#task switching

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

ADHD & Task Switching

Future ADHD

[turns-out-its-adhd]

[executive-dysfunctioned]

ADHD is starting to clean one room and somehow ending up reorganizing your entire junk drawer instead

[kelpk0re]

Autistics and Task Switching ♾️

hello here’s a really good resource explaining task switching for autistic ppl and how hard/painful it can be !!

my partner was having a hard time understanding why i get so upset when we’re hanging out (but doing different things) and he interrupts what i’m doing to show me something on his phone. i was having a hard time explaining my emotions/feelings to him until i came upon this article!

[us-being-us2]

Dopamine Seeking

Do any other ADHDers or autistic folks find that they try to wring every last drop of dopamine out of every activity that actually gives a registerable amount of dopamine, to the point that they're wildly overstimulated/feeling ill/ no longer having and enjoyable time by the time they stop? Does anyone have trouble recognizing when to stop/ a stopping point not dictated by these uncomfortable feelings that persist after stopping? Suggestions/hacks/coping strategies? Trouble with transitions and task switching doesn't help.

[threecheersmaka]

You ask miette to task switch??? You dare tell her to finish one task and start another?? Oh! Oh! Jail for you! Jail for you for One Thousand Years!!

[abcsofadhd]

That ADHD feel when you have something to do later on in the day so your brain refuses to let you do anything else but lie around and wait for that specific thing to happen instead of getting other things done cause your brain is too preoccupied with a future commitment instead of the current free time

Why 🥺

Ughh yea, stupidly common.

ADHDers struggle with task/ cognitive switching cause of our executive dysfunction. We can only think/ do one thing at a time. So when we’re looking forward to something or have plans, we can’t focus on anything else.

I’ve also noticed an anxious element to it. I feel like I’ll forget about my future plans so my anxiety doesn’t wanna stop thinking about it in case I forget.

[autism-asks]

Hello! I was wondering if you could explain what trouble with task switching is. If you could could provide a few examples, please?

Trouble with task switching is difficulty transitioning from one activity to another.

A few examples:

At work recently, I was untangling a mess of twine and rolling it back into a tidy ball as part of the cleanup from a class activity.  A coworker asked me to send an email (which was more important and more time-sensitive than the twine thing) and my answer was “I need to finish this first.”  I was focused on the twine thing and I knew that setting it down and coming back to it in two minutes would be more stress on my brain than finishing it first and sending the email second.

When I was a kid, I always did my weekend homework on Friday afternoon even though most kids apparently did it on Sunday, because on Friday my brain was still in “school mode” and it was easy to do, whereas by Sunday my brain would be in “weekend mode” and I would find it difficult to focus on homework.

I’ve never been good at writing things in pieces.  In school when we had long-term assignments and were told to do a certain amount each night, I would just do the whole thing in one go because putting it down and coming back to it felt like more work than doing it all at once (even though this sometimes meant I would spend six straight hours on a presentation).  I love writing short stories, but I don’t expect I’ll ever write a novel for this reason.

I sometimes take a long time to get around to getting off tumblr and starting to cook dinner because, even though I’m a bit hungry and know I need to cook, the energy cost of switching tasks is such that I need to build up to it.

I hope this helps!

-Liz