avatarJody Gates

Summary

The article outlines a strategy for managing ADHD by breaking down large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks to prevent feeling overwhelmed and to maintain enthusiasm and productivity.

Abstract

The author discusses the challenges of managing tasks and projects when dealing with ADHD, emphasizing the importance of creating bite-sized tasks to avoid feeling overwhelmed. The strategy involves working backward from the end goal, setting realistic timelines, and defining clear milestones and tasks that can be completed within a day or two. The article provides a detailed example of starting an online merchandise business, illustrating how to break down the goal into actionable steps, from defining what to sell to creating a storefront and marketing the products. The author stresses the importance of flexibility in planning, the need for variety in tasks to cater to novelty-seeking behavior, and the value of involving friends and family in decision-making processes to maintain motivation.

Opinions

  • The author believes that a good offense is the best defense against feeling overwhelmed with ADHD, suggesting that proactive planning is key to success.
  • They express that enthusiasm for new projects often leads to overly ambitious timelines, which should be tempered with realistic expectations.
  • The author advocates for setting constraints on tasks to prevent getting stuck in analysis paralysis and to maintain focus.
  • They suggest that tasks should be diverse and engaging to align with the individual's need for novelty and to prevent boredom.
  • The author values the input of friends and family in the decision-making process, as their support can fuel enthusiasm and progress.
  • They highlight the importance of not marrying the initial timeline but being open to adjustments as the project progresses.
  • The author emphasizes that defining clear criteria for tasks and milestones helps in maintaining a clear vision and excitement about the project's progression.

Making Things Bite Sized

Tiny Tasks Make Light Work

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

When it comes to ADHD, everything is ripe for making you feel overwhelmed. If you’re like me, once you’re overwhelmed, you move into the distraction behaviors. I’ve gotten more aware of what’s happening when it happens, but I’m still working out what I can do to recover. For now, the best defense is a good offense. If I can set myself up for success in advance, I’m much more likely to succeed. On any given morning, if I look at the tasks for specific projects, the one-off tasks and the day to day tasks I have before me, it has the potential to throw me into shut-down mode. Especially if the specifics about the larger project are in my face as well.

I find what works best for me is to spend time when scoping out my projects to work backwards, start with the end in mind. What is the desired result? For example: I want to start an online merch business. With that vision I’ll try to think realistically about how long that may take, acknowledging that my first target is usually wrong. Then I turn that into some form of noticeable progress stages to make it less daunting. You can see where this is going, keep going smaller until they are manageable. I find it helps to have timelines for these as I work backward, but remind myself that I can make adjustments to the “big” items as I’m working on the tasks later. Lets see what this looks like.

Goal:

  • Start an online merch business. — Timeline: Next Month

Milestones:

  • Define what I’m selling. — Timeline: Today
  • Create the store front. — Timeline: 2 weeks
  • Make first sale. — Timeline: Next month

The enthusiasm around a new idea sometimes makes me set ambitious timelines. That enthusiasm rarely acknowledges the freeze that can come with being overwhelmed, and I know this about myself. Immediately double all of those goals and then work on the next phase

Define What I’m selling — If this isn’t already known to me then usually I have too many ideas already and can get caught on the treadmill of switching between ideas. As I am going through the definition process, I again acknowledge my weakness and try to put some guides on this. Presuming I’ll be using an online source to make the shirts, I decide that I can only choose 1–2 items and they must share design assets. Perhaps a shirt and a mouse pad? At this point I would remind myself that once the store opens there is nothing preventing me from expanding.

Define Selling Tasks:

  • Identify the 1–2 items — Timeline: 2days
  • Identify where I will get the items — Timeline: 3–4 days
  • Identify where the product will be stored for shipment — 1–2 days
  • Identify how the item will be shipped — Timeline: 3–4 days

All of a sudden, that first simple 1 day timeline makes less sense, also these are starting to feel like tasks I could do without getting overwhelmed. Now, there is some overlap with several of these, or if you find the right solution, it might solve several with one blow. (For example, an online fulfillment service like a T-Shirt printing company might handle everything for you.) If you’re like me then you can get to spinning your wheels answering those questions, thats where giving constraints matters. If this list is still too overwhelming then you go deeper:

  • Identify 1 Item type — 1 day
  • Come up with 3 designs — 2 days
  • Pick first design (accept that once you start, you can add more later) — less than 1 day
  • Research vendors, identify 3 best options — 2 days
  • Pick 1 of the 3 (accept that “perfect” is an ideal, not a reality) — less than 1 day

I’ll need to define criteria for “best vendor” such as: provides storage, handles shipping, provides a storefront and handles ecommerce.

See how the tasks get shorter as they get more specific? I try to make them small enough that I could complete one of them inside of my “productive” time during a day, sometimes that “productive time” is long enough that I can get several one. None of these tasks are so all consuming that it’d be bigger than my daily energy level. On a really good day, I might even accomplish all of those on the same day… but I NEVER plan on that being the case.

You’ll also notice that, while they’re pretty linear, you could shuffle around the timing for some of them. You may also notice there is a bit of creative in there, a bit of research and then some executive function practice.

Once I have phase 1 defined, I move on and do the same thing for the second milestone. Usually I’m feeling more informed about my ability and I’m more thoughtful laying it out.

Create the Storefront — Knowing that I’ve adjusted my plan to reach the first milestone, I don’t feel like this should be as hard, but there are several things I have to get through.

Define Storefront Tasks:

  • Come up with a Store Name — Timeline: 1–2 days *
  • Come up with Store Logo — Timeline: 1–2 days *
  • Create a layout for the first shirt design. — Timeline: 1 day
  • Online T-Shirt stores typically let you choose several styles of shirt. This could be overwhelming, so set a limit for your selection in advance, for example 5 shirt types.

*If needed, come up with 3 choices first, then pick one randomly, or ask friends.

You’re seeing the pattern at this point, try to never have a task that takes more than 2 days, ideally target something that YOU can accomplish within 1 day. Try to have a mixture of activity types in the list so you can move from your analytical brain to your creative brain and try to loop in friends and family with decision making, your enthusiasm and theirs can keep you going.

The final milestone from my example is a bit more tricky, I can just create the store and walk away… hoping the shirts will sell themselves, but the reality is, I need to spend some time and effort finding an audience and making my product known to them. Lets recap the principles real quick:

  • Work your way backwards from the end goal to the tasks.
  • Set an initial “ideal” timeline to inform how urgent the tasks and milestones will be, but don’t marry it.
  • Define milestones in the process so you can see a light at the end of the tunnel as you’re making progress and so the larger goal isn’t too overwhelming.
  • Create milestones that are exciting to plan for but that will also keep you excited about progression.
  • Use the milestones as the goal of your tasks, having clear milestones makes it easy to have clear tasks
  • Feel free to be sloppy with your first draft of tasks, giving you a chance to realize if your timelines are realistic.
  • Give your tasks a realistic timeline based on the energy level you know you have for things.
  • When you have a task that would likely take more than 2 days, find a way to put restrictions on it so you can stay focused.
  • Try to make tasks that fit with your “novelty” needs so that you’re not just doing one boring thing after another.

With those guidelines, what would be a good breakdown for the marketing aspect of driving people to your store and making sales? Is there another milestone once the store is life? Can you find a way to keep yourself enthusiastic as you tune the store?

Hopefully that gives some thoughts on juggling tasks, making them manageable, keeping yourself functioning and and feeling like you can plan out a project without getting overwhelmed.

Like what I say? Please follow Jody Gates, you might want to subscribe to my newsletter, mindfullish, as well.

Adhd
Task Management
Executive Function Skills
Overwhelm
Project Management
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