← Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD
Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD
What Is Task Avoidance with adult ADHD? And how can I minimize it?
00:19:37
Task avoidance is the tendency to delay, resist, or ignore certain tasks. Even when we know they’re important. Kinda sounds like procrastination, doesn't it? For adults with ADHD, this isn’t about laziness or a lack of willpower. It’s often...
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I'm Dave Greenwood, and this is Overcoming Distractions. If you are an adult with adhd, a busy professional, an entrepreneur, a high achiever, or just need some strategies to navigate your adult adhd, you're in the right place. Who am I? I'm an entrepreneur with ADHD and the author of two books, Overcoming Distract and Overcoming Burnout. I coach and mentor people just like you, and together we navigate the ups and downs of adult adhd, from getting out of our own way to helping people just like you thrive in the workplace. That's what I do. Want more info on working with me? Hit overcoming distractions.com ready? Let's get to today's podcast. All right, gang, what's going on? We're back. It's Overcoming Distractions. It's your humble host, Dave, and you're in the right place. If you're a busy, professional, demanding career, and you're just one of my distracted friends. Right. So welcome back. Hey, have you avoided any type of task in the past few days of the week? Yeah, I think you have, Right? I know I have. Let's. Let's dig into this a little bit, because I think this is a challenge for a lot of us. It could be something simple. Right. But let's dig in real quick. So. So task avoidance is that tendency to, like, delay, resist, ignore certain tasks even when we know they're important. Right. Kind of sounds like procrastination, doesn't it? Right. And if you've ever heard us discuss procrastination, you know that many people actually get procrastination wrong. Like, I've seen people like social media gurus, you know, okay, I'm putting my bunny ear quotes up here where they say, you know, sometimes procrastination is good. It's not the. You know, all procrastination is. Is bad. Now, you can delay things strategically, which I've talked about. That's smart. Okay. But avoiding certain tasks when you know they're important and need to get done, not a lot of good comes out of that. So. And for those of us adults with adhd, it isn't about being lazy. It's about. It might not even be a lack of willpower. It's often rooted in that. Like how our ADHD brain, like, we process things like motivation, emotions, how our executive functions kind of either work in our favor or get in the way. Right. And, yeah, those skills used to plan, start, and complete those tasks. Right. So you might avoid a task because it feels overwhelming. Maybe it's boring, maybe unclear, or it's just kind of uncomfortable. Right. Instead of jumping in, jumping right in your brain might steer you towards something more stimulating, shiny, easier to complete. Right. Even if it's less important. And that result, it's a growing to do list. It's increased stress and sometimes it's actually guilt for not getting those things done. And sometimes it's panic if we drop a ball for a client or somebody else important. Right. I did this a million times running my full service PR firm where I just quite frankly dropped the ball. Okay. Because I avoided a task that, that should have been done. So, okay, tasks your favorite podcast host Dave is avoiding right now. Renewing my driver's license. Power washing my deck outside because it is filthy from the winter and spring pollen. Fixing the wall in my bathroom. I've been staring at it for what seems like forever. Oh, and taking my car to the shop. Maybe those are bigger things, but it is a task, right? So, so I, I am, I'm not perfect either. So here's the good news. You know, avoiding tasks, it's not that moral failing. It can be a pattern. And I think some patterns can be modified. I won't go as far as to change, although maybe you can. And with the right kind of strategies and maybe a little bit of self compassion, I think we can make a little bit of headway in there. I also think understanding why we avoid certain tasks I think is the first step in reclaiming that focus and that energy on getting that task done. Also, let's be clear, let's be clear. As the politicians say, a little bit of self acceptance doesn't hurt either. And I think understanding this is the way your brain is going to work in certain instances and that we kind of need to adjust accordingly. Or in boxing, they say bob and weave, I think goes a long way in understanding ourselves a little bit better. So we need to accept ourselves and give ourselves a little bit of grace occasionally. So, so let's talk about some ways that we can mitigate the difficulties of avoiding tasks and actually get some shit done. Right. But like everything we talk about here on overcoming distractions, let's make one more thing clear. I want to meet you where you are. Not every piece of advice works for everyone and we need to continue to understand this. However, I am a firm