How ‘The Window’ Helps Me Manage My ADHD Symptoms

When I was running cross country in college, a nutritionist gave a presentation on “the recovery window.” The concept was that after a run, you have a 30-minute window to optimize your recovery. In those 30 minutes, if you did not have a meal and eat, you would be compromising your post-run recovery.

This window was obviously a problem if we drove 30 minutes to an hour to run somewhere and could not feasibly get a meal in during that time period. This would lead to an all-or-nothing mindset, at times, where people felt forced to eat something within that period of time, so some people prepared by bringing protein bars or the like, while others felt compelled to stop and get food somewhere on the way back.

This “recovery window” has proven to be a lot more complicated on factors like whether the person has been fasting and what state of training the person is in. This window can last up to five or six hours, according to dietitian graduate student Sarah Katz.

Nutrition aside, the concept of this “window,” when applied to other areas of my life, has been critical, recently, in managing my ADHD. This summer, I have been doing an internship as a law student at the courthouse. I have done work for my internship while taking classes at night. As a special education teacher, there are times I also go into the school building to get filing or paperwork done. In the months of late August to mid-June, when school is in session for my students, this daily routine accelerates into being busy from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

For me, it is not only about being busy or occupied. It is about being efficient given that there is only so much time and a lot to do. It is knowing there is only a small window to commit to a certain task before I have to move on to some other pressing task. As someone who leads the special education program at my school, I can commit to a certain piece of paperwork and then have to drop everything when a student has a question or when a parent wants a conference over their student’s progress.

All of these commitments, according to most people, have been pretty successful. I am close to the top of my class as a law student, and just outside the top 10%. I have helped a lot of students graduate, get their appropriate accommodations and services, including 1-on-1 aides, and have helped turn around my school’s compliance numbers. I have run 288 miles for the month, with one more day to hit 300. I feel like I am getting into really good shape to run

Through it all, I am not focused on “how am I going to do all A, B, C and D today?” I am just focused on the narrow window to commit to the next thing, which gives a small sense of urgency to tasks where there’s normally little to no sense of urgency.

. . .

There is only a small window of time to commit. If that window closes, it is not the end of the world, but it does mean if something is not attended to now, it might mean I will completely forget about it and not attend to it for weeks, or ever, unless I’m reminded. I like One of my ADHD symptoms is that I am very forgetful. If I do not spend the next 15 minutes committed to doing dishes, for example, there is a very strong chance I just don’t get to it the rest of the day or for a few days.

The same goes for anything else I don’t feel particularly motivated to do, especially on a tight schedule. For example, I run almost every day. But there are plenty of times I really don’t feel like running. If I do not leave to run within a certain period of time, I will find excuses to be in the house and sit around instead of doing my training. Not leaving within a window of time may make me skip my run altogether.

In the summer, this window is even more critical. If I wake up early to run, the more time I let lapse without getting out the door, the hotter it will get. It can be 70 degrees Fahrenheit at 6 a.m., and then 85 degrees by 9 a.m., and 95 degrees by 12 p.m. These heat patterns have been very common in my region this summer, so waiting to run for 20–30 minutes can be a quite significant difference in how hot and unbearable the run is upon finishing.

This is nothing to be said about whether I actually get the task done or not. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how fast I run. The hard part is getting out the door. A particular task being completed is sometimes the goal, but it is a very secondary goal compared to task initiation.

There is a time period in any long-term project that feels like a chore and isn’t very fun. I’ve realized the 15 to 20 minutes spent chipping away, no matter how little you get done, might not seem very significant at the moment. However, coming to that project again the next day becomes so much easier because you have already gotten through the hurdle. A 20-mile run, for example, becomes so much easier mentally after you have gotten through the first two miles and 20 minutes where you warm up into it. Another example is my routine before going to sleep: I might not be tired at 10:50 p.m., but if I read a 10–15 minute window, I can probably get to sleep much faster since

Maximizing these small periods of time is particularly important for myself and others with ADHD because it is so easy to lose focus, be distracted, and have an all-or-nothing mindset.

Task initiation is a symptom of ADHD, according to ADDitude, because of deficits of executive dysfunction in many adults with ADHD, which can give weak prioritization skills and time blindness. This leads many people with ADHD to be huge procrastinators, and this can result in huge mental blocks and a sense of crisis any time something needs to get done by an impending, life-or-death deadline. I used to think this procrastination was an asset — that moment of the hour before the deadline used to be the most focused I would ever be.

And there was a lot of merit to those feelings — I did love the feeling of crisis and the state of hyperfocus it would put me in. As I have gotten older, that has become a bit less sustainable. I can live some of my life on the edge and feel like the world is going to end if I don’t get a certain thing done. But

But if I do not do what I said I would do in that window of time, not only may I just not get to it, but the downstream and long-term effects can be not great. If I do not at least start mowing the lawn today, for example, I might not finish it later this week, and it might become even more and more of a mental block to get done in just one behemoth session than it can be doing it for 40 minutes to an hour a day, a couple times a week. The same can be said of anything that needs to get done on a deadline. I do not need to complete a 30-page paper in one day, but if I do not seize my window to start that task today, it will be more stressful down the line if I leave it to the very end.

. . .

I also try not to make the concept of windows an all-or-nothing proposition. Living through these windows doesn’t mean I can’t get absolutely immersed in a TV show or book that I’m enjoying in my free time, or when I’m very engrossed in the deep work associated with my law studies.

Seeing my whole day in terms of windows can seem extremely structured and regimented, and sometimes, it is. But I try to give myself freedom and flexibility, too. I don’t worry too much about what I actually get done within a certain period of time. I extend the window if I’m in “the zone” all the time, too, most commonly when I’m writing something and know that I will break my flow if I stop.

Also, this mindset of needing to attend to X or Y within a certain window of time is completely put aside in times that require more unstructured, adapting to the conditions on the ground and go-with-the-flow thinking. That can be social situations with friends or being at dinner or watching a movie with my wife. At my internship, it can mean the hours upon hours I sit in a courtroom, observing a trial, so I reframe the goal for necessarily needing to maximize my time and be efficient.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned there is no one-size-fits-all solution to managing my time and my ADHD symptoms. Different approaches work for many different situations. The concept of “windows” applies to more unstructured time when I’m by myself and need to get a head start on big projects and readings.

But in times when the environment provides constraints or lends itself to taking a break, it’s important to seize those moments too. In high pressure, critical moments, like exams or when I’m running a half marathon or 5k, I try to let the completely instinctual part of me govern and take over to step up in that moment. That part lets me scale back effort when my body feels like it’s too much, or give more when my body feels like it can. It is completely responsive to feel rather than a set, rigid expectation of how fast I’m supposed to run.

For me, having these small windows to chip away and make tasks seem a lot less daunting and easier down the road has made all the difference.

We’re always trying to strike a balance in nuanced real-world situations. I only hope I don’t veer to be too rigid.

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This post was previously published on Invisible Illness.

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