Waiting for Inspiration
I'm sitting in my office thinking about what I want this week's episode to be about. Not only am I behind on making episodes, but I'm behind in my content planning. This isn't a great place to be on Monday morning - while I know I can produce an episode fairly quickly, it still takes time and there are other things I need to get done this week.
But here I am, waiting for inspiration.
This is not a good strategy - first of all, it's passive. It's me expecting something to just pop into my head. To be fair, with ADHD, I do have ideas pop into my head all the time. Unfortunately, those ideas are rarely the kinds of things that are worth actually pursuing. This is one of the reasons I'm not that worried when I forget that great idea I had, usually it turns out that my brain just got great confusing with horribly complicated.
So sitting here and waiting for something to just pop into my head isn't a good idea - but then, what should I be doing instead? I could consult my crystal ball but I'm gonna be honest here and say that hasn't been producing results either.
Right now I'm kind of cheating - I'm not really using any strategy, I'm just writing about what's going on. Instead of coming up with a new episode idea, I'm writing on the very thing that I'm having trouble with. This is actually kind of a common strategy for me - whenever I have some kind of nagging issue I like to make an episode about it. Gives me free rein to dive into researching without feeling guilty about how I should be using my time for other things.
This is actually a great place to start when we get stuck. Often when we're stuck we're just thinking about the problem and not the solution. To be fair, it is important that we define what our problem is - all too often we're working on solutions to the wrong problem.
This means our first step here is really making sure that we know what's going on - but to also not get caught up in our preconceived notions of what the problem is.
And even when something is clearly a problem, it might not be the root problem, it could actually just be the symptom of an underlying root problem.
Let's say you're having trouble getting out the door in the morning and that's making you late to work. We identify it as the problem but try as we might we don't make any progress getting out the door in the morning. Maybe we set alarms for when we need to leave or we try getting up earlier but we're just so tired in the morning it doesn't seem to matter how much time we have.
But what if that's exactly what our problem is - that we're so tired in the morning and being late is a symptom of that tiredness. Now we could stop there and just say that we're staying up too late and give ourselves the solution that we need to go to bed earlier. However, from my experience, going to bed late is a symptom in and of itself. The evenings are one of the only times I get time to myself and so I want to stretch that time out. This means that if I want to go to bed earlier it might help if I scheduled me time during the day. If I'm able to get that time during the day then I'm less likely to feel like I need it at night and more likely to be able to get to bed on time. This in turn then helps me wake up feeling refreshed which then can help me get out the door more easily because I'm not so frazzled by lack of sleep.
Of course, this is a bit of an oversimplification. There are going to be a number of solutions at each step (I'm still going to need alarms for getting to bed on time and for getting out the door - I've still got ADHD after all) - but the point is that our problems are often symptoms of other underlying problems and if we can solve those problems first, it'll make solving the other problems easier.
From here we can get curious about our problem and their solutions. And don't stop with just one question here, really dive into the idea.
Certainly, when I was sitting here, the first question to arise in my mind was, "how do I get inspiration to strike?" but you know, that might not be the right question. There are a lot of assumptions that go along with that question. We've addressed the first one in that waiting for inspiration is a passive process, that's a fairly poor way to get things going.
But let's also dig deeper.
What is it that I need to get inspiration about? Certainly, in this instance, the idea is that I need an episode topic.
Ok, but is it just inspiration that I need? What's really holding me back?
Because I want to be clear it isn't like I don't have any ideas for episodes - I've got a spreadsheet with about 150 topics I could dive into. So it isn't a lack of ideas, I've got more than enough. But there is also the issue of motivation - the reason that I so often just write episodes about what I'm currently working on is that those topics are inherently interesting to me right now. It's easy to work on them. I don't have to find motivation to work on them.
And that's a tricky topic for ADHD. While it can be hard for us to regulate our attention on things that we're not interested in, when it comes to things that do interest us... well, we still have that issue of regulating attention, but in the other direction. Instead of being unable to focus on it, we're unable to shake our focus. This is one of those things where parents wonder how their ADHD kids can focus so intently on things like TV or video games.
It's because those things are great at drawing our attention.
So this brings us to one of the best ways that we can get that "inspiration" or motivation to strike - which is figuring out how to make boring things interesting.
Certainly easier said than done, but it is a worthwhile thing for us to ask ourselves - there are a lot of things that we are going to have to do in life that just aren't that interesting. I'm always going to have more laundry to do and there are always going to be more dishes to wash. Surprise, Surprise, taxes come around every year and despite how long I try and put it off, my car is still going to need to get filled with gas eventually.
The cliché advice here is to make it a game... cause games are fun right?
I'm actually not crazy about this advice, because honestly making tasks a game is often... well, the games that people come up with suck. Dishes for time... great, I just honestly don't care and now I'm way more likely to break a dish because while I don't care I'm also hypercompetitive and impulsive.
Good gamification can absolutely drive motivation, but it's hard to properly implement and I'm good at games. They're absolutely what I do for fun - this leads me to trying to figure out how to play the game better. Sounds great in practice but with things that aren't properly gamified, it leads me to do stupid things.
