Iuliia Gorshkova
writes for moinaki
Iuliia writes about ADHD, focus, and learning for moinaki — from lived experience and cited research.
Articles
The Honest Tiimo Alternative Guide for ADHD
Tiimo already runs on Android and has a free tier, so before you replace it, figure out your real bottleneck: seeing the day, or following through on it. Here's where each tool wins.
10 min readFocus & AttentionADHD Coach vs Course App vs AI Assistant: Which Do You Need?
Coach, course app, or AI assistant — they solve different problems, and buying the wrong one is how people pay for help that was never going to work. Here's how to tell them apart, plus the honest limits of each.
9 min readMotivation & EmotionsParent Self-Compassion When You're at the End of the Rope
Neff-adapted: repair is the parenting move, not perfection. Six practices (quick repair, separate guilt from useful info, friend test, hold imperfection-and-effort, common humanity specific to ADHD parents, outside support). Clinical signs → professional + crisis line.
6 min readMotivation & EmotionsWhen (and Where) to Ask for Professional Help for Your Kid
AAP-informed: parental hesitation delays evaluation more than over-eagerness causes false positives. Six escalation signals + map of child specialists + first-appointment navigation. Strictly anti-self-diagnosis. Active distress/self-harm → crisis line + pediatrician now.
6 min readMotivation & EmotionsHolding Up a Child's Self-Esteem When They Keep Hearing 'No'
Dodson: ADHD kids receive ~20,000 more corrective messages by age 12. Counterbalance with specific noticings, values-level identity statements, behaviour-not-person grammar, parent apologies, external evidence artifact, upstream advocacy. Severe patterns → clinician + crisis line.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsScreen Time and ADHD — Past the Moral Panic
Przybylski/Orben Oxford: 'screens are bad' not supported; effect is small and quality-dependent. Six calibration moves (quality first, displacement question, no bedroom screens, co-watch, transitions, model). ADHD specifics. Severe conflict / addiction pattern → paediatric clinician.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsSchool and ADHD — How to Talk to Teachers as Partners, Not Petitioners
CHADD parent advocacy: partnership over demand, classroom-functional over special-treatment. Six tactics (specific observations, 2-3 accommodation proposals, documentation, appreciation, curiosity, follow-up). What's reasonable + when to escalate. Formal processes → jurisdiction resources.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsParent Guilt and Burnout — You're Not a Bad Parent
Maslach applied to parenting: guilt is overload information, not bad-parent evidence. Six structural moves + when guilt is clinical signal. Persistent low mood / self-harm thoughts → mental-health professional + crisis line.
6 min readMotivation & EmotionsEmotional Meltdowns — What's Underneath and How to Respond
Siegel/Bryson: meltdown = prefrontal offline, limbic in charge. Underlying causes (unmet need, transition, emotional load) not visible trigger. Six in-the-moment moves + what NOT to do. Escalation patterns/self-harm → clinician/family therapist.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsPraise That Helps — Effort, Not Outcome
Dweck: trait-praise produces brittleness; effort/process/strategy-praise produces resilience. Six rules + swap-list. ADHD case: effort-variable kids benefit doubly. Clinical confidence collapse → pediatric clinician.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsHelping With Homework — Without Turning Evenings Into War
Barkley-informed: 30-60min decompression first, 10-15min chunks with breaks, body-double presence (not supervision), externalize sequence, parent stays regulated, accept some days homework doesn't get done. Severe distress / school refusal / excessive load → clinician + teacher.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsRoutines That Reduce Morning and Evening Battles (Kids Edition)
Siegel/Bryson: externalize structure via visual schedule + pre-decisions + buffer + timers vs voice + lowered transition standards + repair when bad. Parent's ADHD load is part of the system. Persistent distress / school refusal → pediatric clinician.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsGood Days, Bad Days — Plan for the Average, Not the Peak
Wood-informed: peak-day plans systematically fail because peak is small fraction of days. Six rules (identify 5/10 day, three priorities, bad-day fallback, good days as overflow, notice relief, quarterly revisit). ADHD case: variability higher. Very-low chronic average → clinician.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsSocial Comparison Hits Harder With ADHD — Feed Hygiene That Works
Twenge: comparison-driven distress scales with feed intensity; feed is engineered fiction. Six hygiene moves (aggressive unfollow, no-bedtime scroll, time-of-day filter, notifications off, active over passive, body-check). ADHD case. Severe/addictive use → professional.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsWhy Boring Tasks Are Literally Unbearable — and the Workarounds That Actually Work
Volkow NIH research: ADHD reduced anticipatory dopamine makes boring tasks subjectively unbearable. Six external-signal workarounds (body-double, temptation-bundling, borrowed urgency, gamification, pre-decided rules, routine-cue pairing). Why willpower fails. Medication → clinician.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsSelf-Compassion Is a Skill, Not Indulgence — The Research the Critic Hates
Neff: 20+ years of research show self-compassionate people hold higher standards, recover faster, persist longer than self-critical. Different from self-esteem (contingent) and self-pity (no agency). Six practice rules. ADHD case: rigidity-burnout cycle caused BY self-criticism.
