Have you ever sat down to answer one specific email, only to discover, forty-five minutes later, that you’ve somehow learnt the mating habits of octopuses, reorganised your desktop, found a podcast you’d forgotten to listen to and become absolutely convinced that now might be the perfect time to start a completely unrelated business?
For me, it always starts with the best of intentions. I’ll realise I need to check one tiny detail before I reply. That tiny detail raises another question, which obviously requires a quick Google search. The Google search throws up an article that looks genuinely fascinating, which reminds me of something else I’ve been meaning to look into, and before I know it I’ve got so many browser tabs open that my laptop looks less like an archaeological dig through every interest I’ve had over the past month. Past Hannah was clearly very optimistic. Every single tab was apparently too important to close because I might need it later. Present-day Hannah has absolutely no idea why seventeen of them are still open, but I’m sure there was a perfectly good reason at the time.
From the outside, it probably looks like distraction. A complete inability to stop chasing the shiny thing and just crack on with the job in hand. It certainly used to look that way to me. I’d sit back at the end of the morning wondering how on earth I’d been so busy without actually doing the thing I’d originally sat down to do, and conclude that I simply wasn’t disciplined enough. Other people seemed perfectly capable of deciding what they were going to work on and then… just working on it. Meanwhile, I’d somehow wandered into a wilderness of possibilities with absolutely no idea where I was heading.
I’ve started thinking about this as following the dopamine. I know dopamine has become one of those words that’s casually thrown into almost every conversation about ADHD these days, and I’m not about to pretend everything we do can be explained by one brain chemical. Brains are wonderfully complicated, and anyone claiming otherwise is usually trying to sell you something.
But as a description of what this feels like, it comes surprisingly close. It’s more like my brain finds a loose thread and simply can’t resist pulling it to see what happens. Before I know it, I’m blinking into the sunlight wondering how I ended up reading about something completely different from where I started. My brain, meanwhile, is full and happy, rubbing its belly as though this had been the plan all along. In reality, I never consciously decided to abandon that first task. My attention just wandered off for a moment… and that moment pulled up a chair.
For years, I assumed I was just a bit ditzy. God knows there were enough school reports suggesting that was the case. But when I look back now, I know that’s not what was happening. Not even close. Some of the best ideas I’ve ever had, the projects I’m proudest of and the biggest pivots in my career all started because I wandered off and followed the shiny thing.
Everything interesting feels like a breadcrumb
My brain seems to experience curiosity very differently from some people. For them, it appears to be a passing thought. They wonder about something, perhaps make a mental note to look it up later, and then carry on with whatever they were doing. A tiny pause before getting back to the task in hand. Yay them!
Mine, on the other hand, treats every fascinating idea like a breadcrumb that absolutely has to be followed because… well… what if the next breadcrumb is even better? Sometimes that works out brilliantly. Sometimes it ends with me knowing far more than any reasonable person should about something that wasn’t remotely connected to what I was supposed to be doing.
I’ve long since accepted that, like Alice, there are certain rabbit holes I’m powerless to resist. Mention an unusual business model, an obscure historical event or a piece of technology I’ve never come across before, and there’s a very good chance I’ll disappear for an hour and emerge with an entirely unnecessary amount of knowledge. My brain seems convinced it’ll all come in useful one day and, after all these years, I’ve learnt it’s usually not worth arguing.
The funny thing is, it never feels like I’m deliberately avoiding work because avoidance has a very different feeling to it. This feels more like my brain has found an itch it simply has to scratch before it can settle again. I suspect that’s one of the reasons so many neurodivergent people become accidental experts in the most wonderfully random subjects. We don’t always choose our interests. Quite often they choose us, and once they’ve got our attention they won’t let go until we’ve reached Mastermind specialist subject levels of knowledge.
For years I saw that as a weakness because we’re taught that focus and consistency are the holy grail. But I’m no longer convinced that’s true. Looking back, I think this relentless curiosity has quietly become one of my greatest strengths.
This is where my best ideas are born
The older I get, the less convinced I am that my brain is actually as random as I’d always assumed.
At the time, it certainly feels random. One interest appears from nowhere, quickly followed by another, and before long I’ve disappeared off on yet another project that nobody saw coming. If you looked at my CV over the years, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether I simply couldn’t make my mind up. Novelty cakes. Bar work. Marketing. Business strategy. Podcasting. On paper, it looks less like a career path and more like somebody repeatedly throwing darts at a noticeboard.
For a long time, that’s exactly how I saw it too. I admired people who seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do from the age of twelve and then spent the next thirty years becoming brilliant at it. Meanwhile, I was enthusiastically wandering through life picking up new interests like I was collecting Pokémon.
But when I look back now, those interests don’t feel disconnected at all. They all have the same thread running through them. I’ve always been fascinated by understanding people, solving problems and making complicated things easier to understand. The subject matter has changed over the years, but the thing driving it really hasn’t.
