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Putting on my playlist of pirate music.
Broke: “Ugh, I need to sweep, mop, and do the dishes.”
Woke: “ARRR, IT BE TIME TO BE SWABBIN’ THE DECK, YE SCURVY BILGE RAT!! AN’ WASH ALL O’ THE DISHES IN THE GALLEY, OR YE’LL BE WALKIN’ THE PLANK!!”
Edit: Ye asked fer the map to me hidden treasure. Here it be, me hearties!
Link please?
Link?
I have to try this. I’m going to make playlist of sea shanties, Alestorm, and Captain Dan & the Scurvy Crew and move it to the top of my “get stuff done” folder.
I love how the first playlist is basically just the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, with a healthy dose of Skyrim thrown in.
The music is basically…pirated.Please, link?
Weaponized procrastination. Avoid doing the thing you want to do by doing something else.
Just the other day I cleaned most of my apartment because I was not in the headspace to write lore.
Another day I really needed to do laundry, most productive writing day I had in a while.
I use to say. My flat is never as clean as when I have to study. I never study as much as when I really have to clean. It never really occurred to me that I can weaponize this. Thanks!
We call that “productive procrastination.” But I like how you call it weaponized.
Yeah after the first two words I thought this was going to involve knives or guns 😳
Nobody says it cant.
I have to have a sacrificial task at work. I can juggle dozens of different projects, but only if I have an annoying one that sits and festers. The only way it will get done is if a different, more annoying, task takes its place.
That’s how do most of my tasks.
I read this as “weaponized prostitution” at first and was ready to hear how it works for some people, because it sure as hell didn’t work for me.
Chugging a quad shot espresso while saying ‘get up trinity. Get. Up.’ in my head
If you time it right, the anxiety from the caffeine hitting really sells the feeling that a matrix agent is coming to kill you so better get moving.
Where do you get the espresso from when you’re stuck?
I’m only gonna say this once
SEEK PROFESSIONAL TREATMENT GET THE FUCK OFF SOCIAL MEDIA
that’s the only thing I know that really works
Not all of us have the privilege of getting actual, good professional help.
Ya, if you have any kind of brainrot habits, scrolling on Lemmy, Instagram, YouTube, etc, stop immediately and getting things done is actually a lot easier. Adding amphetamine salts is also a major game changer.
Adding stims to scrolling increases the number and length of shitpost comments.
Yes, but having a toolbox with shit that works for others might still come in handy, even after a successful therapy.
Autistic burnout happens about 70% less often for me ever since I limited social media time to 30 minutes per day.
Found the therapist…
Haha this looks really sketchy if you just glance at it fast. Haha no I’m not a professional just someone that has recently found the way out.
Heh, I’m just busting chops. Generally, I agree with you, with the caveat that “professionals” are not commodities. The therapist who is perfect for me will probably be terrible for someone else.
I’ll stop there, before my cynicism gets too far out of control. :D
The drugs are important so psychiatrist is my advice
My top two are reminding myself that the stupidest people alive manage to do the thing, and listening to Theoden’s speech at Pelennor Fields
Screaming DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! right before calling the mechanic to schedule an oil change rn
So I watched a video negatively critiquing Theoden’s tactical prowess and I wasn’t able to talk about how the Rohirrim have special armour for their horses that gives them the ability to crush anything standing in their way.
IIRC you can use the Rohirrim in the game Shadow of War to basically erase any orcs on the map.
My top one is writing my own project management software, and maintaining it for over a decade as its only user, because without it I would be 100% dysfunctional. It could be argued that the software isn’t even that good. But it involves ranking the tasks against each other so at the end you have to pick something concrete.
Similarly, I have a spreadsheet I’ve been refining for years synced across all my devices for task management. No premade solution satisfied me. The columns I use:
- Task: short description of task
- Details: any helpful details to remember
- Did: date last done
- ↻: repetition interval in days currently going all the way from daily (1) to every other year (728)
- Do: next do/due date
- Meta Notes: usually hidden notes for future me about why a task is set up the way it is or placed where it is to avoid relearning certain lessons
I keep everything brief enough for the main 5 columns to comfortably fit both the width of my phone and a space I keep available on my left desktop monitor.
The Do column is calculated for me and is color coded from red (very late) through orange (missed a day), yellow (do today), green (near future), blue, purple, and black (far future).
Completing a task is usually as simple as Ctrl+; or F4 (or a calendar tap) in the Did column, and the immediate feedback of the color change keeps me invested in continuing.
I use this same layout for routines, projects, leisure, etc. which all have their own sheets. To give you an idea of how thorough these are, my routines one has about 200 lines.
That sounds super interesitng. How does the ranking work? Like you’ve got a bunch of things you need to do, but you don’t want to. So you ask would you rather do x or y until you choose an action?
It has been too long since I watched that.
wait, you guys are getting things done??
Something my therapist told me and that works more often than not. Set out to do the task for a very small time, like 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, you may find that you are absorbed in that task, but if not, just stop doing it.
The idea I think is to get over the difficulty in starting a task.
Yeah we want to know how to get out of the catatonic “I can’t move” mode.
Interstitial Journal
Write down:
- current time
- current activity
- optional: how you feel
- next activity
Example:
- 13:02
- standing on balcony scrolling Lemmy
- tense and energetic
- next: flash fedora image to USB drive
Yeah, that method addresses that.
