5 Powerful Ways To Stay On Task With ADHD

Let’s talk about how to stay on task with ADHD, shall we?

If you’re anything like me, when you first embark on one of your brilliant ideas, you have every intention of finishing it.

But before you know it, you’ve moved on to something new and your list of unfinished tasks has grown surprisingly long…leaving you wondering what happened.

First of all, let me normalize this.

As someone with ADHD or ADHD tendencies, there are several reasons why it’s extra challenging to follow through on our projects and tasks. 

What are some of those reasons, you ask? Well, with ADHD comes the struggle to:

• Maintain focus long enough to follow through
• Navigate boredom when you reach the last 20%
• Avoid distractibility when new ideas pop in your head
• Accurately plan with enough time to complete the task
• Recognize perfectionism and imposter syndrome when they keep you perfecting and tweaking rather than finishing

But here’s the good news.

We don’t have to let these obstacles stop us.

In fact, there are several supports we can put in place to help us follow through on the things that matter most.

Want to learn how?

Then grab your earbuds and tune into episode 198 of the I’m Busy Being Awesome podcast today!

You can listen to the episode above or stream it on your favorite podcasting app here.   

Prefer to read? No problem! Keep scrolling for the entire podcast transcript. 

In Episode 198: 5 Powerful Ways To Stay On Task With ADHD, You Will Discover…

• The reasons adults with ADHD struggle to complete tasks + how to recognize when these obstacles show up
• 5 actionable tips you can use today to help you complete tasks piling up on your list

Leave IBBA A Rating & Review!

If you enjoy the podcast, would you be a rockstar and leave a review? Doing so helps others find the show and spreads these tools to even more people.

1. Go to Apple Podcasts
2. Click on the I’m Busy Being Awesome podcast
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you see the reviews.
4. Simply tap five stars; that’s it!
5. Bonus points if you’re willing to leave a few sentences sharing what you enjoy about the podcast or a key takeaway from the episode you just heard. Thanks, friend!

Episode #198: 5 Powerful Tips To Stay On Task With ADHD (Transcript)

Today we’re talking about how to stay on task with ADHD – and more specifically complete those tasks.  We’ll discuss how to follow through and actually check the thing off the list.

When it comes to getting things done within the ADHD brain, there tends to be 3 overarching obstacles that get in the way.

1. Planning and Prioritization – How do we know what’s most important and make a plan (with enough time) to do it?
2. Task Initiation and Moving Through Procrastination – How do we actually get started on the thing?
3. Follow-Through – How do we complete that last 20%?

In short, this is my Plan – Act – Complete framework, which is what guides how to create the personalized systems for each of my clients when we work together in We’re Busy Being Awesome.

It’s this latter category – complete – that we’re looking at today

I know very well the frustration that comes up when we start a project with the best of intentions, and we’re genuinely excited to make it happen. But then for one reason or another, we hit a roadblock and don’t finish it.

I know the stories we tell ourselves about our “inability to finish things.” We start developing an identity that we are terrible at following through. That we’re unreliable. That we just can’t finish things.

I’ll be the first to admit that following through on those last details is extra challenging for the ADHD brain. However, I do not believe that we are inherently destined to never finish stuff. We’re not just out of luck. I do believe we can build the proper scaffolding that our individual brains need in order to follow through and stay on task with the things that matter the most to us.

Why Is Completing a Tas

k with ADHD So Challenging?

First, it’s important for us to raise our awareness of the core obstacles to stay on task with ADHD, not only so that we have a better understanding of our brains, but also to provide some space for compassion and understanding of why we can’t have our lasting strategy be to “just push ourselves through and do the thing.”

This is not a long-term solution. We need to build awareness of these obstacles so that we genuinely understand the invisible barriers that are often in our way.

Once we develop this understanding and a sense of compassion, then we’ll have a much easier time putting supports in place from a space of love and compassion rather than “should-filled” judgment.

