ADHD and Procrastination, Part 1: Spitballing

While everyone procrastinates at least some of the time, many ADHDers struggle with it more than their neurotypical counterparts. Procrastination is commonly referred to as “immediate mood repair” for a good reason: while it helps us feel better at the moment, it leaves us feeling guilty, dejected, or what many of my clients describe as “lazy” in the long term.

While we all experience at least periodic unwillingness to put effort into something, the root cause of procrastination often resides in the part of the brain that manages “executive functioning.”

In his 2014 book Smart but Stuck, ADHD expert Thomas E. Brown clearly explains how ADHD can impact the brain’s executive functioning. Page 17 displays a helpful graphic and synopsis of the EFs.
Do you have a hard time estimating how long a task will take and always run out of time? That’s executive functioning.

Feel like you need a massive fire lit under your feet before you can start an onerous task, especially those that peers seem to speed through? That’s executive functioning as well.

Does everything feel equally important, making it hard to know which task to do first? You guessed it, EF has a hand in this, too.

There are times when procrastination can become so entrenched that working with a therapist becomes necessary. Quite often, though, I help clients with this. Below is the first in a series of articles about executive functioning challenges related to procrastination in the organizing realm.  

Activation:
Determining the duration of a new task involves some guesswork. Often, though, the more pressing issue for my clients is the struggle with time estimates for repetitive tasks that continually trip them up and take a toll on their self-esteem.

Take laundry, for instance. It involves many steps, each of which can break down the chain of events until the piles feel impossible to tackle. Laundry is not a task but rather a series of steps woven into the ongoing project we call “laundry.”

On page 37 of “Getting Things Done,” author David Allen describes a project as “any desired result that requires more than one action step.” Task lists become muddied by overwhelming projects masquerading as simple tasks, laundry being a good example.

Nailing down the steps of a project uses the executive function that Dr. Brown calls “Activation.” For ADHDers, taking time to identify all the steps needed to complete a laundry cycle can feel excruciatingly mundane and mentally taxing. The brain’s amygdala senses “danger” and thus logically avoids this perceived pain by shortcutting the process and throwing out a wildly optimistic “spitball” estimate.

The optimism leads to what feels like logical reasoning to kick the can down the road. When the deadline nears close enough to elicit sufficient urgency to start, it is often too late to complete the task entirely or without too much angst. Stress kicks in, the brain senses yet more danger, so it avoids the task again, and the cycle continues.

So, how to solve this conundrum?

Triple all those spitball estimates that the brain makes. Although it might sound excessive, it works.

Tripling in Action:
Let us imagine that during the tail-end of an organizing session, my client “Jerry” realizes he has to wash some pants before tomorrow when he embarks on a two-week business trip. His boss hinted that if all goes well, he will likely receive a promotion, so he needs to make a good impression.

“Oh, shoot, I have to wash those pants before packing them,” he says.

“It will only take a few hours to wash them, so I can do it in the morning.”

Jerry just made a generalized spitball estimate. Unfortunately, he forgot to think through the steps to remember that the pants have to be line-dried. His initial estimate will leave him arriving at a crucial meeting looking disheveled, not exactly the look he is aiming for.

Thankfully, we had previously discussed the benefits of tripling his first gut-level estimates. He initially resisted the idea because it felt like overkill, but he realized that the alternative often left him running out of time and perpetually postponing more interesting projects he wanted to pursue.  

Jerry has been practicing this tripling tactic, so he immediately catches himself and triples his estimate.

“Oh, wait a minute, I forgot to triple the estimate. I’ll be right back. I’m going to pop those pants in the washer now.”

A few minutes later, he returns to the room we are decluttering.

“That was close!” he remarks. “I had completely forgotten that I have to hang those pants up to dry. That triple estimate strategy may have just saved me that promotion!”

We wrap our session, and Jerry remarks that this might be the first time he has not had to scramble when packing for these trips. He smiles: “I might actually be able to sleep in a bit and have a decent breakfast for once before a trip. Amazing!”
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Go, Jerry! It is pretty exciting when these tools reap even more benefits than we originally intended.

​Why not triple your estimate next time you hear yourself saying, “Oh, that will only take five minutes.” I bet you will be pleasantly surprised by the results!

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