Last updated: March 4, 2026
Productivity can be push- or pull-driven
Productivity can be pursued by force or eagerly: by pushing yourself through unpleasantness or by pursuing aspects of the task that pull you in.
I already made the case here for the value of being eagerly productive—increased psychological well-being, work engagement, and work quality—but there’s another reason to work towards being eagerly productive: it’s what your brain wants.
Your brain is looking for pulls
The ADHD brain is pull-seeking. More broadly, when your brain is low on executive function (e.g., due to stress, life circumstances, etc.), it seeks out pull activities. For an ADHD brain like mine, this is almost constant.
Pull-seeking makes a lot of sense when your executive function is low—if you’re being pulled by the task, less executive function is needed to stay on track.
This is why the typical forceful productivity approach is so difficult for us. It requires high executive function, which we lack most of the time. Eager productivity, however, is pull-driven and aligned with how our ADHD brains work.
Your brain is a natural trickster
“Trickster” has a negative connotation, but I hope to change that for you. I think of pull-seeking as trickster energy that can lead to distracted trickster or productive trickster behavior.
When you fight the pull-seeking and instead try to force yourself to push through the tasks you don’t feel a pull toward, your mind’s trickster energy will take the form of a distracted trickster. Distraction-seeking is an example of this: like a magician, your brain misdirects your attention away from your work toward some other distracting pull.
But when you harness this pull-seeking energy, you unlock your productive trickster side. This is when you come up with exciting new ideas and approaches to doing something that moves you closer to your goals. Innovators and entrepreneurs are very familiar with this productive trickster energy.
The productive trickster uses pulls to their advantage
The one mindset I talk about with clients is the Productive Trickster Mindset. Your brain is naturally pull-seeking—the Productive Trickster Mindset is where you consciously take control of this pull-seeking tendency and direct it towards your goals, making yourself a productive trickster. You become a magician, making a pull appear where previously there was only boredom or resistance.
Why do I focus on the trickster idea? I think it’s a great metaphor for escaping the passive response most of us have to tasks we resist. Suppose a trickster is asked to do a boring project or sit through a boring meeting. Would they just force themselves to push through it? No way! They’d find some angle that would pull them in. Similarly, a core idea of the Productive Trickster Mindset is to not simply accept boring or unpleasant tasks as things we need to push through. Instead, the productive trickster actively seeks out ways to feel pulled towards tasks.
The Productivity Controls fuel the productive trickster
A mindset is a way of seeing and responding to your experiences. How do you move from a mindset to action? With the four Productivity Controls: Mind Control, Task Control, Time Control, and Pull Control (see this article for an introduction to each).
Pull Control is the key vehicle for productive tricksters, since it includes strategies for turning unpleasant push tasks into exciting pull tasks (I’ll say more about these strategies in future articles).
The other three Productivity Controls are also critical. They give you the cognitive resources and planning tools needed to keep your productive trickster energy aimed at your goals, rather than becoming a new source of distraction.
Conclusion
The goal isn’t to turn all of your work into pulls, just a larger proportion of it. As you feel eager to dive into more of your work, you’ll start to enjoy the benefits of being eagerly productive.
Your ADHD mind thrives when pursuing pulls. The Productive Trickster Mindset helps you align your work with your pulls. That’s why I consider this mindset essential for thriving with ADHD.