It’s not surprising that a diagnosis of ADHD often comes during the schooling years. Oftentimes (but not always) it’s associated with difficulties within the classroom - primarily related to an ability to maintain attention for a significant period of time. An adult ADHD diagnosis often follows several years of frustration about difficulties focusing at work or university - concentration often just seems to come harder than it does for others. It’s important to note that people with ADHD are often able to focus on tasks that they’re interested in or enjoy - it’s the persistent inability to focus on more mundane tasks that can potentially indicate that ADHD may be present.

People with ADHD often have difficulty starting tasks that require concentration. To the outsider it can often look like a simple case of not prioritising what’s important (e.g homework or a work project), but for someone struggling with ADHD, it sometimes just seems impossible to start. This can be a result of a feeling of overwhelm due to anticipating the struggle of concentration to complete the task, or just as commonly it may be due to an inability to take the first step for some unknown reason. People with ADHD often become frustrated with themselves, oftentimes finding themselves unable to start a task that they genuinely see as important.

Tasks requiring prolonged concentration can be overwhelming and exhausting to people with ADHD and it can be difficult for them to sustain the attention that is required to complete the task. To an observer, it could appear that the individual lacks conscientiousness, but this is very often far from the case - it just does not seem possible. For some people with ADHD, they are not consciously aware of their difficulty concentrating on the task at hand, but rather their difficulties with attention result in them being easily distracted away from the task, leaving some important tasks and projects undone.

It’s very important to understand that ADHD presents differently in different people. For example, while childhood ADHD may in some people’s minds be associated with disruptive or problematic classroom behaviour, this is very often not the case. In fact, many people with clinically significant difficulties with attention don’t experience any physical symptoms, primarily struggling with concentration. For those who do, often it doesn’t present as disruptive behaviour, but rather persistent fidgeting and a need to move. Unfortunately many girls and women suffering from ADHD are not diagnosed because their presentation isn’t consistent with stereotypes.