I do things little and often, the above don’t work for me
None of these hacks work for me, I’m too self aware of my own attempts to gaslight myself. The biggest issue and struggle I have is transitioning between ‘modes’. For me it’s hard enough just switching from being still, to being in motion. That alone can paralyse me. Not always, I can willpower through it when anxiety/panic/stress are firing off but over time it comes at a cost. I recently just dropped out of my job cos I just couldn’t leave bed. How pathetic right? People are starving everywhere but mehhh I don’t wanna work. FML. I feel insane and lost and alone.
With my ADHD, even those smaller tasks can be too much. Sometimes instead of gathering up all the mugs and putting them in the sink, I need to start with just a mug. I can either use that momentum to keep going, or if that’s still too much, I’ll at least have done something.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.
We did that for my kid: broke things down into lists of achievable tasks. Worked pretty well as long as the last weren’t too big. However he always had challenges writing his own lists, so I don’t know if you could use it on yourself
These are the coping methods taught to ASD kids, so this is more autism than ADHD. (I have both).
I would always just leave my clothes in the laundry basket until I discovered that I can make myself do them by dumping them on my bed, so I have to put them away before I can sleep. Yes, I could just shove them onto the floor, but I dislike my clothes being there more than doing the task of putting them away.
Big dresser drawer, separate undies/socks and shirts, into respective drawer.
People will really attribute fucking ANYTHING to adhd.
This is a common, normal ass life experience. Everyone on the face of the earth procrastinates with things like this and “choosing a smaller version of the task” is a common technique used by millions without ADHD
It’s not the overwhelm that’s being attributed to ADHD. It’s the anxiety, shame, task paralysis, whatever else that’s stopping you from taking a first step that’s attributed to executive dysfunction that’s part of ADHD. The technique is used by millions without ADHD because things that work with hard-mode brains work just as well with normal-mode brains.
But then it’s not a “psychology hack for ADHD”. It’s just a normal productivity tip. Some with ADHD will find it useful, others won’t, and some NT people will find it useful, others won’t. Maybe on average it’s more beneficial for those with ADHD, but as I wouldn’t guess so. I don’t have any data/research supporting either direction though.
Frankly I just have a distaste for the whimsicalness applied to ADHD in online discourse. We don’t need “psychology hacks” or to describe ourselves as having “hard mode brains”. It’s a disorder. Cancer patients do not have “hard mode bodies”. And the people with more severe ADHD in my experience tend to not resonate with a lot of these terms, it’s generally only people with low level ADHD or just want to pin their dysfunction on something else who resonate with this terminology.
The mozzarella in your freezer expired in 2022
So yes you’re right in general, but also ADHD specifically fucks with executive function, meaning it makes it much harder to actually put the brain into doing shit mode.
Doing something much smaller, e.g. only committing to 5 minutes of cleaning as opposed to cleaning an entire room, makes it much easier to actually start doing a thing. Half the time I end up carried by momentum past my initial commitment, so it really can be a lifesaver.
step zero: create a new web based app in a front end framework you want to learn, to keep track of your tasks. then never finish it. trip over a pile of mugs on your way to bed.
to-do
make to-do system
Hahaha jokes on me. I decided I wanted to secure my front end apps finally. Maybe I should read a cyber security book instead of vibing my way through the old fashion way: blind. I finally got a cloudflare acct but I believe I’m making it 100% more complicated, have you heard of zrok2?
Unironically the only thing that works for me is this
That’s just cleaning… no one goes “I will now clean this room!” then uses their mind powers to simultaneously clean all parts of the room at the same time. Pick up a thing, find its home, rinse and repeat.
That’s where you are wrong. People get so mentally overwhelmed they don’t even start
I keep posting this quote because it remains true and has helped me a lot with overcoming my executive dysfunction:
“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly”
It doesn’t matter if you don’t take all the dishes to the kitchen; just take 1.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t do all your laundry; just put 1 shirt in the hamper.
If you’re in school, turn in unfinished assignments, even a 1 sentence essay.
At work, do the smallest task you can imagine, even if it’s just opening a document.
The point is, while all of these things aren’t perfect, they are infinitely better than doing NOTHING. Plus, that one small thing will often snowball into doing more. And if it doesn’t, so what? You met your goal already. Anything else is extra.
