Autism

Start a more important task so you can neglect that and work on the other things you were supposed to do. A sacrificial task, if you will.

Newton's first law of motion. Body in motion remains in motion
So cant get stuck if i never sit down, keep on moving. Start in the morning and drop dead in the evening, never sit down too long in the meanwhile.

Though yeah probably not that helpful in getting into motion again once stuck. Body in rest remains at rest

Warning: not the healthiest approach

Watch a show with confident and or flat out deranged (but still motivated/functional) characters.

Wait for code-switching or whatever it is to kick in so you can easily start thinking and acting like said character.

Do the action the way you think they would.

You might have executive dysfunction but Hannibal Lecter sure doesn’t. (Bad example but I’ll leave it because it’s funny)

No joke I would do this to write essays in high school. It made my scores go up if I decided I would write the essay as though I was Cave Johnson

For completing household tasks, I’d recommend deranged characters like from Hazbin Hotel

For completing tasks that might make you anxious, I highly recommend someone who would be bored doing the task but still do it, so go watch The Witcher and then say under your breath “fuck” before doing the now more tedious than anxious task lol

I also really do recommend you choose humorously chaotic or satirical characters for most boring/tedious tasks btw because it makes life so much more entertaining to imagine their commentary about the action or your life in general.

Imagining that a character is talking to you (rather than… possessing you… being played by you?) can also be fun, like hearing Johnny Silverhand give you patronizing and cuss-word riddled but still somewhat motivating pep talk for going outside or writing an email lol

I pretend I’m two hours away from having to be at the airport to take a flight and I haven’t even started packing. Once I’m in that mindset, all the fog lifts, and I can see clearly. Every task is done to completion. I remember where I put (almost) everything. It feels like I’m flying.

I knowingly pick a new side project / fascination to focus on. I'm always forcing myself not to pickup side projects so I can actually finish something, but when struggling to motivate myself at all to get unstuck, I engage in the guilty pleasure of a new sideproject for a day or so to get going.

Weaponized procrastination. Avoid doing the thing you want to do by doing something else.

Just the other day I cleaned most of my apartment because I was not in the headspace to write lore.

Another day I really needed to do laundry, most productive writing day I had in a while.

Putting on my playlist of pirate music.

Broke: "Ugh, I need to sweep, mop, and do the dishes."

Woke: "ARRR, IT BE TIME TO BE SWABBIN' THE DECK, YE SCURVY BILGE RAT!! AN' WASH ALL O' THE DISHES IN THE GALLEY, OR YE'LL BE WALKIN' THE PLANK!!"

Edit: Ye asked fer the map to me hidden treasure. Here it be, me hearties!

Unavoidable timers. For example:

1. Devices with low battery and the charger is out of reach.
2. Drinking a bunch of water.
3. Playing an album with nothing queued afterwards.

Along the same lines: incidental timeboxing. My toaster takes 2 mins, and leaving the kitchen means I'm likely to end up with sad cold toast, so I better stay and deal with some of the kitchen mess in those two minutes. The phrase "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean" has been strangely useful to me.

Allowing things to be partially done, but not in a state where is going to be a big problem. For example, the above kitchen mess.

• A cup and bowl with food left in it will be hard to clean and attracts bugs and grows mold, and that's a problem.
• An empty but dirty cup and bowl is better but still harder to clean.
• A rinsed cup and bowl filled with water left in the sink is easiest to clean, so that's the least problematic state to leave it in, and it's not much harder to do that than it is leaving the food-filled cup and bowl there to begin with.

Chugging a quad shot espresso while saying 'get up trinity. Get. Up.' in my head

If you time it right, the anxiety from the caffeine hitting really sells the feeling that a matrix agent is coming to kill you so better get moving.

I have a simple 5-step plan I've used to do this.

1. Get old and have a family that always has needs
2. Get a shitton of pets too that always have needs
3. Go look at the shower plumbing I need to fix
4. Go look at my car hovering on jack stands as I wait for parts to come in for the brakes
5. I think there's an old overdue bill sitting somewhere too--

Heyyy today seems like the perfect time to go do that yard work that it's been too cold for!

