Strategies or advice?

[SirRoland]

TLDR

-- Anyone here know how to break out of "hyper focus"?

-- Anyone have any strategies for starting avoided tasks?

-- Tips for avoiding excessive detail or making things overcomplicated?

Hello! One of my biggest struggles is a huge aversion to tedium, and a huge tendency towards novelty-seeking. Here's are some examples:.

I have a series of reports I'm supposed to write weekly. They're very straightforward, if a little cumbersome/lengthy. Review some records > write up whether something is missing from the records > document findings in a system > and send the write up along to staff & manager. Here's the problem: My brain feels like it's starting on fire when I think about doing the reports. Once I start it, I can start moving through it... but distractions become super attractive.

Another example: Late night Wikipedia binges and doomscrolling through social media feeds or article feeds. I get sucked in and lose hours, often at night. Why do I need to know everything about the traditions and career paths of being a Naval officer, as compared to enlisted, after watching Top Gun?

I suspect it's a case of hyperfocus hijacking my time. But how do I know it's not a web addiction? Or are they the same thing? I've set up an extensive layered systems of app blockers on my phone and, to the extent possible, website blockers on my laptops. But things still go haywire every now and then.

When I am working on those reports, for example, I get lost in the weeds (too long investigating) and write up too many "here's how you should fix this" notes to the employee. Also, what starts out as a short email (or short post!) balloons into long diatribes with excessive detail that take too long for the other person to read and too long for me to write.

Sincere thanks!

[AuDHD3245]

Just do it

Pondering and thinking about your symptoms, eventually becomes 'the distraction', the 'attention deficit' and until you change it, focusing on those traits doubles the impact of the issues.

Where once, you just noticed it, it then became a problem, and now thinking about the problem, it distracts you from the obvious. The obvious is: if you dont like it, change it, and to change it, you have to 'just do it', or at least try. Don't think, just do it

[SirRoland in reply to AuDHD3245]

I appreciate the thoughts and advice, but I'm not actually ruminating about my symptoms during any of those problems describe above. I'm just kinda "doing it", and "Don't think, just do it" is why I have no strategies to manage my issues. "Just do it" applies to active avoidance of anxiety provoking stimuli, or to apprehension and hesitancy, not to a lack of executive skills.

To the extent that I can be mindfully aware of the problem I do try to do the things that I need to do, but intention without strategy has gotten me nowhere for decades. Now I'm well past "pre-contemplative" and "contemplative"; I'm well into "action" at this point but I'm running into barriers to getting to "maintenance".

In the examples above I keep trucking until I notice "Oh, I've eaten up [x amount of time]" because of the distraction or over-explaining; or I've gone on to several interruptions in the middle writing/entering my reports because they felt urgent at the time, and I end up losing time in the start/stop/start/stop/start cycle.

Calling my doctor, getting on meds, and attempting things like Pomodoro or the Eisenhower matrix have been met with limited success. My own therapist has helped me be more aware of avoidance urges, but I'm seeing them for other emotional/personal reasons and ADHD isn't a specialty of theirs.

I don't mean to reactive or defensive, but because I don't like it I want to change it. And I'm not trying to claim I'm misfit awash in a sea of "neurotypicals". I know and believe people can change or I wouldn't be licensed therapist. I just need some concrete skills or protocols in place.

[AuDHD3245 in reply to SirRoland]

Just go with it, whatever it is, let it be. It's you, it's who you are, and you're trying to find strategies and ways to fight against being you.

That's why it doesnt work, because you can't do that. You're trying to find masks to cover over who you are to try to become something you're not.

Acceptance is key. ADHD is our closest friend, we are born with it, we know it and it knows us like no other, and we do that because we are it. Accept it, let it be and you'll find you work with it instead of against it