Table 1 The eight areas of the ADHD Star

1. Understanding your ADHD. This is about understanding how your ADHD affects you, and feeling you have some control over it. It covers getting diagnosed, making informed choices about treatment options, and being able to explain your behaviour to others and ask for what you need.

2. Focus and attention. This is about learning ways to help you pay attention to people and concentrating on tasks in a flexible way, so you can get things done.

3. Organising yourself. This is about the skills that you need to manage your life independently – managing time, sorting out your money, dealing with bills and paperwork, managing domestic tasks, not losing your possessions and coping with travel.

4. Friends and social life. This is about skills you need to have positive relationships with other people – family, friends, partners, colleagues, online friends and the wider community. It is about the quality of your relationships.

5. Thinking and reacting. This is about coping with strong feelings like anger and frustration. It is about managing negative impulses, like gambling, binge drinking, reckless driving or self-harm, thinking before you act, and not harming yourself or others, disrupting other people or damaging property.

6. Physical health. This is about how well you look after yourself – eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, not misusing drugs, not smoking or drinking too much. It includes avoiding things that make managing your ADHD harder.

7. How you feel. This is about feeling positive, at ease and mostly ok about life. It is about accepting yourself, and being able to bounce back from life’s ups and downs, and cope with difficult emotions.

8. Meaningful use of time. This is about work, training or education – knowing what you want to do, building your skills and finding a meaningful occupation.