Meet Franka, a brilliant but overwhelmed PhD candidate. Franka keeps wondering if it’s even possible to finish a PhD with ADHD!
Her desk is covered by a spread of various sticky notes, notebooks, and half-empty coffee mugs. Her mind, like her workspace, is a whirlwind of ideas. Whenever she has a conversation about it, Franka gets super excited about the topic of her dissertation. But the size of the project constantly overwhelms her, and leaves her feeling lost in a sea of data and secondary literature. All of this leads her to believe that she might be an impostor. And that she has no idea how to finish a PhD with ADHD – especially without losing her mind mental health.
As an ADHD dissertation coach, I’ve met so many PhD candidates like Franka! And if you’re anything like her, I’m here to tell you: yes, you are capable of finishing a PhD with ADHD. This blog post will help.Â
Why it's hard to finish a PhD with ADHD
There are three main challenges ADHDers experience that can make it incredibly hard to finish your PhD. So let’s quickly dive into each, before talking about solutions. Trust me: understanding your brain helps!
Time management
One of the main things that makes an ADHD brain different from its neurotypical counterparts is that we struggle with time management. Specifically: we don’t have a long time horizon, meaning we don’t register any future event as real in this moment. Of course, it’s absolutely possible to use your logic to decide the future will probably exist and should be taken into account. But that does not mean that a reward in the future is going to motivate you to work right now.
For most of your academic career that was probably fine, as you were working on tasks like essays that could be written the night before. But when it comes to a huge project like a dissertation – especially if you have a rather hands-off committee that doesn’t give you strict deadlines – you easily get in trouble. Especially as we are also notoriously weak at estimating how long a task will take us! All this can make it hard to finish a PhD with ADHD.
Sensitivity to rejection feedback
According to researchers, up to 99% of ADHDers struggle with Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD). This means that when we receive something we perceive as a rejection, we have a very strong emotional response to it. And when you’re writing your dissertation, something you’re putting your entire heart and soul into, any piece of feedback you receive can feel like a rejection of not only your work, but of you as an academic. That can make it incredibly difficult to finish a PhD with ADHD.Â
What’s more, many of us also have challenges around emotional regulation. And that means that it can be really hard to let go of feelings and focus when you’re in the midst of them. Every meeting with your advisors, every round of feedback on your work, therefore could set you back significantly and make it hard for you to get any work done for days or even weeks!Â
Structuring your work
One of the main strengths of our ADHD brains is that we are divergent thinkers. This means that every idea leads to hundreds of others. That’s amazing in the brainstorming phase of any project, but when you want to finish your dissertation, it can be a problem. If we see all these connections between ideas and pieces of information, how do we decide what does and does not go into the final dissertation?Â
This problem can be resolved, meaning you’ll make it more likely you’ll finish a PhD with ADHD, by structuring your work. But with our ADHD brains, we can usually not see the trees for the forest. We are so lost in the details that we don’t see how they fit into the bigger picture anymore. And that means that structure goes out the window as soon as we start writing.
What you need to do to finish your PhD with ADHD
So with all these challenges, are we even capable of finishing a PhD with ADHD? I’d say so, yes. In fact, I’ve helped many of my clients do just that. What’s more, if you’re an ADHD PhD candidate, you’ll be a creative thinker who lives outside of the box. And academia needs more of those!Â
So that leads us to the question: What do you need to do to finish your PhD with ADHD?Â
And as the best things come in threes, here are my three favorite answers.Â
1. Update your plan frequently
If you are like the (fictitious) Franka or any other ADHD PhD candidate I’ve worked with, you’ll probably have created a plan at the start of your dissertation. You might even update it every time you have a Committee meeting. But a few days or weeks after you created your new plan, you are already behind on it. And as a consequence, your plan has become a constant source of stress, shame and disappointment!Â
If this is you, the best thing you can do is remember what I told you about time sensitivity: we have a different relationship with time, meaning we’re not only less motivated to work towards a long-term project, we’re also bad at estimating how long a task will take us. This means that you will need broken-down plans and timelines to bring the future closer to you. But it also means your estimations will be wrong 9 out of 10 times. That is absolutely okay, though! Every time you fall behind on your plan, just create a new one. I promise: your plan won’t care.Â
And for a bonus trick: never communicate your estimation to your advisor or committee. Always add a 50% buffer so you won’t lose face.Â
2. Track your progress
I can guarantee you that you’re going to hear from your inner critic again. And it’s probably going to be rather soon! Now, normally, when your inner critic starts, it’s a bit of a monologue. But this next strategy will help you turn it into more of a debate instead.Â
What if the next time your inner critic starts up, your inner cheerleader has the weapons to go head-to-head with them? That is exactly what progress tracking is: the weapons your inner cheerleader needs to shut your inner critic up (at least a little bit).Â
When you can show yourself that you are making progress, it’s going to be a lot easier to deal with rejection/feedback and your inner critic. So keep track of your successes. If you are biased to remember the negatives more, that only means you need to give yourself more positives! Whether you want to use a habit tracker, a progress log, a list of achievements, a word count tracker, a task list, or any other way to track your progress: it will help you increase the chances you’ll finish a PhD with ADHD.Â
3. Get support and accountability
One reason why you did so well during your studies whilst it’s hard for you to finish a PhD with ADHD, is that for most of your life you had constant accountability. You probably had teachers who constantly reminded you of the upcoming deadlines, and who would talk to you if you handed things in late. As a PhD candidate, however, that’s probably no longer the case. Writing your dissertation is mostly a solitary endeavor. And that can really affect your mental health as well as your productivity!Â
So make sure you join writing groups (such as my weekly ADHD body doubling groups) and have accountability buddies who will check in with you to see how much progress you’re making. You don’t have to do it alone, and you’ll actually make it a lot easier on yourself to finish a PhD with ADHD if you don’t!Â
How an ADHD coach for PhD students can help
One specific form of accountability that my clients have found incredibly helpful is my writer coaching sessions. If you know you’re going to meet with a coach in one or two weeks who is going to ask you whether you achieved that mini goal you set for yourself, that will make it a lot easier for you to continue working and finish a PhD with ADHD. What’s more, I call myself a “professional optimist,” meaning I not only help you adjust your plans with hope and positivity, but that I also help you acknowledge and celebrate your successes! This way, I’ve helped my clients with both the practical and emotional aspects of finishing their dissertations.Â
And I’d love to help you too!Â
If you are tired of doing it alone, let’s meet up! Just use the tool below to book a meeting with me. During that free conversation, we can see if we’re a good fit and discuss which forms of coaching might be best for you.Â
I’d love to help you. So make sure you book now before all my slots fill up!Â
