coaching in turn.

Practise self-curiosity

When you are faced with a challenging situation in your everyday life (be that losing your concentration, running late, feeling intense emotions or procrastination), the first step is to pause briefly, take a deep breath and get curious about your own inner experience. Tune in, acknowledge or name what is happening for you. If this feels difficult, imagine that part of you is like a curious friend checking in and asking: How are you doing?, Hey, what’s going on for you right now? This isn’t about fixing or over-analysing. It’s about asking gentle, open-ended questions with a warm attitude of discovery.

Try to notice, with curiosity and without judgment, your inner experiences in the moment, including your breath, bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, any actions you’re performing. Here are some questions you could ask yourself:

• What body sensations do I notice?
• What thoughts, feelings or urges are present right now?
• How is my ADHD showing up right now?
• Is there something else I haven’t yet noticed about how I’m doing?

When observing your own experiences, practise naming the experience without the ‘I’ in it, so you create some space and invite less self-blame. This can actually help tackle the behaviour more effectively. For example, say: ‘Oh, there is procrastination’ rather than: ‘I am procrastinating.’

Practise self-compassion

The second step after noticing your inner reaction with curiosity is to offer yourself kindness, validation and ADHD-informed understanding. Ask: Can I be kind with myself at this moment? Validate your difficulties (that is, acknowledge them, rather than trying to minimise them or dismiss them) and then reframe them through the lens of neurodiversity. Here are some examples of phrases you could use:

• Gosh, this is hard!
• This is not easy for me because of my ADHD.
• I’m doing my best with my ADHD brain.
• This doesn’t mean I’m broken, just wired differently.
• I’m not alone. Many others with ADHD struggle in this way too.
• Feeling stuck is human – and even more common with ADHD.

Use self-guiding

After you’ve practised self-curiosity and self-compassion, the third and final step is to use self-guiding. Ask yourself: What could I do differently to help myself or this situation? This involves making a new choice about what to do next – one that helps you get unstuck, such as reframing the challenge, doing something to recharge, or making a forward step using an ADHD strategy (more on these shortly) or outside-the-box thinking. The idea is to consider your options from a new angle, encourage and motivate yourself, work with (not against) your ADHD, and practise a new behaviour or make a more effective choice. Admittedly, this is often a challenging step that involves inner discernment and tapping into ADHD knowledge, your values, character strengths, wisdom and perspective. Remembering (or imagining) what it is like to be successful can also help. Here are some prompts you could give yourself for this final stage:

• What is the skilful or wise thing to do here?
• What helped me (or someone I know) manage this well in the past?
• Could I rally and push myself?
• Should I regroup/reset?
• What could help me/my brain right now?
• Can I imagine what it would feel like to overcome (or master) this?
• I can do this – what is one small step I can take?

Incorporate what you know about ADHD, neurodiversity and coping

To use mindful self-coaching effectively, it is important to fully understand and accept how ADHD shows up in daily life, taking into account some of the background information we shared earlier. Moreover, if you view your challenges through the lens of neurodiversity, then you can reframe your experiences and difficulties in a more positive and compassionate light.

This involves recognising that some of the ways you have been responding to challenges might not be helpful in the long term, but they were simply your way of trying to cope and protect yourself. Similarly, some of the emotions and sensations you experience might be difficult and uncomfortable, but you can see them as signals about the way your brain functions differently, giving you clues about how you can best support yourself and your neurodiverse needs.

Let’s turn to procrastination as an example. Everyone can struggle with procrastination but it’s an especially common experience for adults with ADHD and it can cause many difficulties in life, including repeatedly postponing or avoiding work until the last minute. In tackling it, it is helpful to reflect on what procrastination is and its potential function in the context of ADHD.

Here are some reasons why procrastination shows up so often for people with ADHD:

• Routine, boring, tedious tasks, such as doing the laundry, can trigger procrastination because they don’t naturally engender interest or a sense of urgency, which people with ADHD especially need to get started.
• When a task is complex and involves multiple stages, it can be difficult for you to know where to start because of the difficulties you have with attention, organising and prioritising.
• If you are feeling stressed, tired or depleted, your brain’s ability to muster focus and executive skills will drop even further, and the mental effort required to perform a task can feel too much.
• For some people with ADHD, a desire to do things perfectly and a fear of failure can also play a role in deterring you from getting started.

