My top two are reminding myself that the stupidest people alive manage to do the thing, and listening to Theoden’s speech at Pelennor Fields
Screaming DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! right before calling the mechanic to schedule an oil change rn
So I watched a video negatively critiquing Theoden’s tactical prowess and I wasn’t able to talk about how the Rohirrim have special armour for their horses that gives them the ability to crush anything standing in their way.
IIRC you can use the Rohirrim in the game Shadow of War to basically erase any orcs on the map.
My top one is writing my own project management software, and maintaining it for over a decade as its only user, because without it I would be 100% dysfunctional. It could be argued that the software isn’t even that good. But it involves ranking the tasks against each other so at the end you have to pick something concrete.
Similarly, I have a spreadsheet I’ve been refining for years synced across all my devices for task management. No premade solution satisfied me. The columns I use:
- Task: short description of task
- Details: any helpful details to remember
- Did: date last done
- ↻: repetition interval in days currently going all the way from daily (1) to every other year (728)
- Do: next do/due date
- Meta Notes: usually hidden notes for future me about why a task is set up the way it is or placed where it is to avoid relearning certain lessons
I keep everything brief enough for the main 5 columns to comfortably fit both the width of my phone and a space I keep available on my left desktop monitor.
The Do column is calculated for me and is color coded from red (very late) through orange (missed a day), yellow (do today), green (near future), blue, purple, and black (far future).
Completing a task is usually as simple as Ctrl+; or F4 (or a calendar tap) in the Did column, and the immediate feedback of the color change keeps me invested in continuing.
I use this same layout for routines, projects, leisure, etc. which all have their own sheets. To give you an idea of how thorough these are, my routines one has about 200 lines.
That sounds super interesitng. How does the ranking work? Like you’ve got a bunch of things you need to do, but you don’t want to. So you ask would you rather do x or y until you choose an action?
It has been too long since I watched that.
Get up and run.
Maybe 5 feet maybe 500, but I need to move and I know it will change my current collection of brain noises to a different and potentially more useful cacophony of quantum farts.
So I get up and run.
I don’t really have one. I just get stuck 😢
Ps, she’s @cherry.adhd on instagram, can recommend following her.
Putting on my boots and walking into something. IDK why but it works, problem is that then I don’t know how to slow down again resulting in me pacing until my laundry is done.
Honestly if we’re ever overwhelmed we just go to the bathroom for 10 minutes, just sit there on our phone and if need be hyperventilate in privacy sometimes sparkling water in our face.
If we’re panicking over a certain fear we’ll end up cursing it like it should fear us and just binge some memes
When stuck being frustrated we take a second and zone out like hard reset and our brain is like “mood”
Make an iced latte by rehydrating and frothing dry milk powder, and brewing the espresso shots using ice-cold water in a hand-pump travel espresso maker.
Fair enough, but there’s a reason I linked the actual espresso maker that I use to make cold brew. Making a cold espresso requires saturating the grounds and holding a lower pressure for longer before reaching the required pressure to actually pass the water through the grounds. Without this extended soaking period, you’ll instead just make cold coffee-stained water.
Technically, any of the hand pump espresso makers can do the same thing, but not without significant effort. During the minute-long pressurized soaking period (30 seconds if you favor speed over flavor), you have to keep gently pumping to maintain the necessary pressure. A lever action has massive endurance and precision advantages over the piston action espresso maker that I also use.
So, while there are plenty of other lever espresso makers, most of them aren’t what I’d consider portable, and all of them cost more than my first three espresso makers combined. I’m honestly not sure if the one I linked is even manufactured anymore, their website seems to be a little dead when I’ve tried visiting, and their customer service hasn’t responded to my recent help requests.
Start a more important task so you can neglect that and work on the other things you were supposed to do. A sacrificial task, if you will.
Ha! I tend to forget things so I swear I can only ever remember n-1 things. So having one thing to forget helps me remember everything else.
I do this. Productive procrastination. The terrible thing is that it works
My place was never as clean as when i was failing school for not submitting stuff that was pretty trivial for my level
Newton’s first law of motion. Body in motion remains in motion
So cant get stuck if i never sit down, keep on moving. Start in the morning and drop dead in the evening, never sit down too long in the meanwhile.Though yeah probably not that helpful in getting into motion again once stuck. Body in rest remains at rest
Warning: not the healthiest approach
Yeah, my husband is always trying to get me to eat, and I’m like if this train slows down one bit, I’m done for the day. Do you want the laundry folded or not?
My fiance also can’t stop or they lose momentum, so I hand feed them snacks periodically throughout the day so they can keep going and not starve. Dino nuggies, carrot sticks with ranch, diagonally cut sandwich with the crust removed; the works.
That’s beautiful. Truly.
This is how I do it. As soon as I sit down, it’s over. Really annoying when I am working with friends/family who always want to take a lunch break, because they insist I join them and I lose all my steam if I do.
I definitely have this but it falls apart when working on my computer unless theres one really urgent task or a work call. The fact I’m sitting or the waiting for something to load or something gets in the way stops my motion. Do you have any solutions for computer work?
FASTER computer so there are never waiting times! (and tune the hell out of it)
Or just get old and it’ll feel like the computer gets faster.
That doesn’t work if you’re forced to use Azure products.
No idea how they even managed to make an export of a list of 200 users take over a minute.
Watch a show with confident and or flat out deranged (but still motivated/functional) characters.
Wait for code-switching or whatever it is to kick in so you can easily start thinking and acting like said character.
Do the action the way you think they would.
