# ADHD and music production



## ein fisch (Mar 10, 2019)

It brings a huge creativity with it and therefore i love having ADHD. However my concentration is ridiculously bad and its really blocking me from using my full potential or staying on something longer than 3 hours.

Is there someone else dealing with that issue and could give me tips? I even have medication to focus better but the effect is minimal.

Have a great sunday


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## CoffeeLover (Mar 10, 2019)

yeah relate very well to what youre saying i have ADD following with massive concentration issues

you might want to try out gym or physical activity
for me is bootcamp and crossfit and olympic wighlifting. it helps me focus and i mean it really does help my attention disorder. 
i havent gone since last november and i cant focus much right now cos of touring but in april ill start again when tours are finished.


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## ein fisch (Mar 10, 2019)

CoffeeLover said:


> yeah relate very well to what youre saying i have ADD following with massive concentration issues
> 
> you might want to try out gym or physical activity
> for me is bootcamp and crossfit and olympic wighlifting. it helps me focus and i mean it really does help my attention disorder.
> i havent gone since last november and i cant focus much right now cos of touring but in april ill start again when tours are finished.



You're so right, thanks for bringing this topic up. I totally forgot about sports in the past, because i couldn't really afford the gym anymore. I'll search for something else i can do


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## Mornats (Mar 10, 2019)

ein fisch said:


> You're so right, thanks for bringing this topic up. I totally forgot about sports in the past, because i couldn't really afford the gym anymore. I'll search for something else i can do


I watched some YouTube videos a few years ago about how to exercise without spending money on the gym or equipment. I'm pretty sure it was called Scooby's workshops.

Basically you can do push-ups, sit-ups, skipping on the spot (with a skipping rope) and pull-ups using a pull-up bar. The rope and pull-up bar can be very cheap.


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## SchnookyPants (Mar 10, 2019)

I've been trying to handle it my entire life (and I'm retired now). No solution, but I've got a thousand masterpieces started...


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## gregh (Mar 10, 2019)

Tai Chi for concentration - there are often free or very cheap courses




but you say you can ohnly concentrate fon a piece for 3 hours - do you mean work for 3 hours straight, or do you mean after 3 hours on a piece you stop working on it and go on to another idea?


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## CoffeeLover (Mar 10, 2019)

aah yes if you want to go the DIY route then juat always set yourself an hour program or more 
you might want to spend 20-40 dollars per month 
on couple of online exercise learning. 
you might want to learn stretches they are really good and i recomend a site called romwod.com
and i also recomend thenx.com for some serious body execises for beginners and pros and you only need your body for that and once you got all the stretches sorted out then you dont need to pay anymore and you just quit your subscription on romwod.


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## creativeforge (Mar 10, 2019)

It's exhausting always having to re-focus, and like you after 2-3 hours I get on other things. Really bad if I go on social media on top of that. So I procrastinate, sadly, and get discouraged when contemplating a long-term project. I've been off meds for 2.5 years and so I don't feel as comatose as I used to, but am exploring CBD oil in a few weeks. 

I found that - good sleep (before midnight) and probiotics helps, and working in the morning on difficult tasks is best, while I have spunk. But it doesn't help for long-term projects I dreamed about for years. 

Hope these short vids bring some brain food. 





Good luck, I'll follow this thread for some nuggets. 

Andre


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## ein fisch (Mar 10, 2019)

gregh said:


> Tai Chi for concentration - there are often free or very cheap courses
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thx for the suggestion. I cant stay on monotone tasks longer than 3h. And even in these 3h im hella unproductive and get distracted fast. So yea, it is a pain to finish a song.


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## creativeforge (Mar 10, 2019)

(Taken from a quote by Ned Hallowell...)


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## gregh (Mar 10, 2019)

ein fisch said:


> Thx for the suggestion. I cant stay on monotone tasks longer than 3h. And even in these 3h im hella unproductive and get distracted fast. So yea, it is a pain to finish a song.



If you are working on a computer then 3 hours in a row is more than healthy - just accept that is your limit and have breaks. where you go outside or do some housework or whatever, just do something utterly different and physical. Again if you are on a computer then don't have it connected to the net when you are working. Use something like Focusme https://focusme.com/ which makes it easy to lock your computer off the net for 5, 10 30, 60 minutes at a time. 

