@adhdmorelikeyaydhd / adhdmorelikeyaydhd.tumblr.com
Hack for if you're struggling with ADHD paralysis and you can't get started on a task:
Step 1: Add some silly rule to the task to make it more interesting and whimsical.
Step 2: Pretend Sam Reich just told you to do it.
Here are a few examples that have worked for me recently.
(Bonus points if you can hear @samreich in your head. "Alright, players, for your next challenge" 🎶ding🎶)
Problems disorder
having audio processing issues is so humiliating like yeah i heard you and yeah i was actively listening but the problem is i dont know what the fuck you sayed
i was paying attention, i was listening, but you see the problem is....it didnt work
Okay so when I got sucked into the phantom zone last week while watching youtube shorts a lot of the content it fed me was ADHD tips and a lot of it was either useless for me or redundant but there was one REALLY good tip about taking breaks that wasn't about taking breaks it was about RETURNING from breaks and the tip is: when you are about to go on a break, before you step away from your task (work, craft project, school stuff) decide what you'll do as the first thing when you sit back down at your task and set up your workspace to do that thing.
That means you've got an easy re-entry point to go back to doing the thing instead of sitting back down and having to make a decision or having to reorient from break mode to task mode. You have pre-reoriented and can just go back into working mode.
I've been doing this by circling what my next task on my tasklist is and bringing up the windows that I'll need for the task before I step away from my desk.
Brilliant hack, works great for me, hope it works great for you as well.
Oh also some knitters do this thing where the second you finish making one sock you cast on the second sock and do at least a few stitches so that you don't get killed by inertia and have one sock finished and one sock never started forever.
A while back there was a Tumblr post about doing the same thing while writing fiction - when you finish one chapter don't call it quits for the day, write a sentence or two if the next chapter do that you aren't starting from a blank page, you're continuing what you were doing before.
The same thing applies to work and homework and housework. If you finish your english homework *don't* decide that's the perfect moment to take a break, get out your algebra textbook and do a problem or two first.
Initiating tasks is a kind of executive function, but sometimes executive function is in short supply and you can bank some effort by continuing one task from another instead of having harsh breaks between tasks.
To reduce my screen time, I have weaponised my overactive and entirely impractical levels of empathy for inanimate objects. Wym you’re picking it up again? While it was sleeping? You complete and utter monster, let it rest!!
And it works. It works like a CHARM. Silly problems require silly solutions!
Having ADHD is so fun because sometimes youre looking for something that you use regularly and definitely put away in a smart and reasonable place and you have absolutely 0 hope of remembering where and finding it. And then other times ur like "hmm I need a some kind of small pointed object. I feel like i remember seeing a paperclip under the left couch cushion a month ago, i wonder if its still there" and it is
"wait but if u saw the paperclip why would u just leave it there?" its the adhd. Also if i had put it away then i wouldnt have been able to find it a month later when i needed it. So. Checkmate neurotypicals.
adhd will get you thinking "i should make this doctors appointment" every day for 7 months and counting
none of us are making those appointments huh
This is why I have Calls Day once a month
wait you might be onto something with that actually
one of the most boring lessons I’ve learned is that when a task feels overwhelming, you just have to start doing it. Even if you’re not sure how to do 90% of it, look for one small component that seems close and start there. Sometimes it’s reading one article on the topic, or searching one related term, or literally just googling how to do the task. Do anything other than thinking about it. The process of working on a thing inherently makes it less scary.
If the answer is "All good," feel free to keep scrolling!
But if any of these reminded you of something you need to do, please take care of yourself. 💕
If the answer is "All good," feel free to keep scrolling!
