501- ADHD & Procrastivity: How to Outsmart Procrastination and Improve Productivity

Russell Ramsey
Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert podcast series by Attitude magazine.

Carol Fleck
Hello everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm Carol Fleck, and on behalf of the attitude team, I'm pleased to welcome you to today's ADHD experts presentation titled unraveling ADHD procrastivity, how to outsmart procrastination and improve productivity. Leading today's presentation is Doctor Russell Ramsey. Doctor Ramsey was a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine before he retired recently from that position. He also was the co founder and co director of the university's Adult ADHD treatment and Research program.

Today, Doctor Ramsey maintains a solo virtual psychology practice. He is the author of many professional and scientific articles, and his forthcoming book, the Adult ADHD and Anxiety Workbook, will be available on May 1. In today's webinar, we'll discuss how procrastivity can sneak into our lives. Procrastivity happens when we engage in lower priority tasks to avoid doing the higher priority and more urgent ones. You might stay busy by doing the less important tasks, but you're likely to feel unproductive and stressed because the more important ones are hanging over you.

This cycle can be exhausting and self defeating. So why do we do this? In today's webinar, Doctor Ramsey will explain the role of procrastivity in adults with ADHD and the important lessons we can learn from this. Finally, the sponsor of this webinar is inflow. Let's be honest, our spice cabinets really don't need to be organized right now.

Inflow gets that cleaning the entire kitchen sounds a lot better than doing taxes, but its team is here to help. Developed by leading ADHD clinicians, Inflow is a self help program that uses CBT principles to teach effective strategies that help you stay on task, stop procrastinating, and actually get stuff done. Click the link on screen to get your ADHD score today and kick off your inflow journey attitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content, so without further ado, I'm so pleased to welcome Doctor Russell Ramsey. Thank you so much for joining us today and for leading this discussion.

Russell Ramsey
Well, thank you for having me. Excuse me, it's always a pleasure curious to what my ADHD score is, but here's my disclosure for the past twelve months, no pharmaceutical company relationships, generally speaker fees and royalties, and I'm pretty easy to find and my pen email still works if you want to reach out to me for whatever reason. So I know I probably don't. We won't spend much time on this with this audience, but how do we make sense of ADHD? Because it's so much more than the a and the h, and we're really thinking about ADHD as an issue of self regulation, predominantly bundled under the executive functions.

But I like the phrase, I learned it from doctor Jeff Nokorn. The interdigitating models for understanding ADHD and all these cluster around the notion of self regulation. How efficiently do we do what we set out to do? And we're really as a field thinking about ADHD as a neurodevelopmental syndrome of self dysregulation, a chronic delay in the onset and efficient employment of the self regulation capacities and skills, the executive functions. And in case it's not 100% clear, everybody has executive functions.

So if you have a bout of the flu, your executive functioning will go down. If you're struggling with insomnia, your executive functioning will go down. But as these situations remit, for lack of better phrase, executive functioning will go back to a relatively consistent baseline. Adults with ADHD seem to struggle with the consistent inconsistency. I know I can do it, but I don't know if I will do it when I absolutely must do it.

And said very succinctly by Robert Sapolsky in his previous book, behave, the Frontal Cortex, which is really where the executive functions reside, makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do. So with that background, let's move into the whole reason for our discussion today. Procrastinativity. For my money, working with adults with ADHD over the 20, the past 25 years, procrastination in some form is probably one of the major, the primary, if not the central, presenting problem in some form, and something for which individuals seek help. I did not invent the term procrastivity as much as you can believe it.

The Internet urban dictionary says it's been around since about 2010. But procrastivity is avoiding a higher priority task by engaging in a lower priority, less time urgent, but still productive endeavor that is ultimately self defeating. So what does it look like though? What are some examples? So right now, for those of you listening to the recording, I'm showing a picture of a tax form.

We've just gotten through tax season, so people might have had goals to say, I don't want to wait till the last minute this year. I want to get started late March, early April Saturday morning 10:00 I'm going to start working on my taxes and get a head start. Saturday morning, 10:00 rolls around. You know what? Now I'm showing a picture of somebody with a lawnmower.