For adults with ADHD, procrastination has a function in the moment: it’s a way to decrease stress temporarily. However, longer term, it creates a level of background stress, anxiety about falling behind, and potential burnout from intense last-minute efforts to catch up (eg, Alex often pulls an all-nighter after procrastinating on an assignment, and Lisa often ends up cleaning the house late into the night the day before she has visitors).

Let’s look at how you can use this kind of background knowledge about ADHD to help use mindful self-coaching more effectively in daily moments.

Apply mindful self-coaching to specific challenges

We’ve taken you through the three steps of mindful self-coaching and explained how important it is to apply what you know about ADHD and a neurodiversity lens. Let’s bring all this together by showing you how to apply mindful self-coaching to procrastination (but remember you can adapt the self-coaching approach to any challenges you face during your day).

Apply self-curiosity to procrastination

When you notice that you are procrastinating on an important task, take a moment to remember the ADHD lens and name that behaviour in your mind. For example: Oh, there is avoidance of doing my paperwork or I am procrastinating on cleaning the kitchen. You might find that saying this out loud can help with fully acknowledging the difficulty. As the saying goes: ‘Name it to tame it’: naming your negative experience in the moment – without judging yourself – is an important step towards your ability to change it.

Next, take a deep breath and bring attention inward. See if you can notice or ‘catch’ body sensations, thoughts, feelings or urges present as you think about the task you are procrastinating on. Here are some examples of what you might notice:

• I hate doing these things, it’s so stressful… or it’s so boring!
• I have to feel ready for this.
• This is so big… I don’t know where to start.
• This has to be great, otherwise I am a failure.
• Feeling tension in the shoulders… pit in the stomach… restlessness.
• Experiencing ‘zapped’ energy.
• Wanting to escape the task, for example by scrolling on your phone instead.

Apply self-compassion to procrastination

Use whatever words make sense to you. Here are some suggestions:

• This is hard and I don’t like doing this, no wonder I am avoiding it.
• When you have ADHD, even seemingly simple things can be overwhelming!
• This is hard because my brain is wired differently.

Use self-guiding to get going

Finally, reflect on the best action to take next while working with and not against your brain. Offer yourself encouragement and motivation; say: You can do it! or Imagine how relieved you will feel once it’s done! If you need to dial down the stress a little, consider nurturing yourself first. Take a few deep breaths, walk outside or check if food/hydration is in order to replenish yourself in some way (if so, plan for a time to come back to the task).

Once you’re ready to re-engage with the task, ask yourself: What could help me move forward? and consider a range of strategies that are helpful for people with ADHD (see the next step). Alternatively, ask yourself: When do I actually work best? or Is there a better time I can do this? Then, to avoid endless postponing, schedule the task into your calendar.

Use ADHD strategies

Whatever challenge you’re dealing with, you will find it helpful to have a list of strategies ready to deploy that are known to work well for people with ADHD. We can’t provide an exhaustive list for every challenge you will face but, to give you an idea, here are some examples of strategies that are great for people with ADHD dealing with procrastination. You don’t have to use them all – try what feels right to you and make it your own:

• Externalise what is in your mind: a written list or a drawing can feel better than the thoughts swirling in your head. Use visual tools – sticky notes, whiteboards, index cards. Try a method called mind-mapping that helps visualise ideas in the form of an interconnected spider diagram rather than in a list.
• Tiny start/small wins: identify the smallest step that feels doable or commit to doing something for just 5 or 10 minutes. This can be as small as ‘create a folder for my project’ or ‘get the laundry out of the washing machine’. Starting is often the hardest part, and you may find that you keep going once you start. Celebrate these small wins.
• Use a known energy or motivation booster: put on upbeat music, gamify a task, look for novelty in the situation, or plan a small reward to engage with otherwise unappealing tasks. Coffee/tea or – if approved by your doctor – an extra as-needed stimulant medication can also stimulate the brain to tackle ‘bigger lifts’. For example, challenge yourself to fold the laundry in 15 minutes. Give yourself a small reward (eg, a chocolate? A relaxing break?) after you do the challenge.
• Do the opposite of how you feel: it sounds counterintuitive, but intentionally acting contrary to your feelings can do the trick and get you going. Similarly, try ‘reverse psychology’. If you tell yourself I must procrastinate, perhaps a part of you will rebel against that.
• Body-doubling: work near someone else or engage with a virtual ADHD co-working space online. You each work on your own tasks but the presence and connection helps you get going, be accountable and stay with the task. As a bonus, you get to celebrate each other’s success when done.
• A sounding board: engage a person (eg, a friend, partner, co-worker or therapist) who through listening and reflecting can help you process your thoughts and make a plan.
• Try an AI tool: you can ask AI to help with mindful self-coaching, for example: How can I be more self-compassionate when I have ADHD? or Can you break this task into small, ADHD-friendly steps so I can get started? Use your own discernment about what makes sense as AI may not always be correct.

