The Art of Doing a Thing

How adults with ADHD can get started on stuff

Adults with ADHD, often know what to do; we could clean up, organize, do the laundry, make the phone calls, look for a job, get our work done. We’ve got a pretty good idea of what we want to do, and we even know how to do it! We’ve got an idea on when we can do it, and yet we just are not doing it. What the hell?! 

And we've read every goddamn book there is about it, so what.. is…the art of the doing?! 

I would go onto Instagram back in the day, and there'd be doctors with hundreds of thousands of followers. And they were saying things like, “you want to get on top of your ADHD? You got to get better sleep. You’ve got to move around! You’ve got to exercise. You’ve got to eat healthier foods.”

I watched those things and I could feel my blood starting to boil. Cause I’d think, “yeah, no shit!”

We all know this stuff. Most of us all know this stuff. So hoooow do we exercise? Hoooow do we do the goddamn thing that we already know? And if the answer is “you just have to do it?!” ARGH! Normie alert! 

It's the same with reading life changing books. I, myself, am always actively learning. I’m a learnerizer, if that's a thing. The effect that these books have on me (if I even read the books all the way through) is that they'll change my life in the moment.

And oh man, the exercises in the book, I think, “These are going to be phenomenal! These exercises are going to be game changing!” And then those amazing exercises are forgotten the moment that I get to the next chapter. Thanks ADHD and all the crappy working memory issues. 

By the end of the book, I've got this revelation, “Oh, this book was a game changer. It's got so many answers!” And yet I wouldn’t implement a single one of them.

The challenge here is there's no issue with the learning. There's no issue with what the thing is that we want to do, or change, or become. When I talk to one on one clients, most everybody knows what they want. There is no problem talking about the problem and what the vision looks like on the other end of that struggle.

Back on the exercise, telling me to get more exercise doesn’t help -  what is the how?! 

Here’s how!

Have answers to all these questions and see what happens! 

Question 1 - What is the thing I want to do?

Be specific. I want to clean is vague. Vague leads to confusion and overwhelm. I want to clean the clutter out of the office. That’s more specific! 

Question 2 - What does the beginning, middle, and end look like?

ADHDers typically cut out the beginning and most certainly rarely put an end on things. This is why we have clean laundry still in the laundry basket. This is why we have clutter everywhere…we don’t add the “put away” ending step a lot of times. 

Question 3 - When, and for how long, will I commit to this? 

Make sure you have answers for these that are specific. “I’ll get to it later today at some point” is vague and it won’t happen. “I will dedicate 20 minutes at 5:45pm today toward this” makes it way more likely to happen. Not a guarantee…but more likely! 

Question 4 - What is the very first physical activity to getting started on this task? 

Try not to concern yourself with how remedial this may seem. This is all in service of getting started and momentum and motivation usually comes from action. We don’t summon momentum like a wind up toy. We can’t live inside our head trying to connect dots to then magically get started - I’ve tried! If it’s doing the dishes, perhaps the first physical activity is opening the dishwasher. If it’s doing worky work stuff, perhaps the first physical activity is walking to the computer. 

When all these questions are answered, then at the time you committed to, set a timer for the amount of time you said you would dedicate toward this thing/task/project, and do that first physical activity. 

Only do the first physical activity. Then quit. If you want. Or, if you have the momentum going, keep going until your timer goes off. 

Congratulations you are successfully “doing a thing”! 

Give these questions a thwack and let me know how it goes. Good luck!

~Russ

PS - For more information about how I’m helping the adult ADHD community, check out www.adhdbigbrother.com