ADHD Attention: What Is Competing With You? — an article by Carl Argent

ADHD Attention: What Is Competing With You?

ADHD attention is not simply present or absent. When you need to get something done, your mind is choosing between the task, your phone, your thoughts, your emotions, the room around you and anything that feels more urgent or rewarding. Understanding that competition can reduce shame and make practical change possible. NICE guidance on ADHD recognises the importance of environmental changes and structured psychological support.

• Attention can be captured by external distractions and internal experiences.
• Phone notifications can disrupt performance even when you do not respond to them.
• The aim is not perfect concentration. It is noticing what is competing and making a useful return easier.

You sit down to complete something important. The document is open. You know what needs to happen. Then your phone lights up, an email arrives, a thought about another task appears, and suddenly you are doing something else.

Twenty minutes later, the original task is still waiting. The familiar conclusion arrives: I should be able to focus.

That conclusion makes attention sound like a character test. It is more useful to ask a different question: what was competing with your attention at the moment you needed it?

Attention is a competition

Attention involves selecting some information while allowing other information to remain in the background. With ADHD, the difficulty is often not a complete absence of attention. It is regulating where attention goes, keeping it there when a task offers little immediate reward, and moving it when something else becomes more compelling.

Research with adults with ADHD finds that attention is not one single ability. Difficulties can involve sustained attention, divided attention, working memory, inhibition and interference control. The pattern also differs between people and situations. A systematic review of adult ADHD cognition supports this broader view.

You may concentrate deeply on an interesting problem and struggle to begin a routine form. You may follow a conversation in a quiet room and lose it when another voice begins nearby. You may know exactly what to do until worry, shame or uncertainty starts demanding attention too.

This is why the question matters. What is competing right now?

Why the useful task can lose

The task you intend to do may be important without being immediately engaging. Its reward may be distant. The first step may be unclear. You may expect it to be boring, difficult or emotionally uncomfortable.

The competitor often offers something faster. A message brings social contact. A news feed brings novelty. A small household task offers a quick sense of completion. Worry can feel urgent even when it does not lead anywhere.

This does not mean the useful task does not matter to you. It means importance is only one influence on attention. Interest, novelty, emotion, clarity, effort, reward, tiredness and the environment are competing at the same time.

Phones are built to compete

Phones and digital devices offer an unusually strong mixture of novelty, social information, sound, movement and immediate reward. They remain available at almost every pause in a task.

In an experimental study, phone notifications disrupted performance on an attention demanding task even when participants did not touch the device. The notification study suggests that the cue itself can pull thought away from the task.

Another experiment found lower performance on an attention test when a smartphone was present. This was not an ADHD study and it does not prove that every person is affected in the same way, but it supports a useful question about whether the visible phone is taking up part of the available attention. The smartphone presence study explains the finding.

Phones do not cause every attention difficulty and using one is not a moral failure. The practical point is that a device may be competing with a task even before you decide to pick it up.

Internal competition matters too

Not every distraction is in the room. Attention may be pulled by an unfinished conversation, fear of getting something wrong, resentment about the task, tiredness, hunger, pain, sensory discomfort or a belief that you have already failed.

Sometimes avoiding the task is protecting you from a feeling. Opening an email may risk criticism. Starting a project may expose uncertainty. Completing something may create another expectation. In those moments, removing the phone may help, but it may not address the strongest competitor.

Therapy can explore what the task means, what emotion appears around it and what your attention may be trying to move away from. That understanding creates more options than simply demanding greater discipline.

Make the next action visible

A broad instruction such as finish the report leaves many decisions inside the task. Each decision creates another place for attention to move.

A visible next action reduces that competition. Open the document. Read the final paragraph. Write one sentence describing the problem. The action should be small enough that you know what your hands will do next.

This is not pretending the whole task is easy. It is giving attention one clear place to land.

Change the environment before testing willpower

NICE describes environmental modifications as changes that reduce the impact of ADHD in daily life. Examples include reducing distractions, using written instructions, choosing shorter periods of focus and including movement breaks.