5 Reasons It’s Hard To Stay On Task With ADHD

The five reasons many of us struggle with completing tasks as ADHDers includes…

1. Focus

It’s no secret that many of us struggle with maintaining focus on one thing for an extended period of time.

One of the reasons for this is those of us with ADHD have lower levels of certain neurotransmitters – namely dopamine and norepinephrine – in our brains. These neurotransmitters play a critical role in the motivation and reward centers of the brain.

Because we have these lower levels of neurotransmitters, it makes it more challenging to stay focused on a task that is not stimulating or rewarding for an extended period of time. Our brain is seeking additional dopamine and stimulation to stay engaged, which makes us inherently want to jump to something new or different.

Example of Trouble Focusing

You have a report to write for work, and since you worked on it yesterday, you have a general idea of where you’re at as you sit down and open up the document on your computer.

At the same time, you’re not particularly excited about this report, so although you manage to get yourself going, the sustained attention just is not there. You find yourself pulled to check your inbox, and then you notice the notifications on your phone and check those, too. And before you know it, an hour’s gone by, you’ve gone through the circuit of social media apps on your phone, and the document remains untouched without any additional words.

This is a very typical situation where our lack of focus gets the best of us. Again, nothing’s gone wrong here. It simply means that our brain is under-stimulated so we need to find ways to support ourselves through it, which we’ll talk about in a little bit.

2. Feeling Bored With The Project Or Task

We know our brains are often under-stimulated, which then makes it difficult to stick with something until it’s all the way done. We get bored.

Often the tiny details required to finish up a project are extra demanding on our executive functions when we’ve already lost interest and the novelty has worn off.

So, therefore, our brain is already on high alert seeking new stimulation or excitement to change things up. This makes it increasingly challenging to stick with that boring or under-stimulating task. It feels physically uncomfortable in our body to sit with it.

This is a very real obstacle for so many of us. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about boredom being ADHD kryptonite. It’s true. It really throws us for a loop.

This can happen when we want to start a new habit, learn a skill or establish a routine

When getting started, we have the benefit of novelty and the excitement of establishing that new habit or routine.

We love the thrill of designing it. It’s fun to use the new planner or design the habit tracker. We even feel that boost of motivation thinking about that fantasy version of the experience where following through on our morning routine means getting up is easy and never a struggle.

However, after that novelty wears off, and we need to lean into that willingness to stick with it, boredom can try to take over.

The ADHD brain may start seeking ways to switch it up. Or we find that it is indeed hard to get up earlier when we don’t shift our bedtime so we’re getting enough sleep.

So we either switch things up and never give ourselves a chance to start locking in the habit, or we give up entirely telling ourselves, “I knew it wouldn’t work. I can never stick with anything.”

When in reality, it’s not that you can’t stick with anything, it’s just that you didn’t have the tools to help you navigate that experience of boredom.

3. Outside Distractions

I’m sure this comes as no surprise, especially given the first two I mentioned.

If we’re struggling to focus on a boring topic, then the brain is already on the lookout for some kind of distraction. But also, as ADHD brains, we are often more sensitive to environmental stimuli. It’s harder to block other things out.

Even though ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the reality is that it’s not a deficit of attention; it’s a surplus of attention toward everything.

So even if we have the best of intentions to stay focused – unless we’ve slipped into hyperfocus – it’s much easier for us to get distracted by the noises outside your office door or the next thing on the task list before completely finishing the thing you’re working on. Or if you’re like me and have particularly loud thoughts, your own thoughts and feelings may be a distraction from what you were originally focused on.

Example of Getting Distracted

I’ll give an example of getting distracted from my own recent experience here.

I’ve been packing for the move, and last weekend, I was packing boxes in one of the bedrooms upstairs. I ran out of packing tape and needed to head down to the cabinet on the main floor to get another roll.

