I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2022. Prior to my diagnosis, I fought with myself to get things done. I felt a lot of pressure to do things the way I “should” do them: pace myself instead of procrastinate, don’t jump from task to task or project to project, set aside distractions and focus on the issue at hand. After I got my diagnosis, I realized that these expectations were incongruent with how I thought and what I was capable of. I was inconsistent about sticking to those expectations.

Since 2022 I have drastically altered my way of working to be more in line with how my brain operates. I didn’t figure this out all at once, it was a series of tiny experiments. These are the things I’ve discovered that have helped me:

  • Aggressively setting limits on the time to do a task (timeboxing)
  • Utilizing my procrastination

These all address a serious issue that manifests from my ADHD: something I call “time distortions”. These changes have helped combat the dearth of motivation that comes from perceiving a task as too large or taking up too much time.

Time Distortions

A “time distortion” is when my gut reaction to a task is that it will take way longer to do than I have time for. Cleaning that knife and plate in the sink? That’s going to take me two hours. Finishing up that design doc I’m working on? That’s going to take me ALL DAY. Taking Herald on a walk? Bye bye afternoon and evening.

I started noticing these one day when I found myself dreading taking Herald on a walk in Seattle because he would get all wet, and wiping him off with a towel after his walk felt like it would take me until bedtime. Since then, I’ve been on the lookout for when my brain wildly overestimates how long something will take.

I’m not sure where these distortions come from, but I’ve noticed that they’re spiked by certain aspects of a task. For example, my brain overdramatizes the amount of time and effort it takes to do dishes if I spot one of these in the sink. I’m not sure why! These little silicone lids are pretty quick and easy to clean. It might be something about their shape, and maybe the fact they’re annoying to put on the drying rack. But every time one of these needs to get cleaned, my expected time for cleaning the dishes goes wayyyy up. Same if all the dishes are piled up in the sink. Distortions show up in investigating issues at work and one-off chores at home that only I know how to do. They show up in big ways (“this paper is going to take me all week to complete”), and in tiny ways (“putting this fork in the drawer is going to make me late for my meeting”).

Today, I address these distortions in two ways:

  • make note of that challenging or annoying aspect of a task, or
  • reorient the task so that it isn’t so “distorted”.

I reorient tasks by timeboxing and doing prep work. Timeboxing gets to the crux of a distortion: it can’t take any longer than the timebox. Prep work allows me to wield my ADHD to my benefit. If I properly prep myself for a burst of energy or motivation, I can get a huge amount done in a short period of time.

Timeboxing

Timeboxing is an antidote to thinking things take too long: if I cap my focus to 10 minutes, I know exactly when I’ll be done.

I try to break up all my tasks into tiny timeboxes. I expect every todo on my list to be less than 20 minutes to complete. Most of them are less than 10 minutes. I use an egg timer on my desk to set a limit on how long I can work on a task. The egg timer clicks every second, and rings loudly once it reaches the time limit. I love the aggressivenes of this, it really pumps me up to churn through tasks as fast as possible. I put a timebox on every task I have to do, starting at 1 minute, and going up in intervals of 5 minutes (5, 10, 15, 20), with a cap at “>20”.

1 minute tasks don’t require the timer, I just do them as fast as I can. 5-20 minute tasks, I’ll set my timer and turn on some music to hype me up. Then I just plug away.

For rote work, having a timer motivates me to complete as much as I can before the time runs out. This slightly “gamifies” the task and provides me with a challenge, an internal motivation, and an opponent (the clock, or the work). Each of these incentives drives up my motivation to clear the initial hurdle to get started.

I’ve practiced this for a few months, and not only does this combat distortions, but it prevents them from occurring in the first place. When my gut assumes that something is going to take all day, I can utilize my memory of completing similar tasks in 10 or fewer minutes.

Certain tasks are simply not able to be completed in a single burst. For these kinds of tasks, I frame the work as two parts: prep work and “real” work.

Prepping to Procrastinate

For some reason, prep work isn’t considered real work to me. The motivation cliff to prep to do a task is lower than actually doing the task. It’s easier for me to fetch the cleaning supplies to clean the bathroom than it is to actually clean the bathroom.

Even if this sounds a lot like breaking down tasks, pacing oneself, to frame it as “prep” makes it easier for me to swallow. For me, prep work looks like:

  • taking time to organize all my todos into a prioritized list
  • organizing dishes to be washed so that the easiest-to-wash dishes are first, and harder ones after
  • word-vomiting the first draft of a document or presentation in one super fast burst
  • chopping and preparing all ingredients before I start to cook (aka mise-en-place)

After prep is done, I can lean on other pressures or incentives to get my attention on the right task at the right time. Waiting til the last minute is not an evil thing if you can pull it off consistently.

There’s something magical about the moments before a deadline. It’s an antidote to two things common in ADHD: lack of motivation and perfectionism. If I don’t have the motivation to do a task, I sure as hell will have the motivation when there’s hardly any time left to complete it. And if I don’t have much time left, I can’t agonize over every little detail. I’m forced to complete something that’s 80 or 90 percent perfect. The end result: the task actually gets finished.

Paradoxically, the more time I have to complete something, the less likely I am to do it and do it well. I find that I spiral over and over on small details and lose the forest for the trees. I don’t have the luxury to spiral when a deadline is looming.

At work, this is how I might get ready to present something in a workshop or larger meeting:

  • (a week before deadline) Log a task to draft out ideas for the presentation in 10 minutes or less
  • (five days before deadline) Set a timer for 10 minutes, turn on some loud music, and write as much of the outline as I can
  • (after finishing the outline) Log a task to refine and review the draft in 15 minutes or less
  • (2 days before deadline) Set a timer for 15 minutes, turn on some loud music, and rearrange
  • (after revising the outline) Log a task to put together a draft of the presentation in 20 minutes or less
  • (1 day before deadline) timer, loud music, make slides
  • (after creating slides) Log a task to refine the presentation in 10 mins or less
  • (day of the presentation) Refine the presentation for 10 minutes by practicing talking through it

Less than 60 minutes of effort, and I have a “good enough” presentation that captures most of my thoughts. Very little stress beyond the pressure that pushes me to get shit done. If I were to set aside one whole hour in a single sitting to do this work, I wouldn’t get as much done as I do by breaking it into smaller sections. Giving myself time in between these work sessions also allows my mind to work passively in the background. I never feel like I’m forcing myself to come up with anything - it’s already there in my mind when I’m ready to start work on it again.

Learning my own ways

The way I view things now… I see my attention and focus as an incredible weapon. If I can aim it at the tasks that benefit me in the long term… I feel capable of doing those things extraordinarily well. But it requires an immense amount of work and coercion to aim it at the right thing.