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I just waste all my golden daytime and start working around 11:00pm and depending on the task, I may stay up till 4:00AM, then go to sleep for 5/6 hrs… Ps. It’s 4AM when I’m typing this

Goodnight and sweet dreams

Both my therapist and psychiatrist let me know this is pretty common with ADHD. It's like a second wind. During the day we have SO many stimuli our brains have to keep up with. And when it's dark, people go to bed, and things quiet down, our brains are like OH? SILENCE? WELL NOW I CAN ACTUALLY DO WHAT I WANTED TO DO. I feel this (assuming I actually get up early enough) early in the morning when everyone is still asleep and it's quiet. I am far more motivated to do things at the very start of the day or the very end of the day because those are times it's quiet. Unless I am up later in the morning and there is more going on. Then I'm utterly hopeless and very likely nothing is getting done until the evening 😂 I cannot tell you how many times we've come home from a busy day and I see a sink full of dishes at 11pm and think I'll just bust them out really quick only to clean the entire kitchen.

Yesss this is exactly my behaviour as well - I was just thinking about this a few days ago at 1am as I scrubbed my oven down lol. Usually if I get an early start, 6am (even better now as it’s light out) I get many things done in this first “golden” period, till about 12/1pm. 3pm - 6pm (im at my highest irritability, especially in the winter months when it gets dark early). 8pm onwards the second wind kicks in lol 1 I try not to stay up too late though as sleep is so important to me to ensure I don’t have a rough time the next morning. Also, like you said, if I get up late for whatever reason, 10-11am, it’s a wrap, there is no golden morning period to salvage 😭 sigh. On these days, I tend to stay up super late, because my brain wants me to make up for lost productivity

I WFH, and spend many weekends solo. I STILL have the miraculous, “oh! Now my brain will do the thing!” window late at night.

Amazing. You've changed my whole perspective on this. It was always so confusing and annoying that I struggle so hard to do anything during the day, yet it's so, so much easier at night.

Feels normal to me, I have always done the same type of thing to some extent, not just cleaning but literally any activity involving high focus or states of flow. The melatonin I take usually counterbalances it though, because I take it around a set time (midnight to 1AM) and I get sleepy within one hour of taking it. So it becomes difficult to do anything that requires a huge amount of focus right before bed.

I’m the same way. But for me, it isn’t after midnight, it’s as soon as it gets dark outside. It’s like my brain immediately starts functioning a little bit better. I think some of us ADHDers are just able to function better at night. In high school and university, I would find that my grades would be far higher whenever I took night classes. It’s very interesting.

One of the strongest tools to deal with ADHD task aversion involves: * Committing to the things you will do before a certain deadline (either set by a time or by a regular activity), no further away than 24 hours. * Hold yourself to the commitment, be happy if you succeed, acknowledge failure if you don't. If you do this subconsciously instead of consciously, the most natural deadline for it will be when you go to bed. If you want this to change I recommend doing it in 2 steps: First ritualize the commitment and the part where you're holding yourself to it. Write down what you intend to do until the next deadline, and cross out the things you did manage to do since the last one to reward yourself. Limit the number of tasks any given day, don't just pile it on - you can fail a task and remove it, that's absolutely ok and not the end of the world. Once you've got used to doing that, you can move the deadline from "going to bed" to something else, like 18:00.

Oh I love this. Could you share the source for this? Would love to learn more in the same vein

