What do you think I'm doing‽
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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ADHD
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I entered the thread hoping this would be the first comment; thank you for fulfilling my wishes.
Seconded
Man, I really need to binge that show. I only saw some episodes as a kid.
My husband and I watch an episode or two every night before bed. Much better than doomscrolling.
Truth. 🥰
As a verified adult(tm) that scene hits way too close to home way too often. It's like I gotta do chores so I can do chores so I can ...play some videogames... No wait actually it's so I can do more chores.
I think of the quote "to make an apple pie from scratch, fist you need to create the universe" a lot
My first thought was "Is that really an adhd thing? I thought it was just normal behavior."
And then I realized...
It is normal to realize a series of steps are needed to accomplish a goal, but we are supposed to learn over time what is practical within the time constraints we have.
This persons list might be entirely practical if they are spending an entire day cleaning and organizing, and they can mentally keep track of the general order things should be done in.
People start calling things ADHD or ADD when someone is trying to fit that entire list into 30 minutes, and/or they don't actually need to do 90% of it at all anyways.
What about when it's "I'm totally going to do my laundry today" in the morning, and then suddenly realizing it's already evening and I haven't done a fucking thing all day, and saying "Okay, tomorrow for sure." For literal weeks at a time.
Or how about this one? I start organizing in the morning, intending to spend the day decluttering. Ten minutes in, I get distracted with a book, or some craft supplies, or an unfinished, forgotten project, or whatever the hell else I find in the piles of clutter that crowd my room because I'm never quite done with it, but I rarely actually get back fo it because I'm always starting something new and hardly ever finishing anything.
I started to shift my projects to the digital world and to smaller electronics. Also sports with little equipment needed. No more woodworking, spray painting, cardboard building, or whatever. I had a whole workshop, but didn't think of the day I might move out of my place that was quire unique in the way it made the workshop possible. Before the workshop I had all that stuff in my room, in good old piles. Now my projects mainly exist in the digital world, where they don't clutter my everyday live, which is helping me to keep my space tidy, which helps me with general structure a lot.
My digital world reflects my material world: 100+ open tabs, 100+ bookmarks, and still can't see a project through to the end without getting distracted for hours going down a wikipedia rabbit hole...
You like learning new things, when they aren't new anymore they aren't fun, which is why you have a thousand hobbies that have "just been started and abandoned". Part of this is accepting that you no longer are intrigued by older hobbies, and making room for new ones. I would recommend disposing of or donating your old hobby supplies, or simply storing them out of the way in bins.
For the second part, it sounds like you don't enjoy cleaning or organizing, and are easily distracted by more enjoyable activities. A good way to go about this is to reward yourself with those things once you finish the chore or task you set yourself, rather than to switch to them immediately.
I'd also add that if you have a chore you can put off for weeks on end, it might not be that important of a chore in the first place.
Yeah, laundry isn't that important. I can just wear the same clothes for months on end before they start to feel stiff and grimy...
And it's not that I mind organizing. It's that I have to study every thing individually to see whether I still need it out or if I can put it away. "Oh yeah, I got this book out cause I meant to read it. Let me look at the back cover and table of contents to see whether I'm still interested..." "Oh, here's my embroidery hoop! Lemme just finish up this project real quick before I put it away."
Lastly, having a thousand unfinished projects and constantly starting new hobbies isn't that big of a deal, but the same pattern exists when it comes to career path, and it's kinda hard to develop job skills when I literally can't give a shit about something for more than a month at a time...
Well you do have a skill others might be envious of, which is the ability to change and learn new things without it causing stress or anxiety. You might do better changing jobs frequently rather than staying in something long term. I think some of the problems surrounding this kind of thing are more to due with the gap between what you expect of yourself and how you actually behave. I would just be careful that the expectations you place on yourself are realistic as its very easy to have them skewed by TV, movies, and social media. If you have unreasonable expectations of yourself you will never meet them and it will cause frustration.
