SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hello and welcome back to Behind the Paddle Podcast with me, Paulson Victoria. Today we are reading How to Be You by Ellie Middleton. This is chapter 7. Task Initiation. Have you ever had that feeling where you know what you need to get going with? And you actually really do want to get going with it. But no matter how hard you try, you just can't get your brain to play ball. Instead, you're stuck, maybe scrolling on your phone or lying in bed, with a voice inside your head yelling at you to just get up and do the thing, but physically unable to get started. If you're an ADHD like me, then the chances are that this is a very common occurrence. For me, I'd say it happens multiple times a day at least. Task initiation or all struggles with it is what puts us in this position. As neurodivergent people, ADHD is especially, we often have interest-led brains, which means that with all the willpower in the world, unless we have the perfect combination of external motivation to get us going, we just cannot get started with the things that we need to do. But do not fear. Although task initiation might be one of the executive functions that disables us the most, it is actually one of the easiest to work around, or hack. When we learn what it is exactly that motivates our interest-led brains, we can incorporate these things into the tasks that we need to do in order to make getting going a whole lot easier. In this chapter we will explore what is task initiation, which systems have affected the way we think about task initiation. How can we support ourselves with task initiation? Five things to consider putting in place for your task initiation. When it comes to ADHD as simply knowing that something is important isn't enough. Our interest-led brains need another motivating factor to get started. We need to take away the presumption that if we cannot immediately start any task on demand without hesitation or procrastination, then something is wrong and instead see that hesitation and procrastination are necessary parts of the process. What is task initiation? Our next executive functioning skill, task initiation, is defined as the ability to independently begin a task or activity without procrastination or hesitation. It is the green light, the gas pedal, which moves us from simply thinking about doing something to actually getting on with it. This skill is particularly tricky for neurodivergent folks, especially ADHDers, because, as mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, we often have interest-led rather than importance-led or priority-led brains. To explain what I mean by interest-led brains, it's perhaps helpful to start by explaining how people who don't have ADHD are able to motivate themselves to get started with a task. They are generally able to motivate themselves to do something simply because they know it is important, either to them personally or to the people around them. Even if they aren't interested in it or don't enjoy it, this importance is enough reason for their brains to get going. For example, they might not enjoy doing laundry, but they know that it is important that it gets done, and knowing this is enough motivation to get started. However, when it comes to ADHDs, simply knowing that something is important isn't enough. Our interest-led brains need another motivating factor to get started. It is believed that this is because ADHD brains regulate dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for stimulating us, in a different way than non-ADHD brains. Dopamine is known as the reward hormone and plays an important role in memory, movement, motivation, mood, attention, and more. Research has shown that people with ADHD have at least one defective gene, the DRD2 gene, which makes it difficult for neurons to respond to dopamine. The research in this area is very limited, but it has been suggested that where most people have a fairly regular stream of dopamine, they do a task, they get rewarded, and that reward keeps them motivated. ADHD brains generally have a lower level of dopamine, which means we will struggle to concentrate or get started with things. And then when we do become interested in something, we will have a flood of too much dopamine, which might cause our intense hyperfocused states. This is one of the reasons that the name attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is considered to be incorrect. It is not that we have a deficit of attention. It's that our brains don't regulate dopamine levels in the same way as people who don't have ADHD. Although this is a huge simplification of our brain's complicated chemistry, thinking about my ADHD in regards to its dopamine levels has really helped me work out how to get started on tasks by supporting myself to make task initiation easier. As a very logical problem solver, I started to think of it as an equation. If my brain generally has less dopamine than it needs to complete a task, and the task itself isn't providing me with enough dopamine to get and stay motivated, all I need to do is top up the task with a little extra dopamine hit, which will allow me to hit that magic threshold of motivation to get started. We'll explore what sort of things we can add to tasks for that extra dopamine hit later in the chapter. But hopefully, this