Could somebody explain the concept of hyperfocus to me? I've heard the word used a lot around here but I don't quite understand it. I've looked it up on wikipedia, but I got lost in the description.

Thanks to anyone.

It's pretty getting caught up doing just one thing and having a problem shifting to something else.

I am 38 and very ADD. It is like getting completely locked in on something. I can go to the internet to look up the definition of a word and suddenly it is 6 hours later.

Hyperfocus is an intense, deep focus on one thing. It is usually more likely to happen with things the ADDer is interested in. If undisturbed, it can last for hours, days, or longer... but hours is more typical.

It seems that it is not possible to control when one is hyperfocused, but one can learn to tap into it as a resource when it happens. I use it a lot in my work.

Me :D

Hmm... I use to work at a call centre before I went back to school. They let us read books in between calls. At the start I would always read as it could be 1 hour between calls. However, when it got busier, I'd refuse to read because I didn't like being interupted reading every 5 minutes, could this be part of it?

I'm trying to think of a time when I've hyperfocused recently... only other thing I can think of is being the computer, and watch 5 hours go by... or something else a little bit more private :p

The only example that I can think about right now is a work example. I tend to hyperfocus when I am doing data entry type work. When I am entering a list of data into the computer it is like everything else around me disappears and before I know it I have been inputing data for three hours without a break. I also find that when I am forced to stop doing what I am hyperfocusing on all that I can think of is doing that task again and as soon as I am able I go and complete the task.

I sometimes have a hard time switching focus. It can leave me really scattered if I switch my focus a lot. I like to hyperfocus when I'm doing computer programming or engineering work.

Me :D

damn thanks for the reminder.. the only reason I got on the computer was to up some stuff.. lol 4 hours later here bout to start to work on the stuff I need to up lol

I quite often will hyperfocus when I have something time cosuming that has to be done and I've decided to do it. A good example was this year when I decided to do my income taxes. Once I got started everyone in my family got trampled on by my lack of acknowledgement to them. I even forgot to ask my wife about something which she didn't respond to when I had asked her prior to doing the taxes, she told me she was busy at the time. As it was, it was very important, but I forgot:o . Hyperfocus allows me to complete things, but excludes everything and everybody else.