I used to think I was just lazy when it came to doing boring tasks. The ones that weren't urgent, weren't interesting, didn't have a deadline. They would just sit there. I'd look at them and know I needed to do them but still do absolutely nothing.

It took me a long time to understand that this wasn't a character flaw. It's actually one of the most well documented aspects of how the ADHD brain works.

Here's what's actually happening:

The ADHD brain runs on dopamine differently to neurotypical brains. For most people dopamine gets released in anticipation of a reward, it's what motivates them to do things even when those things are boring or unpleasant. The dopamine signal comes first; the action follows.

For ADHD brains that anticipatory dopamine signal is unreliable. It doesn't fire just because something is important or necessary. It fires for things that are interesting, novel, urgent or personally meaningful. Everything else feels like trying to push a car with no engine.

This is why an ADHD person can hyperfocus for six hours on something they find fascinating but cannot make themselves do a ten-minute admin task for three days.

It's not about the difficulty of the task. It's about whether the brain is getting the neurochemical signal it needs to initiate.

The things that actually helped me:

Making boring tasks artificially interesting - listening to something I love while doing them, racing myself against a timer, doing them in a different location than usual.

Body doubling - having another person present even silently makes a significant difference. The social element activates a different motivation circuit.

Attaching the boring task to something the brain does want - I only listen to my favourite podcast while doing admin. The podcast becomes the reward the brain is working toward.

Breaking it down until the first action is almost embarrassingly small. So, instead of just 'do the tax', it's - open the folder. Not clean the bathroom - pick up one thing off the floor.

None of these fix the underlying dopamine difference. But they work with it instead of against it.

What boring tasks do you find hardest to start? And has anything actually helped?

Can anyone tell me how to control my emotions when I’m learning a new song on guitar, I wanna be in a band so bad one day but I have to learn songs and scales for years to be able to make my own solos and have my own band, please anyone that sees this please reply because I love guitar so much but learning songs and practicing feels like I have 200pound weighs on me everywhere.

When I was in 1st grade I remember forgetting notes to class everyday. and My mother was not much involved in my studies because of her limitations in education and I constantly get distracted in class. Because of this I had no idea what's going on in class . How many subjects, how many notes, who is the teacher of each subject and nothing I was aware. I just take one turn towards the window and get lost in view, cows, birds , trees, warm wind, butterflies and so on. And in a snap class is over, no idea what happened in the class I went deep into the imagination of story building in my mind with the scene i am seeing through window. Any body experienced?

If you are familiar with the Japanese Book of 5 Rings, the Martial Arts Warrior lives at that edge

ADHD sometimes creates situations where it feels like that

Right now, I feel that way.

I madeade a post a couple weeks ago about how Vyvanse changed my life. It has helped me with my procrastination/time blindness and task initiation which has been my most crippling ADHD symptom. I've flunked out of my first uni when I was younger and because of this. This past month in my summer classes my procrastination and time blindness have been coming back. Idunno what it is but when my professor tells us "test in a week" i always feel like I have a ton of time but i never seem to get myself to get started until 2 days before. It took a while to learn how to get started two days before the test there was a time in my life where I don't even start until 30 mins before the test.

I'm not sure how to counteract this because I don't believe any medication can help me fully. My doctor is open to having me try Concerta for a month but i just have a feeling looking for the right medication isn't the right approach, especially when stimulants all have a short lived honeymoon phase.

A little backstory when I was younger I had really aggressive abusive Asian parents that told me whatever I did was not good enough and if I brought anything back home that's less than an A there would be huge consequences. It worked until high school and I started flunking classes.

I think my ADHD symptoms might've shown up during HS but I didn't know. For years i kept treating my procrastination as a trauma symptom with no avail, trying different techniques. Some did work but didn't stick. When I started treating it as a ADHD symptom I got some progress but now it's back to square one.

Please help, I'm only one year away from graduating with Applied math with a minor in physics im so close, any pointers will be appreciated!

Tldr : had abusive parents, developed perfectionism procrastination paralysis, ADHD also showed out, flunked out of college first time, went back again got treated for adhd and staying afloat but symptoms coming back, so close to the finish line please help