Getting started on a task can be hard when you have ADHD. Here’s some tips for getting started, and a tool that I use many times a day when I get stuck in procrastination.

“Perfection isn’t a prerequisite for self-trust… It’s consistency in another form: knowing that I do my best, learn from my mistakes, practice honesty, and pull through most of the time. Understanding my version of ADHD has transformed my ability to trust myself.”

Celebrating feels good! Feeling good increases motivation. This technique trains you to reward yourself frequently by celebrating throughout your day - naming what you did and choosing to feel good about it. This technique is especially useful for ADHDers who struggle with the idea of celebrating anything less than perfection.

A crucial part of adult ADHD time management is actually knowing what time it is. Time is something that we often need to have a sense of: it helps us to orient ourselves within our day. Is it time to get up, to get dinner ready, to get back to work, to start winding down? Who knows? I do, now,  because of clocks.

Sometimes you have a little task you want to do...but you put it off day after day after day...and then when you finally do it, it takes 5 minutes, leaving you to wonder why you wasted all that energy feeling bad about procrastinating on it. Using this technique, I get to jump to the 'DONE' state on that task without even having to procrastinate for weeks!

Why do I use timers? Because they focus my brain, allow me to get started, and assure me that soon I’ll be able to stop if I want. They create a container that holds my attention, letting me move forward and keeping procrastination at bay. Here’s some ways to use timers to help adult ADHD.

For adult ADHDers, it's common to procrastinate on doing a task because it feels too difficult. (Or impossible, even.) But what if the problem isn't you or your character? Don't go changing. Change the task instead - find a way to make it easier!

This ADHD strategy review will help you to identify and to take action to improve the ways you manage your ADHD. This can be done across whatever areas of life that matter right now, from eating to medication to your work life. It's a simple, practical process that will help you make small changes to get big results over time.

If a task feels too difficult, it's probably because you haven't made it easy enough yet. If you have a desk/book/computer-based task that you want to do, and you're wanting a bit of extra oomph to get into it, a very simple way to help yourself is to go somewhere else to do it.

You can ‘get motivated’. Or you can make the task itself more motivating! To do this, we can add: Passion, Interest, Challenge, Keenness, Fun, Urgency, or Newness. This helps us to be more attracted to the task, and that makes the task easier to do.

Your ADHD superpowers are like having a big magic stash of cash money hidden under your bed. It’s only useful if you remember to use it! Once you know what your ADHD superpowers are, you can set things up so that they’ll be prompted into action.

For adults with ADHD, it can be exhausting trying to remember all the things we want to do now, later, or at some point. The jot-down book helps you to support your executive functions through being an external aid to memory. It’s simple to run, and lets you feel more relaxed and less anxious. And it helps you to get the important things done!

Lots of people put themselves down when talking to others. In people with ADHD, this habit can be especially compulsive and brutal. Here’s a way to quit trash-talking yourself, which can help you feel better about yourself too.

Here is a tool to help you when you’re struggling with the pressure and overwhelm of ADHD burnout. You can bring yourself back from the edge, and in this way let your nervous system recover more quickly.

When we’re wound up, we’re more at risk of self-destructive behaviours. Our ADHD symptoms are likely to get worse (including on the following days). And it just generally feels yuk. So what are some ADHD-friendly ways to cool down a nervous system?

The to-do list is a powerful and simple organisational tool. If you struggle to make a to-do list work for you, here is a process I hope will help.