novel way of thinking about task initiation will help you in the same way that it helped me. Which systems have affected the way we think about task initiation. When reading Sony Jane Wise's book, We're All Neurodiverse, I was struck by their explanation of executive functioning not as skills, but instead as a list of rules that society has imposed on us. They included a quote from Jesse Meadows, They Them, a writer and digital artist whose medium blog focuses on critical ADHD studies and repoliticizing mental health, who explains Most people on social media seem to think the set of skills around planning, organizing, focusing, and time management, which we call executive function, is a structure in the brain, not a concept made up by a bunch of white male doctors who idolized businessmen so much they modelled an entire neurological value system off of them. This is essentially a much more direct way of explaining the concept that we have explored throughout the book. The idea that a lot of the ways in which we are expected to function are simply a list of shoulds imposed on us by our society and the systems of oppression within it. However, Sony's explanation of the expectations around task initiation in particular really got me thinking. They explained that the way we currently expect people's task initiation to work is especially essentially society saying you must be able to start any task immediately on demand whether or not it's something you actually want to do or are interested in. When we put it this way, we can see that, in reality, this is a ludicrous expectation. It doesn't take into account people's preferences, interests or circumstances. One community which is particularly affected by these unrealistic expectations is the disabled and chronically ill community. They might not have the energy, capacity or ability to immediately start any task on demand, and also may need to consider the consequences of doing that task that they will be faced with later, such as a crash or flare-up. As Loza Gilbert they them multiply disabled activist, creator and writer explains. With task initiation, there are so many factors that you have to weigh up and kind of calculate before you start doing a task. For me, because as a mix of autism, ADHD, and chronic illness, I find that if one thing is going right, something else will inevitably be going wrong. So even if I have the energy to start the task in terms of feeling fatigued, my ADHD is going to be cropping up like, yeah, well, you don't have the executive functioning to do this. So either way, there's always something that stops me from initiating a task. It's very hard to kind of just be like, yes, this task needs doing. Yes, this task that needs doing, I will start doing it. As an example, when writing an article, I have to think about, okay, well, I won't be in bed, I might be sat at my desk, so I'll be more upright for a longer period of time. And being upright is expending energy. I've then got to try and concentrate for an extended period of time, which is also energy draining, especially when you've got multiple different disabilities that mean that concentrating is ridiculously hard. And then you've got to think about the actual physical effect, doing research or reading or actually processing words on a page, and things like that. There are so many factors of each task that you have to weigh up. So you have to think, do I have the physical capacity to start it? If I start the task, is this gonna then mess up my health for the next however many days or weeks? So you end up meticulously planning your days just so that you can account for how much energy you have and how much energy you might have afterwards. You have to think ahead a lot. Additionally, something that I find really interesting with regards to task initiation is how we think about time. I came across Marta Rose's, also known as Divergent Design Studios, concept of neurodivergent time, in a writing course that I did with K.R. Moorhead, who you'll hear from in tip 31, replacing demands with permissions. And it made a lot of sense in explaining the ways that I experience time as an autistic ADHD. Marta Rose explains that the way we currently measure time, under late capitalism and white supremacy culture, is not objectively the only or correct way of measuring time. It is simply a construct which they call industrial time. The way that we currently measure in hours, days, and weeks was constructed around a factory model of work that served a function, employers served to function employers who managed vast numbers of employees who are expected to achieve set tasks in set amounts of time, rather than being a real, natural or accurate way of measuring time. In the words of Marta, this is time as it has been imposed on us by industrial capitalism fueled by white supremacy. After dismantling industrial time as a concept, they go on to explore other ways that we can explore time, which might feel more authentic to our natural rhythms and experiences as neurodivergent people, such as seeing time in more seasonal or cynical ways, and offer two main theories. 