Why ADHD Brains Struggle With Projects

The ADHD Skills Lab

Presented by Understood.org

You can handle individual tasks all day. But the moment something becomes a project, everything slows down.

Research into ADHD executive functioning suggests the difference often comes down to planning demands, not motivation or intelligence.

In this episode, Skye and Robbie break down what these experiments reveal about ADHD and why complex projects require building a sequence before starting. That requirement can create real cognitive friction for many ADHD brains.

On Friday, we’ll look at the practical systems that reduce this planning load and make complex work easier to execute.

What We Cover

  • Why ADHD often struggles more with projects than tasks
  • What “tower task” planning experiments reveal about ADHD
  • Why working memory and inhibition appear most consistently affected
  • Why ADHD is a performance issue rather than a knowledge issue
  • How planning demands make complex work cognitively inefficient

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids.

Listen here:

https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxPS!adhdskillslab

About ADHD founders for ADHD founders.

Interesting in working together? You can click here to receive a free bottleneck audio session and learn more about what we do. https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com/unstuckaudiosession

Diagnosed with ADHD at the start of her PhD, Skye Waterson spent years researching what actually works and writing about it for thousands of founders. The pattern she kept finding: ADHD business owners don't have a focus problem, they have an operations problem, because the whole business runs through their own head. Now she and her husband, former programmer Robert Waterson, work as fractional COOs for those founders. They find the bottleneck, hire the fix, and build the system that holds.

Subscribe to our Newsletter - https://unconventionalorganization.substack.com/

Follow us on Instagram - @unconventionalorganisation

Visit our website - https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com/

More description

Presented by Understood.org

You can handle individual tasks all day. But the moment something becomes a project, everything slows down.

Research into ADHD executive functioning suggests the difference often comes down to planning demands, not motivation or intelligence.

In this episode, Skye and Robbie break down what these experiments reveal about ADHD and why complex projects require building a sequence before starting. That requirement can create real cognitive friction for many ADHD brains.

On Friday, we’ll look at the practical systems that reduce this planning load and make complex work easier to execute.

What We Cover

  • Why ADHD often struggles more with projects than tasks
  • What “tower task” planning experiments reveal about ADHD
  • Why working memory and inhibition appear most consistently affected
  • Why ADHD is a performance issue rather than a knowledge issue
  • How planning demands make complex work cognitively inefficient

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Everyone Gets a Juice Box: For Parents of Neurodivergent Kids.

Listen here:

https://lnk.to/everyonegetsajuiceboxPS!adhdskillslab

About ADHD founders for ADHD founders.

Interesting in working together? You can click here to receive a free bottleneck audio session and learn more about what we do. https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com/unstuckaudiosession

Diagnosed with ADHD at the start of her PhD, Skye Waterson spent years researching what actually works and writing about it for thousands of founders. The pattern she kept finding: ADHD business owners don't have a focus problem, they have an operations problem, because the whole business runs through their own head. Now she and her husband, former programmer Robert Waterson, work as fractional COOs for those founders. They find the bottleneck, hire the fix, and build the system that holds.

Subscribe to our Newsletter - https://unconventionalorganization.substack.com/

Follow us on Instagram - @unconventionalorganisation

Visit our website - https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com/

2026-03-25 48 min
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