One day I'll sort through my several unsorted folders of downloads and such. Today is not that day.
this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
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Everyone talks about this problem, but what is the solution? How do I actually get my work done?
You can learn to control it. You know in Red Dead Redemption 2 where you capture a wild horse, and you have a sort of minigame where you have to move the controller about to stay on the horse, and if you stay on the horse long enough, the horse is tamed? Basically it's like that, except the mini game lasts 20 years.
Fill your blood with nicotine, caffeine and other stimulants, let the nicotine flow through you. Use your super-powers of focus and attention to complete your task. Warning: Nicotine Delivery Methods May Cause Unwanted Complications and Health Problems.
Find someone with similar issues and agree to do something like Body Doubling (wiki link)
If possible, go and work in a different space, and only bring the objects needed for the work. i.e. a quiet library, cafe, friend's house, hireable hotdesking space. Don't sit in your own house, because every room and every surface is probably a "to-do list" of things you haven't got round to doing.
Pretend the task doesn't exist and ignore it and hope it goes away. If the task doesn't go away, stay awake all night and complete it at the last minute in a panic.
Find an even more complicated and difficult task to do, then procrastinate from doing that task, by doing your original task. Note that, like the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" or "Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly", you may have to constantly increase the size and complexity of the larger tasks you're using to procrastinate yourself onto the smaller tasks. Eventually, this doesn't end well. You do not turn into a beautiful butterfly.
If it's a written task, just write down something, anything - stupid and deliberately wrong, funny if possible. Enjoy yourself writing gibberish for 5 minutes. Now go back and edit it. You're writing now - just change all the wrong words into right words. Starting the task, however wrongly, weirdly can get the task started. Absolutely make sure you double check your text when you finish, then triple check it. There's a risk of leaving a sentence of your original gibberish in there. The same mentality works with other stuff - need to paint a room in your house? Pick up the paint and a brush, and giggling, go and paint a giant cock-and-balls on the wall... now paint over the cock-and-balls... okay, you may as well finish the rest of the wall now. Need to hoover up? Get something powdered and use it to draw a cock-and-balls in powder on the floor. Oops! Better go and hoover up that rude drawing! Whilst you've got the hoover out, you may as well finish hoovering the room you're in. Make sure you know the substance can definitely be hoovered up.
Have 2 "to-do" lists. Have the one with thousands of things on it, that you will never get round to doing, then a smaller one which is only allowed 5-10 things on it, for today. If possible, break the tasks down as small as possible, and give yourself lots of opportunities to tick/check things off the list. E.g. for a written task:
Decide you're not going to do the task. You're instead going to ask a friend/relative/colleague to do it. Unfortunately, they are stupid. Spend 10 minutes writing out a list of exactly what needs to be done, in order, so it's so obvious, a stupid person can follow it. Tricked yourself! The list is for you. Follow the instructions - the task is actually simple - look at the list - a stupid person could do it.
Don't try and do the whole task. Just set an alarm for 5 minutes, and then just do five minutes of it. You can do five minutes. No need to worry about doing the whole thing. Do 5 minutes of the task, switch your alarm off. You're already doing the task, so... maybe you could carry on for a bit...
[Edit] These are mostly focused in written work i.e. essays, homework, accountd, invoices, tax returns, press releases, programming etc - but many can be adapted for practical tasks or difficult things like "phone the doctor".
The main elements are lying to yourself, tricking yourself, and forcing yourself to do a tiny, very easy amount of the task, so you find yourself, tools in hand, already working on it. The secondary elements are using the support of other people and a change of scenery. Tertiary elements are filling your body with drugs, fear, guilt and panic.
top quality comment right here. I do some of these already with mixed results.
I'd make #2 even more general to include experimentation and trial and error with your routine, especially breakfast and lunch plus your sleep hygiene.
That might sound complex, but you just do one thing at a time. If you have a few better days because of it, that direct evidence is the best way to make it stick in your brain.
The fact that I have any routines at all is evidence enough for me that it works for me. But I've been working at it for years. There are definitely multiple stimulants involved, lol.
And sometimes if you can't make any progress, maybe you need to kinda look upstream and see if there is something else blocking you to work on instead, or that you need to combine with what you're already doing. And sometimes it can be basic stuff that seems like it's obvious, like maybe getting some real food in your stomach along with the coffee.
Great tips, we have to keep switching it up too as some techniques lose their effectiveness over time.
One technique that helps me occasionally when I'm really distracted, is to like gamify it. I'll just keep a piece of paper and add a check in the margin every time I get distracted but brought myself back on task, or like a "special" checkmark when I was just starting to get distracted but caught it before getting all the way distracted!
Anyway yeah whatever tricks you can do. I'm big on tactility and making marks on paper so my tricks/tools/systems involve a lot of notebooks and highly idiosyncratic symbols and checklist flows (like
[~]means kind of done lol)I'm quite interested in gamification options - as you say, you do need to change your "tricks" every now and again, as they can stop working.
Many years ago, I used to use a thing called "Habitica" (wiki link) which was sort of like playing your task list as an RPG, which I think worked well for me for a little while. Looks like it's still up and running though, so might be worth a look :)
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Cool. I'll put "write a newsletter" on my to-do list (unfortunately, the longer one).
The amount of words right there are very ADHD incompatible so I'll just say Amphetamine.
Yeah, sorry about that, but I had to write a really long list for internet people, to procrastinate from the thing I was actually meant to be doing.
p.s. happy ending to the story - I have now done the thing I was actually meant to be doing :)
i wish i could have you as a little voice in my head/on my shoulder
"lol draw a penis on it"
I think you can self-motivate on this one - when approaching a new situation, stop to think "Could I draw a cock on this?" (and then "should I draw a cock on this?"). Don't be afraid to consider other options, for example a pair of boobs, or a simple swear word. The important thing is "Can I quickly erase it afterwards, and thus complete my original task?".