1. Spiral time. When we see time as spiral rather than linear, we remove the idea that progress comes from us moving forward in a straight line towards some fixed point or end goal. Instead, our progress is just the act of moving around the spiral, and our goals are things that emerge along the way. By seeing time as a spiral, we can also zoom out from the time frames in which we are measuring goals or success. For example, under linear or in industrial time, if you start a degree course and do not complete it in the assigned free year time period, this would be seen as a failure. However, under spiral time, you can see the learnings that you took from the parts of the course that you did complete as a success, and know that you'll come back to and use these learnings later on in time as your spiral brings you back around to them. Marta encourages us to think of past experiences or uncompleted projects as buried treasure that will be available for us to dig back up later in the spiral. 2. Elliptical time. The second paradigm for time that Marta offers is elliptical time, shown in the diagram below, which encourages us to think of time as an elliptical orbit, where some parts of the orbit are really fast and productive around the tight bends, while other parts of the orbit are much slower, in what they call spinning out in space gathering stardust. Both parts of the orbit are necessary to complete the eclipse. And even when you feel as though you're stuck in the slow, spinning out in space phrase, which you might have previously been told was executive dysfunction, you're always on your way back to another fast type bend. Elliptical time, especially, feels very accurate for me as an ADHD who jumps from periods of intense, hyper-productive focus where I will achieve more than seems humanly possible, to periods of full lull and slow where even doing the simplest tasks feels impossible. Take writing this book for example. When my editor Amy first mentioned the idea of the book to me, I was excited, motivated, and focused. This was a fast phase, where lots of ideas were coming together all at once while I was in the tight bend of the eclipse. Then, when I went through the period of struggling to know how to pull it all together properly, as I explained in the introduction, I was in a period of spinning out in space, needing the time around the orbit for my brain to connect the dots and bring things together. Next, we came back around the tight bend where my concept all clicked together in my mind, and I found my hyperfocus, writing out my first few chapters in the space of a couple of weeks. Then, inevitably, once this tight bend had passed, I went spinning back into space. Once I had hyperfocused my way through the first few chapters, there was a long period where I just could not motivate myself to sit down and get writing. I felt as though I could feel all the ideas and parts moving around in my brain, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not make any real progress in terms of words on a page, and really started to beat myself up that I wasn't going to get it done before my deadline. However, now that my deadline is quickly approaching and the urgency has kicked in, more on this in the next section, I'm back to firing on all cylinders and working through chapters at a rapid pace. I've whizzed through around 20,000 words in the last couple of weeks, and it's all coming together much more quickly than I could have imagined even three weeks ago when I felt stuck spinning out in space. When thinking of time as linear or through the lens of what Marta calls industrial time, it is very easy during periods of low motivation to be hard on myself. During the time after my initial hyperfocus had passed, I fell into the trap of thinking things like, the weeks are flying by and you're nowhere near where you should be at this point. Over three-quarters of the time has passed and you're not even halfway through your word count. I could say that I have executive dysfunction and blame myself for procrastinating, not trying hard enough, being lazy, or just genuinely a rubbish person. However, if I instead view my writing experience through the paradigm of elliptical time, I can see that each phase is a necessary and inevitable part of the process. The hyper-focused, uber productive phases will come, and inevitably they will also pass. The periods of spinning out in space aren't a failure, laziness, or anything to panic about. They are just part of the cycle, and, in their own way, are preparing me to be able to get back to the fast phases. It's a time to slow down, process, think of the bigger picture, and even rest, so that my brain and body are ready and ready. To go through the tight bends. If we use this way of thinking to change our views on task initiation, we can take away the presumption that if we cannot immediately start any task on demand without hesitation or procrastination, then something is wrong, and instead see that hesitation and procrastination are necessary parts of the process in our ellipse of time. Martha Rose's description of industrial time is further backed up by some of Tima Okun's characteristics of white supremacy culture. The first of these characteristics is urgency, which refers to our cultural habit of applying a sense of urgency to our everyday lives. We are constantly in a rush and everything has to be done on demand, immediately and completed in a short amount of time. We value speed, quick decision making, and immediate action, often at the expense of thoroughness, reflection, or