Part II of On Procrastination

Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Earlier, I wrote on how procrastination isn’t a moral issue. It’s an emotional one.
When you’re eager to see a movie and don’t know what time it’s playing, you happily gather the information. Your interest and good mood allow you to get the information you need, without fuss or anxiety.
But what if you had to call the movie theater to get that information and you deeply disliked making phone calls? You got all sweaty and anxious that you’d say the wrong thing. Your drive to see the movie is now in competition with your anxiety about the phone call.
And what if the project itself wasn’t that fun? You need to do your taxes and you need more information. Perhaps you end up in a spiral of negative thoughts – you meant to be better organized this year, you meant to look up that information last month, truly, you just are terrible at this type of stuff, actually you’re just terrible.
In that last case, there’s neither interest nor positive emotions helping you. It’s just the ocean of fear and shame.
People with ADHD struggle with procrastination for four main reasons:
1) Our brain wiring means we need the right type of engagement to focus
The ADHD brain thrives on interest – negative or positive. If a task doesn’t appeal, the story we tell ourselves of our impending failure (or scrolling endlessly on TikTok) can be just as engaging to our brain. The brain is all lit up, but it’s not acting on the task.
The ADHD brain also has difficulty switching from one task to another – once the stories of failure (or the cat videos) start, it’s hard to turn to another task.
2) Our brain wiring means we often over or under-estimate the amount of time needed to do a task
It’ll take the whole afternoon to do the dishes!
I can write that 20 page paper tonight, after band practice! It’ll only take an hour!
3) We find it harder to store memories of how we’ve been successful
We have a harder time holding onto positive feelings. Our attention to our success and our happiness is often cut short by negative bias. Those good feelings – and those blueprints for successful action in the past – often don’t make it into long-term memory.
All tasks can feel like they are new, taxing the brain for more energy than we might have.
4) We fall into the ocean of fear and shame more easily than other folk
While all humans have negative memory bias (it was critical to remember not to eat the shiny purple berries!), the ADHD brain augments this negative bias with low self-esteem, feelings of guilt for not being “normal,” and lots of well-meaning critical messages (why can’t you just? If only you would…).
Each of these things could be unpacked further. I’ll write more about both negative bias and ways to create connected engagement in future blogs.
For now, if you are finding yourself avoiding a task – or if someone you love is avoiding a task – remember that the avoidance is not purposeful. It’s a symptom. Be curious. What’s getting in your (or your loved one’s) way?