With flow, you can work for an hour and then switch your focus to take a break. But it doesn’t cause you to lose time and there’s still an awareness there. Anyone, with or without ADHD, can experience flow. Saline calls this “flow” and she says it’s not the same as hyperfocus. Pretty much everyone can say that they have experienced being “in the zone” at one time or another. “In a way, hyperfocus is like sustained attention on steroids,” she says. This is what Saline calls “productive hyperfocus,” and it’s the opposite of scrolling for hours. But it can also happen when you’re trying to meet a deadline or work through a task you find boring, according to Susan Ciardiello, Ph.D., LCSW, an ADHD coach and psychotherapist.

Usually, hyperfocus happens when you’re doing an activity that you find fun or interesting, explains Sharon Saline, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist, author and speaker. And if you get interrupted, you may be irritated or grumpy. “It’s when you are completely engrossed in a task to the point where everything else gets blocked out.” When you’re experiencing hyperfocus, it’s difficult to switch your attention to other tasks. “Hyperfocus is like tunnel vision,” says Lindsay O’Shea, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist who helps people manage ADHD symptoms, anxiety, and improve their self-esteem. Until I was diagnosed with ADHD, I didn’t know that this phenomenon wasn’t “normal,” or that it actually has a name: hyperfocus. This happens with other activities too, such as doing taxes or scrolling through social media. Occasionally I forget to eat or even get out of my chair to move around.

I can spend hours burrowing into site after site on my knowledge quests. Whenever I do online research, whether it’s for personal or work purposes, I lose track of time.

Hyperfocus examples