consideration of different perspectives. This sense of urgency shows little regard for the actual amount of time something requires, disconnects us from our need to breathe, pause, and reflect, and means that we're so busy jumping from urgent task to urgent task that we never have the time to consider the bigger picture or deal with ongoing systemic issues such as white supremacy and other systems of oppression. How urgency affects the way we see task innovation and executive functioning. How urgency affects the way we see task initiation and executive functioning. We are told that we must be able to do anything that is required of us immediately and on demand, which informs the way we define what is considered normal versus disordered task initiation. A culture of urgency prioritizes quick results and doesn't consider the energy used or difficulties faced in effectively planning, organizing, and executing tasks. This puts a huge pressure on us to not only always use our executive functioning skills, but also using them at a rapid pace. An emphasis on speed and urgency means that anyone who needs more time to process information or complete tasks is considered lesser or incompetent when this is not the case. Additionally, white supremacy culture also causes us to value quantity over quality. Quantity over quality defines the belief that the things which we can count, track, and measure are the most important. As an example, we might value having a higher number of followers on social media rather than having a smaller, more meaningful community, or having a bigger, more profitable business rather than a smaller one that is doing more meaningful work. It explains the way we might feel it is better to get through as many individual tasks on our to-do list as possible than it would be to do fewer tasks, but do them well. Quantity over quality values speed, urgency, money, and growth over the process, meaning the importance behind the work that we do. How quantity over quality affects the way we see task initiation and executive functioning. An emphasis on quantity often prioritizes the sheer volume of output or tasks completed over the quality of execution or the process involved. This causes us to disregard the energy required for things like organizing, planning, task initiation, or flexibility, which can be much more tricky for neurodivergent folks. The common expectation is for us to complete various different tasks throughout the day, which means we have to begin each of these tasks individually, putting a huge strain on our task initiation. If instead we were to focus on one larger, more meaningful task, or have the capacity to work on one project fully at a time, we would have less to initiate and then be able to finish it to completion efficiently, rather than struggling to initiate a hundred different tasks throughout the day. We are expected to constantly be churning out more and more work, which means that our sole purpose might be seen as to produce or to work, which determines which skills are deemed more desirable or important than others, i.e., our ability to start tasks quickly is deemed to be more important than our ability to finish those tasks at the highest quality. How can we support ourselves with task initiation? As mentioned earlier in the chapter, when it comes to task initiation, it can be helpful to think of our ADHD as an equation. If our brains generally have less dopamine than they need to complete a task, and the task itself doesn't provide us with enough dopamine to get and stay motivated, all we need to do is top up the task with a little extra dopamine hit to reach the threshold. As I said earlier, this is a very simplified account of what is actually going on in our very complicated and complex brains, and much more research is needed to work out the reality of the hormones and neurotransmitters that affect the way we function. However, it can be a simple framework in helping us to find ways of best supporting ourselves and learning to work with our brains rather than against them. So, if we're considering it to be a case of finding little dopamine top-ups that we can add to tasks to make them more appealing, it is helpful to know what it actually is that motivates our interest-led brains. The four things that best motivate ADHDers are usually defined as 1. The first thing that motivates our interest-led brains is, of course, something that we find interesting, such as a topic we're enthusiastic about or something that makes us curious. It makes sense that if something is interesting to us, we're naturally going to be motivated to get started with it. But how can we use this to motivate ourselves to do something we're not interested in? Well, in these cases we can either find the interesting parts of a project we're working on and start there, or we can find ways of weaving other things that we're interested in into the task that doesn't feel as interesting. For example, if you know that you're a lover of spreadsheets, you could create a spreadsheet to plan out the task you need to do. Or if you're really into films, you could find a film about the topic you need to study. 