You are not lazy. You are not a failure. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. It’s the world that is wrong. Remember, society has evolved WAY faster than our brains have. Quit placing such high expectations on yourself when none of us are meant to be doing any of this in the first place.
The most important thing for me was to select a task (like move the mugs), and let that be the end of the task if I’m not feeling great. If I know that I’ll have to finish the room, it makes starting the first task impossible.
Non zero days are important. Even the smallest task (one piece of rubbish in the bin) will add up if done every day.
When I’m depressed and non-productive and the place is a mess, I tell myself: just one thing in every space, one thing in every space. Eventually I’ll get moving.
It doesn’t matter what the one thing is? Picking a leaf off the entrance floor counts, so does putting the empty toilet paper rolls into recycling, so does putting one glass into the dishwasher, so does recharging my watch. Walk into a room or hall or stairway landing, find one thing that isn’t right, fix it and move to the next space.
Somewhere a little over halfway through, I’ll get a run of energy. I’ll usually stay in whatever room I’m in and just keep moving stuff, cleaning, straightening up, doing whatever needs done. At some point, I’ll notice that I’m running out of energy. At that point, I’ll finish whatever single task I’m doing in that area, and go through the rest of the place, fixing one thing in every room.
I meantioned elsewhere, but I will sometimes break it down so far as to say “I’ll walk in the kitchen and look at it. Adn if I turn around immediately, that’s okay, I tried.” and that doesn’t always work.
But I need to do dishes right now, so I’m going to do just that after hitting reply on this and see if I can go unload the dishwasher. Will I load it again? We’ll see, but i’m taking a couple of dirty dishes in there with me as I go. So it’ll be progress, no matter how tiny.
edit: dishes unloaded, dishwasher loaded and started, whee
This is also what I do. Have a one item todo list and have it be a success if that task gets done.
As somebody that currently has a sink full of dirty dishes (picked up around my place), clothes that made it to the hamper (picked up off the floor), and a pile of cleaning products still on the table I ordered online… No. It just puts the mess in one spot for me to avoid. But I’m depressed currently. I’ll clean up when I snap out of it in a few days. It comes in waves.
To fix your deficit of executive function, simply have executive function!
Real talk, lists of steps and small tasks making up a whole is super helpful to me, but that needs to be generated outside of the moment…
It doesn’t work for me, because I know the plan. I know the intention is for this to create a cascade that results in lots of stuff happening, and so carrying the mug inherits the load of all that’s intended to come after.
I don’t like getting fooled, even if it’s by myself, so I do nothing, like a fool.
I don’t like getting fooled, even if it’s by myself, so I do nothing, like a fool.
I also have this honestly very frustrating mindset. All this inaction and foresight is really fucking hard to get rid of sadly. I hate it
It reminds me of a lot of simple diet advice, like smaller portions or subsititutions with less fat or sugar.
Do they think our bodies are stupid?
I don’t look at it like fooling myself but taking a physical first step may get the brain juices flowing enough to continue the task
it’s no problem if it doesn’t
I’m glad it works for you, because that’s probably quite helpful.
For me saying its just the first step to get the momentum needed to do the task feels like arguing I didn’t kill the guy, I simply built a ramp and engineered an axe on a cart. Sure I setup a system by which ringing my doorbell would release the death cart, and sure the ramp leads directly head level to the front door, and sure I invited him over, but I think we can all agree gravity is what killed him, I wasn’t even home at the time!
And to be clear, I’m not arguing with you, I’m truly happy it works for you, this is the argument I have with myself. I suggest to myself that the nice internet people say I could maybe start with just one thing, and then I respond to myself by saying if starting one thing leads to me doing more things, then doing one thing is the same as doing all the things. Then I suggest to myself I’d have to get up pretty early in the morning to try pulling that shit on me, and that I should take myself back to lawschool.
Of course, I’ve never been to “Law School”, nor planned on it, but I’ve never let that get in the way of a good line!
I see what you’re saying.
Add this idea to it:
Do you want to get the task done? Does the task align with your values?
If it’s not for “killing a guy indirectly” but for something good. Why not take the first physical step.
When the dopamine starts flowing because your body does an action then even your frontal cortex with all it’s logic ability takes a while to disable that initial dopamine.
