There are ways to work around this to keep your business moving
ADHD brains are AMAZING at lots of things, including generating ideas. But actually doing all of the wondrous things we said we’d do when we had the ideas…? Not so much.
Picture the scene:
There’s a big, important work task that needs to get done. It might be an income-generating thing, like closing a deal with a client, or a self-employment admin thing, like opening a business bank account. You commit to doing it. You tell someone you’re going to do it. You even write notes and set reminders and calendar entries to show when you’ll do it. And yet, you just can’t seem to Get. It. Done.
Two years in, and I’m up to half a dozen reasons why this is the case for us. Some of those, like perfectionism, transitions and out experience of time, are big subjects for another day. But here’s my attempt to explain a bit about the things that are most commonly happening for us, in these moments, and some thoughts on dealing with it.
What’s going on?
Your prefrontal cortex is wired for interest.
You’ll likely be aware that ADHD affects the prefrontal cortex - a region of the brain responsible for cognitive functions such as planning, organising and monitoring your progress towards a goal, plus maintaining concentration. It’s been shown in neuroimaging studies that the structure and function of the prefrontal cortex are different for ADHDers. This neurological difference is the crux of what makes ADHD a recognised disability.
The structure and function of the prefrontal cortex make it much more difficult for a technicolour brain to stay “on task”. ADHD minds frequently wander and get invaded by unrelated thoughts and external stimuli. Since it’s harder to resist distractions, we’ll likely drift onto other, more stimulating tasks and avoid the thing we’re supposed to be prioritising.
What’s the workaround?
Rather than trying to fight your brain’s natural tendency to drift, accept that you WILL get distracted. When you deliberately build in procrastination time, there’s no need to feel guilty about letting your technicolour brain do its thing.
Try ‘chunking down’ your work tasks into small ones you can cross off, bit by bit. After each stage is complete, set a time and allow yourself a defined period of time “off task” before you come back and have a crack at the next bit! You can spend that time taking purposeful breaks, or allow yourself to drift onto whatever activity is calling to you in that moment.
Example: Let’s say you need to share a proposal with a new client. Here’s one way you could break this task down into chunks:
Jot down the key facts you already know, such as:Who’s it for? When do they want it? How long will it take you? What will you charge?
[take a breather]
Add in your ideas and suggestions:
How will you approach this project? What tools and resources will you use or provide them with? What results would you hope to see at the end?
[take a breather]
Type your notes into a Word doc, Google doc or AI tool such as ChatGPT to form your first draft.
[take a breather]
Review your first draft and make some improvements. Get a second opinion, either from a human or ask AI to make some improvements for you. Save your work!
[take a breather]
Write the email to your client and save it in your drafts
[take a breather]
Finalise the email and double check your proposal document. When you’re happy with both, hit send.
[Celebrate that the proposal is DONE!]
You have different amounts of dopamine.
Dopamine is sometimes mislabeled as a “happy hormone”, but it’s actually a neurotransmitter - a biological signal that works in specific parts of the brain (as against a hormone, a chemical messenger that travels round your body in your bloodstream). Dopamine is associated with reward systems in the brain. It’s what helps motivate us to do things that historically would have been necessary for human beings to survive.For neurotypical brains, the ‘hit’ of feel-good dopamine is what keeps you going through difficult, boring or unpleasant tasks to enjoy:a) whatever benefits come from completing them - some kind of external reward and b) the satisfaction that you’ve got it done - an intrinsic reward.
As a business owner, your tax return is a great example of a task that can be difficult, boring and unpleasant! To get the reward, you have to push through many hours of reconciling old receipts. Bleugh! The ‘benefit’ comes later, once you’ve paid your tax bill on time and avoided fines… which, granted, is hardly the most thrilling dopamine hit…
A common issue for those of us with ADHD brains is that dopamine is not at optimal levels, so delayed gratification just doesn’t work. Starting, continuing and finishing tasks and persevering through challenging activities doesn’t just feel harder; it really is harder!
There is scientific evidence1 to support the theory that a decrease in dopamine can lead to selective attention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. More research is needed, though, as there has been disagreement amongst researchers about whether ADHD brains have too much or too little dopamine in different neural pathways, or whether we simply burn through it far faster. There are also conflicting opinions about how helpful (or not) the ‘Dopamine Theory’ is when finding ways to manage ADHD.
What’s the workaround?
There’s no clever science to the fact that all humans have to do some stuff we don’t feel particularly motivated to do. If you’ve been feeling bad about your list of outstanding tasks, it can help to accept that a reward-motivation deficit is part of you being you (along with our favourite bits about having a technicolour brain).
Building in your own rewards is infinitely easier when you work for yourself and can design your perfect workday, compared with traditional employment where you’re working to someone else’s schedule.
When you’re self employed, there are lots of things you can do to help compensate for lower levels of neurotransmitters. Look for people who motivate you and things you love, so that you can top up your dopamine throughout your workday!
You’ve got task paralysis.
Ever spent hours preparing for an activity so that you can do it perfectly and then lost the motivation to start?
An additional challenge that comes with ADHD is our tendency to get stuck in a cycle of ‘perfection paralysis’. Unless we feel confident we’ve got the perfect plan for tackling a task, it’s tough to begin.
ADHDers often have a strong desire to do things “perfectly” or in the “best” or “most efficient” way possible. But being easily distracted and having difficulty connecting a series of tasks together (due to the neurological differences we talked about in point 1), combined with lower levels of dopamine (see point 2), makes summoning the motivation to begin tricky tasks… really bloody tricky!
What’s the workaround?
Suzy says:“The secret is just to start somewhere because there is no perfect place to begin. Accept that it will be imperfect, but that starting is what allows you to make progress.”
(Castellanos, 1997).
Comments