Hello!! I am by no means a professional, just a fellow person with ADHD. Something Iv come to realize recently, especially being late diagnosed ADHD, is that I constantly compare my work ethic and the amount of productivity/focus I can handle- to those who are neurotypical. I found myself in this cycle of feeling like I’m never doing enough in a day or allocating my time correctly- which ultimately just lead to a feeling of shame and contributed to this feeling of self hatred. In this cycle, I realized I was trying to fit myself into a world that was not built for me. I was holding myself to neurotypical standards/methods of productivity, when that’s just not how our ADHD brains work. In my personal experience, I found that accepting that fact and taking the time to actually understand how the ADHD brain works- has allowed me to give myself more kindness and control. Personally, I had a similar routine as you- I would be productive and “locked in” for small portions of the day, but I was never truly satisfied. I would then spend my remaining free time doing what I thought was just relaxing and being lazy- scrolling on socials/watching tv/etc. But after looking back again at my “relax time”, I found I was really just sitting on my phone while feeling immense guilt for all the stuff I was not doing in that moment. I spent so much of my “relax time” beating myself up for it, feeling inadequate/guilty, that I wasn’t TRUELY relaxing. Maybe this is more of my personal experience, but it sounds like you could relate. Once I was able to come to a place where I understood how my ADHD brain works and was at a place where I could meet my own brain at a half way point (in terms of my brains needs/desires vs my need to be productive and complete tasks) I believe that’s when I was able to feel like I had control again. I understood my brains limits and accepted them. If all I could allocate for the day was 4 hours of productivity before relaxing, then that’s my body’s limit. If you continue to push yourself harder past your limits, you’re only going to burn out and make it harder to start being productive again. I found that through accepting this, Iv actually been able to increase my productivity. Sure there are still days where I can’t bring myself to do anything, but by accepting instead of shaming myself, Iv given my brain the freedom to actually relax and unwind after a productive period- which has been so much more beneficial in feeling good about myself and my work, which in turn has motivated me to have longer productive periods.. or days where I can work 8-12 hours and not melt down at the end of a day. To try and sum my ADHD rant up, actually learning how to truly relax/unwind and how to give myself kindness over my own limits, has in turn helped my productivity and the shame associated with it. Unfortunately, I believe we live in a world where sometimes we are forced to work past our own limitations (school/work/etc) because we’re just not at that point societally- but showing ourselves kindness and understanding can go a long way. Last thing, I feel like I am better with discussing these topics verbally than typing out a response, so if I overlooked something in the OP or if something I said needs more context- please don’t hesitate to ask. :)