![]() It was a Saturday and I had a new novel that I started reading stretched out on my bed just after breakfast. My mom called me for dinner and I remember being surprised that it was getting dark.” I don’t think I intended to do anything but build one snowman, but I got distracted and kept playing in the snow. I usually only played in the snow with my siblings, but this day I had an irresistible urge to build a snowman, so I went outside by myself. “When I was around 6 years old, I was intent on building a snowman. Once they leave, I have a sense of accomplishment and I feel lighter, as if a huge burden was lifted and I can carry on to the next task. Once I am finished with my client, two or three hours later, it maybe feels like one hour to me. When I do hair, I get into my own zone and almost everything around me fades away it’s just my client and me. “I am a hairstylist and when I learned about hyperfocus I realized I do it every day at work. My classmates will crank out several pieces in a day and I will work on one for weeks.” The NEED to make it perfect is so strong I can’t stop it. ![]() I will be working on a piece perfecting every last detail - intricate carving, trimming a fraction of a mm off a surface to make it perfect. I work in several mediums, but currently I take pottery classes. I was fully absorbed in the world I was reading about.” I felt like I was coming out of a trance, like the real world had stopped existing and I’d forgotten about anything that wasn’t the story in the book. I finished one book and looked up to see that 5 hours had passed and it was dark. “I was about 10 years old and reading books my mum got me from the library. The drill sergeant told me later that he had never seen a barracks floor look as nice as mine did.” Several of them said they had never seen someone so ‘ in the zone‘ before. Apparently I began to hum and move rhythmically like a machine as I took over the entire project myself, and they all fell back in silence to watch me work. He was surprised to find the entire squad standing back in silence watching me as I made the wax finish look like half-inch-thick glass with a third coat. ![]() Three hours into it, I ‘woke up’ as the drill sergeant came to check in. “When I was in secondary training in the Army, I volunteered to strip the floor in the barracks and put down new layers of wax. There are photos of me in the hallway with puzzles covering the floor, and a stack of puzzle boxes taller than me nearby.” This was a common Saturday occurrence for me when I was 5 years old. I would do every single puzzle in our cupboard and come up for air to see an entire day had flown by. A few years later, this hyperfocus on patterns translated to puzzles. It always felt jarring to go back to reality with the noises of regular life. I found the activity very soothing and never wanted it to end. “I remember counting changes in patterns of light in my room, or on my mom’s checked apron. Please add your hyperfocus stories in the Comments section below. ![]() When did you discover the power of hyperfocus? What were you doing? How much time flew by? What did it feel like when your brain was jolted back to reality? ADDitude readers responded to these questions in a recent survey, and here are some of answers that struck a strong chord. But almost every child and adult with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD) knows what it feels like to become so engrossed in something - a book, a home project, a video game - that they block out the world around them for hours at a time. Hyperfixation is not unique to individuals with ADHD.
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