When we sit down to read and realize we’ve “read the same paragraph four times,” it can feel like proof that we’re broken. In this episode of Rhythms of Focus, we explore a kinder, more rhythmic way for wandering minds and adults with ADHD to meet the page and actually feel alive in the words.

### What we explore

We look at why reading can feel like climbing a mountain, especially when working memory, emotions, and confusion fog the “now” of our attention. We also unpack what “active reading” really means for wandering minds and how we can use confusion, sleepiness, and resistance as gentle signals instead of verdicts against us.

Together, we:

• Reframe mind wandering and re-reading as part of the brain’s natural “formatting” process, not personal failure.

• Practice questions like “What does this have to do with that?” and “What do we know, think, and not know?” to restore agency on the page.

• Explore simple, environment-based supports (like single-path attention and fewer “infinite gravity pools”) that make sustained reading more possible for ADHD minds.

This episode also features an original solo piano composition, “Alight,” inviting us to feel how staying alive in the notes mirrors staying alive in the sentences. If this resonates, we invite you to subscribe and visit rhythmsoffocus.com to keep traveling these gentler paths of agency, mindfulness, and rhythm together.

## Hashtags

#ADHD #WanderingMinds #mindfulproductivity #readingwithADHD #workingmemory #activeReading #neurodivergent #focusstrategies #gentleproductivity #RhythmsofFocus

## Transcript

“I’ve Read This Paragraph Four Times” – When Reading Feels Impossible

I think I've read the same paragraph four times without absorbing a thing. How the heck do people read?   📍 ​

Wandering Minds, Books, and the Mountain of Focus

 for some wandering minds, reading a book is about as difficult as climbing a mountain, mountaineers notwithstanding. Getting to the book at all is one hurdle, and staying with the book is yet another. We might blame that wandering mind, this sense I just can't focus, or maybe I'm not a visual learner well either, might be true.

Interestingly, though, I've met quite a number of those with wandering minds who find reading delightful. This ready made path, easily followed without needing to hold back.

The guardrails of the words and the passage lead them along this gripping story. Now, sometimes they might fall into other troubles like an attention tunnel hyperfocus. It's hard to break out of. While the troubles of being inflow are certainly important and worthy of our attention, I wanna focus today on the other side of matters, which is getting into the book.

When a Book Feels Dead – Boredom, Assignments, and Resistance

There's a sense of deadness, the words, the boredom. We could argue that sometimes a book just isn't very engaging. It's the book's fault, not mine. No, certainly that can be the case too, but I would just say, okay, we'll find another. And then you're saying I'm assigned this one. Well, okay. Okay. I give up.

Let's see what we can do, anyway.  

Chapter 4: Single-Path Attention – Why Planes (and No Wi‑Fi) Help Us Read

There are any number of approaches we can take. In recent episode I describe being on a plane with a book without wifi. We're able to allow our mind to wander about, as opposed to having the internet, hobbies, or other infinite gravity pools pulling, we have the singular path forward for our attention.

Cracking open the book, we can weave back and forth between being and engaging a word here, a sentence there. And sometimes we can even dive deep pretty...