How to Stop Procrastinating If You Live with ADHD

Mindfulness is the practice of being conscious of everything we say and do. It can help adults living with ADHD procrastination improve executive functioning.

Executive functions are cognitive skills like:

• memory
• planning
• time management
• organization
• self-control

In one pilot study, researchers guided adults living with ADHD through eight sessions of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). At the end of the treatment period, participants saw slight improvements in measured executive functions like:

• self-monitoring
• working memory
• planning
• organization of task materials

When asked what was helpful about the training, one participant stated, “I can spend the whole day in a haze, but when we focus consciously on our breathing, I’m able to turn it around.”

You can begin practicing mindfulness daily one step at a time. Although a guided practice may be more effective for people with ADHD, you can also try it on your own.

Consider following these basics steps:

• Pause a few times throughout the day to breathe deeply. Focus on how it feels to inhale and exhale.
• Check in with your body from time to time. Are you hot or cold? Comfortable or tensed? Does something hurt?
• Scan your body for tension. From your toes to your head, check each body part for tension. Release as you identify it.
• Become aware of your thoughts. Do regular mental check points to ask yourself what you’re focusing on and what you should be thinking instead.
• Observe and count your breaths. With a watch or your phone, breathe as usual but count every breath during 1 minute.
• Let your mind be free. If you find you’re “forcing” yourself to focus, take a break and let your mind wander for 5 minutes. Set an alarm so after those 5 minutes you can go back to your task.

If you live with ADHD, you may find planning, organizing, and focusing on a task challenging. This may lead to procrastination. Seeking ADHD treatment can help.

“ADHD symptoms can make sequencing and prioritizing work difficult,” explains Nereida Gonzalez-Berrios, a psychiatrist in Houston.

Making a few changes in your environment may also help.

You could start by asking yourself how your work environment can be optimized to support focus. Are the colors or nearby windows distracting? Is there clutter on your desk?

It may help to “limit distractions by turning off cell phones, TVs, and going to a quiet area,” says Amanda Levinson, certified cognitive behavioral therapist in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Nikki Lacherza-Drew, a licensed psychologist in Allendale, New Jersey, advocates for using positive reinforcement (rewards) to stay on track.

Let’s say you have a daunting task on your to-do list. What’s something that would motivate you to accomplish it? It doesn’t have to be task-related.

Rewards will look different from person to person, but may include:

• going for a walk in the park
• buying yourself that pair of shoes you’ve been wanting
• watching an episode of your favorite Netflix show
• getting your favorite snack or meal

Once you set a reward for your task completion, it’s important to wait until the task is completely done to indulge.

For simpler tasks, like paying bills or setting an appointment, you can also set simpler rewards. For example, you could place your favorite soda in front of you and wait until you pay the bill or make the phone call before drinking it.

Breaks are a fun reward, but they can also be an important part of staying on track and managing procrastination.

Francesco Cirillo made this idea popular with his Pomodoro Technique, which helps people “to work with time, instead of struggling against it.”

Try these tips:

• Identify a task you want to complete.
• Set aside X minutes to work without stopping and without interruptions. You set the time, and it can increase slowly.
• When your time is up, take a short break (about 5 minutes).
• Repeat this process 4 times and then give yourself a longer break (20 minutes).

To help you avoid turning these breaks into procrastination, consider setting alarms for when the break starts and when it ends.

Getting organized can help you be more productive. This may sound easy, but if you live with ADHD, it can be a challenge. This is why implementing simple organizational techniques may be necessary at first.

Organization may start with simply identifying and writing down your tasks. You can use a pen and paper or consider using an online tool like Trello.

Instead of focusing on all the pending tasks, list only those you want to complete today. If you find this challenging, list only those you’d like to work on for the next 4 hours.

Once your tasks are organized, Gonzalez-Berrios recommends “[breaking tasks] down into small parts and finishing each of them one at a time.”

For example, you may want to pay all your outstanding bills today. For this, you could start with categorizing them: overdue bills, upcoming bills, and next month’s bills. Then, you can work on overdue bills first.

With larger or more complex tasks, you can also identify the smaller steps that make up the broader task. For example, pretend that your task is to plan a welcome breakfast for new interns at your company.

Breaking this into smaller parts would look like:

• identifying the number of new interns joining the company
• picking the welcome breakfast date, time, and location
• getting final budget approval from your finance team
• making a list of possible caterers and selecting one
• meeting with the caterer to decide on a menu
• creating and sending out invitations to new interns

You could even break these small tasks down into simpler steps.

In his New York Times bestseller “Atomic Habits,” author James Clear discusses the benefits of habit stacking.

Per Clear, the idea is simple: “The more you do something, the stronger and more efficient the connection [between your brain and your behaviors] becomes.”

Clear recommends picking one habit you already developed. Then, pairing it with a new habit you want to incorporate into your life.

Let’s say you want to get into the habit of writing a to-do list every day. You could pair this task with drinking your morning coffee. Then, you would perform both tasks at the same time or during the same time period.

According to the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM), when employees are held accountable in the workplace, they:

• feel competent
• perform better
• are more committed to their work
• report high satisfaction with work

Could this work for you in your daily life if you have ADHD? It may be worth trying.

Consider finding your own personal accountability partner to keep you on track. Gonzalez-Berrios calls this “positive social pressure.”

You can let your partner know what tasks you want to accomplish and when, and then ask them to check in with you throughout the day.

Living with ADHD may mean procrastinating often. However, these difficulties can be managed and often overcome.

Seeking the support of a mental health professional could help you develop coping skills.

Pairing old habits with new ones, rearranging your working environment, and finding an accountability partner are just a few of the ways you could take your first step toward overcoming ADHD-related procrastination and attention deficit.