But if any of these reminded you of something you need to do, please take care of yourself. 💕
Lean into the funny idiot archetype so that when you’re unexpectedly hypercompetent at something they give you The Look where you can see them reexamine their entire perception of you in confusion, respect and no small amount of fear, and when you keep playing funny idiot they will be forever wary of you. Let them find out, incidentally, that the jester keeps a knife under his hat, and never figure out how to deal with that because they won’t abandon their boxes.
i keep mine in my fanny pack :)
adhd is fun bc everything I got taught is backwards
a good day makes good sleep
starting with a lil treat gets the work done
More things to do is less overwhelming
don’t make a plan just get in there
you’ll never take good care of what you don’t like so throw it out (this one is my favorite bc it’s easy to see what you don’t like)
Incredible addition
don’t put the thing on the shelf put the shelf under the thing
there is no work there is only fun there is no good it is only done
Not to go "if you have ADHD just go for a run" or anything, but I am so serious if you have ADHD you should regularly go outside, no headphones no phone no nothing and just stand and observe for a while until you've had enough. Not until you get bored, until you've had enough. Drink your coffee without watching tiktok. Have a bath without music. Turn down the volume in your headphones. I cannot overstate how much learning to be bored is cruicial with ADHD. Life is not just about pleasure, no matter what your dysregulated dopamine system thinks, and when you teach your brain to be okay with being bored, then boring tasks stop feeling like torture. By letting yourself be bored you are yoinking your system out of the high/low binary and allow for the highs to feel like actual highs and not just anything that isn't low. I am so serious go literally touch grass. Listen to the sounds in your flat. Stimulate your body the way it was designed. It lowers anxiety and makes you feel like you're real and best of all it's completely free
I really wish more ADHD mental health care told you WHY things like this matter to our quality of life.
The Hyperactivity in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is NOT about being physically hyperactive, it's about having a "hyperactive central nervous system" because it's a form of inheritable dysautonomia. The problem with disautonomia, especially the ADHD kind, is that it makes boredom flag to your nervous system as a THREAT, triggering hyperactive and maladaptive central nervous system processes like fight or flight.
But dysautonomia kills you that way. Literally, part of the reason our average life spand increase on stimulents is that it helps manage risk-taking impulsivity that can get us killed by accident, but the other part is that stimulents can regulate a hyperactive CNS such that it is functionally (while impacted by the stimulent) NOT dysregulated anymore. And PHYSIOLOGICALLY that is essential because the physical outcomes of dysautonomia can reduce your life span by YEARS if not decades through self-perpetuating hypervigelence, endocrine disruption, and adrenal fatigue.
So when the ADHD brain goes stimulation-seeking and a doctor tells you to practice mindfulness, it feels like being told "hey go stand in a functioning boiler until you can stop thinking" rather than WHAT IT IS which is the process of re-teaching your body what is and isn't safe.
Standing outside making mindful, non-interpretive/moralized observation of the world helps your brain and body re-acclimate to the idea that absence of that frantic "busy" feeling isn't a threat or a risk to your safety, and gradually reduces the level of distress that just hanging out somewhere triggers for you.
Learning WHY this stuff was being suggested and understanding what it was actually supposed to do went a long way towards changing my relationship with my ADHD. I am FAR more functional now, far less prone to shame spirals and rejection sensitivity, hell, I can **sit physically still for near on an hour at a time** now without feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin.
So yeah. Go outside. Let the world narrow around you and take deep breaths until it stops feeling claustrophobic or like you need to climb walls. Learn how to let little sensations become big ones like the way the heat of the sun on your skin starts as a gentle warming and be omes a unique collection of sensory moments depending on how it lands on you. Listen for sounds under sounds and let them fade in and out as you move your focus from one sound to the next. Enjoy. Move on. Rinse and repeat.
When you no longer feel like the world is actively killing you, it's a lot easier to navigate it.
S++ tier addition to the post, thank you tumblr user butts bouncing on the beltway
You can replace [ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY] with [SCROLLING] but watch out. This sucks bad 👍
Some things about this post since getting quite a few notes:
1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!
2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.
3. I think there are times where scrolling is fine. Right now, for example, I'm being connected to a machine for two hours to donate plasma and platelets. Yes this is a brag but it is also a time where scrolling is one of the few things I can do. (Though I will probably also read or watch something on phone lol)
people think they shouldn't vote as a protest or whatever because they've been raised on boycotts. which do sometimes work.
boycotts deprive the target of money.
not voting does not deprive the government of money.
it does, however, deprive you of power.
it's not like a boycott.