2. Novelty. Our next motivator is something that is novel or new. This can apply to tasks that we've never done before or tasks that feel as though they are leading us on a new exciting adventure. This explains why ADHDers tend to have a love of learning new things, because the novelty factor motivates our brains and keeps us interested. We can use novelty to make other less exciting tasks more appealing to our interest-led brains by regularly changing the types of tasks we're working on, trying to solve old problems in new ways, or adding something new while we're doing a not new task. This could look like working from a calf that you've never been to before instead of working from home every day. Or buying yourself a new notepad or stationery for your study project. 3. Challenge. Our third motivator is something that is challenging to us or something that involves an element of competition. This competition could be against ourselves, such as seeing how many words we're able to write in a 30-minute period, and trying to break our record each day or against other people, such as having an accountability partner, or joining leaderboards on apps like Duolingo that encourages you to learn a new language. 4. Urgency. Our final motivator is when something is urgent and has a tight time-based deadline, which is why many of us might find that we can only get things done at the very last minute. I'm looking at myself, typing out these words when my book's deadline is a measly four days away, which might make you think, whoa, Ellie, that's quite tight. But at least you're not writing it the night before. But really, I go on holiday tomorrow, and I want to get finished before I go, so I told you I'm far from having it all figured out myself. This could look like inviting a friend round so you're forced to tidy up before they come, or asking your manager to set you loads of shorter deadlines to complete different parts of a project rather than having one long deadline, and knowing that you'll leave it all until the last minute. Most of the tips that you'll find throughout the rest of the chapter involve adding either interest, novelty, challenge, or urgency to a task in some way to help motivate you to get started. But once you know that these are the main things that appeal to our interest-led brains, you can find different ways to add them to basically any task you need to get done. A list of things that are absolutely fine. Not being able to immediately start any task on demand without prior warning. Needing to pair tasks together to make them more stimulating. For example, listening to music while working or watching your favorite TV show while exercising. Starting with the easier, more appealing tasks first to build up to the bigger, more important tasks. Relying on accountability or rewards to get things done. Leaving things until the last minute if you know that urgency is the only motivator that works for you. Doing seamlessly, unrelated tasks before the main task that you need to do, not to procrastinate, but because you need a clear workspace before you sit down to write, for example. Doing fewer tasks each day rather than thinking that you need to be in go mode every second of every day. Taking the time to decompress or scroll on your phone between tasks without beating yourself up for putting other things off. Getting started with two minutes of a task rather than thinking you have to commit to sitting down for multiple hours so that it's easier to come back to when you're ready. Working outside the traditional 9-5 working hours if you know that you're more productive in the early mornings or the evenings. Tip 31. Replacing demands with permissions. By KR Moorehead, they them, ADHD, writer, mentor, and facilitator and creator of a crash course in writing while neurodivergent. When recently asked to write about what feelings I associate with beginnings, I found that words like frustrated, tired, anxious, and bored came to mind. Specifically when considering tasks with foreseeable endings like writing projects, event planning, or launching new courses. My tendency towards perfectionalism and an all-or-nothing mentality means I struggle to really define what counts as work. Have you heard the saying if you can't do something right, don't do it at all? I certainly have, and I feel like many neurodivergent people have taken this advice to heart. If we aren't doing the exact task we think we should be doing, exactly the way we think we should be doing it, then we feel like we are wasting our time. When we tell ourselves I should be doing such and such right now, or I should be doing it this particular way, we are essentially creating a demand which can cause us to shut down to the task altogether, even if it is something we really want to do. One way we can attempt to break down the barriers to task initiation is to turn our shoulds into things we are allowed to do, replacing demands with permissions. First, it can be helpful to make a list of shoulds we attach to our working practice. For a writer, this may look something like this. I feel like I should write every day. Write in the mornings. Write worthwhile content. Write sellable content. Write the whole time I am working. Write as much as or more than I did yesterday. Try to unpick each of these. Where did this expectation actually come from? Why do you feel you should do this? Why are you ascribing moral value to things that do not have moral value? i.e., if we can't write every day, we are somehow bad. Then write