Activation energy is a terrible thing.
If you don't know where to start, organise something.
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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The best tip I ever learned was the twenty minute rule.
It's daunting to think about carrying a task to completion, but very easy to commit twenty minutes to dishes, cleaning the bathroom, gardening, drawing, whatever. You can get a lot done in an hour by working at different things twenty minutes at a time.
Another version of this is called Persistent Starting, and it works for all kinds of things. You give yourself a small milestone that is only a fraction of the total task, and allow yourself to stop after hitting that milestone.
Don’t want to wash all the piled-up dishes in the sink? Just wash two cups. After those two cups, you can stop. But chances are good that you’ll go “eh, my hands are already wet and soapy” and do a lot more than the two cups you initially set out to do.
Don’t want to clean the bathroom? Just sanitize the toilet bowl. Chances are good that you’ll go “eh, I already have the cleaning supplies” and clean a lot more.
Don’t want to mow the lawn? Just do the side yard. The front and back can wait until tomorrow. But chances are good that you’ll go “eh, I’m already dusty and sweaty, and the mower is already gassed up and ready to go. I might as well go ahead and mow the rest too.”
Persistent starting only really works long term if you follow two major rules:
- The initial milestone shouldn’t be daunting. The biggest challenge is typically overcoming your inertia, so your goal is to minimize the amount of inertia you need to overcome. The important point is that you allow yourself a clear and direct end goal before you even start the task. Give yourself a light at the end of the tunnel, and make the tunnel reasonably short.
- Don’t feel bad about calling it quits once you hit that milestone. Sometimes, you legitimately won’t have the time or the energy to finish all the dishes. And that’s okay, because you only set out to wash two cups. If you don’t want to continue after hitting your initial milestone, you don’t have to. Give yourself the grace to stop after you’ve reached the initial milestone you set for yourself. Because now there are two fewer cups in the sink than when you started. You can always come back and wash two more later when you have more time and/or energy.
If you always use Persistent Starting to try to tackle the entire task, then you haven’t actually followed rule 1. You’re just trying to lie to yourself in the hopes that it will make finishing the task easier. But finishing the entire task isn’t the goal. The goal is starting the task. If you know you’re lying to yourself and intend to finish the entire task, it won’t actually make starting any easier. So be sure to give yourself permission to stop after hitting that milestone, and only choose to continue if you’re in the “might as well finish it” mood.
Ive been using that method for years without knowing it had a fancy name. It really does work. My problem seems to be an ADHD fueled bender of a cleaning session that leaves me wiped out after several hours or fervent cleaning. Once i get over that initial hump its all down hill from there. Makes me much less likely to start something cus i know where it ends most of the time.
Also, if you're still stuck in bed unable to do 20 minutes, do NOT beat yourself up. Take care of yourself and aim for 10 minutes tomorrow.
10 minutes tomorrow.
Is this a joke?
Even better: if a task takes less than 3 minutes to perform, just stop what you're doing and do it.
It's such a great way to get things done, because eventually you will train your brain into thinking of major projects as a series of bite-sized tasks.
That's a good one, too. 'Bite-sized tasks' is now part of my lexicon.
More often than not I blow through the amount of time I tell myself I'm going to spend. One of the few examples where lying to myself produces a positive result, and keeps working. even though, by now, I know I'm lying to myself.
Exactly, it tricks you into believing in yourself. Just don't tell the others, let them find out for themselves.
the fucking laundry why is putting the laundry away so hard ITS CLEAN AND READY TO BE PUT AWAY JUST DO IT
I always just force myself to do it by dumping it on my bed so I can't sleep until I did it.
Then I remember having a few drinks and staying up late and then looking at my bed so angry with myself ... I did fold them all and put them away so I was kinda proud I did it but I was upset the entire time lol.
yeah so I also do that but then I still dont do it and move the pile to the floor, so now I have clean clothes on the floor that im not doing!
Your not doing the computer chair shuffle twice a day?
Because furniture is too freaking expensive. We all know we don’t have enough storage space for all your clean clothes so some of it gets left in the clean pile regardless.
That's definitely not it. My wife has this issue. We have drawers and drawers, all empty - more than enough storage space. We also desperately need whatever baskets the clean clothes are occupying.