3 hours on task seems pretty good to me


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## AlexRuger (Mar 10, 2019)

Yeah, 3 hours of straight concentration doesn't seem like ADHD. Sounds like you're human, and actually pretty good at concentrating.


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## brenneisen (Mar 10, 2019)

shrooms


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## Montisquirrel (Mar 10, 2019)

"to-do lists" are my best friends regarding focus. besides a list for the whole week, which I write on sunday, I also use them for working on projects.

Writing a 30sec idea very quick is no problem for you I guess. Just turn that creative hyper-focus on. Problems starts when going into details, fixing midi, layering instruments etc... I do it this way: I listen to that first idea while having pen and paper and write down all the things I wanna change and after that I DO EXACTLY WHAT I WROTE and nothing else. Really, nothing else. After that, I make a break. I'm talking about a real break, so no social media, no TV etc... Going for a walk can also be very annoying with all that stimulations everywhere. I prefer laying on my bed with ear-plugs and do nothing.

Going back to the project, I write down the things I want to do next (e.g. chord progression 2nd part, ...) and than DO EXACTLY WHAT I WROTE.

For me, this simple trick is a lifesaver, not only for making music.


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## Henu (Mar 10, 2019)

AlexRuger said:


> Yeah, 3 hours of straight concentration doesn't seem like ADHD.



Actually, with ADHD the brain is extremely locked to the interesting task it's doing and it is possible to work countless of hours without even remembering to eat or drink. The problem of concentration happens if you don't have something that is _interesting enough_ to concentrate on. When you do, you can't think anything else and the house could be on fire without you noticing it.

On Fisch's problem, I'd love to bet that it's more about the process he's doing that is not giving his overtuned brain enough stimulation. And if you don't _have_ to do that not-that-interesting task (no urgent deadline, etc), it becomes the nightmare for a brain with ADHD. Enter procrastination, or "research and development" as I try to convince myself. Just how many times can you actually re-order your sample libraries? It can take me two weeks to come up with _one_ idea for a project I'm not interested in while I can compose, arrange, mix and master a full song from scratch when I'm in my own zone where only I and the project exist in the world. I bet that when you can enter to that zone, you could so the thing you're doing for hours in a row, @ein fisch ?

For what it comes to concentrating on even that three hours, I don't see that as a problem in case you just get results. So called "normal" people may spend the whole day on things which a brain loaded on ADHD can do in a couple of hours. Don't think about the time, think only about the results. But if you feel like you should be able to do more, you can try the Pomodoro- technique which may or may not help. The last time I tried to something similar, called Timeboxing (so many fancy names to all these things) I just ended up getting stuck on the first project on the schedule, re-scheduling everything else for the next day...and the next day....and the next. But hey, at least the first project was a success when I finally got that tackled down. :D

My best advice is that as the mental stimulation plays a huge part on the outcome of concentration, try to pick the project you're working on based on your current feeling. If you feel like doing that "other thing" right now, do it. Otherwise you may as well spend the same time on _not_ doing that other thing you were supposed to do because of procrastination and unable to concentrate on anything. You concentration is directly dependant on the stimulation of the task and no single internet-site-blocker app isn't going to help- you'll either disable the blocker or figure out another way to weasel out from the task that isn't stimulating enough. 

ADHD is tricky business. I wouldn't change my brain into anything else, because that is a huge part what has made me to succeed in many parts of my musical career. The downside is that it's impossible me to relax most of the time and I always need to have different projects going on (outside of my regular work, which is ironically also composing and music production) or I get bored and cranky. And when I have those projects, it's hard to not to be devoured by them, and thinking of nothing else before they are finished. Lucky for me, my wife knows exactly when she needs to understand my "features" and when to tell me to get a grip on things- especially for what it comes to home and the kids. Not many people are as lucky as I am in that sense.

The best help for me is definitely scheduling, TASK LISTS, visual notes and as tidy (spartan clean) and non-noisy working environment I can possibly make it to be. Chaos outside equals chaos inside for me. You could also try that!


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