You might have executive dysfunction but Hannibal Lecter sure doesn’t. (Bad example but I’ll leave it because it’s funny)
No joke I would do this to write essays in high school. It made my scores go up if I decided I would write the essay as though I was Cave Johnson
For completing household tasks, I’d recommend deranged characters like from Hazbin Hotel
For completing tasks that might make you anxious, I highly recommend someone who would be bored doing the task but still do it, so go watch The Witcher and then say under your breath “fuck” before doing the now more tedious than anxious task lol
I also really do recommend you choose humorously chaotic or satirical characters for most boring/tedious tasks btw because it makes life so much more entertaining to imagine their commentary about the action or your life in general.
Imagining that a character is talking to you (rather than… possessing you… being played by you?) can also be fun, like hearing Johnny Silverhand give you patronizing and cuss-word riddled but still somewhat motivating pep talk for going outside or writing an email lol
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No joke I would do this to write essays in high school. It made my scores go up if I decided I would write the essay as though I was Cave Johnson
LMAO
alright, lets go, i’ll now make pancakes like Luna would.
Do the action the way you think they would.
Wait. Are you suggesting that I just role-play or “play pretend” my way out of distraction by just pretending I’m someone else?
You son of a bitch, I’m in.
You might have executive dysfunction but Hannibal Lecter sure doesn’t.
I mean, he’s got other problems though. This idea has the right spirit but I’m not trading my cards in for that.
I pretend I’m two hours away from having to be at the airport to take a flight and I haven’t even started packing. Once I’m in that mindset, all the fog lifts, and I can see clearly. Every task is done to completion. I remember where I put (almost) everything. It feels like I’m flying.
Fuck, I’m going to try that. Thanks!
I’ve had too many dreams where I was in that situation, and no matter how many times I did the math in my head I just couldn’t work it out to where I could get to the airport on time.
In real life, I’m neurotic about flights. Like I’ll show up four hours early and still have anxiety until I’m on the plane. So those dreams are just cruel and unnecessary.
Reading your “advice” makes me sick to my stomach, recalling experiences that I never even had and only dreamed of having.
Like it was so bad, it burnt out my anxiety about deadlines and I became so dysfunctional because I just couldn’t care about doing anything on time anymore, the anxiety was so bad that it broke my ability to even care in the first place…
Dang that sucks man. And pretty crazy that it has the opposite effect on you! It’s not intended as any sort of “advice” though. This is just one of the things I do to trick myself into hyper productive mode. It’s amazing what I can accomplish once that last-minute-panic inspiration hits. The hard part for me is breaking through the barriers where that inspiration lies.
I knowingly pick a new side project / fascination to focus on. I’m always forcing myself not to pickup side projects so I can actually finish something, but when struggling to motivate myself at all to get unstuck, I engage in the guilty pleasure of a new sideproject for a day or so to get going.
Weaponized procrastination. Avoid doing the thing you want to do by doing something else.
Just the other day I cleaned most of my apartment because I was not in the headspace to write lore.
Another day I really needed to do laundry, most productive writing day I had in a while.
I have to have a sacrificial task at work. I can juggle dozens of different projects, but only if I have an annoying one that sits and festers. The only way it will get done is if a different, more annoying, task takes its place.
We call that “productive procrastination.” But I like how you call it weaponized.
Yeah after the first two words I thought this was going to involve knives or guns 😳
Nobody says it cant.
I use to say. My flat is never as clean as when I have to study. I never study as much as when I really have to clean. It never really occurred to me that I can weaponize this. Thanks!
That’s how do most of my tasks.
I read this as “weaponized prostitution” at first and was ready to hear how it works for some people, because it sure as hell didn’t work for me.
Putting on my playlist of pirate music.
Broke: “Ugh, I need to sweep, mop, and do the dishes.”
Woke: “ARRR, IT BE TIME TO BE SWABBIN’ THE DECK, YE SCURVY BILGE RAT!! AN’ WASH ALL O’ THE DISHES IN THE GALLEY, OR YE’LL BE WALKIN’ THE PLANK!!”
Edit: Ye asked fer the map to me hidden treasure. Here it be, me hearties!
I love how the first playlist is basically just the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, with a healthy dose of Skyrim thrown in.
The music is basically…pirated.Link please?
Link?
I have to try this. I’m going to make playlist of sea shanties, Alestorm, and Captain Dan & the Scurvy Crew and move it to the top of my “get stuff done” folder.
Please, link?
Chugging a quad shot espresso while saying ‘get up trinity. Get. Up.’ in my head
If you time it right, the anxiety from the caffeine hitting really sells the feeling that a matrix agent is coming to kill you so better get moving.
Where do you get the espresso from when you’re stuck?
Unavoidable timers. For example:
- Devices with low battery and the charger is out of reach.
- Drinking a bunch of water.
- Playing an album with nothing queued afterwards.
Along the same lines: incidental timeboxing. My toaster takes 2 mins, and leaving the kitchen means I’m likely to end up with sad cold toast, so I better stay and deal with some of the kitchen mess in those two minutes. The phrase “if you have time to lean, you have time to clean” has been strangely useful to me.
Allowing things to be partially done, but not in a state where is going to be a big problem. For example, the above kitchen mess.
- A cup and bowl with food left in it will be hard to clean and attracts bugs and grows mold, and that’s a problem.
- An empty but dirty cup and bowl is better but still harder to clean.
- A rinsed cup and bowl filled with water left in the sink is easiest to clean, so that’s the least problematic state to leave it in, and it’s not much harder to do that than it is leaving the food-filled cup and bowl there to begin with.
Hell yea
I kinda do this type of thing.