a list of permissions you give yourself instead. Things you are allowed to do during your working time that may not be the work itself, but are tangential to it. Again, for a writer, this may look like I am allowed to daydream, read a book, listen to music, talk to a friend about writing, work on any project that interests me right now. Tidy my workspace. What this achieves is twofold. First, these things are often a necessary part of our work that we don't usually recognize as work. Sometimes we feel these are things that are keeping us from our work, when really they are integral to this. Second, by recognizing these activities as work, we allow ourselves multiple small opportunities to succeed instead of fail. If we tell ourselves that we are meant to be actively working the whole time we are in our workspace, then we might see daydreaming as a failure. Once we include daydreaming in our working practice, when we find ourselves doing it, we have actually succeeded and can benefit from the motivation this gives us. Below you will find a space to write your own list of coulds. Once you've made your list, post it in a prominent position and keep adding to it as you discover more and more activities that are part of your practice. Next time you are struggling to initiate a task, you can trick your brain into getting past the block by starting with something on this list. This success will give your brain a boost of energy, making it more willing to continue. I'm allowed to. Tip 32 Morning Routine Playlist. As we explored earlier in the chapter, adding novelty, urgency, challenge, and interest to a task is the best way to get our interest led brains to play ball with the things we want them to do. One of my favorite ways to do this is to implement a morning routine playlist. For me, sticking to a quick and simple morning routine is the best chance I have of actually getting out of the house or on with the task I need to without getting distracted. If I give myself the time and space to do a long skincare routine, make a complicated breakfast, take a shower, style my hair, and do my makeup, it is pretty much dead certain that I'll get lost in one of these tasks or just end up taking way too much time. So instead, I like to keep things short and simple. Hair slicked back, eyebrow gel on and tinted moisturizer on, toaster waffles and a protein shake or protein yogurt for breakfast, medication taken, clothes on, teeth brushed, done. However, no matter how simple this routine is, my brain is still likely to a refuse to get started and instead want to lie in bed scrolling on my phone all morning. Or B end up taking way too long on each task and slash all get distracted. My brain will always find something to get distracted by. So to keep myself on track, I've created a playlist on Spotify, where one song is assigned to each task. So I'll have one song to which I will get out of bed, one song during which I do my hair, one song during which I do my brows and moisturizer, and so on and so on. This adds urgency and challenge to the morning because I only have a limited amount of time to complete each task. And it adds novelty, since I'm starting the day by listening to some of my favourite songs. You might want to switch up your playlist every week or so if you're somebody who gets bored while listening to the same songs over and over again, but this autistic gal could happily listen to the same 2006 indie bangers every day for the rest of her life. If you're someone who needs to get up and out to prevent getting distracted, a morning routine playlist could be a great addition to your day. Or you can also use this technique to add challenge, urgency, and novelty to other parts of your day. You could see how much tidying away. You can get done before your favorite song finishes. You could challenge yourself to put the food shop away before the end of the playlist. You could see how many words you can write during the length of your favorite album. You could give yourself a one-song scrolling break to put a time limit on your phone checking between tasks. Below you can find space to list out your morning routine tasks and choose a song you might play for each. Bonus tip To add more novelty and remind yourself of the task you're supposed to be doing, you could find songs that have lyrics or titles that relate to each task. For example, I like to use T-shirt weather by Circle Waves as my getting dressed song, and I've just seen a face by the Beatles for my skincare slash makeup routine. Tip 33, body doubling. Do you ever find that you can get started with tasks and do things much more easily when you're surrounded by people doing the same? Whether that's working in an office instead of at home by yourself, or cooking when someone else is in the kitchen. It could be thanks to something known as body doubling. Body doubling is kind of what it says on the tin. You work on the task that you need to while another person, your body double, works alongside you. It's a really quick and easy way to add accountability to a task since you're more likely to get on with the task rather than avoiding it by scrolling on your phone, for example. When you know somebody is watching you. It also takes advantage of our natural inclination to mask by mimicking the people around us. Although masking can be tiresome in many