Often the catatonic ADHD can’t move. Mode is related to resistance, starting a task.
Giving yourself an easy out that you know you can use after 3 minutes is an easy way to trick your brain into deciding that test starting a task isn’t such a big deal.
Therefore allowing you to move.
If you can’t move because depression then that’s different.
Get up and run.
Maybe 5 feet maybe 500, but I need to move and I know it will change my current collection of brain noises to a different and potentially more useful cacophony of quantum farts.
So I get up and run.
I have autism but not ADHD. In my case it’s “wait until 1 a.m., take advantage of the night owl super boost”.
For some reason I can’t concentrate during the day. It’s only after sunset when I can really focus. I wrote all of my master’s thesis after 1:00 a.m.
Oh yeah that’s real, I got all my best writing done between midnight and 3am.
I’m the same way, except my body insists upon going to sleep at 10PM. I can push past that, but insomnia awaits me after midnight.
I can’t explain what the underlying mechanism is, only that your brain and body just function differently in conjunction with your circadian rhythm. Provided you have a good rhythm, that is (not all neurodivergent types have that). In the worst cases, like dementia patients, this is called ‘sundowning’ and is a real shit-show. For high-functioning types, it’s where your body prepares for sleep and your brain shifts gears.
As for what that has to do with ADHD, I’m not sure - it’s probably been studied. My best guess is that melatonin helps, and maybe the brain is more receptive to dopamine at night? You may have fewer environmental distractions at night too; I know I do.
This is me too, I don’t really understand why it’s like that but I’m SO productive at night.
Maybe it’s about having eaten a really good meal or something? Or just all the other distractions disappearing?
I feel like there must be some a more scientific reason!
This one might not be weird to some, but it’s my “one weird trick”.
I put my shoes on.
I normally work from home, so usually don’t even wear shoes most of the day. And when I need to go outside for a minute or two, I don’t wear my shoes either.
But on the days that I get up and put my socks and shoes on in the morning, I feel extra motivated for the whole day. I definitely get more things done.
Also WFH. Just showering and putting out outside clothes goes a LONG way to getting to motivated.
This is good. Putting on a nicer shirt helps me as well. I’m not in a white shirt and tie by any means, but just something nicer than my casual tees really does seem to make a difference in getting me in a good mental place for being more focused.
I’m sure for some it makes no difference and I would hate to sound like I’m supporting the stupid office dress code policies that I loathe, so please chime in if this doesn’t work for you
Yeah something nice but still comfortable.
Unless I’m at a point in a project where all the hard work is behind me and now I just have to implement (I call it my “victory lap” phase) then I’ll dress right down and just do it.
But that’s a special time.
Actually, it makes me wonder if that’s what work is like for neurotypical folks all the time. 🤯
Oh yes, that’s a good one too. I do notice that myself too.
During COVID I walked around the block in the morning before starting to work from home.
I don’t really have one. I just get stuck 😢
Ps, she’s @cherry.adhd on instagram, can recommend following her.
My partner tells me “there will be consequences if you dont do it now” My brain is that dumb luckily that it falls for it lol
Hardly any responses are “unhinged”. But I’ll try my best.
Don’t force yourself to do it. Instead, look at your list*, and just simulate the items one by one in your head, as if you’d do it.
Sometimes it happens that I really, really feel like doing one of them, like a neurotypical. It doesn’t sound like it’d work, but it does.
There is never any pressure to do any of them; then it would not work, because starting the process would be the new thing to be stuck on. Quite often, I just don’t feel like doing any of them. But that was not the job, the job was to simulate them. And it’s done, and I can allow myself to do nice things then.
(*) If there is no list, making the list is the only job. Don’t start on any items on it, just create the list. Then relax and enjoy whatever you want, until you feel like doing simulations.
I used to do this. Since I was a child, but it’d regularly trick me into thinking I’d done the thing. I’d have mentally done it so it was checked off the brain list, then someone would be upset later but I swore I had done it!
This would also escalate in the morning when I’d fall back asleep and dream about going about my day, then wake up late thinking I was already on my way to work or school.
I try to only do this for large tasks now.
My way around this is to do “incomplete” simulations. I just need an idea of how it’d feel to be on the task, not finished it. Never simulate to the end, or one of two things will happen: 1. waking up to the harsh reality where it is not done yet, 2. thinking it is done.
E. g. when I need to go grocery shopping, I simulate how I get up, shoes on, grab a bag, think about whether I need a jacket or umbrella, get out of the door, start walking. How would that feel?
I described it in more detail here: https://lemmy.ml/post/36147982
I’ve figured out mindset is everything for me which sucks because I’ve gotten that drilled into me as a kid but figuring out stuff about one self only works if you figure it out yourself. Getting into the mindset needs to be not so obvious. I can’t just repeat “I am component, I am smart, I won’t postpone”. I need to get into a vibe of getting stuff done and I honestly can’t explain it better than it being a vibe. Medium energy (not high energy because then I just get a small panic attack) electronica music helps a lot for some reason.
Also small breaks from time to time but I can’t set myself a time or I will just keep thinking about the timer.
As much caffeine and nicotine as I can physically tolerate.