Well, as I made that trek, I picked up a coffee mug on my desk and went to put it in the dishwasher, which I then realized was clean. So I opened that up and began emptying it – completely forgetting my main objective was getting another roll of packing tape so I could tape up the two boxes, which would have finished up that room.

Even with the best of intentions, those small distractions can easily pull you off course and keep you from following through if you’re not careful.

4. Difficulty With Prioritization and Planning

The ADHD brain struggles with sequencing and breaking things down into small steps. We’re time blind and have a hard time anticipating how much time we need to complete tasks.

Example

Let’s say we’re starting a bigger project – and maybe it’s even one we haven’t done before.

In a situation like this, if you’re anything like me, the natural tendency is to not leave yourself enough time to actually follow through on all the steps simply because you didn’t know to break down the steps far enough or leave the extra overflow time for when things inevitably take longer than you think they will.

Again – this was such a familiar situation for me and can still trip me up if I don’t slow down and really map out my plan with a time estimation.

5. Thoughts of Perfectionism and Imposter Syndrome

The fifth and final category I want to look at quickly includes the sneaky thoughts of perfectionism and imposter syndrome that keep us stuck.

This category is often easily overlooked, but it actually plays one of the biggest roles in keeping us from finishing or following through on what we start.

Examples

Perhaps you’re a maker and creating some art for an Etsy business. However, rather than posting the photos and listing the items, you keep tweaking the item descriptions or retaking the photos, or going back and forth on what to name your business because your brain tells you that you have to get it ‘right’ before making your page live.

It might sound like, “I just don’t want to do it wrong. I just want to make sure I have everything right.” Those sneaky perfectionist thoughts keep us tweaking and adjusting and second guessing rather than finishing and following through.

Maybe you want to get a new job, but you keep holding back from submitting your applications. Your brain offers thoughts like, “who are you to apply to this job? You didn’t really earn your past experience. People are going to see right through you.” Or “You got lucky with your last job. People just thought you were nice, you didn’t really have the skills. You should really get another certification or gain more experience first.”

These sneaky beliefs keep you from pressing send or reaching out to make that connection.

–

5 Powerful Ways To Stay On Task With ADHD

1. Identify The Tasks

There are many reasons why we might find ourselves not staying on task, and step number one is identifying the tasks.

As my clients hear me say over and over – that awareness is everything. Once we see the situation for what it is and we recognize what’s going on, that’s when we can find the supports to help us move through it.

So what can we do here? How can we help ourselves follow through on our projects and tasks more easily?

I’m going to offer a handful of different ways that we can do this, and I invite you to play around with which approaches feel most supportive for you.

2. Define what ‘Done’ Looks Like

First and foremost is to define what done looks like.

You’ve likely heard me talk about this on the podcast in the past, and it’s for good reason. Knowing what done looks like is so important. Because if you don’t – your brain has no sense of direction. It has no end goal to work toward.

So challenge your brain to identify “done” and perhaps even visualize yourself following through and doing it. What does done actually look like?

For example

On the podcast a couple of weeks ago, I referenced a simple approach to meal prep that I like to do every couple of weeks.

In doing that process, if I don’t pause and identify what done is, I often want to completely abandon ship after I’ve finished the prep but haven’t done any of the cleanup.

However, when I slow down and remind myself that ‘done’ means…

• The food is prepped and stored in either the fridge or freezer,
• The dishes and utensils I used to prepare the food are either washed or in the dishwasher,
• The counters are clean

…this helps ensure that I’m following all the way through.

When I visualize that entire process, it helps me stick with it rather than forgetting that it’s part of the process. It also helps ensure I leave time for it.

While this is a household-type task, the importance of defining what ‘done’ looks like applies to everything from writing up a report to applying to a job to finishing the sewing project.

3. Break Down Your Project Or Task Into Smaller Steps

The next important thing to help follow through is to make sure you’ve broken down your project into smaller steps.

If you know what done looks like, and you know where you’re at now, what are all the steps that you need to take in between?