circumstances, if our natural reaction is to copy the person next to us who is getting on with their work, then we can use this to our advantage. There are a few ways that you can use body doubling to help you get on with the tasks you need to do. If you work from home by yourself, working from a CAF or co-working space where other people are also working can help to keep you accountable. You could also virtually body double via Zoom or Google Meet and keep the video stream of your friend working alongside you on your screen while you work. There are even online communities and platforms where you can join group body doubling sessions or find body doubles to work with. You could ask a friend to come round to your house while you clean, as just having someone there will help you get started, even if they're not doing much to help. You could ask your partner, parent, or housemate to join you in the kitchen while you cook. I have a weekly recurring meeting in my calendar for a body doubling session with my friend Charlie, who you're actually going to hear from in the next tip. Every Monday morning, so we can both start our week with a productive hour of individuality, taking off some of our to-dos while having the other person there to keep us accountable. We've also frequently toyed with hosting virtual body doubling sessions for the unmasked community, the online and in real life community for neurodivergent people that I founded in 2022. So please drop us a message on Instagram at WeAreUnmasked if this is something you'd like to join. Slower start morning routines by Charlie Clement Day She. Author of All Tangled Up in Autism and Chronic Illness and Autism and Psychiatric Care Lived Experience Practitioner, Speaker, Creator and Writer. As an autistic ADHD with chronic illness, my morning routine is critical to the type of day that I have. My fatigue, pain, and sensory needs don't disappear just because I've had a good morning routine. Don't get me wrong. But starting slower and with more intention means my body is slightly more relaxed and my brain feels less frantic. Before introducing a slower, more targeted morning routine, I was constantly waking up overstimulated and often trying to get ready for the day in 10 minutes to get every single second of sleep. I could to try and reduce fatigue. Now I get slightly less sleep, but I'm in a better position. I wake up over a longer period and don't immediately push myself into action. And it's also easier to make the transition between tasks because there is longer to do so. Maybe part of the reason we struggle to get started with tasks is that our brains and bodies haven't been given the opportunity to get ready, or to warm up to their expectations placed on them. Some of the things that my slower start morning routine includes are sunrise alarm clock. Using one of these means that I start to wake up subconsciously with the light before I wake perm properly over the space of half an hour. Sometimes I wake up halfway through. Sometimes I don't wake up until the audio prompt. But it means I wake up at the right moment rather than suddenly. The lack of a loud audio alarm being the first century input also stops me from immediately pushing into overstimulation, which exacerbates my pain and fatigue. Reading before picking up my phone. I used to always go on social media the second I woke up and then get stuck in bed doom scrolling. Now, I use my e-reader for a minimum of five minutes before I'm allowed to go on my phone to break that cycle. I found it means I get less stuck on my phone throughout the rest of the day, too, because I haven't immediately given my brain a mega dose of stimulation that it will then be trying to match for the rest of the day. The second I wake up my brain is going. The internal hyperactivity kicks in, and I'll immediately be having six different trains of thought. I brain dump all my thoughts down and then make sure I know what's happening during the day so I don't feel uncertain about the day's structure. Breakfast. I make sure I fuel my body in the morning, even if I'm not ready to eat super early in the day. Protein is great for ADHDs, such as eggs or a protein yoghurt. But just making sure I eat something is the main thing. Habit stacking. I habit stack taking my medication, doing my skincare, and brushing my teeth. I do these tasks together, one after the other, at the same time and in the same place each day to make sure they happen. You could habit stack any of your morning routine tasks if one of them gets forgotten or feels harder to complete. Sometimes I use visual timers to stop myself from losing track of time too. Making your morning routine work for you is the main thing. It doesn't need to have 20 steps or be perfect every single day, like you see in people's aesthetic Instagram videos. You might want to add other things. Perhaps some movement, stretches, or a workout in the morning might help you focus. Or preparing lunch for work means you won't impulse spend. I think it's a process of trial and error. I'm still adjusting mine now, and I don't always manage to get it all done. Don't beat yourself up. It's more about slowing down and taking stock of what supports the rest of your day. Quick tick treat. While neurotypical people might find long-term rewards and treats enough motivation to get going with a