Honestly I (AuDHD) tend to leave things until the last possible minute and then panic-crunch to do the thing out of a fear of disappointing whoever the thing is for. The problem of course is if the thing doesn’t have a hard deadline or person who needs it done then I can put it off indefinitely.

I use my phone as the second half of my brain. Lots and lots of scheduled reminders. Which is not going to work for everyone, but it works for me.

It’s a challenge to be sure. I can’t say how I get something started necessarily, that’s often just the luck of the draw and how well my meds are working that day.

But I have ADHD and I try to be aware and quickly recognize when I get into a “state of flow” and preserve that state whenever I’m there, for as long as possible.

What this looks like, is my husband bringing me food if I am on a bender cleaning out a closet or heads down working on a presentation at work.

It also looks like me staying at work late unexpectedly because I can’t interrupt a good flow, or coming home and delving right back in as soon as possible.

Or me not remembering or caring to eat until I run down so much I can’t keep going.

So as you can see, I use both healthy and non-healthy “coping mechanisms”.

I exploit the state of flow whenever it comes, as much as possible, and muddle/hobble through when I’m not there. Of course, coming up to a deadline increases the chances that I’ll get into a state of flow, if not just out of adrenaline and fear of really screwing up and missing a deliverable.

For hard things, that I don’t like doing, this is quite an issue for me. I really have to do it now, or have a strict schedule for when I would do it. If I delay something till tomorrow, well, then it can probably also be done the day after that … So generally I just try to avoid delaying things that don’t need to be delayed.

As others on this thread have said, ADHD medication at the proper doses can be a real life changer for motivation on these tasks that feel totally walled off.

SSRIs and other antidepressants are super helpful for keeping you out of those deep dark days, but I didn’t find it helped me much with motivation alone. Once I found the right SSRI and the right stimulant medication (Prozac and vyvanse for me), I started finding it a lot easier to just get chores done when I thought of them. If it’s something I can’t do right now (like groceries), I just write it down in my Reminders lists so that I’m not scrambling when I go out to get groceries. The apple reminders app is basically my second brain, and I always write down stuff I gotta do that I’m prone to forget about in there.