6 min readMotivation & EmotionsWhen 'Just Focus' Makes Anxiety Worse — Regulate First, Produce Second
Porges polyvagal framework: activated nervous system can't do cognitive work; pushing makes it worse. Six-step regulation (name state, slow exhale, engage other system, smallest action, accurate naming, notice patterns). ADHD case. Severe/persistent → professional.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsWhen (and Where) to Get Professional ADHD Help
APA: signal threshold matters more than certainty. Six signals (failing life domain, persistent distress, ANY self-harm/suicidal thoughts, substance use as coping, loved-one ask, frustrating stuckness). Map of professional types + how to find fit. Strictly anti-self-diagnosis; crisis line for active distress.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsDiagnosed With ADHD as an Adult — What Now
CHADD framework: emotional arc (grief + relief over 6-24 months) precedes treatment plan. Six early-month moves (clinician on treatment, no big decisions for 6 months, one book not ten, selective disclosure, peer space, process grief). What changes long-term vs what doesn't. Medical decisions routed to clinician.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsExplaining ADHD to People Close to You — Without Justifying
Barkley's executive-function framing: explain the mechanism, not the label. Six rules (specific situation, plain mechanism description, concrete asks, explain not excuse, don't argue diagnosis, written follow-up). Plus how to handle common family responses without escalating.
6 min readMotivation & EmotionsTalking to the Inner Critic Without Going Toxic-Positive
Neff's self-compassion research: kindness + common humanity + clear-seeing as the middle path. Six practices (friend test, accurate naming, common humanity, physical self-touch, two-column dialogue, agency). ADHD case: critic calibrated by decades of corrective feedback. Clinical signs routed to professional.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsSelf-Worth That Doesn't Depend on What You Produced Today
Brown's research on 'hustle for worthiness': worth-tied-to-output is structurally fragile. Six practices (name equation, evidence ledger, third-person voice, values-level identity, scheduled low-output time, separate transaction vs relationship). ADHD case + clinical routed to professional.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsMotivation Follows Action — Not the Other Way Around
Behavioural-activation research: action produces motivation more reliably than waiting for motivation produces action. Six rules (two-minute version, smallest physical move, motivation as data, cue-stack, notice post-action feeling, distinguish from need-rest). ADHD case + clinical concerns routed to professional.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsDon't Quit Your Own Thing at Month 3 — Diagnose the Dip First
Godin's 'The Dip': month 3 is the predictable trough — novelty gone, external validation not yet arrived. Six diagnostics (energy vs work, body, use case, kill criteria, opportunity cost, outside opinion) distinguish dip from real stop signal. ADHD case: novelty-curve makes dip disproportionate.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsCelebrating Finishes Without Streaks — Keep the Dopamine, Drop the Catastrophe
Fogg: immediate emotion after a behaviour wires habit, not external tracking. Streaks borrow the reward but install fragility — chain breaks, shame floods. Decouple: celebrate finishes (totals/artifacts/ritual) without the catastrophe trigger. ADHD case for this specifically.
4 min readADHD & LearningLearning When You Can't Focus Longer Than 10 Minutes
Karpicke: 10 focused minutes on retrieval beat 90 distracted on re-reading. The 30s name / 8min produce / 90s note structure + morning/afternoon/evening stacking. Why ADHD attention shape matches 10-min units better than 90-min blocks.