task, our interest-led ADHD brains often need something a bit more immediate. Our brains tend to see time as now or not now. So knowing that we'll get a reward at the end of the task, or that we'll feel better in the future for getting it done feels a bit too abstract to get us motivated. For example, knowing that we'll feel healthier and happier after six weeks of exercising isn't going to be enough to get us off the sofa right this second to go for a run. We're not too concerned with what future us will get out of it. We need to know what current us will get out of it right here, right now. To use this to our advantage, we can implement immediate rewards for getting started with a task, rather than thinking we have to finish something completely to earn the treat. This could look like if you have a morning coffee, you can have it as a treat while you work, but only once you've got started with your emails. If you have a certain favorite comfort show, you could treat yourself to having it on in the background, but only while you're getting work done. You could enjoy some snacks while tidying your room, but only once you've started. These little rewards trigger the pleasure center in the brain to release dopamine, which helps the brain associate doing the tasks with feeling good. Below you can make a list of some of the tasks you regularly need to get done and some treats that you could pair each task with to help you get started. Task initiation recap. Task initiation is very simple. It is defined as the ability to independently begin a task or activity without procrastination or hesitation. However, as we've explored throughout the chapter, perhaps these expectations are far too high. Human beings have always been social creatures, so maybe it's okay if we can't get started with things completely independently and need a little encouragement or a push in the right direction from the people around us. And maybe time isn't as linear as we've previously been told, and what looks from the outside to be procrastination or hesitation is actually just us taking the time that we need to prepare, rest, process, think, reflect, gather our thoughts, plan, or do other things. In this chapter we have explored what task initiation is, the systems which have affected the way we think about task initiation, some ways we can support ourselves with task initiation, 5 things to consider putting in place for your task initiation. Your takeaway box. ADHD brains especially are interest-led. This means that our brains aren't motivated to do something simply because we know that it is important, or we know that we should. Instead, we need to add a little extra stimulation in the form of interest, adding something we're interested in to a project that otherwise doesn't interest us. Novelty, doing new things or adding something new and exciting to a task. Challenge, making something into a competition, either against ourselves or other people. Or urgency, adding a tight time-based deadline. We have been led to believe because of capitalism and white supremacy that time moves in a straight line, but this isn't the only way that we can think of time. For neurodivergent people, it might be helpful to think of time in terms of seasons, spirals, or elliptical orbits, as these better explain our experiences and ways of being and doing. Sometimes, not being able to start a task can be disabling, but sometimes it is just our body or brain's way of letting us know that we need time to rest, time to process, or time to think. Being able to start any task on demand with no support, without taking into account our needs, preferences, or circumstances is an unrealistic expectation that we can learn to let go of. Now, that is it for today. We literally have two more chapters left, and that's it. It's crazy how um fast we've gone through this, and I'm so so so happy. I hope you guys have learned something from this book. I really appreciate everybody listening. I certainly have confirmed a lot in myself, mainly. Um, I always got told um, bear in mind I'm not officially diagnosed or anything like that, because I don't know, I just always rewind myself. I always get to the point where I'm on the list and then I took myself off the list to like get assessed, and I did loads of courses, um, and I spoke to counsellors in the NHS and outside of the NHS as well. Um, but I I don't know. I always get told that like I'm very self-aware and that it shouldn't really be a good thing, but I'm really happy how amazing this book is and how it has helped me go cool. So this this is like how neurodivergent people can be, and it is comforting. But yeah, thank you so much for listening. We've got two chapters left. This has been Behind the Paddle Podcast, me, Paulson Victoria, and go like us on Instagram, and if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a like as well, and you can also comment, and you can email um into Behind the Paddle Podcast, and if anybody does want to collab, that is absolutely fine. Um, I must say I have declined a few collabs lately because I it needs to fit what I want to put out um into you know the podcast space and um a few other reasons, but yeah, I'm sorry if you're listening to us and and I've rejected you. Um yeah. This has been Behind the Buddha Podcast with me, Post and Victoria.

unknown 1:04:17

Bye.