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I Only Do It When Someone Will Be Mad

Someone posted this, and thousands of people replied "this is me":

I have ADHD, which means I complete tasks based on how mad I think other people will be if I don't.

I laughed. Then I looked at my own week. The report my boss wants on Friday? Done, at two in the morning on Thursday. The guitar I bought two years ago, the run I keep planning, my own portfolio? Nobody is waiting for those. So they wait. For years.

Two piles on a desk. Left: 'Report for Friday', with 'Boss, checks it Friday, 09:00' above it, stamped DONE and finished Thursday at 02:00. Right: 'Guitar', 'Running' and 'Portfolio', dusty, with a cobweb, under 'Nobody checks', waiting for 2 years.
One pile has someone waiting. The other has dust.

It is not about knowing what to do

If you work like this, you do not need one more list of what to do. You already have the list. You know running is good for you. You know the portfolio would help your career.

The psychologist Russell Barkley, who has studied ADHD for decades, says it well: ADHD is "not a disorder of knowing what to do, it is a disorder of doing what you know."

That is the gap. Knowing that practice makes me better at guitar does not move my hands.

A reward far away feels weak

Part of the reason is in the brain. In 2009, a team led by Nora Volkow scanned the brains of 53 adults with ADHD and 44 adults without it. In the ADHD group, the dopamine reward pathway showed less activity. And the lower it was, the lower people scored on motivation.

Dopamine is part of what makes a reward feel worth the effort. When that signal is weak, a reward far away, like a healthy body next month or a good portfolio next year, feels faint. You know it is real. It just does not pull.

Only two times: now and not now

Barkley has another line that I think about a lot. For people with ADHD, there are only two times: now and not now.

A deadline next week is not now. A goal for next year is very much not now. And not now does not feel real yet. You will deal with it later, when it turns into now.

A timeline. On the left, a bright area labelled NOW with 'Report, boss checks Friday' pulled into it. On the right, a foggy area labelled NOT NOW with 'Healthy next month' and 'Portfolio next year' fading into the fog.
Anything in the fog can wait. So it does.

This is not only an ADHD thing. Almost everyone values a reward less when it is further away. Researchers call it delay discounting. A 2016 meta-analysis by Jackson and MacKillop found it is stronger in ADHD: a later reward loses its value faster. Most of us know the feeling. ADHD turns the volume up.

What the angry person really does

So why does the report get done? Because the boss puts it in now.

You can see her face. You can imagine her looking at the clock on Friday. Your heart beats a little faster when you think about it. The deadline is still days away, but the person waiting for it is in your head today. That is now, and now is the only time that moves you.

The guitar has nobody. No face, no clock, nobody checking. It stays in not now for as long as you let it.

Fear is expensive fuel

It works. So why not keep using it? Because of what it costs.

  • You start late. You only move when the fear is big enough, and that is usually close to the deadline. Late means rushed, and rushed means work below what you can do.
  • You are always a little on alarm. The worry does not stop when the task is done, because the next angry person is already in line.
  • Your own things never get a turn. Nobody is ever mad that you did not practice guitar. So fear moves you, but only through other people's lists.

It was never the anger

Look at it again. What made you move was not the anger. It was two things: someone was waiting, and you could see it now.

You can keep those two things and leave the fear out.

  1. Make the dream small enough for today. "Get good at guitar" has no today. "Guitar practice, 15 minutes" does.
  2. Give it a time. A time pulls it out of the fog. "Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 20:00" means that on Wednesday at 20:00, it is now.
  3. Give it something that waits. Not a boss. Something small that you can see, that notices when you skip, and that is happy when you show up.
A big card 'Get good at guitar' with an arrow to a small habit card 'Guitar practice, 15 min, Mon Wed Fri at 20:00', with a small calm face sitting on top of it.
A dream has no today. A small habit with a time does.

Something small that waits

This is why every habit in Clarity has its own little face. When the habit is due, the face appears in the corner of your screen and waits. Ignore it, and it gets annoyed, then angry. Do the habit, and it turns green and proud. (I wrote the full story in The Angry Little Face That Fixed My Habits.)

It is a small and slightly silly kind of someone waiting. But it does the one useful thing the angry boss did, and leaves out the rest. It puts your habit in now. It does not scold you, and you do not have to be afraid of it. Start late, and it is happy the moment you show up.

And this time, the list it guards is yours.

Start with one thing nobody waits for

Pick one dream that has been in the fog for too long. The guitar, the run, the portfolio. Cut it into a habit small enough for today, give it a time, and let something wait for it.

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