I don’t think The Business Oddcast exists despite the fact that I followed lots of different interests. I think it exists because I did. My business strategy work didn’t appear because I suddenly woke up one morning with a perfectly formed business idea. It grew out of years of following conversations, asking questions, noticing patterns and joining dots that didn’t seem connected until they eventually were.
That’s the awkward thing about following something that grabs your attention. It rarely gives you the full picture at the beginning. It simply nudges you to take one more step. Sometimes that leads absolutely nowhere. Sometimes it leads to another abandoned notebook, three unopened browser tabs and an Amazon basket full of things that felt essential at the time.
And every now and then…it changes the direction of your life.
The Problem Isn’t Curiosity. It’s Timing.
Much as I’d love to tell you that following every fascinating idea has been the secret to my success, I’d also like to remain on speaking terms with reality.
The truth is, my brain has absolutely dreadful timing. It doesn’t patiently wait until I’ve finished writing the proposal, sent the invoice or replied to the customer who’s now wondering whether I’ve accidentally disappeared. It turns up halfway through all of those things, taps me on the shoulder and whispers, “This probably isn’t important… but what if we just had a really quick look?”
The really clever part is that it always feels completely logical. Future Hannah will apparently never understand this idea as well as Present Hannah, so naturally everything else has to wait. Looking back, it’s remarkable how many “urgent” ideas have turned out not to be urgent at all. Future Hannah usually copes just fine.
I’ve lost count of the number of notebooks – both digital and physical – containing brilliant business ideas that never became businesses. Half-finished online courses abandoned around week two. Browser tabs I’ve kept open for months because I was absolutely certain I’d come back to them. My Notes app is full of cryptic sentences and random numbers that made perfect sense at the time, and a significant proportion of my camera roll is screenshots that now look like they belong to somebody else’s life.
For years, I assumed the answer was to fight it. Ignore the distraction. Stay focused. Be more disciplined. Unsurprisingly, that worked about as well as telling a Labrador to ignore the interesting smell in the hedge. I could manage it for a few minutes, but I’d spend far more energy wrestling with my own brain than I ever saved by resisting it.
The breakthrough wasn’t learning to ignore those thoughts. It was realising they didn’t all need dealing with immediately.
These days, I ask myself a different question. Not “Should I follow this?” but “Does this need following today?” Surprisingly often, the answer is no. The article will still be there after I’ve sent the email. The business idea can survive until tomorrow. If it’s genuinely a good idea, it’ll almost certainly still be a good idea once I’ve finished what I originally sat down to do.
So I leave myself a trail back. A quick voice note. A sentence in my Notes app that I’ll hopefully still be able to decipher later. A reminder in my calendar. It isn’t a productivity system worthy of a bestselling business book, but it works for me because it tells my brain something incredibly important:
“You don’t have to remember this. We’ve already caught it.”
For years, I worried that if I didn’t act on an idea immediately, I’d lose it forever. Every thought seemed to arrive with an expiry date. The irony is that trying to hold onto all of those ideas at once made it almost impossible to concentrate on the one thing I actually wanted to finish. Now I trust myself to come back.
Not every idea deserves my attention today. Some do. Others simply deserve somewhere safe to wait until I have the time and headspace to give them the attention they deserve. That one shift has probably saved me more mental energy than any productivity technique I’ve ever tried. Because I’ve realised the goal was never to silence that part of my brain. Quite the opposite. It’s responsible for some of the best things I’ve ever created.
Maybe following the dopamine was never the problem
I’m still the person who can disappear down an internet rabbit hole because one question led to another. I still start researching one thing and somehow end up learning something completely unrelated. There are still days when I look at my browser and wonder whether anyone else has ever managed to open quite so many tabs whilst technically doing one job.
The difference is that I no longer see those moments as evidence that my brain is broken or that I’m somehow incapable of focusing. They’re simply part of how I explore the world. Some of those detours lead absolutely nowhere. Others have led to conversations, businesses, friendships and opportunities that I’d never have found if I’d forced myself to stay on the straight and narrow.
Looking back, so much of what I value in my life began with a question I couldn’t quite let go of. The Business Oddcast exists because Stuart and I kept following questions that fascinated us. My business strategy work grew because I couldn’t stop asking why some businesses thrive whilst others, often with equally good products or services, quietly struggle. None of it came from sitting down with a perfectly mapped-out plan. It came from paying attention to the things my brain kept coming back to.
So these days, when I find myself halfway through writing an email and suddenly wondering how something completely unrelated works, I don’t immediately assume I’ve failed. I make a note, finish the email and then decide later whether it’s worth following. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. But I’ve stopped seeing every distraction as evidence that I’m doing life wrong.
Because after all…some of the most important things in my life started with a distraction.