Using a Life Vision as Someone with ADHD to Do More of What Matters

Author at a Star Party

One of the things I’ve learned about having ADHD is that it’s not usually a lack of ambition that gets in the way. Its direction. Not vague inspiration, but a sustainable thread you can hold onto when your mind wants to chase ten ideas at once, or shut down completely. 

For me, the challenge hasn’t been caring deeply about what I do. I care a lot. However, my ADHD brain is wired to follow sparks: new ideas, emotions, and a sense of urgency. While that makes me creative, it also means I’ve spent much time on side quests that never added up to something whole. The more that happens, the more I’ve noticed how it chips away at my self-esteem. You start to wonder if you’re capable of building anything that lasts. 

In those foggy or frenetic moments, I’ve found I need more than productivity tools. What helps most is having a life vision: something steady and grounded that I can return to when my brain loses the plot. Not a rigid plan. Not a perfect timeline. A compass. 

Staying Anchored in a “Now”-Focused Brain 

Research backs this up. Dr. Russell Barkley described ADHD as involving “temporal myopia,” a tendency to focus on the present moment at the expense of future outcomes (Barkley, 1997). Studies have also linked ADHD to “delay aversion,” where long-term rewards don’t register as motivating in the moment (Sonuga-Barke et al., 2010). In other words, we may care about the future, but our brains don’t consistently connect to it. 

That disconnect often leads to diffused effort, pursuing ideas that don’t build on each other, or abandoning goals when the urgency fades. Over time, that pattern doesn’t just slow progress. It starts to feel personal. Like proof that maybe we’re not capable. But we are. We just need support in navigating that gap between what we want and what our executive function can hold. 

A life vision doesn’t fix ADHD, but it bridges the gap. It gives us a long-view anchor to come back to when we’re scattered or overwhelmed. Something that helps us pause and ask: “Is this in service of the life I want to create?” or “Is this just urgency disguised as importance?” 

The author taking a picture of telescopes at a star party.

Vision as Compass, Not Prescription 

A life vision is not a productivity hack. It’s not about measuring yourself by output. It’s not another system to fail at. A good life vision is more like a thread or a guiding story about what you want your life to be about. 

You don’t have to figure out every detail. You just have to know what matters most. Not in the abstract, but in a way that’s specific enough to guide your next steps. 

It might sound like: 

• I am a grounded, connected parent who helps my children feel safe, seen, and proud of who they are. 

• I am a strategic thinker who brings clarity to complex challenges and helps people move forward with confidence. 

• I am an adaptive leader who creates focus, momentum, and psychological safety so my team can thrive without burnout. 

These statements aren’t about performance. They’re about alignment. And when you’re able to come back to your own north star, the daily noise quiets down. You don’t have to re-decide what matters every day. You just have to steer back toward what’s already true. 

Rethinking Productivity for ADHD Brains 

Most ADHD advice still centers on how to do more, faster, with better tools and tighter routines. But for a lot of us, that’s a one-way road to burnout and distrust of improvement ideas. More isn’t always the goal. Sometimes, alignment is. 

A life vision helps me choose projects that build on each other, not just scatter my energy. It helps me notice when I’m veering into burnout territory and pull back without guilt. It gives me a framework for recovering from setbacks without shame because I haven’t lost my place, just my pace. 

For people with impaired executive function, this is more than a nice-to-have. It’s often the missing piece that makes everything else easier to carry. 

A Way Forward 

You don’t need to figure out the next five years. You don’t need a perfect plan. What you might need is something to steer toward. Something that helps you remember who you are and what you’re building when everything feels foggy, scattered, urgent, or off track. 

A life vision won’t solve ADHD. But it helps hold the thread when your executive function can not. It can keep you connected to your purpose when your attention wanders. And it can gently reframe all those side quests not as failures, but as signals, reminding you to reorient and keep going on what you decided matters most. 

Not perfectly. But meaningfully. Because having direction helps us work with our brains, not against them.

References 

• Barkley, R. A. (1997). Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions: Constructing a unifying theory of ADHD. Psychological Bulletin, 121(1), 65–94. 

• Sonuga‐Barke, E. J. S., & Fairchild, G. (2012). Neuroeconomics of ADHD: Differential influences of medial, dorsal, and ventral prefrontal brain networks on sub-optimal decision-making? Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 36(2), 1051–1062.