Research Recap with Skye: Hyperfocus in University Students
Hacking Your ADHD
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD Brain. Today I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our research recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it's conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways. In this episode we're gonna be discussing a paper called The Role of Executive Function in mediating the relationship between Adult ADHD symptoms and hyperfocus in university students. Now I think...
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The Over-Pathologizing of ADHD with Rae Jacobson
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey team! This week, I’m joined by Rae Jacobson, journalist, ADHD expert, and host of Hyperfocus at , to talk about how we make sense of ADHD when it feels like it’s everywhere. Rae has spent over a decade reporting on mental health and neurodiversity, and she brings that blend of research, lived experience, and sharp humor that makes big ideas actually relatable. This was honestly one of my favorite episodes that I’ve recorded this year - while Rae and I were brainstorming ideas that two ADHD podcasters could talk about, I think we hit on a very salient topic, the...
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Unapologetically ADHD with Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright (rebroadcast)
Hacking Your ADHD
As many of us navigate shifting routines and rising expectations right now, it’s a perfect time to revisit this affirming conversation with Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright. Together we unpack what it means to stop fighting yourself, lean into your strengths, and build supportive systems that make life feel lighter, not harder. A great listen if you need a dose of ADHD-friendly self-compassion this week. If you’d like to send me a question answer on the show feel free to head over to and click the orange button Support me on Ask me a question on my Find the show note at This...
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Research Recap with Skye: Video Accessibility for ADHD and What the Science Says
Hacking Your ADHD
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I’m joined by Skye Waterson for another Research Recap. In this series, we explore a single research paper—what it says, how it was conducted, and what practical takeaways we can find. In this episode, we’re discussing a paper called “Shifting the Focus: Exploring Video Accessibility Strategies and Challenges for People with ADHD.” It sounds a little out there—and honestly, this paper is a bit...
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Grandma Has ADHD: Jami Shapiro on Late Diagnosis and New Beginnings
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey team! This week, I’m talking with Jami Shapiro, ADHD coach, founder of Silver Linings Transitions, and host of the Grandma Has ADHD podcast. Jami has also recently published her book This Explains So Much, which dives into the world of undiagnosed ADHD in people over 50. Jami brings a wealth of experience from her work helping older adults downsize and organize their lives. In our conversation, we dig into what aging looks like with ADHD, from memory changes to social isolation, and how curiosity, compassion, and the power of community can make a huge difference. We get into the...
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Building Stronger Teams in Relationships with Dr. Tracy Dagleish
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey team! Today I’m talking with Dr. Tracy Dalgleish (Dall Gleesh), a clinical psychologist, couples therapist, and the author of You, Your Husband & His Mother. She has spent almost two decades helping couples get unstuck from repeating the same old arguments and start building relationships that actually work in real life. And she also runs her own podcast, Dear Dr. Tracy. In our conversation, we get into how our relationships don’t exist in a vacuum, how family expectations shape our decisions, and why it’s so important to be on the same team with your partner, especially when...
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Research Recap with Skye: How ADHDers Succeed and Why It’s Complicated
Hacking Your ADHD
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I’m your host, William Curb. On this podcast, we dig into tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I’m joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we usually look at a single research paper, but today we’re covering two and pulling out practical takeaways. We’ll discuss two papers on ADHD strengths: Strengths and Challenges to Embrace Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Employment: A Systematic Review, and Paradoxical Career Strengths and Successes of ADHD Adults: An Evolving...
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Mastering the Mundane: ADHD-Proofing the Everyday w/Amy Marie Hann
Hacking Your ADHD
This week I’m joined by Amy Marie Hann, better known online as The Activated ADHD Mama. Amy’s an ADHD coach, community leader, and author who specializes in helping ADHD moms wrangle the boring, repetitive tasks that tend to bury us, things like dishes, meal planning, and remembering to call in prescription refills. In our conversation, we talk about why traditional productivity advice often doesn’t work for ADHD brains and why these mundane tasks can create so much stress and shame. We dig into some of Amy’s strategies that helps people build realistic systems to make those things...
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Research Recap with Skye: TikTok and ADHD - Sorting Facts from Misinformation
Hacking Your ADHD
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today, I’m joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series, where we take a look at a single research paper—what it says, how it was conducted, and what practical takeaways we can find. In this episode, we’re discussing a 2022 paper titled “TikTok and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Cross-Sectional Study of Social Media Content Quality.” It got quite a bit of coverage when it came out,...
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Rethinking Resilience with Alex Bellitter: Burnout, Rest & the ADHD Brain
Hacking Your ADHD
Hey Team! Today I’m joined by Alex Bellitter, Senior Manager of Coaching at Shimmer, an ADHD coaching platform that’s guided over 75,000 sessions. If this sounds a bit familiar, I also did an interview with Shimmer’s CEO, Chris Wang, last year - but of course in this episode, we’re covering a lot more and while Shimmer is mentioned it certainly isn’t the focus of what we’re talking about here. But back to who we’re talking with today. Alex holds a Master’s in Psychology and is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach. She’s passionate about building a...
info_outlineHey team!
This week, I’m joined by Rae Jacobson, journalist, ADHD expert, and host of Hyperfocus at Understood.org, to talk about how we make sense of ADHD when it feels like it’s everywhere. Rae has spent over a decade reporting on mental health and neurodiversity, and she brings that blend of research, lived experience, and sharp humor that makes big ideas actually relatable.
This was honestly one of my favorite episodes that I’ve recorded this year - while Rae and I were brainstorming ideas that two ADHD podcasters could talk about, I think we hit on a very salient topic, the over-pathologizing of ADHD within the community. While we love to find all the things that are from our ADHD, it’s also true that not everything is because of our ADHD.
In our conversation today, we dig into the ways ADHD often gets pathologized, how everything from losing your keys to getting a song stuck in your head can get blamed on ADHD, and why that can actually make it harder to understand what’s really going on. We get into “symptoms of symptoms,” the tricky overlap between ADHD and other conditions like depression and anxiety, and why community spaces like Reddit can both help and hurt when it comes to self-diagnosis. And of course, we also go down a few very ADHD side paths about clutter, shame spirals, and why having too many pens is basically a personality trait at this point.
If you'd life to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at HackingYourADHD.com/258
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD
This Episode's Top Tips
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- When considering what is and isn’t ADHD, it’s important to remember the context of ADHD as a chronic condition - as in it’s something that we deal with all the time. Everyone is going to lose their keys every once in a while, but with ADH,D the difference is in the pattern and the impact. Without the systems I have in place to make sure my keys go into the same place every time, I would be losing them every day.
- Not everything annoying is an ADHD trait; sometimes it’s just being a human in a busy, overstimulating world. While there are a lot of comorbidities with ADHD, if we try to label everything as ADHD, we lose the ability to tell what actually needs attention. Instead of asking, “Is this ADHD?”, try asking, “Is this making my life unmanageable?” That’s the line that separates “normal chaos” from “I might need help with this.”
- But when ADHD does show up alongside things like depression, anxiety, or trauma, those conditions can feed into each other. You need to figure out who’s driving the bus. Treating the wrong “driver” means you’ll burn energy fixing the wrong problem. So before building systems or blaming ADHD, step back and ask what’s actually behind the behavior.