If you have ADHD, just spend one hour setting up this AI system.
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Editor's note: Stop forcing yourself to "choose only one thing". The real crisis never comes from having too many interests, but from the brain's lack of scheduling capability. Outsource the most energy-draining planning work to AI, and install an external engine for your scattered goals in 60 minutes. This content comes from a translated article.
If you have an ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) brain, you may have six different goals at hand at the same time, end up feeling overwhelmed, wasting day after day without making progress on any of them. This system is built specifically to solve this problem.
I am passionate about Agents, Agent Harness, Reinforcement Learning (RL), Large Language Model (LLM) architectures, inference engineering and Alignment. This list keeps growing, not because I lack focus, but because I genuinely love every single one of these directions, and each of them is truly worth in-depth exploration.
And that is exactly where the problem lies.
Every time I dive deep into one of these directions, I feel like I am missing out on all the others.
The common advice is to "pick only one thing to work on". I have already elaborated on why this kind of advice is long outdated.
You need to become a polymath (otherwise you will be replaced by machines)
The problem is not that you have too many interests, but that you lack a planning force that exists outside your brain and willpower. Otherwise, you have to fight a "motivation war" in your mind every morning, and most of the time, you will not win that fight.
You may have heard that AI is the best gift for neurodiverse people. That is true, but only if you use it the right way.
This article will introduce a simple system I built that works very well for me (and may also work for you), including:
Two rules that stop different interests from competing for your energy
The five components of this system, and why each of them exists
What relevant research says about this practice
The weekly cycle that keeps the system running continuously
You are not unfocused, you just lack planning capability
And planning is exactly the thing that ADHD brains are worst at. What you need to achieve is:
Turn a vague goal (such as "I want to be a researcher in a certain field") into a practical roadmap
Decide which topic you should focus your energy on today
Remember where you left off last week
Re-plan when the original plan falls through completely (which is bound to happen!)
The good news is that this is exactly the kind of tedious work that current agents are best at: reading a large amount of background information, breaking it down into specific steps, and never crashing even if the plan is rewritten ten times.
Your interests do not have to drain each other
Having six interests at the same time looks like this in real life: every morning, they fight in your mind for "who gets you today". After you pick one, the rest of them keep pulling at your attention.
As a result, you keep switching, switching, and switching again.
By Friday, you have made no progress on any of the things.
AI solves this problem with two rules. You could implement these rules by yourself, but sticking to them week after week is exactly the difficulty that ADHD brains face. Agents do not have this problem.
Rule 1: Divide parallel lanes instead of sequential order
The most natural planning method is to queue up: finish one interest, then start the next one, and so on. This seems focused, but the interests at the end of the queue will not wait quietly, they will keep tugging at you.
Therefore, you may assign a dedicated lane to each interest:
Build lane: the interest that you pour most of your energy into right now
Reading lane: interests that you advance slowly, such as reading one chapter of a book or one paper per week
Open lane: a side task slot reserved for any new thing that excites you this week
Parking lot: all the rest of your interests
No interest will be abandoned, so you do not have to worry about missing any of them. They are just waiting in place with a bookmark. AI can assign these lanes to your weekly schedule, and that morning "negotiation" in your head will no longer exist.
This is exactly what a planning force outside your brain should look like.
Rule 2: Find the core main axis
Many interests seem scattered and unrelated from the outside, but most of the time that is not the case. They have something in common, and agents can help you find that connection.
Suppose you love programming, design, psychology, writing and video production. These look like five completely unrelated hobbies, but as long as you align them to the same goal, such as launching your own app, they will converge to the same direction:
Programming is responsible for building the product
Design makes it easier to use
Psychology helps you understand users
Writing is responsible for promotion
Videos let more people see it
Once you have this main axis, diving deep into one interest will empower the others, instead of competing for energy with them.
If your interests are already similar (for example, all of mine revolve around AI), the main axis is easy to form. If they seem completely unrelated, that is the time to let the agent help you find the connection points, but of course, do not expect it to work magic.
The system you need is actually very simple
Agents (Claude, ChatGPT, Hermes, GrokBot): This is the brain of the entire system. Any agent that can connect to your commonly used software through plugins will work, it will read all information and turn it into plans. But from my experience, Claude performs much better in this scenario.