The lawn is looking pretty long. Tell you what, what I'm going to do, I'm going to mow the lawn. Yes, I will mow the lawn. Then I will be in the mood to do taxes. And if you are, that's great.

But how often are we going to ever in the mood to do taxes? Also, the next week, picture somebody reading the news on a tablet. Yeah, I should be an informed citizen. The election's coming up now. There's a picture of a lawnmower with a guy sprawled on the.

Sprawled on the lawn. Yeah, I could do the lawn today. But you know what? I should be an informed citizen. I should figure out who I'm voting for.

So I'm going to read the news, and I'll be in the mood to mow the lawn later. And then the last example comes from my clinical practice. Honest to goodness, this happened. So I was working with a woman who worked in a lab, a bench science lab, and she had to prepare an article for a lab meeting the next day. And she hadn't started it, but she had a plan.

When I get home, I've got the article selected. I just have to go through, put together a few slides. It shouldn't take that long.

Then she got home and she said, you know what, though? I was watching those baking shows. I'm going to bake a cake. Yes, let me bake a cake, and I'll have plenty of time. One thing led to another, and she ended up spending most of the evening working on the cake, figuring out what to make, what to put in it, things like that.

And at the next meeting, when I'm talking with her about procrastinati, and, you know, she had covered it with her before. She actually pointed out, when we're debriefing how this happened. And she said, and Doctor Ramsey, I'm diabetic. It's not like I was going to eat the cake or it wasn't for a neighbor or nephew. I just saw the shows and I wanted to do it.

And that's how powerful procrastination and procrastinati can be. That how far we'll go to get out of doing something and it doesn't go away, but we just want to get out of it right now. In some ways, the most addictive drug known to man is avoidance, because it works right away, but only for a little bit, and it causes bigger problems later. But working with people over the years, and probably adults with ADHD, are even more prone to procrastivity now. It is also known in the procrastination literature as productive procrastination because at least you're getting something done.

The lawn, baking the cake, whatever else we're doing. But over time, it gets in the way of the more important things, and it's almost like a little bit of self medication. I feel good because I'm doing something, I'm being productive. But then later on it wears off and where some of the unpleasant emotions come in and beating yourself up and things like that. But it got me thinking over the years.

Excuse me, what is it about mowing the lawn, reading the news, baking the cake? Are there some factors in these escape tasks that we can harness for the priority tasks? Now, I'm a big believer, I don't think, you know, not all avoidance is procrastination. Not all avoidance is bad. There are times it might be our brain signaling ourselves that we're tired and we need a rest, but there's a lot more times where we are putting off things to our detriment.

So are there some ways we can reverse engineer procrastivity and get some use out of it and use it with the priority tasks? So these are just my opinions about this. But looking at procrastivity tasks, what are some elements of them? One is they tend to be more manual, hands on. Pushing the lawnmower rather than working on taxes, baking the cake rather than navigating through a scientific article.

There's generally an existing template or recipe of steps that we already know how to do to get started. So if you're mowing your own lawn, you know where the lawnmower is. You may go out, fill it up with gas, set up a playlist on your, on your iPhone, put the earbuds in and get started. Wears taxes. We do them every year, but it's always like, how do I get started?

Working on the article for the lab meeting. Oh, where do I start? This is sort of hard. Should I make some slides? Let me bake the cake.

There's a literal recipe for the cake to follow, as opposed to coming up with the presentation for the lab meeting. There's a better sense for the escape task, the procrastinati task. There's a better sense of what can be accomplished within a definitive timeframe. If you're mowing the lawn, especially if it's your lawn, you probably know plus or minus five or ten minutes. How long it'll take baking the cake.

It tells you how long it'll take to put things together, bake it in the oven. But working on taxes, preparing for a lab meeting, those are sort of fuzzy. It should only take this long. But once I get started, maybe it'll take me longer than I thought it would. Let me go with the sure thing.

