ADHD symptom guide

What it means: Attention drifts away from tasks or activities before they are finished, particularly when they are not intrinsically interesting.

What it looks like: Reading the same paragraph repeatedly without absorbing it. Losing the thread of a film. Starting a task and finding twenty minutes later that you are doing something else entirely, with no memory of switching.

Also caused by: Poor sleep, depression, anxiety, chronic stress, thyroid problems, pain, and simply doing something genuinely dull.

What it means: Attention drops out during conversation, even in direct one-to-one exchanges.

What it looks like: Someone finishes speaking and you realise you have no idea what they said. Nodding along while your attention is elsewhere. Being told repeatedly that you do not listen.

Also caused by: Hearing difficulties — genuinely worth ruling out, especially in children — preoccupation, anxiety, depression, or being tired.

What it means: Work is begun and not completed, not through defiance or misunderstanding but through losing track partway.

What it looks like: A trail of projects abandoned at 80%. Three loads of washing left in the machine. Getting sidetracked on the way to doing something and never returning to it.

Also caused by: Depression, burnout, being genuinely overloaded, or not having understood the instruction in the first place.

What it means: Trouble sequencing steps, managing materials and keeping work orderly — planning rather than effort.

What it looks like: Not knowing where to start on something with several parts. Chronic lateness through under-planning. A workspace or home where things accumulate faster than they can be sorted.

Also caused by: Never having been taught these skills, depression, exhaustion, or too many competing demands.

What it means: Active aversion to work requiring prolonged concentration — not dislike, but something closer to an inability to make yourself begin.

What it looks like: Tax returns, forms and long documents deferred for months. Real dread about tasks that are objectively small. Doing anything else instead, including chores you also dislike.

Also caused by: Anxiety about doing it wrong, depression, perfectionism, or a learning difficulty making the task genuinely harder than it appears.

What it means: Frequently misplacing items needed for daily activities.

What it looks like: Keys, wallet, phone, glasses, documents — the same items, constantly. Putting something down while thinking about something else and having no memory of the action.

Also caused by: Poor sleep, stress, preoccupation, and in older adults, changes worth mentioning to a doctor.

What it means: Attention captured by irrelevant input — external noise and movement, or internal thoughts.

What it looks like: A conversation across the office derailing your work. Getting up for one thing and doing four others. Being unable to work in an open-plan space that others cope with.

Also caused by: Anxiety, an over-stimulating environment, poor sleep, or work you find boring.

What it means: Routine, familiar things are forgotten — not unusual events, but the ordinary recurring business of life.

What it looks like: Missed appointments, unpaid bills where money was available, unreturned calls, medication not taken, the thing you were asked to do on the way home.

Also caused by: Poor sleep, depression, anxiety, thyroid problems, B12 deficiency, perimenopause, and some medications.

What it means: Errors in work you are entirely capable of doing correctly, through detail not being registered.

What it looks like: Misread instructions, wrong dates, missed fields on a form, mistakes you cannot see even when re-reading. Being described as careless when you were genuinely trying.

Also caused by: Rushing, fatigue, stress, dyslexia or another specific learning difficulty, and vision problems.

What it means: Difficulty keeping still, often without being aware of it.

What it looks like: Bouncing legs, clicking pens, playing with hair or jewellery, shifting position constantly. In adults, more often small persistent movement than obvious restlessness.

Also caused by: Anxiety, caffeine, some medications, restless legs syndrome, and simple boredom.

What it means: Remaining in one place feels genuinely uncomfortable rather than merely dull.

What it looks like: Getting up during meetings and meals. Pacing while on the phone. Finding long journeys, films and formal occasions physically difficult.

Also caused by: Anxiety, physical discomfort or pain, and high energy that has nowhere to go.

What it means: A persistent internal sense of being unable to wind down — the adult form of hyperactivity in most cases.

What it looks like: Difficulty relaxing even when tired. Feeling uncomfortable doing nothing. A mind that will not stop, particularly at night. Others describing you as always on.

Also caused by: Anxiety, an overactive thyroid, stimulants including caffeine, and mania — which is a different condition and important to distinguish.

What it means: Talking more than the situation calls for, often without registering it.

What it looks like: Long tangential explanations. Realising afterwards that you dominated the conversation. Over-sharing, then ruminating about it later.

Also caused by: Anxiety, enthusiasm, personality, cultural differences in conversational norms, and mania.

What it means: Difficulty holding a response until it is appropriate to give it.

What it looks like: Finishing other people's sentences. Answering before the question is complete. Jumping in — often because you will lose the thought if you wait, though that is not how it lands.

Also caused by: Enthusiasm, anxiety, conversational habit, and some neurological conditions.

What it means: Waiting produces genuine discomfort rather than mild irritation.

What it looks like: Queues, traffic and hold music being disproportionately hard. Difficulty waiting for a turn in conversation or in games. Abandoning things rather than waiting for them.

Also caused by: Anxiety, stress, time pressure, and ordinary impatience.

What it means: The pause between impulse and action is short or absent.

What it looks like: Purchases regretted immediately. Saying something before considering how it will land. Quitting a job, booking a trip or making a large decision on the spot.

Also caused by: Mania, some personality disorders, substance use, brain injury, and youth — impulse control develops well into the twenties.

What it means: Emotions arrive fast and at full intensity, with little buffer between trigger and reaction. Not unusual emotions — unusually quick and hard to steer ones.

What it looks like: Escalating quickly then recovering quickly. Frustration out of proportion to the cause. Being told you are too sensitive since childhood.

Also caused by: Anxiety, depression, trauma, autism, some personality disorders, hormonal changes, and exhaustion.

What it means: Criticism, rejection or perceived disapproval landing unusually hard. Often referred to online as rejection sensitive dysphoria — worth knowing this is a descriptive term, not a recognised diagnosis.

What it looks like: Mild feedback feeling devastating. Avoiding situations where rejection is possible. Prolonged rumination over small social moments.

Also caused by: Anxiety, depression, low self-esteem from any source, trauma, and autism.

What it means: Difficulty perceiving the passage of time and estimating how long things take.

What it looks like: Chronic lateness despite genuine effort. Assuming a task will take twenty minutes when it takes three hours. Deadlines not feeling real until imminent. Hours disappearing without registering.

Also caused by: Depression, absorption in enjoyable activity, and not having built the habit of checking.

What it means: Intense, sustained absorption in something engaging, to the exclusion of everything else. Often mistaken for evidence against ADHD, when it is characteristic of it.

What it looks like: Hours passing unnoticed. Meals, messages and appointments missed. Genuine difficulty being pulled out of it, and irritation when interrupted.

Also caused by: Ordinary flow states, autism, and simply finding something very interesting.

What it means: Trouble winding down, a body clock that runs late, and difficulty waking.

What it looks like: Mind racing at bedtime. Staying up long past intending to, with no natural stopping point. Mornings that are genuinely hard regardless of hours slept.

Also caused by: Sleep apnoea, insomnia, anxiety, depression, shift work, caffeine, screens, and ADHD medication taken too late in the day. Covered in full in ADHD and sleep.