Learning to be yourself

For many adults with ADHD, especially those diagnosed late, life has been a long lesson in camouflaging their true selves, also known as masking. If you are in this group, it’s likely that, from childhood into adulthood, you’ve had to monitor your behaviour, hide your difficulties and stretch yourself to meet expectations that do not match the way your brain works.

Occasional strategic masking makes sense in certain contexts (eg, hiding your ADHD at a job interview to avoid unfair discrimination). But if your masking becomes habitual, it will separate you from who you really are.

If this description rings true, the most helpful question isn’t how to stop masking altogether, but how to discover what supports your authentic self. So, stop and ask yourself:

• When was the last time I felt truly like myself?
• What was I doing when I didn’t have to try so hard?
• Who was I with when I felt safe and accepted?
• What did that sense of ease feel like in my body?

These questions invite a different kind of self-awareness – one rooted not in performance, but in presence. They will help you recognise those moments when you can be more at ease and real, and what allowed that to happen. More often than not, you’ll probably find that freedom comes in the context of supportive, nonjudgmental relationships.

Your relationships are key to managing your ADHD and being yourself

Masking fades as safety grows. Real, ADHD-informed support isn’t just helpful – it’s essential. ADHD is relational: thriving depends greatly on the environment. Family members, friends, employers can become part of that safe, accepting space and collaborate in helping you manage your ADHD. Feel free to share this Guide with them so they know the basics of ADHD and how you’re trying to support yourself. And here are some further ways they can support you when you’re struggling with a challenge (these next bullet points are for them to read):

• Offer shared action: say to your friend/colleague/loved one with ADHD: Let’s start together – I’ll take the trash, you tidy the table or Tell me the problem and we’ll figure out the steps together.
• Be specific and kind: help break tasks into steps. For example, when faced with a chaotic kitchen, suggest that they clear only the sink. As an employer or co-worker, offer concrete steps and timelines.
• Guide with encouragement, not judgment: tell them You’re doing great – finish this part, then take a break?
• Celebrate effort over outcomes: say, eg, I see how hard you’re trying.
• Highlight strengths: say, eg, Your energy and resilience are incredible.

As well as sharing this Guide with your friends and family, you can also self-advocate and grow others’ understanding in other ways. Don’t be afraid to tell others:

• I work differently.
• This is hard for me/This is easy for me.
• I need more transition time between things.
• Gentle reminders really help.

Naming your needs honestly creates space for real connection. Thriving with ADHD is rarely a solo journey. Support from understanding people – friends, therapists, ADHD coaches or online communities – can change everything. Finding common language, shared humanity and compassion builds belonging and deepens self-acceptance. Remember there’s always more right with you than wrong with you. Speak to yourself with kindness and celebrate small wins, especially in moments of struggle. Know that you don’t have to be perfect to live well.

National ADHD advocacy groups: these organisations offer psychoeducation as well as peer support, for example CHADD or ADDA in the US, CADDRA in Canada, ADHD Australia and ADHD Europe.

ADDitude magazine: online, multimedia info on ‘all things ADHD’ including free articles, downloads and webinars about ADHD across the lifespan, such as this one about using AI to help executive function challenges.

Resources for women with ADD/ADHD: ADHD can present differently in women and be impacted by hormonal fluctuations. See resources uniquely created for this group from the Duke Center for Girls and Women with ADHD and ADHD and Women in Europe.

The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD (2012) by Lidia Zylowska. One of us wrote this book, which provides an eight-step mindfulness-based self-help programme for adults with ADHD.

The Aeon essay ‘Rethinking Adult ADHD’ (2025) by Margaret Sibley, a professor of psychiatry in Seattle, is a thoughtful overview that highlights several issues currently being debated in the ADHD field and culture at large.

We work hard to bring you the most trustworthy, expert and up-to-date information on psychology and mental health in our Guides. You can learn more about how we ensure that they are a reliable source of information here. This Guide is provided as general information only. It is not a substitute for independent, professional medical or health advice tailored to your specific circumstances. If you are struggling with psychological difficulties, we encourage you to seek help from a professional source.