🎬 [4-minute video — watch before you read for the TLDR version]
Real quick before we start: this essay is short. Scannable. Written for our brains, not for people who highlight things in nonfiction books and actually remember what they highlighted.
You’re welcome.
Let me describe my energy system.
Mode 1: I haven’t cleaned my house in three weeks and I genuinely cannot locate the motivation to care. Like, I see the mess. I am aware of the mess. I am thinking about the mess. I am now watching my third episode of something I don’t even like that much.
Mode 2: It is 10pm and I just reorganized every cabinet in my kitchen and I feel INCREDIBLE.
There is no Mode 3.
If you have an ADHD brain — especially if you got that information later in life, like me — you already know exactly what I’m talking about. You have lived in this body. You have had this day.
And for most of our lives, we thought it meant something was wrong with us.
It doesn’t. It means our nervous system runs on a completely different operating system than the one the world was designed for. And nobody told us. For decades.
Here’s what they got wrong.
Every productivity system ever invented was designed for a neurotypical brain.
Time blocking. The Pomodoro Technique. “Just do it for five minutes.” Morning routines with seventeen steps that somehow involve journaling AND a cold plunge AND gratitude practice before 7am.
Cool. Love that for them. Completely useless for us.
Because our energy isn’t about time. It’s about dopamine.
When dopamine is available, we are unstoppable. We hyperfocus. We build the entire website in a weekend. We write the essay, clean the house, start four new projects, and forget to eat lunch and also dinner.
When it’s not? We are horizontal. We know we should get up. We are thinking very seriously about getting up. Nothing is happening.
This is not a moral failure. This is neuroscience. And the sooner we stop treating it like a character flaw and start treating it like accurate data about how our brains actually work, the sooner we can build a life that works with our system instead of constantly fighting it.
What actually works for me.
I’m not going to give you a twelve-step system. My ADHD brain wrote this essay in two sittings and lost my coffee mug four times in the process. I am not the person to give you twelve steps.
But here’s what genuinely helps my brain:
Notion with checkboxes. That little strikethrough when I check something off? A legitimate dopamine hit. I have built my entire task system around this tiny piece of visual satisfaction. I regret nothing.
Working from the couch. I know. I KNOW. But I am more creative horizontal than I have ever been upright at a desk. My desk is furniture art at this point. The couch is where the work happens and I have made peace with that.
Deadlines that actually scare me. Turns out I have never missed a real deadline in my entire career. The panic hyperfocus is real, it is not pretty, and it delivers every single time.
Adderall. I’ll just say it. It changed my life. Not for everyone, not a judgment either way — but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t part of my energy architecture when I’m sitting here telling you to design your life around the truth of how your brain works.
Three things worth your attention this week.
These are genuinely good. I don’t link to things I haven’t read or watched.
🔗 How Perimenopause and Menopause Impact ADHD Symptoms — ADDitude Magazine — You’ll find out that most women with ADHD struggle way more at this time in life than they did when they were young. And for some reason, there are no good studies yet! We've got to stick together to get through this.
🔗 The ADHD Body Double - A Unique Tool for Getting Things Done - ADD Association — This is the research behind our Her Next 30 Campfire Co-Work sessions. If you’ve ever wondered why you can suddenly do your taxes if a friend is sitting next to you doing literally anything else — this is why.
🔗 Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator - Tim Urban | TED — 14 minute TED Talk on YouTube, completely free, and you will certainly recognize the “instant gratification monkey” inside of you. He is a familiar beast.
Now I want to hear from you.
How do you manage your energy?
How do you get the dopamine without disappearing into your phone for four hours?
How do you get off the couch when your brain has decided today is a horizontal day?
Drop it in the comments. I am genuinely asking. We are figuring this out together.
About the RECLAIM Framework
RECLAIM is the backbone of Her Next 30 — a community built specifically for midlife women with late-diagnosed ADHD who are done shrinking and ready to reclaim their lives. Seven things most of us quietly gave away during the years we were busy performing. Seven things we get to do to take it back.
R — Recenter · E — Energy · C — Community · L — Let Go · A — Author Your Next Chapter · I — Invest · M — Make Something
We go deep on one letter at a time. You’re in the right place.
I love you. I’m here. I’m going through it with you.
— Heather
Her Next 30 is a weekly essay and growing community for late-diagnosed and newly self-aware women with ADHD navigating midlife. If your brain works differently and you're finally ready to design a life built around that truth — you're exactly who this is for.
Not on the waitlist yet? Get on it here. Click above.