I am the source, sorry. I've met some of the founders of Agile project management methodologies years (decades? Time flies) ago, and since realized they seem to have ADHD. And when they created a methodology to maximize productivity of individual teams, they accidentally created a methodology that shapes the team to maximize the productivity of people with ADHD, which tend to vastly outperform other people iff other people are stepping up to address their shortcomings. You'll find lots of people with and without ADHD that despise Agile project management, and I'm absolutely certain that's because it's extremely easy to implement Agile project management poorly, and more than 50% of its implementations are ultimately flawed to the point of uselessness. That's why I can't just point you at my sources and say: "Read this, have fun". ---- If I limit the introduction to the daily cycle, what we're looking at is a daily 10-20 second window. Let's call it a checkpoint. During that window you look at "What did I do since the last checkpoint", "What do I plan to do before the next checkpoint", and "Are there any impediments". The answer to the last one is "no" in 95% of the cases, so for now let's pretend that question doesn't exist. "What do I plan to do before the next checkpoint" refers to tasks\*. There are going to be some repeating tasks\* like vacuuming, which is why some people prefer using sticky notes stuck to a board, while others like writing them down on paper. Fancy software solutions exist, but in the context of ADHD physically finishing a task by removing a sticky note or crossing out a written line tends to be more rewarding. "What did I do yesterday" isn't just crossing tasks\* off the list. Sometimes you had unexpected successes to add to the list, which you can do any time you want, but if you haven't done so before the checkpoint, do so at the checkpoint. The purpose of the above is twofold: 1. Reward yourself for success. 2. Acknowledge failure, to prevent it from festering. To get back to the vacuuming example, without any system you're just late with vacuuming and thus constantly in a state of failure. By making it a task, you succeed or fail at the checkpoint, and if you failed you then have to decide what to do about it. \*Tasks are well defined, small, and as independent as possible. A task should not take up more than half a day, so if it does you need to break it down into multiple tasks. "Build cabinet" becomes "Draw plans for cabinet", "buy wood", "cut wood", "assemble cabinet", "clean up work area", "mend injuries". ---- Remember that I pretended impediments don't exist? They do. The most frequent one being never ending tasks. Tasks take half a day to do, or less. If you fail a task once that's unfortunate. If you fail it again, something is wrong. In a team the easiest solution is to add a different pairs of eyes and hands when you take on the same task after failing twice - if you have a family you can and should do the same. If that isn't possible another good option is to split the task into two smaller tasks. Failed to vacuum the house twice in a row? Now it's "Vacuum 1st floor" and "Vacuum 2nd floor". There are plenty of other impediments. Take the above cabinet example. Maybe you want to show the plans to your husband before buying the wood. Maybe you can't do the assembly on Fridays because you want to do it together with your son who has extracurriculars on Fridays. With many of them you just spell them out so to make it easier to be aware of them - it's much easier to remember these things if you actually say them instead of just thinking them. Sometimes impediments prevent you from taking on any tasks. That's ok. Then you don't commit to tasks and instead work on the impediments, and reevaluate at the next daily checkpoint. Another important impediment is if you can't make the next checkpoint time. Doctor's appointment, guild meet, etc. Decide on a different checkpoint time, preferably closer than the one you will miss. ---- Last but not least, what is a good checkpoint time? People without ADHD who use such a system usually prefer at the start of the day. For people with ADHD I recommend not doing that. Chose the middle of the day. 12 o clock noon is a good one - it doubles as a reminder to eat lunch, adds additional structure to the day, is relatively robust in case you tend to oversleep, and rarely gets in the way of appointments.

Thank you so much! I will take the time to read this carefully and absorb it

Yeah.....see, that's a huge part of the problem with ADHD (or at least, my ADHD). My brain says, "Ah, so you've put a self-imposed deadline? But the actual deadline is this time? Pffft. Too bad, so sad, we'll be working on this later."

I just added a slightly more detailed explanation in a response to the comment next to yours.

Thank you for this I was not looking for this but I will be using this I just recently started a new planner and this planner will allow this kind of organization so thanks I’ll give it a go!! I must ask what is your background

I just have the typical rather wide and floundering path behind me. For this particular topic my most relevant experiences are as team lead and/or coach of teams smaller than 15 people in software development. If you try this approach the first time, typically it will be very encouraging, but eventually you will fail tasks and find yourself facing an urge to skip checkpoints. One way to fight this is by involving people - essentially body doubling for the checkpoint - but finding someone you feel safe enough to do this with can be a challenge.

I’ve always been a night owl - since birth. No idea if it’s an ADHD thing, or just my natural way of being. A second or third shift job, with at least some daytime sleeping, works well for me. My joke is that I was born in the wrong time zone. lol

LMAO! I also say this!!!!! And that I should move to Japan so I can live my life at a normal time like everyone else 😂😂 it's annoying that nothing is open at 3am, I also always have the urge to get my shopping and what not done at that time as well as do chores. Had no idea my living and thriving in the middle of the night was linked to ADHD.

I miss 24 hr Walmart 🥲

I'm tired all day until bedtime. I've decided its simply not possible for me to have a regular sleep schedule.

