Ever notice how your focus sharpens right before a looming deadline, as if the ticking clock finally sweeps away distraction? This episode of *Rhythms of Focus* dives beneath that familiar surge, exploring why urgency can both ignite and exhaust wandering minds—especially for adults with ADHD.

Join me as we untangle the hidden costs of deadline-driven focus and discover a gentler path: one where agency, rhythm, and self-compassion replace force and burnout. You’ll learn how to trade the chronic anxiety of “last-minute mode” for a kinder, more sustainable rhythm of engagement—one that honors both your creative energy and your need for rest.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why the “deadline rush” feels so compelling—and so draining
• How force-based focus erodes self-trust and agency
• A practical, visit-based approach to build momentum without pressure

Three actionable takeaways:

• Try a daily “visit” to your project: just show up, take a breath, and mark it done—no pressure to finish
• Use simple tools (a calendar, habit tracker, or even a scrap of paper) to gently anchor your attention
• Reframe deadlines as prompts for reality, not engines of anxiety—allowing your focus to flow with less self-judgment

This episode also features an original piano composition, “Dandelion Wine”—a musical invitation to warmth, presence, and gentle growth.

Subscribe for more mindful strategies, and visit rhythmsoffocus.com/visit for your free guide to building a rhythm that works with your wandering mind.

Links

• Your First Step to Breaking Free from Force Based Work (free PDF with signup)
• Rhythms of Focus – Episode 4
• Rhythms of Focus – Episode 9

Keywords

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #MindfulProductivity #Agency #FocusRhythm #GentleHabits #VisitBased #SelfCompassion #CreativeFocus #DeadlineAnxiety

Transcript

 

The Night Before and The Deadline Sharpens Focus

Picture this. It’s the night before a big project is due. Your mind starts to feel sharper. Distractions fade. You’re finally able to focus, powered by the pressure of this ticking clock. For many with wandering minds, ADHD, and beyond, this last minute surge is all too familiar.

So what’s going on under the surface? Join me on this episode of Rhythms of Focus as we consider reasons in the costs of deadline driven work and maybe find a kinder approach to making things happen that hopefully leaves you with a calmer sense of focus.

 

Force vs. Flow: The Hidden Costs of Pushing Yourself to Focus

When we can’t seem to get ourselves to do things, whatever those things are, we often resort to some form of force. And there’s several means of force.

One of them we’ve already looked at in episode six, which is the moral approach. This is where we can tell ourselves to “try harder” or shame ourselves among other possibilities.

Another method, many use, is to leverage deadlines. As we go through our lives, we lose things, forget things, have trouble starting and stopping and more. Often this leads to feelings of guilt and shame. Every attempt and injury worsens our wounds and the world becomes that much more dangerous.

It’s difficult to know where danger is, but it always seems to be there. Having got ourselves into trouble many times over throughout our lives.

So, we’re always on the hunt for danger, sometimes believing or even finding ourselves to be the source. We can wonder,

“What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? What can I do now that would hold off the most problems?”

Fight, Flight, or Freeze: How Urgency Hijacks the Wandering Mind

Another name for this is fight or flight. Activated by the sympathetic nervous system, fight flight, and you could also add freeze, is usually a state of mind and body that comes and goes, engaging us as we need to survive .

It’s a state in which we might feel charged. We can often leverage this hoping that this danger feeling can be an anchor. This is where the deadline steps in. Very often those with wandering minds say,

“I need a deadline to work!”

A deadline gives us that handle on the danger that we need. It says, “I finally know what’s dangerous!” And we can keep it in front of ourselves as this buoy of reality, not daring to let it go. As painful as it is, it can provide the sense of relief. “It’s finally something I know to focus on!” Sometimes I’ll hear it described as “an excuse to focus.” We can let other things fall away because this is the most important thing.

When we depend on a deadline, we depend on this fight- or- flight sense, this strong, powerful emotion. That emotion is what makes it feel real.

When we ask a teacher, “when will I use this?” It’s not necessarily because we’re being smart asses. It’s that we need something to feel real.

In other words, I’m not so certain that we depend on the deadline itself. I think it’s more this deep emotion, this stimulation that has something feel real and alive. It makes sense. There’s an intensity to it, and sometimes it gives us enough stimulation to get going.

The Double-Edged Sword of Deadlines: Relief and Burnout

unfortunately, a deadline is also a dreaded and painful master to work for. Demanding and uncaring about the inevitable other things that life throws our way. Whether we get sick or three other deadlines suddenly appear to demand our time, it doesn’t matter. The deadline consumes our time and attention now and rarely cares about anything else in our lives, let alone the sense that it’s hard to gauge how much time it might take to do a thing, and so our work becomes compressed, tense.