I once suggested that she make a rule for herself: fold every load before you add the next one. She just laughed.
I've even offered to take over the laundry 100%. I have no problem with that - I may just need to give her some of my things in return. (I do most of the dishes.) She does not want to do this, idk why
I’m gonna start, once I get through this week 
“Bro, that was three weeks ago.”
“Oh…”
When you just get through this week
Take my upvote and get through this week
Set insanely small goals. The inability to start often has to do with imagining the daunting tasks that lay ahead of you. The trick is to set almost pathetically small goals.
Your room is filled with messy laundry? Grab 1 shirt and toss it into a pile. That's it. You don't need to do the laundry, you don't need to gather any other clothes. Just 1 shirt, tossed into a pile that it wasn't in before. I bet there's one within arm reach of you right now.
Used dishes in your room? Aren't you thirsty? Sure you are! You probably haven't drank anything in a while. Go to the kitchen and get some water. While you're on your way, why don't you grab 1 dish and take it with you?
Momentum is a hell of a thing. Most of the time, all you need is something small to break your executive dysfunction. If you tossed 1 shirt into a pile, you might as well toss any clothing in arms reach. Those pants are just slightly out of reach, ok maybe you get up a little to toss those... And those socks... And maybe that shirt over there too. Suddenly, all your dirty clothes are gathered into a pile and it hardly took any time or energy. All it took was grabbing 1 shirt and tossing it.
And if you finish your insanely small task and you don't feel like doing any more? That's fine! You already met your goal! Hell, if you've got something you're struggling with and have taken the time to read this, you're already half-way there, because now you're thinking about what the smallest, stupidest, zero-effort goal you can set is.
Are you ready for the most important piece of life advice that no one ever tells you growing up? Anything worth doing is worth doing shitty.
I've been struggling with ADHD severely to where my life feels ruined/wasted, thank you for this tip.
That is what I figured out to help me. I get overwhelmed thinking about doing the whole thing. But if I just do anything, no matter how small, that's more than nothing. So yeah, cleaning, just get a plastic bag and grab a few pieces of trash within arms reach. Then some more. Then all of it. Momentum is a good way to describe it but for me its like compulsive nagging. Now that I've started the thing I'm thinking about the thing and can't stop thinking about it until its done.
👈That's what antidepressants are for~
Luckily for me this only affects doing things that I love and enjoy, I felt like I didn't want to force myself and then end up feeling like I turned my hobby into a chore, but maybe I could push myself a bit lol
Uhh who gave you this photo of me and why are you posting it on the internet?
Saw a book recommended around here somewhere with some good perspective on this: How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis.
One of the big starting points is recognizing that care tasks are functional, not moral. Having those doom piles does not make you "bad" and cleaning them up will not make them "good". Caring for yourself and your space is about providing functionality. That's it.
Me at the beginning of every day
When I get like this the only things that work is to either just impulsively start doing it before my "I just don't have the energy to do anything right now" feeling can catch up. Or schedule my day out where "I'm going to do x at 1:00, then y at 2:00, etc" and kind of work up to it til then. Once I get going I'm fine.
Hey fun fact: motivation doesn't exist. It will not materialize out of thin air. The motivation you seek is discipline.
Go do the thing.
Hey another fun fact: that don't fly for people with ADHD. We have this thing called task avoidance. Because of issues with executive function in the brain, we literally can't get up and start no matter how much we're screaming at ourselves in our head to "Get the fuck up and start already!!!". No amount of discipline will make up for a lack of dopamine in the brain.
Discipline isn't about screaming at yourself to go do something. Try moving your fingers that way. I'd be concerned if it worked. It happens at a much lower level than that, which I can only describe as "just doing it," in much the same way that you "just" move your fingers.
I'm saying all this as someone with ADHD, by the way. Part of task avoidance is actually caused by that chunk of your brain screaming at itself to go do the thing, wasting energy that could have been spent on just doing the thing.
Be an LED, not an incandescent bulb.
or take a pill. they're magic for adhd
There is nothing fun about this supposed "fact".
It's like the impossible war on homelessness, there is no inability, so there is nothing to get through, there is no obstacle. All it takes is a wish to start.
What do you honestly want to do?