Your personal profile: resume, social media homepages, dream job openings, collected courses and papers, and so on. Any content that reflects who you are, what you know, and what you want to learn works. You can upload them as files, or describe them directly in the Prompt.
Notion: This is the agent's roadmap and external memory base, storing goals, information sources and various decisions. If you do not want to rely on the agent's built-in memory function, this is the best choice. The agent will read it at the beginning of each session and update it at any time during the process. Of course, you can also use other software, or even local .md (Markdown) files.
Obsidian: Your own note library. Notion is for the agent, while Obsidian is the place where you take notes. You can of course use Notion for yourself, but I do not like to use it for learning. I love the bidirectional links between notes, I love that all content is stored locally, and it allows the agent running on your computer to edit directly.
Schedule planning software (TickTick or Todoist): This link is more critical than you might think. Macro planning is one thing, but having specific, accountable small steps every day makes a huge difference. Both of these apps have integrations that can connect to agents, making it easy to add tasks or read progress. I use TickTick, and I recommend it more.
Please note my emphasis on "simple", which is crucial. When you cannot summon the energy to do anything, what you need is not a system that adds resistance, but a solution as easy as writing a prompt.
What research says: Move the plan out of your brain
The research behind this goes back longer than the history of AI, and all conclusions point to the same direction: move planning out of your brain, onto paper, into software, or get assistance from other people.
Write it down
One of the most well-known ADHD researchers, Russell Barkley, points out that ADHD is essentially a problem with Executive Function (EF). He suggests modifying the external environment to enhance or assist your limited executive function, such as making a daily to-do list. (Barkley, 2011)
Track your progress
A meta-analysis covering 138 studies with a total of 19,951 participants found that monitoring your own progress helps achieve goals; the effect is even more significant when progress is actually recorded or reported to others. (Harkin et al., 2016) In this system, this means ticking off completed tasks, and letting the agent review the progress.
Have someone follow up and supervise
In one study, 148 college students with ADHD completed an 8-week coaching program, and showed improvements in learning skills, self-esteem, and satisfaction with their academics and work.
Of course, none of these studies targeted AI, and agents cannot replace a real coach. But it does automate those tedious links pointed out by research: writing down plans, tracking progress, and following up regularly.
The recurring weekly cycle keeps the plan alive
You tick off completed tasks one by one throughout the week
Claude reads which tasks are completed, which are not, and the notes you wrote in Obsidian
It updates the plan in Notion
It arranges tasks for the next week (or the next few days) for you
Spend 60 minutes setting it up today
You can finish it all in one go:
Empty your brain (10 minutes): List all the interests lingering in your mind, as well as what you want to learn, what kind of person you want to be, and what you want to create.
Collect personal materials (10 minutes): Resume, links to works you have created, GitHub homepage, several ideal positions you want to apply for, and courses and papers you want to learn. Gather all of them together.
Let the agent interview you (20 minutes): Hand over all the materials you have to it, and let it fill in any missing details by asking questions.
Create the roadmap page (10 minutes): Let the agent generate its own Notion page, which contains goals, information sources and various decisions. Correct it if you find anything wrong.
Fill in the schedule for next week (or today): I prefer to set goals day by day instead of scheduling the whole week at once, which is more flexible.
Set recurring reminders: Add a weekly periodic task to run the weekly cycle.
A few rational reminders
It is a kind of luck to have a mentor who gives you personal guidance and pushes you forward. Agents cannot replace that, but they are the best second-best choice available now.
Agents are only responsible for providing suggestions. You are the one who makes decisions, and you are the one who modifies the roadmap.
Vague goals will only lead to vague plans.
It is just a planning tool, not a treatment for any medical condition.
I have only been running this system recently, but so far it has outperformed all other methods I have tried in keeping me on track. Every module was added one by one after I found out what was missing from my old system.
Finally, it needs to be clarified that AI will not learn for you, and the hardest part still has to be done by yourself. AI only takes over those tedious trivial matters around learning, and for ADHD brains, these trivial matters are exactly the places with the greatest resistance.
Translator: boxi.