Still, if it’s the only thing that we’ve managed to make work, maybe it’s better than nothing?

But now because we sense danger as ever present, or if it’s not there, we’re looking for it- we’re essentially leaving the fight or flight switch in a chronically on position. We’ve in fact, created a system that is dependent on anxiety. For example,

when you say,

“I’m fine, I don’t need to think about this right now because it’s not due yet.”

All we’re doing is applying a brake to the fuel of anxiety. Anxiety is the center. It’s waiting for something to overwhelm the sense of, “I’m fine” to tip over into, “I’m not fine” to tell you when to start.

From chronically being in this fight or flight state, further hindered by the wandering mind and its own tendencies, we can cycle then between this deep frenzied work and then exhaustion and scatter.

The Agency Injury: Why Force-Based Focus Erodes Self-Trust

Continued attempts to force focus often lead to this painful exhaustion and injury to our sense of agency, as I described in episode nine. Because it’s painful and exhausting, our body adapts defenses. We need to find relief somewhere. It’s not just that we seek relief, it’s that our bodies may even force us into a state of relief.

Out of energy, our bodies seek some form of recovery almost regardless of our will. Unfortunately, like many psychological defenses, that type of recovery is not always beneficial. Nor is it always conscious.

The crash into the couch waiting for the next deadline is barely a rest.

Takeaway: Trading Urgency for Reality—A Kinder Rhythm of Focus

But I do believe there’s a better way, and let me give you this takeaway to consider here. You might look at relying on deadlines then as this source of urgency to get things done. But as I mentioned, it leaves us in this chronic state of anxiety and self-doubt. But if we instead look at it not about urgency so much as it is about craving reality, this powerful stimulant, we can then maybe leverage a rhythm of focus, regular visits and recognize the compounding possibilities that that may give us.

Okay. What does that look like? How would you do that?

The Daily Visit: Building Gentle Momentum Without Pressure

So one tool you might want to use to do this is something like a habit tracker or some app that has a repeating task to it or something like that. It could be a simple piece of paper if you want. It could be a calendar where you mark a little X next to it, something that just marks the day.

Now, consider some project or task in your world, preferably something with even a far off due date, something you’d barely even start thinking about in the moment because you don’t feel that pressure or urgency, at least not yet.

With these in hand, this thing that you can mark daily and the project or idea that you’d like to get into, make a visit sometime today to that thing. If you’d like to review the idea of a visit, consider episode four.

Put the materials of the project in front of you or go to it, and while you’re there, take a single deep breath. You can respect your sense of agency, knowing you don’t have to do any of it beyond that single deep breath. Whether you do nothing, maybe nudge it forward a tiny bit or even do a bunch, whatever it is, you can set it aside anytime that makes sense to you.

At that point, decide if you’d like to invite future you to do the same thing again tomorrow, where once again, you won’t have to do a thing if you decide not to at that time.

At that moment, step away. Whether you’ve done a little, whether you’ve done a lot, whether you’ve done nothing beyond that single deep breath, you can mark it complete on that piece of paper or on that app.

If you can do this, and maybe that’s a big if, but if you can do this, not only do I believe that you’d vastly improve your chances of getting something done well ahead of time and even with better quality than it would’ve been otherwise. You also start to connect with the realities and nuances within the work without the blaring urgency drowning it all out.

You will have created and engaged a rhythm of focus.

If you’d like a PDF to guide you through this, even show you how to set it up with a simple reminder app, head over to RhythmsOfFocus.com/Visit. So “rhythms” is plural and “rhythm” starts with RHY RhythmsOfFocus.com/Visit. You can enter your email address on there somewhere. You’ll sign up for the Weekly Wind Down newsletter. Wonderful newsletter. If I do say so myself, and you’ll get this free PDF that’ll walk you through it.

 

Dandelion Wine

Passion can be a powerful organizing force for a wandering mind. A daily visit to something that we find to be meaningful within us helps us connect with those feelings of reality. I remember reading years ago a copy of Ray Bradbury’s book called Dandelion Wine.

I remember nothing about it other than this emotional sense of warmth. The phrase putting on a comfortable pair of old gym shoes comes to mind. The following piece is called Dandelion Wine, named after the book.

Music tends to be this nuanced language when it comes to convey the feeling that I remember of that book. It’s in B Flat major six eight time. I hope you enjoy it.