Indulge me for a second because while not a one-to-one comparison here I think it illustrates this point fairly well. So there was an instance where programmers were teaching an AI to play Tetris to try - the AI's goal was to stay alive as long as possible. So the AI would play with the blocks building higher and higher and then it would hit pause. To the AI, it was achieving its goal of playing as long as possible - brings back some War Games memories of the only winning move is not to play.
But the point here is that we tend to do the same thing. We find ways to exploit the rules of the game even if what we're doing is subverting the very thing we're trying to accomplish. We need the rules of the game to reinforce the behaviors that we want more of, instead of just the need to get more points.
And this is extra important because if we take away that support structure of getting points we need to know if we're still going to do the activity. I've been wary about doing too much exercise tracking because I know there have been time when I didn't want to exercise because my watch wasn't charged and so the exercise wasn't going to count. Which even at the time I knew was bonkers - what we need is to make the activity more interesting instead of just the game around it.
But if we're not making something a game, how else can we make it interesting?
The easiest thing we can do to add some fun is to just include some music. This doesn't have to be study music, just anything that you enjoy listening to. Or maybe listen to a podcast - even this podcast.
It can also help to break the task up into smaller pieces - this is where I like to use the Pomodoro method of setting a timer for 20 minutes and then taking a 5-minute break. With those boring things I don't want to do, it's a lot easier to get started if I know I've got a break coming up. In my head it often feels like doing the dishes is going to take FOREVER, but more often than not it's not even going to take that 20-minute Pomodoro.
Even more effective here is using a body double where you're working alongside someone else. There are a lot of small administrative tasks that I often put off that aren't hard for me to do, but still need to get done that I like doing this way. At the top of the episode, you may have heard my ad for the ADHD reWired Adult Study Hall - well one of the events that happens is a Pomodoro dance party. This is where you have 20 minutes of work and then get a 5-minute dance break. The first time I did one of these I was in awe of how much I got done. I honestly didn't think it would be nearly as effective as it was. But if we look over those last three tips it combines music, pomodoros, and body doubling.
We're not trying to make these things the most interesting things that we're doing, we're just trying to take at least a little of the tedium out of them. Am I going to ever look forward to doing the dishes, probably not, but I can at least make it something that I don't dread.
Okay, so making things fun is one way to get ourselves "inspired" to do things - but often what we need is to just get started.
This is where a lot of us get stuck because starting can be the hardest part. That's where I was at the start of this episode and a big part of my paralysis came from not knowing where I should start. I didn't even have a blank page to stare at because I wanted a topic so I could create a new item in my episodes database.
What this often means is that we need to cull this uncertainty from how we're starting things. Not only do we need to know what to do, but we also need to know what our first step is going to be.
Sometimes we hold ourselves back here - did I actually need a topic before I started writing? No, what I needed was a place to start and I can label my database entry anything I want cause I can change it later - writing Temporary Title works just as well as anything else.
But let's stay curious here. Instead of asking, what's my first step, what if we instead asked, how could I get started anyway? Could I create a first step that's easy to do so that it doesn't matter if don't know where to get started?
What I'm getting at here, is a warm-up routine. Something to put you into action right from the get-go. If we can create a routine that we start with that is independent of what we need to start with, then we always are going to have a place to start from.
Often our lack of inspiration to get started comes from the fact that we're just not in the right state. When I roll up to my office I'm usually not ready to just sit down and word vomit all over a page. What I need is an easy way to get my head in the right space.
Our routine needs to start out easy because even then we're probably going to be experiencing some resistance to starting, so the easier the better. One of the first things I start my workday with is a cup of tea and so the first step in my routine is boiling some water. This makes for a pretty easy first step.
It's also a good idea to include some movement in your warm-up. This is not a full exercise routine here, just something to get your blood flowing - a short walk, a couple push-ups, or maybe just some light stretching.
Finally, we also want to make sure we have everything we need to get started. Do I have my water out, do I have to go to the bathroom, have looked over my schedule, do I have any fidgets on my desk - anything you might want to have ready for your day so that you don't have to stop and retransition into working.
And above all make it easy and a little bit fun. Maybe you have a mantra you want to say to help get you in the right headspace, maybe you want to put on some music and do a little dance for your movement - and music is a great way to change your state - or maybe you just want to do a quick puzzle to dust the cobwebs off your brain.
This warm-up is just here to make getting started easier so we need to make it as easy as possible for us to follow.
This Episode’s Top Tips
Before you can come up with a solution to your problem you need to know what your problem actually is. Some problems are just symptoms of other problems and if you can solve those root issues it makes everything else easier or unnecessary to fix.
While gamifying boring tasks might seem like a great way to make your work more interesting it can also backfire and reduce motivation in the long run. It's better to just add in some small aspects of fun like listening to music or doing the task with a friend.
Creating a warm-up routine can make it easier to get into your workflow, just make sure to make the warmup easy so you don't put it off as well.