Just make sure that you make the tasks small enough and attach time estimates to each of those smaller steps.

Even though this sounds painfully tedious, I’m telling you, whenever I work on this with clients, the impact of this one step is so powerful. So I do encourage you to you slow down and give it some consideration.

As I just alluded to, building on breaking down the steps is making sure you’re actually leaving time in your plan to follow through on the last steps.

• Make sure you are leaving time for the clean up.
• Make sure you leave time for the tech not to work the first three times you try submitting that article to the online submission form.
• Challenge yourself to allocate enough time – and knowing that most of us are time blind and quite poor at estimating that time… overestimate that time as well.

Give yourself a generous amount of time to actually complete the project. If you happen to finish early, amazing! You can move on to something else. That doesn’t have to be a problem. So give yourself that generous amount of time to get it done.

4. Recognize & Celebrate When You Do Follow-Through

The next suggestion I have is to make sure you recognize and celebrate yourself when you DO follow through.

Have a way to really pause and acknowledge that you followed the steps and did complete the task. This is a big deal. Reward your brain for this.

In doing so, you’ll start the process of rewiring those neural pathways. Our brains want to do things that feel good. We want to do things that create a reward for us. So when we start rewarding ourselves for following through, the brain will want to do more of that.

These rewards can be big or small…

• It might be simply acknowledging yourself with a “nice work. that was hard. I’m so proud of you for pushing through.”
• Reward yourself with reading a chapter of the book you just got and can’t stop thinking about.
• Head out and sit in the sun on the deck for 15 minutes after following through on all the phone calls that built up over the week.
• Go out for dinner to celebrate submiting all the different job applications on your list

Find ways to recognize your hard work and show appreciation to your brain for helping you follow through on it. That’s important.

5. Set Deadlines and Add Accountability

The final powerful way to help ensure you’re following through on things is to set deadlines and incorporate accountability.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help here either.

One of the things that I love doing for my clients is holding a weekly body double session in my group coaching program. This is essentially a virtual co-working space where people can pop on the call to work on whatever is front and center for them that week.

Everyone’s mics are muted, so we’re not taking or anything. Instead, it’s this quiet, focused space to work. People can pop in and out of the call as it works with their schedule, and we all get our individual projects and tasks done working separately but together on the call.

If you’ve never done this kind of body doubling before, it may sound strange. But I’m telling you, there’s something about the fact that we’re doing work alongside others – we’re in it together – and it’s so affirming. I just love it.

In fact, I remember one of the first times I offered this, someone had mentioned in the chat…

“I got more done in this last hour and a half than I did all day today.”

I’m telling you, this kind of accountability and body doubling is really impactful.

When you combine this accountability with a deadline that you share with someone else, that can be even more supportive for certain brains who thrive with outer accountability.

Examples of Accountability and Deadlines

• You write in the chat that you will complete reading the rest of an article by the end of the body double session.
• A client might share on our call that they will make four sales calls before we meet the following week.

This type of accountability, combined with body doubling, is incredibly effective.

You can set up this approach of body double and accountability with a colleague, with a friend, or you can join us in We’re Busy Being Awesome.

The next group begins in June, which is not far away, and it’s going to be so much fun. Not only will you have that built-in support with body doubling and accountability with the group, but you will also learn all the tools and concepts within the IBBA framework, and you’ll get that direct coaching from me to help ensure that you’re building the support that works best for your brain.

If you want a taste of what that’s like, this is a reminder that you don’t want to miss my free 3-day training, where we deep dive into the topic of overwhelm and learn how to stop the spin, create clarity on our next steps, and start moving forward without all the stress. Because it is possible. And not only will you learn how to do this with concrete strategies with opportunities to implement them over the three days, but you’ll also get live coaching from me on any areas that feel sticky or confusing.

Again, you don’t want to miss this; you can sign up here. The training is on June 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th. 1:00 eastern time 12:00 central.