ADHD – A Personal Walkthrough & Guide

Having a brain that works differently than the norm can be incredibly confusing and frustrating sometimes.

I remember, before I fully understood what it meant to have ADHD, I would so often find myself staring down my homework and feeling trapped in my own mind.. unable to get myself to move, let alone open my backpack and actually start. I’d be sitting there.. telling myself all the reasons why I REALLY needed to get it done, but I just couldn’t unfreeze. It felt like I was slamming as hard as I could on my “controls”, trying to make myself move, and yet absolutely nothing would happen. It was incredibly frustrating and made me wonder what was wrong with me, and could only assume I was just being stupid or lazy.

What I didn’t realize at the time, though, is that in those situations, my “controller” wasn’t even on, and it wasn’t my fault.

If normal procrastination is akin to having a controller that’s on, and choosing to do a side-quest instead of the main one, task-paralysis in ADHD-mode is like having a controller that won’t turn on or connect to the console.

So, how do those of us with ADHD get our controllers to work?

Well, for starters, it’s important to know that the mechanisms in the brain responsible for transitioning between tasks don’t really work all that great in an ADHD-brain. Furthermore, motivation for people with ADHD also works differently than for most neurotypical individuals.

In tandem, these two elements can make it incredibly hard to get that controller to light up. Task paralysis is not just simple procrastination. Task paralysis tends to mean you’re overwhelmed, anxious, and maybe even spiraling into despair.

If you’re anything like me, when you try to turn on your “controller”, try to engage those executive functions, and nothing happens, you might start to panic a little. You’ve seen this before. You know what comes next. You fill up with dread and even more overwhelm as you anticipate the paralysis and the frustration, and these unpleasant feelings only make the paralysis worse.

Simply put, it’s not a fun time.

So, how do we avoid this kind of paralysis? How do we overcome our ADHD-incited inertia?

Motivation Unlocked 🏆

Well, one thing that’s incredibly helpful is to have an understanding of what actually does motivate someone with ADHD. The YouTube channel, “How to ADHD”, has two excellent videos I highly recommend on the subject that explain it really well:

In short, though, motivation for those of us with ADHD tends to come down to three main elements: urgency, personal interest, and novelty. Harnessing these three aspects and learning how to work 1 or 2 of them into the things you are trying to do helps tremendously with having the practical motivation you need to actually DO what you WANT to be doing. It can even become a bit like a puzzle, using creativity and problem-solving to look at what you need to do and coming up with a way to make it engaging (or at least tolerable 😅). 

It’s not always practical to approach every little thing in life this way, though. (It can get a little tiring, especially when you’re still getting the hang of it.) So, what are some other strategies we can lean on?

Tip #1: Don’t Overthink It!

Well, in general, I’ve found that just getting started, even on something small, is an important part of having a productive day. It’s like.. trying to catch a wave on a boogie board; If you go with your instinct and let yourself hop on at the right time you’ll be able to ride on TOP of the wave and harness that momentum for yourself to carry you through. If you overthink and hesitate too much, though, you might end up missing your chance and getting pushed UNDER. (Fortunately, there are plenty of waves in the sea you can ride later, even if for a while you’re probably not enjoying having sand, seaweed, and saltwater blasted in your face.)

So, when I’m gearing up to get stuff done and know there’s a couple of potentially paralyzing tasks on the list, I’ve learned to angle myself towards whatever should be the simplest or easiest thing to accomplish first. Just a quick little win, something I can check off the list to get me on top of that wave, then I try to set myself up for success to stay on the wave and get more stuff done by helping my brain get into a productive groove. Things like putting on music, grabbing a (moderately) healthy snack, putting my hair up, or doing a few jumping jacks to get a dopamine boost all can help me stabilize and ride that productive flow.

Tip #2: The 10-Minute Promise

Another thing that helps me to start things when my brain is being uncooperative (and my controller is threatening to shut off), is to agree to work on the task I need to do for 10 minutes, and promise myself that if I can’t stand doing it, that I can stop and put it away once those 10 minutes are up. About 90% of the time, my brain ends up cooperating and I start feeling focused and am able to keep going past those 10 minutes. But, the times when I still can’t tolerate the task, I respect my current limits and let myself move onto something else.

Tip #3: The Pomodoro Method

And one last thing that helped me a lot, especially in college, was something called the “Pomodoro Method”. How To ADHD also has a couple of videos covering this concept. (I swear, her channel saved my mental-health in college. It’s a great channel with great tools and even more than that, it helped me to actually understand and learn to work with my ADHD, instead of against it.)

The basics of the Pomodoro Method is picking ONE thing to do, selecting a length of time to just do that one thing, setting your timer,  and then BOOM you’re off to the races! By setting a timer and a clear task for yourself, you give your brain the starting shot it needs to jump past any potential inertia. It makes NOW the time for you to start!

You know that for the next 15 minutes, you’re going to work on that math homework and only that math homework! Dang it! ⌛

The Payoff

As I was learning these different ways to work with my brain to get stuff done, I remember being astounded that I was able to like.. intend to start working on my homework at 8pm and then.. at 8pm, I would actually sit down and do homework.

I was in college before I really started to learn this stuff; After years of struggling so much, I’d never before in my LIFE been able to so frequently follow through on my plans!

In the years since then, I’ve only gotten better at knowing what I need to get started. At this point, accomplishing what I want to do and staying motivated is more like pulling out a counter-spell to thwart the danger that could otherwise ruin my day. (Occasionally, I run out of spell slots or already used my reaction for the turn, but I’ve leveled up from all my ADHD combat experience and have way more slots than I used to!)

The Level-Up

Overall, while task paralysis is a common occurrence for many of us playing life on ADHD-mode, there are a lot of ways to overcome it and get our controllers to connect.

If you get a little creative, treat it like a puzzle, test some ideas out, and adjust as you go, before you know it, you’ll have a bunch of strategies and tools to dig yourself out of those paralysis pitfalls and get yourself across those motivational chasms.

Once we find the right kind of motivational batteries and learn the right techniques to connect our controllers, we can make it through any challenge life throws at us. ✨🎮