I'm only gonna say this once

SEEK PROFESSIONAL TREATMENT GET THE FUCK OFF SOCIAL MEDIA

that's the only thing I know that really works

1. Snort some meth.
2. Put on a kinky BDSM outfit.
3. Do the dishes while masturbating.

Sit perfectly still and actively refuse to engage with any tempting distractions until you give up out of boredom and do the thing you need to do

Intentionally start spiraling to have a panic attack to get me off my ass to do the thing.

Literally just start smacking myself in the face until I do the thing

Uh yeah, I was once far less mentally well than I currently am…

I picture the most over-achieving, manically driven person I know. Someone whose calendar is booked full half a year in advance from all their hobbies, friends and side-hustles. Then I pretend I'm them, magically teleported into my body, looking at the situation they found themselves in. I comment on the mess in my room, imitating their voice and everything.
Then I say "Well, it is what it is, let's fix this shit" and get to work.

Brain wants to shut down and not execute? Well let's make a motherfucking day of it then, no more voluntary muscle control, I'll let this bitch flop and slither right off the sofa til we bang our head on the coffee table.

Usually shocks the system back into action for a minute, during which I am de Captain now.

I have autism but not ADHD. In my case it's "wait until 1 a.m., take advantage of the night owl super boost".

For some reason I can't concentrate during the day. It's only after sunset when I can really focus. I wrote all of my master's thesis after 1:00 a.m.

Convince myself that I have the most perfect plan in the world.

Get out of bed and put on socks? I will move my duvet to the right in a fast tug with my right arm. Flashy! Swing both feet down to the floor simultaneously and get up in one smooth motion. Strong! Then grab the first pair of socks I can find blindly. Brave!

Remember that I'm going to die

wait, you guys are getting things done??

Something my therapist told me and that works more often than not. Set out to do the task for a very small time, like 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, you may find that you are absorbed in that task, but if not, just stop doing it.

The idea I think is to get over the difficulty in starting a task.

Ok so have you seen the Dropout show Dimension 20? The Mentopolis season has a character (played by Hank Green) called The Fix, whose job is to go around this 1930s-coded brain city and literally mob-enforcer style "take care of" distractions.

So I just chat with my The Fix in my head. It is starting to work a bit more all the time.

My top two are reminding myself that the stupidest people alive manage to do the thing, and listening to Theoden's speech at Pelennor Fields

Screaming DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! right before calling the mechanic to schedule an oil change rn

Drink a lot of water and get up because you really need to pee

Drinking a good amount of water! It makes me pee every 30-45 minutes and somehow that interruption keeps me focused on whichever task I was doing. Plus, keeps you hydrated and healthier skin 😂

Put all the shit i have to do on my calendar back to back to back and start the moment I get it if need to create a false sense of "oh shit" and it works for me.

Getting it out bed isn't always the easiest so I rub one out, well I gotta get up to clean that mess, that a shower, and get in it.

Mindfulness meditation and strength training. Both of these things together do not get enough credit for how they complement and enhance each other.

Start provoking/taunting the task as if it was a fight about to happen.

This one might not be weird to some, but it's my "one weird trick".

I put my shoes on.

I normally work from home, so usually don't even wear shoes most of the day. And when I need to go outside for a minute or two, I don't wear my shoes either.

But on the days that I get up and put my socks and shoes on in the morning, I feel extra motivated for the whole day. I definitely get more things done.

I've figured out mindset is everything for me which sucks because I've gotten that drilled into me as a kid but figuring out stuff about one self only works if you figure it out yourself. Getting into the mindset needs to be not so obvious. I can't just repeat "I am component, I am smart, I won't postpone". I need to get into a vibe of getting stuff done and I honestly can't explain it better than it being a vibe. Medium energy (not high energy because then I just get a small panic attack) electronica music helps a lot for some reason.

Also small breaks from time to time but I can't set myself a time or I will just keep thinking about the timer.

Start a war in the Middle East 🤠

Unhinged? I tell myself “I don’t need motivation” and then just do the thing, people at least act like this is unhinged when I tell them it works, it’s literally just CBT in action