Brainhack: How to deal when you have Wasted All Your Time
Duke Here. I’ve been adulting with ADHD for a few years now, so I figured I’d share some tips for when you just Wasted A Ton Of Time You Shouldn’t Have Wasted/Generally Screwed things up.
Not to be too Neurotypical here, but I find that mindset can actually help a good deal.
No, not “Positive Thinking”. If you’ve got two days to do something that should have taken two weeks, no amount of smiling and looking on the bright side is going to help you. The key isn’t optimism, it’s stubbornness.
Step 1: Accept that the Task is important. Seems simple, but it’s not. Often, when you’ve Wasted All Your Time, it’s easy to say “Ah well, I guess this thing isn’t happening”, and you have to fight against the urge to say “This isn’t worth doing at this point”. So, step 1 is to make sure The Thing is worth doing (This could be a very short step), get that shit over with right away. Also, it’s very possible that, at this point, The Thing just ISN’T worth doing. The rest of this process is not a pleasant one, and you shouldn’t put yourself through it for something that’s not important. So, weigh the pros and cons, and decide, once and for all, Does This Thing Need to Happen?
If you have a big pile of things to do, this is where you start cutting. Order them by priority, and anything that doesn’t make the cut gets left behind.
Step 2: Start from the Present. Sometimes you need to get things done without enough time to do them properly. Sometimes this is your fault, sometimes it is not. But, at this point, WHY you ended up in this situation is NOT IMPORTANT. You may have spent the last four hours watching Youtube videos about Ducks, but from this point forward, you’re trying to achieve your goal. Take all that guilt and shame and put it away for now. You’re not dismissing it, you’re just dealing with it later. Imagine that you are blameless. Approach the problem as if there was literally NOTHING you could have done to avoid your exact current situation. Because it doesn’t matter. If you passed step 1, then it means that doing the thing is more important than kicking yourself.
If at any point you find yourself spiraling out of productivity, restart from this step.
Step 3: Fulfill your needs. This can be done concurrently with Steps 1, 2, and 4. Those steps are primarily Mental, while this is mostly a rote physical step. Take a shower, go for a quick walk outside, eat a sandwich, straighten up your room. Anything urges or distractions that will be nagging at you moving forwards should be cleared up. It’s tempting to dive right in, but spending ten-fifteen minutes taking care of yourself now will save you time later. Eating now means you’re not constantly debating about whether or not you can afford to eat later. Taking a shower now means not feeling miserable and disgusting later.
Step 4: Identify the Ideal Outcome. If you’ve really Screwed Up that thoroughly, chances are you can’t achieve your initial goals. That’s fine, the important thing is that you get the best result possible from this point forwards. Let’s say you were planning to bake two cakes. Well, One cake is better than no cakes, a bad Essay is better than no essay. If a Bad Essay is the best you can do, then that’s what you’re doing. At this point, you need to set aside any thoughts of pride or ego. You might be turning in a flaming pile of garbage, but it’s the Best Dumpster Inferno you could manage at this point.
Step 5: Count your Spoons. If you’re in this situation, there’s a good chance that you have a limited amount of energy to work with. Caffeine and Spite will only get you so far. You may be tempted to think that you can go past your limits, that you are an unstoppable productivity machine capable of overpowering the limits of this weak flesh by sheer willpower alone, but that’s Ego talking, and as we established in step 3, there is no room for Ego here. Certainly you’ll be pushing yourself, but it doesn’t help anybody if you crash and burn halfway through the project. Don’t count on all-nighters if you know you can’t pull them.
Think of it as assessing what resources you have available. If you’re writing a paper, and you know you can work for four hours straight, that’s a resource. If you have a friend willing to help you with editing, that’s a resource. If you know that by treating yourself to a milkshake, you can keep yourself motivated and focused, That’s a Resource. Know yourself, so you know what you can do.
Step 6: Make your Plan: Now that you have your goals and your resources, make your plan. Don’t make it too elaborate, with the pressure on, there can be a temptation to try to precisely plan things out, but that can just lead to you wasting time. You may be tempted to try to make A Perfect Plan, but that’s just Ego talking, it’s another way to procrastinate. Get the plan whipped up quickly and get to work.
Step 7: Execute the Plan. Get to work, do the shit that needs doing. If you find yourself in the zone, ride that as long as possible. Otherwise, when you feel a natural break point, take a minute to recharge. Get some water, change your music, gaze wistfully out the window.
Don’t underestimate the power of the Placebo Effect here. I’ve been constantly saying “Don’t let your Ego get in the way”, well, let your Ego run free. If you think you work better with classical music, a mug of tea, or your lucky scarf, do that.
If you ever get knocked off track, reset to Step 2. You should be able to rush through the other steps pretty quickly, so this won’t waste too much time.
Step 8: Accept your work. Perfect is the enemy of good. Especially in a situation where you have multiple tasks you’re trying to complete, it’s important that you recognize when you are finished, not only so that you stop polishing and actually do whatever you need to do to finalize the project, but for your mental state. Accepting that a project is flawed but done is important. If you don’t do that, then the project will be forever incomplete in your mind, which goes nowhere good.
Step 9: Present your work. Whatever you have done, that’s what you’ve done. Turn in the project, whatever form that takes, and own it. Don’t try to weasel into “Well it would be better if X hadn’t happened”. You did what you could, be proud of that.
Step 10: Learn your Lessons. Now that you are done, you can take all that useless guilt and shame you boxed away in step 2 and deal with it. Why did you end up in that situation? What could you have done better? If you have a disability/mental illness that contributed, make sure you factor that in, not as a personal failing, but as an obstacle to overcome.
I’ll stick to my personal experiences with ADHD. If I wasted time because I decided to play video games for six hours, THAT’S a personal failing, and the lesson learned is “Don’t do that, Dipshit”.
If I wasted time because I ended up browsing Reddit for six hours, that’s probably a symptom. I know that, if given a chance, I’ll waste six hours on Reddit. So, the lesson is to avoid giving myself that chance. Unplug from the internet, get a friend to check in on you every so often and make sure you’re working. If it helps to work in a public place like a library, do that.
Sometimes you don’t get any important lessons from this step, but that’s a key part of this too. If you learned lessons, then you know that you can do better next time. If you don’t learn any lessons, then you did nothing wrong, and shouldn’t be kicking yourself over this mess.
