I have never once thought I might have ADHD in my life… but it occurred to me a
By Jodie Rogers Symbia · October 8, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
I have never once thought I might have ADHD in my life… but it occurred to me a few months ago. I tried to work out why I was not questioning this about myself. Then I realised it was because of AI, not the basic chat nonsense, but when we started integrating it properly into our workflows, like properly, properly.
What I noticed happening to me was a massive case of ‘open file syndrome’ - starting a gazillion things, managing to finish 3, starting new things, writing lists of other things I wanted to do. Getting focused, side tangent, focused again, distracted, coffee time (will just get it to do these 4 completely unrelated things while I’m downstairs….
Possibility, possibility, possibly….. ;-)
(see what I did there?!)
It’s got to the stage where I have digitalised the equivalent of walking into my kitchen and having no idea why I’m there because I’m now distracted by the dishes (but maybe I was getting water, oh I know, I was charging something, no, that’s not it…hmm I should look in the fridge)
Because I like to think about my thinking (a lot; I’m a detective for my own mind), I did some thinking about it. I was trying to work out what was happening to me, and I think it boils down to 2 things
1 + 1 = a gazillion and 1
My new exciting endless ideas + an AI with its own ideas of what it can do next = EXPLOSION if half-complete brilliant ideas (that might not be good enough)
I had to stop. Genuinely stop. What I did next is kind of ironic, but it helped. I opened another window and voiced what I thought was happening; I’ve noticed I am all over the place. I have started way too many things. I have finished probably half of them. Some are more important than others, but I am moving too fast to even prioritise. I need help making sense of all of this.
And then we built something that let me actually see it: what I had started but not finished. What was done and needed to launch. What was still just an idea that hadn't been touched yet.
It was, genuinely, one of the most useful things I have done in months.
But here is the real post.
The temptation with AI is to automate everything, run multiple agents, spin up more and more things simultaneously. And suddenly you have not saved time. You have become the manager of a small fleet of overexcited interns who are very confident about what they know and need constant supervision.
You're saving time in one direction and burning it in three others.
So what is actually working? How are you managing yourself in the toy shop? What stops you from going down every single rabbit hole? What is your trick for being a good finisher when the technology is constantly dangling the next shiny thing?
👉 Genuinely asking. What are your top tips?