Be aware maby somebody is directing and energy weapon (microwave weapon at you) while you sleep
Me before ADHD meds
Activation energy is a terrible thing.
If you don’t know where to start, organise something.
The worst part for more is when i eventually forced myself to start i can go for hours thinking: wow this is actually pretty fun. Woohoo, cleaning, every single piece of clothing is wasged and in the closet. I’ll remember that and next time will be a piece of cake. It is in fact not a piece of cake the naxt time.
the fucking laundry why is putting the laundry away so hard ITS CLEAN AND READY TO BE PUT AWAY JUST DO IT
I’m gonna start, once I get through this week
“Bro, that was three weeks ago.”
“Oh…”
When you just get through this week
Set insanely small goals. The inability to start often has to do with imagining the daunting tasks that lay ahead of you. The trick is to set almost pathetically small goals.
Your room is filled with messy laundry? Grab 1 shirt and toss it into a pile. That’s it. You don’t need to do the laundry, you don’t need to gather any other clothes. Just 1 shirt, tossed into a pile that it wasn’t in before. I bet there’s one within arm reach of you right now.
Used dishes in your room? Aren’t you thirsty? Sure you are! You probably haven’t drank anything in a while. Go to the kitchen and get some water. While you’re on your way, why don’t you grab 1 dish and take it with you?
Momentum is a hell of a thing. Most of the time, all you need is something small to break your executive dysfunction. If you tossed 1 shirt into a pile, you might as well toss any clothing in arms reach. Those pants are just slightly out of reach, ok maybe you get up a little to toss those… And those socks… And maybe that shirt over there too. Suddenly, all your dirty clothes are gathered into a pile and it hardly took any time or energy. All it took was grabbing 1 shirt and tossing it.
And if you finish your insanely small task and you don’t feel like doing any more? That’s fine! You already met your goal! Hell, if you’ve got something you’re struggling with and have taken the time to read this, you’re already half-way there, because now you’re thinking about what the smallest, stupidest, zero-effort goal you can set is.
Are you ready for the most important piece of life advice that no one ever tells you growing up? Anything worth doing is worth doing shitty.
These suggestions also fit major depressive disorder.
I’ve been struggling with ADHD severely to where my life feels ruined/wasted, thank you for this tip.
It’s not that I can’t clean. I clean up just fine when I have a hard deadline - my girlfriend is coming over, etc. When it’s just me and my thoughts I am perfectly fine living in filth. Not happy, but fine.
Hey fun fact: motivation doesn’t exist. It will not materialize out of thin air. The motivation you seek is discipline.
Go do the thing.
Thanks I’m cured
There is nothing fun about this supposed “fact”.
Hey another fun fact: that don’t fly for people with ADHD. We have this thing called task avoidance. Because of issues with executive function in the brain, we literally can’t get up and start no matter how much we’re screaming at ourselves in our head to “Get the fuck up and start already!!!”. No amount of discipline will make up for a lack of dopamine in the brain.
Discipline isn’t about screaming at yourself to go do something. Try moving your fingers that way. I’d be concerned if it worked. It happens at a much lower level than that, which I can only describe as “just doing it,” in much the same way that you “just” move your fingers.
I’m saying all this as someone with ADHD, by the way. Part of task avoidance is actually caused by that chunk of your brain screaming at itself to go do the thing, wasting energy that could have been spent on just doing the thing.
Be an LED, not an incandescent bulb.
At the same time it’s not helpful for those struggling there. Discipline is built up by the practice of doing. I have ADHD too and when I build up dread I get worse task avoidance, but when I do a little bit and keep building on the bits I do it gets easier.
You only get practice by doing, and doing is easier when you do it without screaming at yourself. Doing little bits counts as doing.
It’s like the impossible war on homelessness, there is no inability, so there is nothing to get through, there is no obstacle. All it takes is a wish to start.
What do you honestly want to do?