And there's a clear sense of making and sustaining progress. I'm halfway done. The lawn, three quarters of the way, done with the lawn. Or, you know, I'm baking the cake. Ten more minutes in the oven, take it out, done.

Whereas taxes, preparing the slides, being feeling ready for the meeting. These are fuzzier, it's less clear. And maybe even something like taxes. It's like, oh, I have to find these receipts, or I have to go back and find them, or I have to fill out another form. Now I have more work than I thought I did when I started.

And then lastly, there's a clear end point and sense of completion. The lawn is done for a week. The cake is done. I can enjoy it. At least my client I could, the client couldn't.

Not that I got the cake. Whereas other things, you might have to pick them up and set them down several times. Or with the bench scientist, she might have to stay up later than she thought she would to finish it, or wake up early the next day. Or as she did, have to train off with a colleague and reschedule her presentation.

And with procrastinator tasks, you might actually spend more time mowing the lawn than you plan to do on taxes, and they take more time and effort. But in that case, mowing the lawn is viewed as more in harmony with your perceived self efficacy, your belief that you can do it. I would rather spend 90 minutes mowing the lawn, knowing I will get it done, then 30 minutes on taxes, not knowing how far along I'll get, or how much more I might have to do, or how much money I may have to owe than the priority task. So these are all some elements that play a role in this. So I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist and some of the premises for the adapted model of ADHD.

I just want to push forward here a little bit in looking at the main cognitive issue.

For my money, the main cognitive theme in ADHD, the cognitive issue is impaired self regulatory efficacy. And I'll give a more in depth definition of this later, but this is I know I can do it, but I don't trust I will do it when I need to do it. So in terms of the overall how does procrastivity help us with the cognitive behavioral therapy approach? One is developing more trust in our ability to engage in it and to handle the hassles involved with getting started on taxes or getting started on preparing for the lab meeting. The main behavioral issue, and I'll go into more detail about specifics with this is engagement.

How do I engage with the task, my priority tasks that I set out to do, and this can involve setting, scripting the steps, coming up with the steps. We already have steps for mowing the lawn. How can I come up with steps for taxes or preparing for the lab meeting? The main emotional issue for adult ADHD, for my money, is the ability to handle discomfort, what I call the Ugg feeling that goes into getting started on tasks. I know I can do it, I know I'll eventually get the taxes done, but ugh, I don't feel like doing it now on Saturday morning, how do we navigate the UgG feeling the implementation?

There are specific implementation strategies that focus on how do we move from not doing to doing? How do we navigate that synapse from I'm thinking about doing it to actually what I call touching the task and being engaged with it. And then also something I'm elaborating on more is the interpersonal issues with ADHD, the social functioning issues, and how that we can manage our social capital with other people and also very often with a procrastivity task, or at least the priority task, I should say. It may be part of our adult roles in relationships or helping others and way we can leverage that to build our motivation for engagement with the procrastivity task. So going into these in a little more in depth.

So using the lessons from procrastivity to enhance engagement, how do we make the task manual hands on, at least getting started with it? So something like taxes, this might be let me collect important all the envelopes that say important tax document enclosed, take them to the dining room table on Saturday morning and let me open and organize them. That's really not making too much progress, but we've just exponentially increased the likelihood that we'll keep going. Other things that we can do is go to the workstation, go to where we have to do the job. If that is unloading the dishwasher, let me walk to the kitchen and open the dishwasher door.

If it's studying, let me go to my desk, let me go to the library, let me get to the place. And that physical movement there is pragmatically helpful okay, this is where I have to do it. And as we're doing those behaviors, there's a behavioral priming. If the behavior is associated with the task, moving there has positive associations. Or just like if we go change into our exercise clothes or put on our running shoes.

Putting on our running shoes is not running. I could sit in my running shoes with my legs up on the diet, on the table, eating cheetos. But if I put them on, I'm exponentially more likely to go out for a run. And I get no money from the people who make Cheetos for that endorsement. With a writing or a homework assignment, I'm going to reread the last two paragraphs I wrote last time.