4 min readMotivation & EmotionsRelocating With ADHD — When Your Old Systems Collapsed
Holmes-Rahe: relocation is high-stress. ADHD pays extra because environment-bound systems don't travel. The brain didn't break, the room did. Five-step rebuild (landing zone, defended surface, recreate one cue, accept month 3 dip, no all-at-once restructuring).
5 min readADHD & LearningHow to Pick What to Learn — When Everything Looks Interesting
Newport's 'So Good They Can't Ignore You': pick rare and valuable, not passionate. The four-step method (use case, curiosity check, time-box, kill criteria). Why ADHD multi-potential trap makes structured picking essential. Three failure modes.
5 min readADHD & LearningWhen Motivation to Learn Disappears — Keep Going on System
Deci & Ryan's SDT: intrinsic motivation runs on autonomy + competence + relatedness. When motivation disappears, diagnose which need is offline while the minimum-viable system carries the practice. The ADHD novelty case and the recognising-when-to-quit-cleanly section.
5 min readFocus & AttentionProcrastination Is About Emotion, Not Laziness
Pychyl: procrastination is voluntary delay driven by short-term mood repair, not time-management failure. Five moves on the actual mechanism (name the feeling, small first action, self-compassion, curiosity, 5 min with permission to stop). The ADHD case.
6 min readADHD & LearningMicrolearning — Does 5 Minutes a Day Really Work?
Honest take grounded in Ericsson's deliberate practice: yes for retrieval-friendly atomic skills, no for synthesis. Four moves to make 5 minutes count, the ADHD attention-span fit, and where the technique stops working.
4 min readADHD & LearningNotes That Help — Not Just a Graveyard of Clippings
Ahrens / Zettelkasten: the value isn't captured notes but new ideas from linking them in your own words. Five active-note moves, when the method works vs. when it's avoidance, and why ADHD readers face the capture-vs-process trap doubly.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsLiving in Home Chaos — Without the Shame
The shame about home chaos does more damage than the chaos itself — it generates avoidance, which generates more chaos. Six house-scale moves (landing zone, defended surface, visual storage, friction, 20-min reset, design over symptom), the ADHD object-permanence case, and what kills it.
6 min readADHD & LearningWhy 'I Get It' Isn't the Same as 'I Remember It'
Bjork's UCLA research: the 'I get it' feeling during reading is almost uncorrelated with next-day recall — it's fluency, not knowledge. Five tests to distinguish, the ADHD case, and the three failure modes that make the illusion compound across a semester.
6 min readADHD & LearningThe Feynman Technique: You Only Know It If You Can Teach It
The Feynman technique mapped onto Karpicke's retrieval research: explaining out loud is one of the highest-yield retrieval tasks possible. Four steps, Lem as the safe stand-in student, five practical moves, and the three classic failures.
6 min readADHD & LearningInterleaving: Mixing Topics Learns Better Than Mastering One at a Time
Rohrer & Taylor 2007: interleaved math practice produced more than 2x test scores vs blocked, even though blocked feels better in session. Bjork's 'desirable difficulties' framework. Five rules to apply it, the ADHD novelty case, and what kills the technique.
6 min readADHD & LearningSpaced Repetition, Explained Without Jargon
Cepeda 2006 (254 studies) and Karpicke 2008 say it twice: spaced retrieval beats massed re-reading by a wide margin. The 10-20% gap rule, the expanding 1/3/7/14/30 sequence, why ADHD pays double, and what kills the technique.
5 min readMotivation & EmotionsAsking for Help: You Are Very Wrong About How Willing They Are
Flynn and Lake 2008: people underestimate how willing others are to help by roughly half. Brooks 2015: asking for advice raises perceived competence. Six scripts that work, why this pays double for ADHD/RSD, and how to retrain your prior on the actual data.
5 min readFocus & AttentionDopamine Fasting: What the Myth Gets Wrong — and What Actually Helps
Literally 'fasting from dopamine' isn't possible — Harvard Health is blunt on the neurochemistry. What Cameron Sepah actually proposed is CBT exposure interruption with a misleading name. Three behavioral moves that do what the meme promises, plus the ADHD nuance.