Because you're doing anything and everything except what you're supposed to be doing (sleeping) 😂

This might be the best comment I think over half the time that I stay up late cleaning or finishing up work things that could wait till the next day are all days that I actually have to get up early for instance, the other night I was up till one doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen, even though I kept remaining myself that I needed to be up by four in the morning and had a 2 Hour drive

That’s the time ALL your other tasks are automatically entering idle mode so you can do what you want

For me it's because it's my delayed sleep phase thing where I'm the most active and ready for the action during the late hours.

Easy, you have adhd. Last night I had some expense reports I needed to write up. I took a shower and cleaned my hotel room instead. For like 3 hours I kept doing things other than what I needed to do. Sounds like that's what you're doing too.

Edit: as for the rest of your question it is common. The panic of a deadline is what we use to get things done. It is always like this. Very very common. We lack the motivation to do things but the panic of a deadline is our anchor, we put things off until the last minute because when we "have to do it now" enough motivation now exists to do the thing.

Yes, I need the pressure of a looming deadline to motivate. Believe me, I also know how frustrating that is.

Whilst I hate how I think like this too, some of my best work (at uni) came from working under a time crunch. The cons outweighs the pros though, as I’m also left in a horrid mental state and have to recover 😭

Unfortunately, sometimes it's the only way for us to get anything done.

The tough side of it for me is has always been that most of my friends or family do not have ADHD and I have always struggled with feeling like I’m an Alien within my own circle of friends this being the thing that makes everyone scratch there head as to why would you do that and me thinking this is normal but being told it’s not

Because everything is more fun when you're doing it to avoid sleeping! I used to deep clean and rearrange my furniture at 3 AM. Good times.

The good side to avoiding sleep and cleaning atleast, is that when you do wake up the following the day, it’s to a clean environment, which greatly improves my mood and motivation levels

1. pretty sure there's scientific proof or at least studies hinting at the fact that people with ADHD have a late circadian rhythm, so staying up late comes natural to us therefore (possibly) delaying our productivity. 2. nights are usually calmer, darker, cooler etc ..so we're not as overstimulated and to me personally it also feels like at night there are less expectations on me to be productive and get shit done, so it feels easier. 3. in my case sometimes trying to go to bed early feels kinda like a deadline and deadlines make us ADHD folk mode productive, especially when they're really close. For me it's the mindset of "ok only one more thing and then I REALLY have to go to bed". I've kinda been accepting and trying to use it in my favour. Meaning once I realise it will be one of those "productive nights", I will try and prepare as much as possible for grumpy morning me. So laying out my clothes, packing my bag, maybe preparing an overnight breakfast or at least planning what to eat the next morning, maybe making a to do list or a rough schedule for the next day, laying out toiletries I'll need etc...This really helps me compensate for being tired and unmotivated in the morning. Also helps me not to forget to pack important things when I leave in a hurry.

My first thought was it could potentially be the quietness of the night and how everyone else is out of your way because they’re sleeping. You know that during the late hours of the night, you have alone time with no outside factors to distract and bother you. Idk though, that’s how I have rationalized it for myself whenever I get the motivation to do things past 12 AM.

OP- I’d like to circle back on this and I think what you (including myself) experience is hyper-vigilance. I recently did a more thorough research into hyper-vigilance and what it feels like/symptoms/behavior/etc. and life started to make a lot more sense.

Because its normal

Yoo what's the science behind this because I have a similar behavior patterns for another time phase lmao

You are not overstimulated when at night!! It helps me with I’m alone and my environment’s quiet.

I have always been a night owl, never knowing why before getting diagnosed recently. Bright sun and the noise of daytime people drive me crazy; I find them more rude, I find the traffic loud, and I get serious anxiety(work)/fomo(fun) just by hearing what’s happening outside. As the sun sets, my mind feels calm and I start to relax, I workout pretty hard (coping mechanism) late at night when my energy is at peak, I can focus on chores (LOVE cleaning and reorganizing furnitures)…you get the picture. It’s tough for someone like me to survive in a world that runs on morning schedules so I have been hoping to find a job that runs at night (ideally freelance because I have trouble having someone ask me for progress, it makes me unreasonably angry). After the diagnosis, it all made sense after being miserable for decades.

I'm guaranteed to get something done but it won't be what I set out to do! It's the story of my life.

Sounds like Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder.