The book "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman illuminates what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to decision making and attention. The research he preformed over the entirety of his career earned him a Nobel Prize 2002. Now there is no way I can explain the Nobel winning research as expertly as Daniel himself, but I can simplify the material down to its most relevant parts for people with ADHD. So far, from chapter 0(introduction)-3 the main premise is that within our brains are two agents. These agents are conveniently called System 1 and System 2. These two agents control the process of thought, decision making, and attention. System 1 is intuitive and fast-paced. It is that instant recall from memory thinking. It's where we draw the instant connections, like the capital of France. If you instantly thought Paris after reading that last sentence, that was the agent, System 1. System 2 is the slow, effortful thinking that requires attention and metabolic cost. To demonstrate when System 2 is active; take a minute or so and try and calculate 17x24. For most people that calculating that was moderately difficult. Holding all that data in your working memory is very taxing on the brains attention. If you were driving and someone asked you to multiply 17x24 its very likely you couldn't even try. DO NOT TRY THIS. Big disclaimer there, it will not end well. For those wondering, 17x24=408. Using System 2 can literally eat up the brains resources causing a term called "ego drain". Where we use the absolute minimum amount of effort to solve problems instead of working through them. More on ego drain in a later post. The importance of understanding the differences in these two agents can be extremely beneficial in recognizing poor judgement in ourselves, and in identifying what tasks will require more effortful thinking. As you are aware ADHD affects attention, by understanding the source of our pool of attention and what drains it the most we can make better, more informed decisions about our own lives.

The information here is still valuable on its own but I encourage that you read the first post on "Atomic Habits" before this. James Clear established the Four Laws of Behavior Change early on in his book "Atomic Habits". Those four laws describe how habits form and the reason why some habits, good and bad, can be really hard to break away from. Those four laws are: - Cue - Make it Obvious - Craving - Make it Attractive - Response - Make it Easy - Reward - Make it Satisfying An example of these laws in action: Cue: You smell a coffee shop on the way to work. Craving: You begin to want a cup of coffee, your tired, so the appeal of a little energy boost very attractive. Response: You enter the coffee shop and buy a cup of coffee, it only took you 5 minutes to pay and receive your coffee. Reward: You drink your cup of coffee and receive the satisfying energy boost as you finish your commute to work. Looking at habits through the lens of the Four Laws of Behavior Change it is easy to see how buying coffee every morning is a habit that millions of Americans possess. These four laws are what binds us to our habits. So when we identify a habit that we would like to stop, because it is unhealthy or distracting, we have to inverse these laws to make the habit go away. The inversion of these laws are: - Cue - Make it Invisible - Craving - Make it Unattractive - Response - Make it Difficult - Reward - Make it Unsatisfying The reverse of the example above is this: You noticed you buy coffee every day on the way to work. You decided that buying coffee everyday was costing you too much money per month, so you want to stop. Cue: Instead of taking the old route to work you specifically avoid a route where you can see or smell the coffee shop. (Make it invisible) Craving: As an alternative to coffee you decide you are going to drink tea. Coffee represents your bad spending habits, so buying coffee makes you feel bad. (Make it unattractive) Response:

James states in "Atomic Habits" the Four Laws of Behavior Change: 1. Cue - Make it Obvious 2. Craving - Make it Attractive 3. Response - Make it Easy 4. Reward - Make it Satisfying James tells us to think of each of the four laws as a lever. If all the levers are in the right position developing a good habit is easy. But if the levers are in the wrong position they make creating a new habit almost impossible. Here is an example: The Cue: On your walk to work you smell coffee from a coffee shop. The Craving: You begin to crave the flavor of a coffee. The Response: You buy a coffee and drink it. The Reward: You satisfied the craving to drink a coffee. The cue that triggered you into wanting a coffee was obvious, the smell of the coffee shop. The smell is very attractive, and convincing yourself not to get some is difficult. Satisfying your cravings for coffee is easy, just tap or insert a little plastic card and coffee is yours. The habit of buying coffee is easy to develop because its obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. If you wanted to develop a habit you must ask yourself how you can make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. Then that habit will be much easier to stick to.