4 min readMotivation & EmotionsThe Brain Dump: Emptying the Tabs in Your Head
Background mental noise isn't a moral failure — it's what brains do when they're asked to store open commitments. The brain dump (David Allen's mind sweep) moves open loops out of working memory's ~7 slots, onto a page that holds them instead. The 10-minute protocol, the 3-bucket sort, and why ADHD brains get extra benefit.
6 min readMotivation & EmotionsRejection Sensitive Dysphoria: Why Criticism Hits So Much Harder With ADHD
If a hint of criticism or rejection lands like a physical blow, you're not too sensitive — it's how the ADHD brain filters emotion. The mechanism, the honest research, and ramps to shorten the spiral.
12 min readADHD & LearningActive Recall vs Rereading: Why Rereading Fails (and What Works)
Rereading builds a familiarity that feels like knowing and then vanishes on the test. Here's the research on why active recall wins, with the honest ADHD caveat most advice skips.
11 min readFocus & AttentionHow to Break Down a Big Task When ADHD Makes It Feel Impossible
"Just break it down" is the part you can't do. Here's how small is small enough, how to find the seam, and the size test that gets your hands moving on the next physical action.
10 min readMotivation & EmotionsADHD Overwhelm Shutdown: Why Too Much Freezes You (And How to Restart)
When too much lands at once, an ADHD brain can hit its working-memory ceiling and freeze. Here's the mechanism, what the research really supports, and the short restart that gets you moving — by doing less, not trying harder.
11 min readMotivation & EmotionsRevenge Bedtime Procrastination: Why You Stay Up Late (Even Exhausted)
If you're wrecked but still won't go to bed, it isn't a discipline problem — it's a starved need for time of your own. Here's the mechanism, why ADHD amplifies it, and the gentle ways out that start in the daytime.
11 min readMotivation & EmotionsDopamine Menu for ADHD: Design Motivation Instead of Waiting for It
A dopamine menu is the list your good-brain self writes for when it's left the building. Here's the honest origin, the reward science, and how to build yours course by course.
10 min readFocus & AttentionADHD Hyperfocus: How to Use It Without Losing the Whole Day
Hyperfocus drives deep, good work and quietly eats your whole day — you can't feel your way out of it. Here's the honest research and the external guardrails that bound it.
10 min readFocus & AttentionBody Doubling for ADHD: Why You Focus Better When Someone's There
Working alongside another person — who isn't helping — can make a frozen task suddenly doable. Here's the four-part mechanism, the honestly thin evidence, and how to set it up on purpose.
10 min readFocus & AttentionThe Wall of Awful: Why You Can't Start a Task (Even When You Want To)
Wanting to start and being able to start are different brain operations — and ADHD makes the gap wide. Here's the mechanism, the research, and the ramps that get you moving.
9 min readFocus & AttentionTime Blindness: Why Time Slips Away With ADHD — and What Helps
Losing track of time with ADHD isn't carelessness — it's a measurable difference in how the brain perceives time. Here's the mechanism, with real research, and the tactics that actually help.
6 min readADHD & LearningThe Hidden Tuition of ADHD in Education
ADHD tax in education often means late fees, repeated courses, wasted hours and a quieter loss of confidence that rarely appears on a transcript.
10 min readMotivation & EmotionsWhy Monday Never Arrives: ADHD Procrastination as Brain Biology
ADHD procrastination often looks like laziness from the outside, but research shows a problem of timing, reward and regulation.
10 min readADHD & LearningWhy ADHD Makes Reading Vanish So Fast
ADHD working memory problems can make reading feel slippery. Here is what research says about why text disappears so quickly.
11 min readADHD & LearningWhy Adults With ADHD Leave Online Courses—and How Some Stay
ADHD online courses often lose most learners. A small platform survey and research suggest what helps the minority who finish.
11 min readADHD & LearningWhy Dopamine Decides So Much in ADHD Learning
ADHD and dopamine shape how learning, motivation, and deadlines work in the brain, which is why standard study advice so often collapses.
11 min readADHD & LearningI was diagnosed with ADHD. How do I study with it?
A practical guide to studying with ADHD: attention, energy, and habits that hold up under real adult life.
5 min read