Turd Mountain

The tale of the ADHD task list

It’s really easy to put off a task. In the moment, when we are aware of the task, our brain tells us the millions of other things that make more sense for us, and we are comforted by the thought that we can always get to this shitty task later.

This is like one little dog turd in our backyard. Yeah, it’s there and it would be great if we cleaned it up, but is the world gonna end if we don’t? Can I just step over it and get back to it later?

The answer is yes. And so we step over the turd.

I bet you see where this is going to go.

Should we do this as a time-lapse?

Or cut to one month later?

We go into the backyard and there is a turd mountain, impossible to miss. This enormous reminder of how bad we are at getting things done.

And so it goes in ADHD-land. The turd mountain is no longer a task to be completed, it’s a huge project. It’s an overwhelming monstrosity of tasks…the taxes turds, the calls to make turds, the insurance turds, the laundry turd, the clutter turds, the email turds…and where do you even start on cleaning up a turd mountain?

The answer is that you put in time. There’s no way we are going to take a shovel into the backyard of our to-do list and clean up every single turd in one go of it. It’s that kind of thinking that prevents us from getting started in the first place.

In ADHD land - turd mountain is handled by putting time toward it.

Try this:

Complete a brain dump where you spend 15 minutes (use a timer!) purging all the turd mountain tasks. All the things swirling in your brain, get them out and onto paper where you can see them.

Prioritize your turds. Which ones must you square away first? Are there any fires that have to be put out? Those make the top of the list. But what about all those turds that have been so easy to step over and continue to be easy to step over? The ones with no immediate consequences? Sometimes we magically make that turd vanish by eliminating it from our task list. But if it’s actually something we’d like to accomplish, then…

Schedule time to work on shoveling your turds. This means looking at your calendar, determining when you have time, and then blocking that time out for turd-specific tasks. Notice that we aren’t saying things like “I’ll work on the turds this week.” When in the week? or “I should have time this afternoon that I could put toward this..” Do you have the time or not? Vague = won’t do it, most of the time.

When the time comes, set your timer and shovel. Rather than think of this as getting rid of an entire turd mountain, think of it as putting in the time. When you put in the time, over time, that turd mountain will absolutely shrink….maybe become a turd hill, then a turd pile, until it’s just a few turds, and then you can start inviting people into your backyard again!

Look how powerful his pinky is, to hold up an entire bucket filled with turds!

I spoke about this on episode 92 of the ADHD Big Brother podcast if you would like to hear me talk about the turds!

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And if you want that extra help with your turd mountain, if you are scheduling the time and you find yourself still not shoveling any turds, then there is no better place than the ADHD Big Brother community to help you externalize your accountability and get shit done. We have members who are successfully shoveling their turds every day! What better way to shovel turds than with some friends.