A, slightly adapted, work focus technique for procrastinators and ADHD sufferers.
It feels great to finish tasks, however small. But what if you’re not good at finishing tasks, however small?
When you complete something you are reminded how capable you are: how you can do the work, and sometimes, even, that it was easy (okay, not always. I, too, have crunched for a deadline one too many times). It’s easier to remember the euphoria after the task is completed, but not necessarily, before.
Annoying, because it would be really helpful if you could use that knowledge as a motivational bait for yourself. Some people have little trouble doing this. I’m not one of those people, and if you’re still reading, I’m going to assume you’re not either.
Imagining the results is exciting, but it does not help me to actually get shit done. Some of us, need help to begin tasks, no matter how much we are reminded, acknowledge the value in doing so, or the consequence of not.
So what’s the problem with starting tasks? In my experience, it’s that I do not know where to begin, do not feel confident to begin, or that I simply don’t know how to begin.
I came up with a little technique, or method, to help combat this. Technically, it’s a hybrid of already existing techniques, so do not expect a Space X level of innovation. But, what is a revolution, in my opinion, is the way the method frames a focus on giving yourself the confidence to continue, and holding your hand along the way. This isn’t something other methods cover; they gloss over the details of how to actually focus, or what to focus. If you have ADHD, these kinds of executive functioning skills are literally a brain impairment, so extra help is required.
The truth is that you are a smart, capable person, who can complete these tasks that are dwelling on you. You just don’t really believe that right now, or you’re executive functioning is breaking down somewhere along the line. Below, I outline the method you can follow, to help combat this. Follow the steps, and see if it helps.
Additionally, or alternatively, watch me talk through the steps for ten minutes, here. Warning: the production quality is non-existent!
Step 1 — What’s the one thing that would make the most significant difference, if it was done?
Consider all the tasks you feel are on you right now. Which of these feel as though they would make the biggest contribution? Even if it wouldn’t complete the project, but progress it. What’s the most important?
Try to pick one thing. (See: The ONE Thing)
If you feel overwhelmed, even at this step, it might help to do what I call a “brain dump”. Note down everything that feels as if it is occupying space in your brain. Often, for me, that means writing down every single little to-do I interpret as being a current responsibility. Now that information is “parked”, giving you more room to pay attention to the following steps. You can refer back to your brain dump, and update it, whenever you want to. It also doesn’t matter if you never go back to it. That’s just dandy.
Step 2 — Let’s break it down.
How big is the task? If it’s anything bigger than what you estimate to be one hour, it needs to be broken down. Don’t write a plan, just focus on breaking the task down into something you can do today that would progress the important thing you already established.
Step 3 — Break it down, again.
Is it less than one hour? Good. Now let’s break it down again. Write how you would begin this task; what is the very first thing you would do? Describe it in detail (especially if the task is full of stuff that feel good to clarify).
When you start to feel you’re writing the task detail so vibrantly, to the point that it feels as if there is no point in writing this amount of detail, because, damn it, I could just start doing this already, why am I even writing what I am about to do? — that’s when you know you’re ready to begin!
It can be easy at this stage for you to begin writing action after action, another kind of to-do list. Try to stick to the first things you would do, imagine what would take no more than 10 minutes!
I like to call this task, my “frog”, thanks to the wonderful little productivity book, Eat That Frog.
Step 4 — Prepare to work.
Now you’re soon ready to begin your frog, the task you defined in the previous steps, but we need to do some preflight checks first. Are you sure you know exactly what to do ? Does it take less than 10 minutes to complete? Is your workspace ready, do you have the materials you need? Have I eliminated all distractions? Put your phone far, far away, close Slack, and any email applications, and I advise you to log-out of socials.
Step 5 — Start the timer!
Find a timer, preferably not your phone because they are full of distractions. A visual timer is awesome, but not totally necessary. There are lots of timers available on the web. When you start the timer the idea is to be completely focused on the work you just defined for the entire duration. 25 minutes is widely recommended as a starting place (see: The Pomodoro Technique®).
After you begin the timer, try to avoid distracting yourself as much as you can. Challenge yourself — “In this 25 minutes of time, I’m going to do pure, focused work. It’s only 25 minutes, I got this!”. You’re probably going to get distracted, that’s fine. Just like meditation, what’s important is catching yourself, and pulling yourself back into focus.
The Pomodoro Technique® suggests restarting the timer every moment a distraction strikes, but I find this counter productive to the point of my goals in this very early stages of learning a technique. I’d never finish a timer if I did that. Instead, you could try making a little mark in your notes every time you successfully realized you were distracted. Noticed you wandered off into social media land? Go to your notes, make a mark of the distraction, and get back to work.
If you realize you’re getting distracted a lot, or can’t seem to focus, you might consider some other factors. Is my frog really clear enough? Are you sure you don’t have a deep anxious thought about the work - is there something bothering you you have not listened to hard enough? Often times, I am distracted because I feel unclear about what I am doing, which creates stress. But avoid writing more to-do’s here! You only need what you’re doing right now now to be clear. If you’re brain is busy and you feel like you need a way to let go of all the other thoughts that aren’t relevant, you might find a brain dump to be incredibly helpful — See Step 1. Other things to consider are if you’re experiencing more serious emotional strain. It’s okay to have a bad day, remember that. Forgive yourself. You’re probably beating yourself up, and that never helps.
