I have ADHD, so maybe this is one of the ways ADHD folks are different from attention surplus folks, but I gotta say prioritization is a big factor of success for me.
It's common and easy for me to sit down and work on one thing for two hours (or more), but if I'm not careful about what that thing is suddenly six hours have gone by and I've done a lot of (or learned a lot about) something, but I'm not much closer to getting anything that needs doing done.
E.g., a few examples of the kind of rabbit hole that I've run down, or at least started to run down, recently:
- exploring speedwords-style typewritten shorthand systems, and developing custom concordance/frequency analysis scripts to analyze samples of both my prose and my code
- hacking emacs org-mode to allow markdown style syntax, and to allow org-babel syntax within markdown-mode
- creating a JavaScript semi-DSL for a declarative-syntax layout of impress.js "slides"
These are fun to do and I learn a bit and they are even semi-productive in the "sharpening the saw" sense, but literally "just keep doing something" doesn't necessarily lead to "success" anymore than "just keep swimming" necessarily leads you to 42 Wallaby Way.
Focused effort, in and of itself, isn't so much the problem from me. From where I sit, it matters which shit is being done. Does that just happen automatically for you/others?
I'm ADHD too, actually, and my biggest problem is being paralyzed by worrying about which task to choose. Once I get past the first five minutes of HEY HEY GO LOOK IN THE FRIDGE AND HEY CHECK EMAIL ONE MORE TIME, it's pretty easy to get in the zone. If I sit down and just do something, I'll probably waste an hour or two here and there on fun-but-unimportant projects, but it at least keeps the wheel greased. There's a momentum that builds up.
1. Sit down and work on one thing, and nothing else, for two hours.
2. Repeat.
Prioritization is such a tiny part of success, creation, or work. Just do something, and keep doing something.