Slowing Down: Activation Energy

02/13/23 • 16 min

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Hey team, we’re back at it for another episode about slowing down, but this time we’re looking at activation energy, which is the idea we’re going to need to have a certain amount of energy available to get started on a task. When we’re getting ready to get to the next thing on our to-do list, sometimes it can feel like it’s just too much, and getting started is really going to be the hardest part.

Activation energy is that minimum threshold for us to get going on that thing, and some days it just isn’t there, and so today, we’re going to be looking at ways that we make getting started a little bit easier. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/131 This Episode's Top Tips

Activation energy is what takes us from thinking about doing something to actually doing it. It’s what can keep us on the couch when we feel like we could be doing something else.
When we rely on urgency being our primary mode of motivation it can make it increasingly hard to work on anything that isn’t urgent.
Different tasks take different amounts of energy to activate on and we can work on lower that barrier to entry or increasing our amount of available energy. We can do this by making tasks more fun, using accountability, and breaking our tasks into smaller parts.

Activation energy is what takes us from thinking about doing something to actually doing it. It’s what can keep us on the couch when we feel like we could be doing something else.
When we rely on urgency being our primary mode of motivation it can make it increasingly hard to work on anything that isn’t urgent.
Different tasks take different amounts of energy to activate on and we can work on lower that barrier to entry or increasing our amount of available energy. We can do this by making tasks more fun, using accountability, and breaking our tasks into smaller parts.

Previous Episode

Slowing Down: Task Management (Memory)

Hey team, this week we’re going to keep up our discussion of slowing down, but we’re going to be focusing on memory - well, kind of. With ADHD, it can be hard for us to remember all of the things that we need to do, so what comes into play is the good old to-do list.

Because when we’re talking about memory, what we’re really talking about in this context is task management. How we’re going to remember the things we want to do and how we’re going to go about doing those things. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/130 This Episode's Top Tips

To-do lists serve as a way for us to externalize our memory - we don’t have to mentally keep track of all the things we write down. But if we don’t properly use and curate our lists, they stop being a trusted source of information.
We can use our to-do lists to help plan our days, but if we find ourselves constantly not finishing our daily plans, that is a sign that we need to cut back on how much we’re trying to accomplish in a single day. Part of slowing down is accepting that we don’t have to do it all.
To help keep our to-do lists from becoming overwhelming, it is important we’re saying no more. One of the most important people we need to say to no more, however, is ourselves.

Next Episode

Burnout and Boundaries w/Skye Rapson

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Hey team - this week I’m bringing you a conversation I had with Skye Rapson about burnout and boundaries. Skye is the founder of Unconventional Organization - a New Zealand-based coaching group that specializes in online coaching. They focus on providing research-backed and strengths-based ADHD support to help you get unstuck in your life.

You may remember Skye from a previous episode last year, but we had such a fun conversation then that we decided to have another round. In this discussion, we drill into what burnout is, how to work on getting out of burnout, and then also how setting boundaries can help us stay out of burnout in the first place.

And really, this is a fantastic episode to help capstone this series on slowing down. Support me on Patreon Feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/132 Be sure to check out https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com