believer in doing a little bit of trial and error. So for example, I've talked to so many people and I've talked about this before that they go and work in a coffee shop. That, that's, that's fresh hell for me. So I Need dead silence. So that's a perfect example of what might work for you. Ain't gonna work for me. So. All right, hey, let's dig in on some kind of strategies that we can kind of tinker with. Let's talk about the kind of emotional piece of this first. And I think we need to kind of name the resistance. Right? And I think we need to kind of hopefully train ourselves a little bit to understand why we're avoiding this. So maybe you just need to take a step back, sit quietly, and just say it out loud. I'm avoiding this because. Why am I avoiding renewing my driver's license? I think because I know I need to get on the website, I need to spend some time doing it, I need to possibly go get documents that I might not know where they are, I need to pull out my credit card, I need to pay it, etc. Etc. So on the other front, emotionally, I think our ADHD brains often avoid things maybe because of fear of failure. Maybe it's got to be perfect, or maybe we just don't know exactly what the outcome is going to be. Maybe you don't know and you just need a few minutes to think it through. Right. Do you have clarity and the means to get the avoided task done or at least started? One thing that I don't think we put enough again, social media gurus, you know, block out time, eat the frog, all this stuff. Okay, sure, go ahead, block out some time to get something done. But if you're not clear on what actually needs to get done or why, or maybe you don't have the thing that you actually need to complete the task, okay, go ahead and block out that time. Nothing's going to get done. So clarity is one of my favorite words, and it should be yours too. Maybe you need to shrink the task a little bit. You know, ask yourself what is like the smallest step I can do, Right? Okay, renewing my driver's license. I need to open the envelope. I need to go onto the website for the, for the. The motor vehicle that. The dmv, Right. Okay. I need to at least just start the process. Okay. I don't think renew driver's license for some of us is maybe specific enough. We need to maybe just get into the granular details of it, open the envelope, hop on the website. Maybe it'll get easier from there. Some people I've talked to, actually, when they need to get a bunch of things done, they use doubling, and that's having someone work quietly, like nearby. Maybe it's in person. And maybe it's virtually. I know there's websites that do this, so if this sounds like something that you might benefit from, I know there's websites that actually do these kind of like little co working sessions. Now, not to persuade you one way or the other, but this one is totally not for me. But again, I've talked to many people who actually like this, but this, this is not the way I can work. But if it sounds like something that might work for you, that's totally cool. Now when I work with people individually on our kind of mentorship sessions, sometimes they do kind of just get a couple things done, or maybe they rearrange their schedule or they, you know, kind of, you know, hammer down on the to do list, etcetera, etcetera. But I don't think I could renew my driver's license with somebody looking at me on Zoom. So. But hey, if it works for you, next, gamify it. And this doesn't mean we don't need wizards and all this other stuff. Gamify means like just kind of create a little game for yourself. Set a timer, 10, 15, 20 minutes and kind of go against the clock. Now go ahead and at me, as they say. Oh, Dave, Dave said, set a timer. What? You know, that was epic advice. That was earth shattering. But guess what? When I had a lot of things to do for my public relations clients, sometimes I would use an example of, look, I'm gonna do these three things and it's gonna take 30 minutes. Or I said, I'm going to get these number of things done before 12 noon. Okay? I had that kind of artificial kind of deadline which kind of gamified things for me. I know certain people that have had to do maybe like learning modules for their job. And sometimes it was as simple as saying, I will do three to four modules and then I will take a break and you can get in a little bit of competition with yourself. And it actually is effective for some people, maybe not for everybody, but for me, that worked as a, as an entrepreneur and business owner, which is where a lot of my, quite frankly, things that, that have worked and trial and error have come from. So maybe you need to name a reward. Maybe some people just like a reward, you know, pair a task with a treat like, you know, who's a good boy? Who's a good boy, right? But maybe we need to follow that. Maybe you say to yourself, you know what? I'm Gonna watch one YouTube video after 10 minutes of email cleanup. Now maybe that's not the Best example, because you need to be careful not to go down a rabbit hole, right? You know, Cool. I sent two emails and I spent four hours planting gr. So that needs some parameters if you're