We're not doing anything productive yet, but we're engaging with the task rather than thinking about it and all the ways it might be uncomfortable, or I'm going to have writer's block, I'm not going to be able to think about it now. It's reality, and at least reality. We can deal with one reality at a time. And the behavioral priming also setting up realistic time frames, a start time and an end time, what I call a bounded task. I'm going to work on this for at least ten minutes and then reassess, or 600 seconds.

And it could be time based, it could be task based. I'm going to at least open all the envelopes or work on five homework problems, or maybe even terrain based. I want to clean off my desk. We're trying to lower the bar in terms of getting started. And even for things like homework or intellectual tasks that aren't necessarily hands on or manual, there's probably a rock paper scissors algorithm.

Like writing is harder than reading. Reading is harder than a problem set that we use to. So we might avoid a writing task by doing a reading assignment, or avoid a reading assignment by doing a problem set. But in a way, breaking down tasks into actionable steps that are foundations of higher order outcomes. Like the original karate kid when Mister Miyagi gave Daniel all the chores, wax on, wax off.

And it was actually teaching karate moves in these chores. So that's another way of thinking about how do we break down. You can think about how do I wax on, wax off doing taxes, or break it down into actionable steps that I can do. So rather than doing taxes, which is broad, vague, and nonspecific, or doing homework specificity, something specifically, what am I going to do that is actionable, and when and where am I going to do it? Also, the emotional management tolerating the discomfort, you will not be in the mood to do it.

So making being in the mood to do it a requirement, a precondition, is unrealistic. And actually facing it, feeling the discomfort and getting started is a way to relieve it. And it draws on exposure therapy for anxiety. So recognize and label your emotions. Labeling emotions is taking action on them and putting them through the language system.

And it's also a pause, how am I feeling? And sitting with them brings them down a little bit. It's not going to eradicate them, nor should it label with granularity. This is my I hate doing taxes stress. Understanding the signals, including sometimes anxiety or stress, is a sign of gearing up to do the task.

Not necessarily that we should avoid it, but it's the energy, the impulse that we need to get started on it. This is a way to change the relationship with our emotions, and sometimes even the unpleasant emotions lets us know this is exactly what I should be doing next. I'm a little anxious about homework and the paper, but this is also gearing up to do it. And the fact that I'm feeling something about this means it's probably the right thing to be doing right now, but also having a bounded task, creating the boundary so there's an endpoint. There's also the other side of it.

It's sort of like Tom Hanks paddling out over the big wave in castaway. Once I'm over the wave now, there's smooth waters. Now, again, it was almost a death sentence for him at the time, but we won't get let. We won't let facts get in the way of a good example and being able to accept feelings and work with them, engage with the task anyway. This show is sponsored by better help.

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Russell Ramsey
Attitude distance self talk I'm going to cover a little bit later. I'm going to punt on that for a moment. Specific implementation intention strategies. These are evidence supported in the the literature on self regulation and willpower specific if x then y coping strategies. The theory behind it is the if x.

If I can do this behavior, if I can sit at my desk, then I can work on preparing for the lab meeting for at least ten minutes. The x is the environment and the environment becomes the cue for the behavior like I'll one I use for myself. If I put air in my bike tires, then I will go out for a bike ride. If I can open the envelopes that say important tax document enclosed, then I can work on taxes for at least ten minutes. Or if I can get to the library, then I can work on my economics homework.

So this if x, then Y is very helpful for task initiation. Getting started, handling distractions, interruptions, and other barriers, and getting back on task, coming back after a break, because those breaks can be infinite. But to have a bounded break, I'm going to have a cup of coffee, five minutes, and heaven forbid a cigarette break. I'm a lifetime non smoker and I brought that up one time. It's probably where the cigarette break came from.

And I said, I don't even know how long it takes to smoke a cigarette. And somebody in the audience, without missing a beat said seven and a half minutes. So I'll take their word for it. But that's that bounded break a walk around the block could be a bounded task break, but it gives you a beginning, middle, and end to get back on task. But the effects then why is a very valuable and evidence supported strategy.

