Like… How do you do things that are good for you and necessary?
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Start with the smallest possible thingie.
Last time I had to do The ThingTM, I didn’t go “let’s do The ThingTM,” I went “let’s get ahead of people yelling at me and do The ThingTM.”
That’s the neat thing, I don’t.
I have noticed that a lot of my drive to do better comes from spite. To spite my family, showing them that i am better than them and did it without them on my own!
Lower my expectations
All the things here.
The method I’ve been having most success with lately is a severe restriction of myself.
Part of that is because if I don’t wanna do the Thing, it’s so incredibly easy to forget the Thing, my mind doesn’t wanna hold it.
Currently, the routine I follow when I fail to self-motivate is
- Drop my kid off
- Maybe remember pills
- Maybe remember caffeine (coffee is my goto)
- Sit on the couch, think about my day
- The remote is close, do a YouTube on my TV.
- 4 YouTubes in, now understand the Chinese role in ww2 and the life cycle of 2 different moths, realize I have things to do.
- Get up, forget the things, make too much food.
- Watch things on my phone/scroll Lemmy/play mobile games
- Oh crap I have to get my kid
I have found that removing individual parts, like telling myself “no YouTube today”, only works temporarily, until I get distracted by something else, then I forget the new rule. So all it really does is reorder the schedule above.
BUT, I have found that removing all of the distractions, even the important ones like food, until I have begun the important task, helps.
So based on what I typed above, my rule for the day looks like No YouTube, no social media, no mobile games, no breakfast, no sitting on the couch I have to spell out each thing, I can’t just say “no distractions”, because the me in the moment thinks it’s a break or I’m warming up to doing the thing, some nonsense.
After an hour of doing the Thing, I get a break for breakfast, it is important. But once ive put that time into doing the Thing, it’s a lot easier to get back to it.
So the new schedule is
- Drop my kid off
- Know I need to do something, but the Thing has slipped my mind.
- Mentally run through a list of things I could do. Because so much is banned, and the Thing is forgotten, this turns up nothing.
- Realize I haven’t taken my pills or made coffee, do those
- After those, I remember why those are all I’m allowed to do, and therefore remember the Thing.
- Delay a bit because the Thing is boring or hard, but still can’t do anything else
- Do. The. THING. (For an hour)
- Breakfast, which feels so good, and dopamines the brain, hopefully making the Thing easier in the future.
- Do more Thing.
I hope this helps. This is only possible because of my prescribed Meth, caffeine, and because I’m actually a lot better at telling myself what not to do than to just do something. Good luck, we all need it.
Inspiration.
… alas, much falls to neglect relying solely on this method.
lolno
(The answer is find a way in which the thing is good and necessary for someone else. Works occasionally.)
I need accountability, the threat of failing someone looming over my head. Oh… You mean good for me. Nevermind ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ I hadn’ t read the complete question
Accountability doesn’t even work for me.
But then again I’ve never had someone bring on accountability that wasn’t a negative asshole. I could see it helping if they were positive.
I’ve seen an interesting talk by Russell Barkley recently where he said that accountability only doesn’t work for ADHD behaviour modification if it’s delayed. Which, most social accountability kinda is - “You forgot that we were going to go somewhere, I just silently won’t invite you next time”.
So what he suggested is that you should take on more accountability than normal people, and make sure that consequences hit you immediately, otherwise your brain, with its limited short-term memory, just won’t correlate behavior and consequence and not learn from it.Don’t really remember what else was in that talk, but what I took out of it is that my husband gets a water bottle and can spritz me down like a cat if he sees me procrastinating or getting too sidetracked while getting ready for something. I’m not happy about it, but it’s very effective.
It doesn’t always works for me either,
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but helps a lot of times.
Amphetamines
Edit: Seriously, nothing, and I mean nothing helps motivate you the way stimulants can. You can’t do this on your own. Your brain doesn’t produce the dopamine you need to be a functioning adult on its own; you need drugs to make up for it. Fact of life; nothing to be ashamed of.
I went on Vyvanse, a slow release amphetamine, and 2 weeks later had a heart attack. I’m pretty sure it was related because I’d taken dexies about 10 years before and stopped after a month due to chest pains, and also the first day I was on Vyvanse I got chest pains again, but the doctor said it was fine so I kept taking them.
What is fucking wrong with your doctor
Sadly my blood pressure won’t allow me to take stims anymore. It SUCKS.
(Yes, I’ve tried other alternatives, but they don’t work for me)
You’re right, the alternatives don’t work. I’ve tried every antidepressant and mood stabilizer in the book.
Try to work on getting that blood pressure down so that you can get the meds you need. Or just do what I do and bypass the doctor. It’s risky but I absolutely can not function as an adult without Adderall so I take my chances. Hell, I didn’t move out of my parents’ house until my 30s, when I finally discovered amphetamines.
Drink!
I personally like to imagine me doing things for my future self. You know those moments when you feel really grateful towards yourself for having done something good in the past? I try my best to chase that feeling.
Just say “Oh yeah future me, you’re gonna absolutely love present me for this”, and wash those dishes like a boss.
I really like this and will try using it. Thanks for sharing!
Sometimes “micro yesses” work for me. That’s where you turn “getting started” into something absurdly simple. Like, way simpler than you think. If your goal is to do the laundry, your “micro yes” is not grabbing the laundry basket, or going into the bedroom, or even standing up. It’s to wiggle your toes.
I listen to an audiobook or podcast when doing mundane stuff like dishes, vacuuming or laundry. Didn’t start out as a hack or plan, just noticed how much more I got done listening to something I’m interested in.
Yuuuuup. And if I’m stuck on my phone, repeatedly opening Voyager, remembering I need to do something, closing it, then opening it again, I can hit play on my audiobook or podcast. Then I get up and go do stuff.
This is how I force myself to exercise. I get to listen to my audiobook/music for 20-30 minutes
Heavily distract myself by listening to a podcast or audiobook and charging my phone.
I’m actually using this as a positive. There are some I relisten to because I enjoy them so much, its enough to keep a good amount of my brain on it, and let’s me do other things since my hands are free.
When I miss parts because I start down some other train of thought, since ive already listened to it so many times I know exactly where I am and what happened.
Thats about the best I’ve got.
Edit: Apparently audiobook now autocorrects to audiobookshelf, which is very funny to me
Edit 2: This doesnt always work, as I should be folding laundry right now. Going back to folding laundry.
What are the ones you enjoy on repeat?
Dungeons and Daddies (not a bdsm podcast). Especially the specials, but I relisten to the seasons. I caught it early about 4 or 5 episodes in, my daughter was just born, and I spent a lot of evenings alone cleaning so my wife could rest. I’d basically listen to all of the episodes before the next came out, just listening while doing dishes or cleaning bottles or whatever.
Its been a favorite since.
