There’s a presentation I need to create. I know the subject cold. I’ve even been looking forward to sharing it.
Then I sit down to start and my brain turns to quicksand. Cursor blinking like a metronome of shame. Ten minutes later I’m reorganising my desktop icons by colour and convincing myself that counts as “warming up”.
Sound familiar?
What it actually feels like
Initiation with ADHD can feel like pushing a car with the handbrake on. Mentally: heavy limbs, foggy head, micro-avoidance behaviours. Emotionally: guilt, urgency, a hint of panic. Behaviourally: “I’ll just make tea”, “I’ll just check that thing”, and suddenly it’s 45 minutes later and the slide deck is still a blank page pretending to be helpful.
Why ADHD brains struggle to start
- Working memory is a smaller, smudgier scratchpad: Neurotypical working memory can often juggle roughly 4 to 7 items at once. ADHD working memory tends to hold fewer items and the “ink” fades faster – which makes multi-step tasks brittle. You try to hold Step 1, Step 2 and Step 3, and Step 1 falls off the mental desk.
- Executive function – the activation problem: Thomas Brown’s model lists “activation” as a core EF cluster – organising, prioritising and getting started. ADHD often shows chronic initiation delays until something becomes an emergency. And so, it’s not a character flaw – it is an EF bottleneck.
- Motivation circuitry – dopamine and effort cost: Imaging studies link ADHD with differences in dopamine pathways involved in motivation and salience; which helps explain why tasks feel “cold” until urgency or novelty spikes them. In plain English… your brain undervalues low-dopamine tasks, so the bridge from intention to action is missing a few planks.
- Delay discounting – long tasks feel not worth it… until they are: Analysis shows that people with ADHD more steeply “discount” future rewards, preferring smaller-sooner payoffs. A long, boring task with a distant benefit will lose to a short, stimulating detour unless we redesign the incentives.
If you recognise yourself in there – Good! It means you are not broken. You are just running with a brain that needs a different start point.
What used to happen vs what happens now
Old me: “I’m lazy. No discipline.” Cue self-flogging, more avoidance, bigger panic.
New me: “This is an activation problem, not a morality play” I can’t wish away the neurology, but I can build a runway my brain will actually use.
Practical playbook – 10 ways to reduce the “activation energy”
Pick one, not ten. We are going for traction, not perfection! (These are related to my presentation example, but can easily be adapted for any task)
- The 2-minute ignition: Open the file. Title the deck. Write one bullet. Stopping is then allowed. Momentum often follows once friction drops.
- Task preview – do the tiniest unit first: Before “write the presentation”, do “open template” or “paste agenda bullets”. Starting skimps on thinking bandwidth – so make Step 1 so small it is almost funny.
- Brain dump – paper before starting: Empty your head onto a page – worries, todos, fragments. Circle one item that moves the task forward. ADHD working memory will thank you.
