Do you find yourself looking over the edge of a deadline in panic? “AGAIN! What is wrong with me? Why do I always do this? I had all kinds of time!” I get it! Earlier this week, I was in the same place, but it was personal and hitting my values this time. Honoring birthdays is important to me. I listen and collect gifts ideas throughout the year. Some might identify this as my way of speaking my love language. I think of it more as being a person who pays attention to the small stuff and “gets you.” Sorry, I digressed. My best sisters share their birthdays on Sunday. I’ve had their gifts next to my desk forever now. Yet, there they were staring at me, again unwrapped and unsent. I’m not too fond of shipping costs- maybe because I live far from my family, so anything special from me comes at an additional cost.
My story is not unique. You’ve heard it before. Maybe it sounds just like you. I want people to feel special and, in my mind, special cannot arrive a day late. Do they care? No, but I do! So, here I am. My unique gifts were yet to be boxed. My local post office locations had closed. Was I going to accept a day late? No, instead, I drove way further than I should need to so I could get them out and on their way to my important people. I found myself up against the clock driving in a storm on a day that had already gone really bad. Again, I had put off what I could have done yesterday or last week. Why do I do this to myself? I drive past the post office twice a day, five days a week- SERIOUSLY Cindy! More money spent and time wasted. But, they arrived. Yesterday! So it was a success. Right? Let’s see.
Procrastination! We put things off because, in our minds, we believe we have time- so, we keep telling ourselves. Until we don’t. Then we find ourselves looking over the abyss. Time, it’s like an elusive snake. One would think a snake moves slowly. How could they possibly be remotely fast without legs (FUN FACT: snakes can move up to 12MPH). That is pretty fast for a creature without legs. Time slithers away literally every moment. Sometimes it feels slow, and others way too fast. So here we are with lots to do and without the proper time to do it. Time to task completion is unbalanced. How can you capture your time and use it more effectively?
Procrastination is a common thread for most of my coaching clients at some point or another. “I am always putting things off! And now, I am overwhelmed with more than I can handle.
I could do so much better if I gave myself more time, but I never do.” Procrastination is the process of putting things off, often to your detriment. For people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the art of procrastination becomes a coping mechanism to doing anything. Think about what you feel inside when urgency kicks in? Urgency charges you. It’s like a jump start when your car battery is dead. Do you ever feel like you have a dead battery when it comes to doing certain things?
Let’s think of this a little deeper using a car as our reference. The alternator is the car part responsible for charging your car battery. The alternator only works when the engine is running. The ADHD brain is not using this model of continually feeding the battery to maintain a charge. The battery (ADHD brain) only relies on what reserves it has until it is empty. Maybe the ADHD brain is like having a faulty alternator, or maybe their battery cells are dry. Dry battery cells would be that the brain is not getting proper sleep, nutrition, exercise, and using support systems. Without these critical components, your cells run dry- in essence, your brain runs dry. Instead of replacing the alternator, i.e., getting new tools and strategies or maintaining sufficiently charged cells, procrastination is used to get a jump start. What if you could do life differently?
How could you build your own alternator if you don’t want to rely on being jumpstarted into action using urgency when your battery is dead? How often are you up against a deadline holding onto hopes that you can pull it off? To make matters even trickier, the ADHD brain often struggles with accurate time estimation. The ADHD mind either thinks it can complete a task way faster than it actually can or had no clue it wouldn’t be that hard once they got started. So see, it comes back to the start thing again. Your brain is your engine, and you need to have your alternator and battery cells functioning. Oh, and you have to have your timing belt working.