And then the social interpersonal domain with procrastination is fulfilling roles. How does this task tie into some personal role? Okay, if I do taxes, that's important for my family. It's part of my job, whatever, or my role in the family and whatever the case may be. And there might be other things, okay, this is my role as student and I want to get it done, or my role on the group project, but just also as the VAT, what I call the valuation of the task.

Why do I want to do this in the first place? How does this fit in with my goals and values? It might be even. I want to know I can make myself do something I don't feel like doing, but it can also be for this is my role at work, and I want to get my work out of the way so I can spend time this weekend with my family looking at the expanding the motivation for doing the task and having a reason for doing it beyond ourselves, too. And again, acting in alignment with our values.

And there's also social emotions tied in with doing it, including positive ones, like, I'll feel satisfied and I'll feel happy that I can pass this on to the other members, and I'll feel like a good teammate if I can pass this on to the other members of the work group, or if I I can share something with the other members of the lab. All right, the cognitive interventions I'm going to go into a little more what are you thinking about the task? And there's a picture of Dwight Schrute from the office saying question. And really, the next couple of slides were an answer to a question I was asked at a conference in 2002 in the early days of CBT for adult ADHD, where somebody asked a perfectly reasonable question. In CBT, what is the theme of the cognitions or the thoughts?

In adult ADHD, the ideational content? Because part of the cognitive therapy, as listed here, different conditions, diagnoses have different themes. So for depression, the main theme of thoughts is loss. The loss of esteem, the loss of opportunity, the loss of a relationship makes you feel sad. For anxiety, it's the perception of risk.

But even more so and more specifically relevant for adults with ADHD, the intolerance of uncertainty. I know I can do it, but I'm not sure if I will be able to do it. Or I'm not sure even if I try to do it, will I get distracted? Will I not do it? And even if I get it done, will it be good enough?

Will I get a passing grade? And that intolerance of uncertainty. And there's some emerging evidence that that's particularly relevant for anxiety with adults with ADHD. And anxiety by a nose over depression is probably the most common coexisting emotional feature of ADHD. But I was asked, what is the ideational content?

What is the theme of the cognitions in adults with ADHD? And I didn't have an answer, nor did any of my colleagues at the time, but it got me thinking. And the next slide, for those of you listening to the podcast version of this, is a picture of Albert Bandura, who had done a lot of research on self efficacy. And self efficacy is the belief in your ability to do a task. Now, generic self efficacy is probably true of depression, anxiety, and really didn't discriminate between the two.

But as I was reading van Durer's book, I ran across what he described as self regulatory efficacy, and as I read more as I looked up the what work was done on it? Generally, all I found was work on exercise and follow through and self regulatory efficacy, with the quotes on the slide taken right from the book is pretty much a rewording of the executive functions. So in many spheres of functioning, people know full well how to perform the needed behavior. And what I've said about ADHD and others have said ADHD is not a knowledge problem, it's a performance problem. And I'll tell my clients, if we're talking about your procrastination, and all I bring to the table is you really need to start earlier.

Sue me for malpractice, please. You know that. But ADHD is a performance problem. So going back to the Bandura quote from his book here people know how full well how to do it. But here the relevant efficacy beliefs concern self regulatory capabilities.

Can people get themselves to stick with the behavior given the many dissuading or another way to think about it is uncomfortable conditions they will encounter. Those who distrust their capacities to surmount the unpleasant factors have little reason to put themselves through misery, so therefore being much more prone for escape and avoidance. So that got me thinking and it's my proposal. But before I get to my proposal, so breaking down where self regulatory efficacy fits agency is the belief in our ability to affect change through our actions. If I want to learn something, I can learn how to do it.

I can get a tutor, I can take a class, I can read instructions on the Internet. Self efficacy is the belief in our ability to exercise control over the events in our life in order to pursue goals. Okay, I'm not a handy guy, so I want to learn how to change the oil in my car so I can take a class in that or watch a video on that. So that's my agency and my efficacy. I believe I can learn actually how to do that.