Whilst doing your timer, your aim and focus is to complete the frog. Once the frog is complete, you should feel a sense of relief and awesomeness, and hopefully, if the frog connects well to continuous work , you’ll instantly realize another thing you should do, and you can go ahead and just let that work flow take over. You’re now in-the-flow and you should embrace it. Sometimes, I like to get my nice juicy reward early, and I think that’s fine if you feel you need some extra self-love. That reward is going to my notes, and giving myself a nice fat green check mark next to the frog I just completed. Yay, I did it, I did the most important thing! But, get back to your work flow after! You still have the rest of the timer to complete work focus. If you don’t know what else to do, no problem, use the time create a new frog and get started.
Step 6 — Reward yourself!
At the end of the work focus timer, it’s time to reward yourself. Go to your notes and mark down that you complete the frog, and a single work focus timer, in a visual way.
I like to use a big juicy red tomato emoji 🍅. If you’re into paper crafts, stickers might be a great option. Find cute stickers (preferably small so you can fit many of them on your “what i achieved today” list), and pop them next to your frog, or task subject, to remind yourself visually what you achieved. Glow and bask in the feeling of being a capable, task-completing goddess. I usually recommend a 5 minute break here, stand up, look at things far away to prevent eye strain, do a quick stretch, etc. It’s also what The Pomodoro Technique® recommends. But often, I find myself wanting to do another timer, straight away, because the glory of completing a task has given me the thirst. So, I sometimes go right ahead and do just that. The Pomodoro Technique® be damned.
Step 7 —Rinse and repeat.
Now you had your first taste, you can continue to work in this fashion. The Pomodoro Technique® says take a longer break every four timers. I say, do what feels best for you. There’s no right or wrong. But there comes a point where you will begin to flag. Twenty five minutes will begin to drag when you keep doing them one after another, without no breaks, and you might forget to take care of yourself. So, after each timer, try to work on getting into the habit of listening to your body. Do you need the toilet? Hungry? Are you feeling your focus slipping? Assess and give yourself a break appropriately.
If you can be bothered and think it worthwhile, you can also keep a small record of when you take breaks. Put your 🍅’s in rows, — a new row means you took a break. Over time maybe you’ll see a pattern. Or if you’re anything like me, it’s unrealistic to expect a pattern of ones self.
Instead focus on the important thing: the frog. It’s no use starting a timer when you haven’t got your frog sorted out. When this method fails me (or rather, I it) it can be for many reasons, but it all comes back to the core:
- Clear, actionable frog.
- Reminding myself of the above.
When I get distracted, what do I do? Check what my frog is.
When I get distracted again, what do I do? Check what my frog is.
When I get distracted for the tenth time? I might actually realize here that I’ve been lazy, and haven’t given myself the respect to write a properly clear and actionable frog. Time to do something about that.
Troubleshooting
What do you do when you do not know how to write your frog so it’s actionable?
My biggest suggestion is to ask for help. There’s a good possibility you haven’t ironed out the work clearly enough. Ask your colleague, manager or a friend for help to understand what the task is, or should be: what do you need to deliver? You don’t necessarily have to show them the whole technique if it feels embarrassing: try to get them to talk about the task in an actionable way themselves. Ask them, where would they start?
Avoid the temptation to treat this method as a regular to-do list.
It’s easy to begin treating frogs like regular to-do’s. Almost every day, I notice my frog is not specific enough, so please don’t beat yourself up. This method is a technique, and arguably, a skill. It will take some practice as it’s easy to get side-tracked, even with a clear method to follow. Old habits die hard.
The point of this method
What I have changed in this way or working, compared to other methods, is to focus on rewarding myself. I cannot emphasize how important it is to use (what some people might describe as childish) visual rewards, like bright emojis, stickers, or whatever. Your confidence and belief in yourself is detrimental to your desire to want to tackle tasks. At the end of the work day, having four tomato emojis staring at you can feel pretty great, even if it’s not as much work as you hoped.
If you have ADHD, the reward part of the method is to help your brain stimulate dopamine (that’s my theory, at least). Also important to note for the ADHD readers, is that you should consider one single frog to be the only thing you have to do. Lessen the pressure, because then the work carries itself out due to you simply beginning. Beginning gets you in swing of things, and your skills and knowledge naturally take over after that, most of the time. You didn’t actually need a to-do list, you just needed a leaping off point.
To conclude, I adapted this hybrid method of “frogging” and “pomodoro’ing” because those methods, on their own, did not help me remain focus, and I still had tons of anxiety about my ability to complete tasks. I realized I need to remember that I can complete tasks, I do know what to do, and it’s easier than I believe (hell, even fun… sometimes).
To conclude, getting things done, gets things done. And to achieve that, all I really need to do, is begin.
P.S. I would absolutely love to hear if this helped you, and any adaptations you may have made yourself, either from this article, or your own creations.