I think its helpful to have a perspective that says that everyone is different but that different does not mean better or worse. Instead of one right answer, there are many. The things you think might make your life harder are also the things that are special about you, and there is a good use for them out there somewhere.
You can envy my personal hell, and I will envy yours.
I can agree to that!
This is how Factorio feels when you have a spaghetti base
I know exactly what to do to manage the spaghetti, I refuse — for some reason the brain thinks that the time spent ignoring the spaghetti will be less than the time spent fixing it. Despite one of those time investments growing much more rapidly as I continue to play.
Yes let's just fix this green circuit area.....oh one more input....can stick some smelters here for a temporary measure, crap need to get this belt over for a new row.....been awhile since I played but assume calling the first circuits green still works.
Never thought that's why I may have worked well for me. Always something to do and in the end it needs to be done to increase production. Well sort of until you just have outposts do everything and turn it into train simulator... My favourite stage, always highways of track with good signals that don't block, with tons of bots.
Also never played with biters I was so glad when they removed killing them for science.
I normally wouldn't even get up to do the laundry. I need meds (weed) to even begin.
Oh shit i need to do laundry
Ty for remind
Get to it. Fix all of those things today. Start by puting the photos away.
Right after I finish responding to your comment...
And what have we learned from this and what skills are we going to put in place to help?
"Complete the task." I repeat that to myself all the time.
It's not the most direct way but that is the way I do it. I just have to hope it circles around to the laundry
It should have said that they went to get a rag to clean up the spilled jug and realized that they had no clean rags because laundry wasn't done so they went to do laundry...
And that doc is how it got stuck up my rectum.
Word.
1990's
1990s
Add tasks to the back of your queue not the front. It was really hard for me to implement that but I did it.
Eventually I learned to tell myself, 'one thing at a time' (mean mentally but when I realize I'm wanting to do two things at once) it doesn't always work but does better when in the middle of single task like clean the kitchen. As opposed to juggling the garage and kitchen cleaning because you started running to both. Though I guess it works well there too. Start on something? Do that, heh yes I know but if you remind yourself your brain may realize one day.
Actually mostly used to happen from coming inside, dealing with grabbing some water, washing hands and putting a few things in the kitchen away, I kept half washing hand before moving on and would try an optimize some putting away with cleaning then drop something cause wet hands. Once I kept reminding myself for awhile the tasks went smoother without wanting everything done 5 seconds ago.
Dunno if this is useful to others but figured I'd share cause without some effort my mind will put me on that path.
This is essentially a dependency graph. Make yourself one with any of those online tools, it may help transform a daunting task list into something more manageable, even ludic
Gotta write DO THE LAUNDRY in sharpie on my forearm so I remember.
This made me think of episodes with the Silence in Doctor Who. Another chore, another mark on your arm...
I break it down into:
- sort laundry (material, color, temperature)
- start laundry
- empty machine
- hang laundry
- take down laundry
- put laundry away
Sorting, taking down, putting away laundry doesn’t need to happen in one session, but can be broken down further. For example I can only put underwear into the drawer and nothing else else.
Much more manageable.
Laundry is one of the things I’m actually doing quite well with.
I buy new detergent before the old one runs out. Also I buy big packs, so I buy detergent once a year or so. I have four different types of detergent: white, color, black, wool/silk. So even if I run out of one, I can still use one of of the others. Washing whites with color detergent is fine for example.
Sometimes I break down the tasks into smaller pieces and it works but sometimes I get even more overwhelmed by the multiple new tasks so I end up doing nothing
I understand completely. That’s why I only break down the next tiny step at a time, not a full long list.
This is me on the meds. I’m way way way way worse when off them. I kind of hate it.
Bug you did remove the spiderwebs from the ceiling yes?
...8 really need to get tested
"Hey honey, the juice is leaking, why don't you get a rag real quick?"
/factorio day
"What's with all the train tracks you're laying?*
"Oh, I'm adding blue science packs."
The factory must grow. Somehow, there keeps being demand for infinitely more RAM and energy.
Too busy to notice that needless apostrophe, I assume?