Feeling trapped by rigid productivity hacks or the pressure to “just start”? This episode of Rhythms of Focus invites you to reimagine focus—not as a battle of willpower, but as a gentle practice of agency.

For adults with ADHD and wandering minds, agency is the skill of deciding and engaging non-reactively, even when emotions or distractions surge like waves. Instead of forcing yourself forward, you’ll discover how to nurture a sense of agency that honors your rhythms and restores trust in your own choices.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why agency—not force—is the missing ingredient for meaningful productivity and self-trust
• How to move from shame-based or deadline-driven habits to a visit-based approach that supports your creative mind
• Practical ways to pause, sense your options, and make decisions that feel true to you

• Practice “visits” instead of forcing action, building agency one gentle step at a time
• Use mindful pauses to transform overwhelm into clarity and choice
• Reframe “I don’t wanna” moments as signals to honor your agency, not shame yourself

Enjoy an original piano composition, Wind at Play, highlighting the practice between play and agency.

Subscribe to Rhythms of Focus and visit rhythmsoffocus.com for more resources, support, and inspiration designed for creative, wandering minds.

#ADHD, #WanderingMinds, #agency, #gentleproductivity, #mindfulfocus, #visitbasedproductivity, #selftrust, #creativity, #selfcompassion, #rhythmsoffocus

• Episode S01E04 - From Force to Flow with a Visit
• Episode S01E07 - Cautions of Dopamine and a Lean into Mastery
• “I just don’t wanna” and the Power of a Visit - Neurodivergent Insights
• What’s the Difference Between PDA and Demand Avoidance? - Neurodivergent Insights

it's a familiar refrain for those with wandering minds. So what do we do when we just don't wanna.

You may well know that once you're in it, you're good to go, but getting there can be terribly difficult. Yelling, "just start" hardly works. And when it does, it carries this host of troubles.

In earlier episodes, I talked about dopamine and the "interest-based nervous system" as it's been called, and how we might use these ideas against ourselves to say that we need some chemical or preexisting emotion to get to work. We adopt a sense that we cannot work by our own will.

But I did also hint at a third point of view.

We often focus on attention. For example, one type of wandering mind often carries such a diagnosis. ADHD. It's right there in the title, right? Attention Deficit hyperactivity Disorder. And there's even the inattentive type where we say that is the main focus.

But what's profoundly missing from the title and other wandering minds, such as the anxious, the creative, the absent-minded, and the like, is the sense of agency.

Now, what is that? It sounds simple. Maybe boring. Why bother with such an abstract idea? What does agency have to do with anything?

This central idea is a pillar to everything I write about, how I function as a psychoanalyst, and how I function as a teacher.

If you want to know the...