As an ADHD Life Coach, I am here to say, “You can beat your old way of doing things with new tools and techniques to getting stuff done, on time and without so much angst.” What is procrastination costing you to rely on working only with urgency? What is going on inside? Your body is amped up, running on adrenaline, and releasing cortisol from increased stress levels. My tribe, this goes back to science. ADHD is a brain thing. The human body is an intricate balance of chemistry. When one thing is off, either high or low, there are effects. Finding a resolution to your procrastination will alter the chemistry inside of your body and change your health. We don’t see what is happening on the inside at the cellular level, so it is hard to know the harm we are causing ourselves by functioning in this way. I did it this week, too, jolting my body with urgency, running on adrenaline to beat a closing time. Worrying, knowing if I didn’t pull this off, not only would my gifts be late, but my pre-paid labels wouldn’t be valid to ship later. I put myself through this stress with a significant cost to my overall well-being and others in that moment.
What can we do not to push ourselves into this corner? The difference between the neurotypical brain and people with brain differences is that the neurotypical brain behaves from habit. The ADHD brain is using the effects on the body with urgency to create a jumpstart action. Neurotypical people can fall into this habit or lack the necessary executive function skills to plan and execute tasks. Procrastination is common. But is it genuinely serving you to be at your best in the moment? Here are five things all brains could try to blast the trap of procrastination. What if you could make your life easier? Would you try?
- Work Backward
- Chunk it
- Do the hard stuff first, or start by doing an easy task
- Create “your” ideal environment!
- Be specific!
Let’s take this a step further and see how these Five Procrastination Blasters could apply to a common struggle for people of all brain styles.
“Let’s Be on time.” If you want to be on time, you must think bigger. Sounds so simple. Just be on time. But, what does being on time truly mean? Is being on time mean you are walking in the door, or are you in your seat with your computer booted up? There can be multiple steps required before you are on time. In the example of being on time, it may be dependent on where you are showing up. You have to use method five by being specific. If its’ being on time for dinner, then on time may be the moment you ring the doorbell. For work, on time could be when you clock in or when your boss sees you signed into your computer for a meeting. What do you need in or out of your environment to be on time? This is employing method four. Maybe you need to not talk on the phone. Perhaps you need a zone that holds all of your important things (i.e., keys, phone, important papers) to get out the door, so you are not heading back inside, killing precious time to retrieve your keys.
On-time doesn’t always mean you are arriving at the building. In this example, the brain is also using time estimation. How long does it take to enter a building and check-in or get to your destination? Are you waiting for an elevator or people to get through a line? Estimating time in these situations can be difficult and can result in your choice to put off timeliness because it is simply hard to predict. Therefore, you succumb to being late. Oh-well. But you can factor in these situations using the work backward method described in number one. Then, you can find yourself where you need to be on time or maybe even with time to breathe.
Procrastination is the real deal in keeping you from reaching your actual potential. With procrastination comes shame, guilt, self-sabotaging thoughts, frustration, overwhelm, defeat, stress, and …. You know what you harbor inside when you are over-taken by procrastination. You now know why your brain seeks urgency and may choose to procrastinate. You also know why it is keeping you from what you really want for yourself. ADHD starts in the brain. Your brain chemistry may make it harder to take a step forward, but you have it in you to build tools, strategies, and the ability to form techniques that will help you break through the habit of putting off your opportunities for greatness. I know you can do this because you learned to walk. You fell down, yet you kept trying. Over and over, you got up until you gained your balance, spatial awareness, muscle strength, and coordination. It took a lot for your brain to bring it all together for you to walk. Maybe you even held someone’s hand or onto the edge of the couch, but you kept choosing to walk. It was ingrained in your developmental capabilities. You can do the same in overcoming your habits of procrastinating in your life. Maybe you need a hand or a couch, just like when you were learning to walk. You can have support. Life coaching is a forward-thinking approach to getting what you need and want. Today you can show up on time for yourself with strategies to reach towards your need factors. What step will you take to find your greatness?
Cindy North is a Certified ADHD Life Coach with specific training in ADHD neurobiology through the iACTcenter and is moving towards continued coach certification with the International Coach Federation. Her passion is guiding the ADHD community to success by empowering others to shine with their abilities.
