How urgency triggers action in ADHD brains
This is the final article in my multi-part series on motivation in ADHD. Previously, we’ve talked about novelty, interest, and challenge.
Today, we’re talking about the final trigger: urgency.
(This is an excerpt from the newly launch ADHD Career Guide.)
A lot of people with ADHD tend to procrastinate on things we don’t find interesting.
We’ll keep kicking that can down the road until the deadline smacks us in the face. Then, our ADHD hyperfocus kicks in, and we’ll get a weeks worth of work done in a day or two.
You may sometimes see advice like…
People with ADHD find external goals and deadlines highly motivating because they create a sense of urgency. So, give yourself a deadline on a project, and set it for before the project is actually due, to trigger that urgency and motivate yourself to get it done.
This kind of advice is clearly written by neurotypical folks.
External deadlines absolutely create a sense of urgency for folks with ADHD. It’s why we so often wait until the last second to get things done.
But a deadline you just make up for yourself?
That’s not an external anything. It’s an artificial, internal deadline that has no real weight or meaning. You know it’s bullshit. Your brain knows it’s bullshit.
So the deadline approaches and you go, “Yea, that’s bullshit. I’m not doing that right now. I’d rather to do {other, much more fun task}.”
In my experience, there’s not a lot you can do about this one beyond just accept it as an aspect of who are.
If there’s ways you can work novelty, interest, or challenge into the task so that the looming deadline isn’t the trigger, great! Do that!
But sometimes, you just have boring work that needs to get done, and you’re going to put it off until the last minute.