The ADHD Productivity Myth No One Talks About

Productivity hacks assume there's only one way to work. But it just doesn't work like that. And once you realise that, productivity stops feeling like a fight.

Last time, I talked about why executive dysfunction doesn’t really exist. If you missed it… here it is below

I shared how there’s no mental CEO inside your head deciding what gets done. There’s no broken processor failing to sort your priorities. What we call executive dysfunction isn’t an internal failure. The term was a placeholder for something we didn’t (and still don’t) fully understand.

But if we believe that — it leaves a huge question:

If executive dysfunction isn’t what’s stopping us… what causes us to struggle with being organised, or productive, or with getting things done?

And more importantly—what can we DO about it?

That’s where Ecological Psychology comes in.

The Myth of Productivity

Most productivity advice assumes this:

➡️ See a task → Process it → Act on it.

If you struggle with focus, they say the problem is in that middle step—that you’re failing to “process” things efficiently.

So they tell us:
You need better systems.¹
You need structured routines.²
You need more discipline.³

But what if that entire model doesn’t actually explain what’s happening?

What if we don’t process things at all?

Ecological Psychology—developed by Eleanor & James J. Gibson—suggests something entirely different:

We don’t sit back, analyse information, and then decide what to do. We perceive opportunities for action in real time—and we act accordingly.

Instead of:
See → Process → Act

It’s actually:
Perceive⁴ <—> Act (coupled)

This theory explains so much about why traditional productivity advice doesn’t work for many neurodivergent people.

For example:

• ADHD perception prioritises multiple possibilities at once.

• Autistic perception thrives in structure, predictability, and clear affordances.

• AuDHD shifts between both, adapting uniquely to context.

And if we’re perceiving the world in fundamentally different ways, doesn’t it make sense that we need different ways of working, too?

Working With Perception Instead of Against It

If you’ve ever tried to force yourself to focus, you’ve probably noticed… it ain’t gonna work.

That’s because focus isn’t something you generate internally—It’s driven by behaviours that lead to an outcome. You see an opportunity that links to something you’re trying to do and you go and do it.

Instead of pushing through distraction, try these three perception-based shifts:

1. Anchor tasks to your environment

Your actions don’t start in your head—they start with what you perceive as immediately available.

Instead of relying on willpower, adjust your space so the right affordances (opportunities for action) are visible and easy to engage with.

Try this: If you keep forgetting to respond to an email, instead of relying on memory, put the email tab next to something you already engage with (your music app, your messages, etc.).

2. Use movement to refresh perception

Feeling stuck? Instead of trying to “push through,” change what you’re looking at or how you interact with the task.

Try this: Move to a different chair, stand up, or change your workspace layout. ADHD thrives on new perceptual input, while Autistic focus might benefit from deliberate sensory adjustments.

3. Let perception drive action

The hardest part of any task is often starting—not because you’re unmotivated, but because nothing in your environment is making the next action obvious.

Try this: If you need to write, open the doc before you even sit down. If you need to clean, move one thing first before thinking about “cleaning.” Make the next action unavoidable.

This is also why motivation can feel so unpredictable. You can’t "generate" motivation out of nowhere—it happens when you see something that actually connects to what you care about.

If you’re feeling stuck, it’s probably not about motivation at all. It’s about whether you can actually see a reason to act.

Could Improving ADHD Productivity Be About Perception?

You don’t have a motivation problem.
You don’t have an executive dysfunction problem.
You have a perception-action mismatch.

And once you start working with your perception instead of trying to override it—productivity stops being about force, and starts being about flow.

If executive dysfunction isn’t the problem, then productivity isn’t about fixing yourself—it’s about working with how you already interact with the world.

Start there. Adjust your environment. Shift how you engage with tasks. Let perception drive action.

And watch what happens when productivity stops feeling like a battle—and starts feeling like something that actually fits.

1. Systems often get a bad rap because they’re treated as tools to diagnose and fix… when really, systems are just things that happen. Our bodies are systems within systems. The way we move, think, and interact with the world? All system-driven. But that’s Dynamical Systems Theory—and I’m still working on explaining that one. 😉

2. To force us to work one way. As we can’t possibly be dynamic, everything is static and we always need to focus on just one thing.

3. Cause there aren’t enough people going “why don’t you just do X”. 🤦🏻‍♀️

4. Perceive isn’t just about what you see here. We don’t just act on visual information we act what we hear, touch, sense internally (interoception), and how we physically move through the world (proprioception & vestibular sense). Perception is the full interaction between ourselves and the environment, across multiple sensory systems—not just sight. (which is kinda important when the person writing this is blind in one eye 😉)