On March 12, J., one of our group members, gave us presentation on hyperfocusing. We all know that people with attention deficit disorder tend to have a hard time focusing on something, and are easily distracted. But there is another side of ADD and ADHD: the tendency of paying exclusive attention to something while blocking out everything else. This intense concentration is called hyperfocusing. When that happens, people tend to focus only on one thing, sometimes for hours, while neglecting everything else around them.

Some experts say that hyperfocusing is a coping mechanism to deal with distraction, which is a common trait in attention deficit disorders. This, of course, can be very useful at times, especially when we are trying to accomplish a task. However, this could also happen to the detriment of other things in our life, sometime for hours at a time. During hyperfocusing, it could happen that we neglect or forget about other important things or people in our life, or we fail to notice dangers around us etc.

During his presentation, J. offered ways who to cope with hyperfocusing. One suggestion was to use an alarm to prevent spending excessive time on one particular task. Another way of dealing with this is to break down a big goal into small ones. This will limit the time and energy one will spend on the task. J. also suggested to keep a journal (or list) of multiple goals.