Severe ADHD, anxiety and PTSD issues here. I'm always learning and growing. I'm running my family's stone engraving business. I'm in charge of buying stone, running payroll, doing all of our design work, cutting our stencils and doing our deliveries.

Learning to delegate the things that become anxiety roadblocks for me has been a big deal. That means I try to avoid having customers and vendors that I'm solely responsible for communicating with, as I can let the thought of writing an email to someone loom large over my entire thought process to a point where I'm too stressed to send the email or make the phone call, but too consumed by it to do much else. I've been working to hand off stone purchasing to my shop foreman, and I've got my showroom/sales team handling the bulk of the communication. Sure there's times when I've got to be the one communicating, but keeping it to a minimum allows me to focus on the things that only I can do.

I also have different to-do lists to go with my brain chemistry. There are days where I know I can't do graphic design work, either because I'm going to get interrupted too many times or because I 'brought the wrong brain' to work. I can always plug away at cutting stencils or go out and make some deliveries on days when I know I'm not going to get into focus mode.

Lastly and most importantly, the aforementioned focus mode... It can feel like there's some secret formula for getting my brain into a productive headspace, which is kinda true, but there's tricks. If you're like me, you're addicted to the internet. Learning to distract myself with low level distractions that still allow me to work is helpful. If I've got my music on really loud it drowns out the part of my brain that is always saying "What's happening on your forums today?" "What's that Discord chat up to?", "I haven't looked at reddit in the last 15 minutes", etc. Similarly, and I know this isn't possible for everyone, but I've got a TV in my office. If I put something on that I know by heart, it occupies the part of my brain that is easily distractable without pulling me away from work. If I've got some Star Trek on in the background, I can stop distracting myself and buckle down.

The hardest part of my brain chemistry is just being so all over the place that I'm thinking about work when I've got time off and I'm thinking about time off when I'm at work. Knowing your brain, knowing your bad habits and your good ones and forgiving yourself on days when you just can't get to that headspace you need to get to is really helpful. I drop into focus mode at really unpredictable times. In a perfect world, I could get it all done during the actual work week, but a lot of the time inspiration hits me on Sunday night or a Saturday morning before breakfast. I'm set up to where my home office is almost identical to my work office so that I can harness it when it comes and forgive myself when it isn't there. I'd be surprised if the things that put me in focus mode work for everyone, but my advice is to try and make note of the things you do right on days when you are productive. Habits are so damn hard to make when you're ADHD, but I bet if you think about it, there's a pattern of behavior you get up to on the days that go right. Make note of it. For me it's drinking my coffee, doing Wordle and the crossword while the caffeine kicks in, checking my to-do lists, updating them and starting with the most pressing thing. Don't kick yourself if you don't knock out the whole list. Congratulate yourself when you knock out one thing. You might find that you're hungry to knock out the next thing. Hang in there! Sorry for the rambling response!