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Rising Star
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I’m not sure how this will impact this bowl, but it is worth pointing out the need to assess whether there should be concern for those in this bowl. While we all understand ADHD is something attorneys are completely capable of managing with legal positions, not everyone in the field agrees with that. https://joinfishbowl.com/post_va66ztgmkw
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Playing music on headphones often works for me. I have some mid tempo playlists of techno/house music that I use for working. Once I put my headphones on and turn on these playlists, I cue myself to focus.
Rising Star
You can trigger it with puzzles, “ugh that’s so much more work,” “may as well while I’m here,” and momentum.
You’re procrastinating on doing something your brain doesn’t want to do. So instead of fighting back, you say “ok, we’re going to procrastinate until the very last minute!” Your brain is very happy you’ve seen it his way.
“But, I don’t know what is needed, or how long this will take…” Rational point, our brain doesn’t want us to get fired, it just wants us to do this later when it feels like it. “Ok so let’s see what all this entails.” What components are there, who needs to be involved, estimates of how long each will take. Now you’ve got a puzzle. Your brain enjoys puzzles.
Now is where you need to make the procrastination unappealing. You’ve completed the puzzle listing out what all needs to be done by who, and when you need to send stuff out and follow up. It’s just sitting there in front of you. “Time to make all these calendar slips of when I need to send these items out to XYZ, including time for follow ups, then we can procrastinate without getting fired!”
Ugh your brain thinks. So much tedious work. Duplicative work too, because this is all just to procrastinate, then we need to actually send it out. And we’re going to have to pull it all up again, re-familiarize ourselves with it. Your brain then says, ‘Wait a sec, I had an idea! All that info is just sitting right here. It’ll take us less time to just send it than it would to calendar all that. We’re about to save so much time!’
So you trick your brain into knocking all that out. And it thinks ‘ok, anything else we gotta do before we set this down?’ “Well I had some ideas… but nah it can wait till later. I’m sure I won’t forget.”
You tease back and forth before your brain says, ‘just write it down so don’t forget, you know we’re forgetful.’ So you open a word doc and start bullet pointing. Then your brain notices it looks shabby, so you throw some headers on it, give it a proper file name, and a whole bunch of other stuff ‘well may as well while we’re here.’
Then before you know it you’ve got momentum going (hyperfocus is just momentum and an inability to do anything else) and you can knock out that draft that you pretended you were going to procrastinate until later.
Rising Star
Im really really gonna try this next time I’m struggling. I took screenshots of your response and will update you when I try to implement. Thank you for the advice!!
Friday afternoon after my staff leaves does it for me
Commit to a 20-30 minute deep focus right when you sit down to begin work and stick to it no matter what. No interruptions and if you accidentally get distracted, immediately adjust to the task at hand. I usually find once that once I do overcome that immediate barrier to entry, I have a much easier time getting into the work and it sets the tone for a productive day. I like to use the "Bear Focus Timer" app to assist with this. It plays white noise when you face your phone down for 25 min, and if you pick up your phone, it the white noise stops.
Turning hyperfocus onto something *productive*? Nope. Sure haven’t
Take a long walk and let your mind wander about the things you need to work on. More often than not, this helps me when I need to start writing a brief and feel like I just can’t get started.
I find some sort of ASMR to be really helpful. Whatever works for you specifically. I really like rain - I love the sound, it’s calming, but it’s also monotonous yet irregular enough not to draw attention to itself. Or instrumental music that I don’t know, so my brain won’t get interested in something familiar that it wants to actively join in. It’s interesting enough for that restless part of my brain to chew on, but not enough to grab the attention of the part of my brain that needs to get the work done. It’s that restless part of my brain that keeps tripping me up and I need to keep it occupied, like a baby with a pacifier.
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Going to a different environment. For me what got me there was setting off an insect fogger in my apartment so I was forced to leave for 4 hours (just happened because I had an issue with a bee). So I went to a Starbucks on Sunday with no true deadlines and hyper focused like crazy. Haven’t done that in a longggg time. New environments do it for me.