For digital competition, an experiment might involve turning off nonessential notifications, placing the phone outside your reach, closing unused tabs or using a separate browser window for the task. The aim is not permanent digital restriction. It is learning which environment helps you do what matters.

If silence makes attention drift, a steady sound, movement, a visible timer or working near another person may be worth testing. Support should be based on what actually helps you, not on a perfect image of concentration.

Leave yourself a way back

Interruptions do more than take time. They can disrupt the working memory needed to remember where you were and what came next. Experimental research has found poorer performance after interruptions, with repeated interruptions producing a larger effect. Research on interruption and working memory describes this cost.

Before switching away, write a short return note. I was checking the totals. Next I need to compare the final two rows. When you return, the note holds the place that working memory may have lost.

A deliberate return also matters. Take a moment to look at the task, read the note and choose the next action instead of expecting your mind to restart instantly.

Practise returning, not perfect focus

Attention will move. The useful skill is noticing sooner and returning without using the movement as proof that you cannot do the task.

Some psychological treatments for adult ADHD include organisation, behavioural activation and attention practice. A recent randomised trial of a treatment for inattentive ADHD included skills in organisation, activation and mindfulness. The results support skills based psychological work while not suggesting that one approach suits everybody. The treatment study provides further detail.

The return can be brief. Notice that you have moved away. Name the task you chose. Make the next action visible again. This is a skill that becomes more familiar through practice.

A small attention experiment

Choose one task that has been difficult to begin or continue. Treat the following as an experiment rather than a test of whether you are trying hard enough.

1. Write the smallest visible action that would begin the task.
2. Name three things likely to compete for your attention. Include thoughts or feelings as well as objects and sounds.
3. Reduce one external competitor before you begin.
4. Choose a short period of work that feels realistic.
5. If you stop, leave a written note showing exactly where to return.
6. Afterwards, ask what helped, what competed and what you would change next time.

The result may show that the phone mattered. It may show that the task was too vague, the room was too noisy, the timing was poor or the emotional cost was greater than you realised. Each answer gives you something more useful than self criticism.

Therapy is not productivity training

The purpose of ADHD therapy is not to make you work continuously or become easier for other people to manage. Attention matters because it affects the choices, relationships and activities that matter to you.

We can explore what captures attention, what makes a task feel threatening or unreachable, and which practical supports create enough space for a different response. Skills may help you cope first. Over time, they can also change how you understand yourself and what you believe is possible.

Progress may mean beginning with less distress, returning sooner after an interruption, asking for a clearer instruction or choosing not to force attention when rest is genuinely needed.

You do not need perfect attention. You need a kinder and more accurate understanding of where it goes, what is competing and what helps you return.

How I can help

When attention keeps slipping away, the frustration can become as difficult as the task. In ADHD therapy with me, you can explore what competes for your attention, including anxiety, shame and the pressure to get things right. I will help you understand those responses without treating concentration as a measure of your worth.

We might take one recent situation, notice what you felt and needed, and practise a response that gives you more room to choose. That could involve asking for clearer expectations or recognising when overwhelm needs care. If your main aim is practical organisation and task support, we can also consider ADHD coaching.

If losing the thread has started to affect how you see yourself or how comfortable you feel with others, you can talk that through with me. ADHD therapy gives us room for the emotional experience; we can also discuss coaching if practical support is what you want. You don’t need to know which before making contact. You can book a free introductory conversation with no obligation to book sessions, or read more about ADHD therapy with me.

Sources

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management.

Onandia Hinchado, I., Pardo Palenzuela, N., and Diaz Orueta, U. Cognitive characterisation of adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder by domains.

Stothart, C., Mitchum, A., and Yehnert, C. The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification.

Skowronek, J., Seifert, A., and Lindberg, S. The mere presence of a smartphone reduces basal attentional performance.

Chen, Y., Fang, W., Bao, H., and Guo, B. The effect of task interruption on working memory performance.

Stralin, E., and colleagues. Cognitive behavioural therapy for ADHD with an inattentive presentation.