going to actually name a reward. Okay, next, let's talk practical. Let's talk tactical. One, follow your energy. We've talked about this before here, we'll talk about it again. Nothing gets done without energy. So don't try to do important tasks that require maybe a ton of thinking when you don't have any energy. I'm convinced. I will tell you that is one thing that doesn't work. You're going to power through till like two in the morning. It probably could have been done in a fraction of the time if you actually just went to bed and started all over again the next day. Time block your tasks. Again, we've talked about time blocking, but maybe if you say, you know what, I gotta knock out a bunch of emails to clients or my co workers, maybe I need to get back to them on certain things. Those short bursts of little focused work, maybe it's 30 minutes, which is dedicated to a bunch of little tiny tasks. Does work for a lot of people. Block them out like appointments. So for example, maybe emails don't require a ton of energy and maybe you can knock Those out at 3 or 4 o' clock in the afternoon. But again, that's a great way of doing that at home. Maybe it's a great way to just knock out a couple bills. So here's the other thing. Use something to park tasks that don't need to be done. I mentioned at the beginning, you know, these gurus saying, you know, you know, sometimes procrastination is a good thing. It's not. Delaying tasks when they don't actually need to be done this very minute is a smart move. So park those tasks somewhere. Keep that later list wherever it may be. Because when you, when you park those things that, that don't need to be done right away, you know, you kind of almost remove the distractions and even the guilt of not actually doing it. If you know you want to create, create a task parking lot in your notes and maybe your office365 or your Gmail evernote notion, wherever that may be. Maybe it's a legal pad on a clipboard and you nail it to your wall. I don't care, use a Sharpie. But sometimes you got to put things aside for later and I call that strategic delay. So don't beat yourself up about it. If something didn't get done Right away that didn't actually need to get done. This instance, some people I've talked to, busy people, entrepreneurs with adhd, they build a little bit of a routine and I guess kind of a launch type of ritual. Maybe it's making that coffee, maybe it's just cleaning the desk real quick, maybe it's dropping those noise canceling headphones on. Or go outside and get five minutes of fresh air in your face before you sit down. If I'm having like a really kind of tough day getting going, I go in and I throw ice cold water on my face. And I know that sounds kind of brutal, but it really does just kind of wake me up and quite frankly stuns me a little bit. So which is actually what I need. So maybe I need that boot in the ass. So the other thing, when it comes to tasks, you got to limit choices. You can't have. You can't sit down and have a list of 40 things to do and then actually decide what to do. So you got to kind of decide ahead of time what you actually want to focus on. Hell, it could be a post it note in front of your keyboard that has those top three tasks for the day. We've talked about the top three before and so many people I've talked to have found that super effective. The top three for the day. And to extend that even further, I think you can minimize a little bit of that avoiding tasks if you have a game plan the night before. And I am a firm believer in that. Having a game plan the night before for the following day at work I think is actually going to lower your stress to some extent because you're not thinking about all the things that are floating around in your head or you're minimizing that, but you also have a game plan for the following day. And you don't have to spend a ridiculous amount of time wasting your energy on what you actually are going to try and do. Okay, lastly, physically check things off because that actually feels good to our brain. Take even the small win. Take a small win. Maybe it is crossing that thing off. Maybe it's getting that thing that you, you just were avoiding and you realized it actually took you five or ten minutes. Right? Again, block out those smaller chunks of time for the tiny tasks like emails and my favorite, block out the big chunks of time uninterrupted for those larger tasks and those big to do's projects, things that require a lot more energy. And if you just need a game plan for your specific situation, get some support if you don't feel like you can go it alone. I have talked to a lot of you who said Dave, I love the podcast. It has helped me, but I just need somebody to dig into this stuff with me individually to kind of do some problem solving and to lay out a game plan and work side by side with me. If that's the case, then go ahead, hit my website overcoming distractions.com and click that button right there on the homepage. Book a 15 minute chat with me on Zoom and let's see if it makes sense for us to work together. All right, gang, that's it. Have a great week and I'll catch you next time.