Self regulatory efficacy is the belief in my ability to actually organize and carry out the actions necessary to affect change in my life and not from lack of skill or capability. So am I able to take a class on changing the oil, actually make it through the video, actually remember the sequence of what I need to do and put it into place, or do it soon enough after watching the video or taking the class so I have some memory rather than waiting a year later and then never getting around to it. So my assumption about the main, the central cognitive theme in adult ADHD is that the main issue is impaired self regulatory efficacy, the self distrust cognitions and the self mistrust. Deeper beliefs. And people will ask me, well, what's the difference between distrust and mistrust?

Well, in looking up definitions of the two, distrust is more immediate. I distrust whether my slides will work, and that's tied in with my deeper mistrust of technology. Now I don't have either, but it's the best example I can come up with. So I know I can do it, but I don't trust I will do it when I need to do it. So the main cognitive task, looking at your thoughts about the task and beliefs about the task, clarify the task and their relationships to your goals and values, including the use of coping tactics like using a planner, manage time.

So why do I want to do this in the first place, and how does this fit with my values, my beliefs about how I want to be and the skills I know that I have, the strengths that I have and reminding ourselves of those realistic, doable plans. How do I frame and think about the task, breaking it down into small steps, event segmentation and sequencing if you want to impress your friends, and that into small enough steps so that we can do it and develop self trust in ourself, reaching outcomes, fulfilling roles, finishing taxes, completing the class, you know, doing the lab presentation. And now we have the felt experience of doing these things and also dealing with the negative thoughts. Well, I'm not going to do it as well as other people will be discounting the positives. I got it done, but I should have started earlier.

No, giving our, giving yourself credit for what you have done and dealing with the emotional reasoning that if I don't feel like doing it, if it feels bad, it's going to be bad. Well, no, it might feel bad because you might have a history of difficulties with writing tasks or taxes, but you're also trying to change these things now. And one of the, in a study we did years ago now looking at some of the thinking patterns for adults with ADHD, perfectionism was far and away number one. And my conjecture about that is it's front end perfectionism. Everything has to be just right for me to start a task.

I have to be in the mood and I can't be distracted. All those things. Now there's a certain degree of truth to that. You don't want to be in a high distraction area, but waiting to be in the mood to do homework or taxes, you'll never be in the mood. So it is being able to get started even though you don't feel like doing it.

And looking at the ADHD cognition scale, published and developed by Laura Naus, John Mitchell, and a couple other colleagues in the ADHD universe, the scale I'll just do this one thing first. I do better waiting until the last minute. I can't stop right now. Usually, though, this usually sucks me in. I'll just do it for a minute.

And a few others. These are distorted positive thoughts that lead to escape and avoidance. So even positive thoughts can be distorted. Gambling gamblers are very positive thinkers, but it's not very adaptive. So the will's greatest vulnerability is to rationalization or having excuses for not getting started.

So in the cognitive domain, what are some lessons learned from procrastivity? As you're thinking about starting the task, but you're not doing it yet, thinking about how you're framing the task, what is it that you have to do doing homework versus let me reread the last two paragraphs I wrote last time, or let me start with my economics homework, specific, actionable steps. It could be framing it as time. I only have to do it for ten minutes, 600 seconds, or even things like, okay, ten minutes. I'd wait for the train at the train station without leaving the platform for ten minutes.

I can spend that long working on taxes or homework or even how long does it take me to walk across campus? Can I devote that long to getting started on my homework? Normalizing the discomfort is called cognitive diffusion. You don't have to make it go away. You can accept it and get started with it anyway.

Challenge the front end perfectionism. I don't have to be in the mood. Everything doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough and that enoughness. Reframe and also the cognitive modification of anticipations.

This is going to be awful. It's not going to do anything. Well, wait, I don't know enough yet, and it could be possible that I'll get something done and I'll feel better. Now, when you're in the task and after the task, this is when you also want to be mindful of, oh, I'm doing really well, I'm going to take a break, or I've been doing well for 15 minutes, I'm going to stop while I'm ahead. Well, cognitive diffusion, I can keep going for the full 30 minutes or, this is getting a little tough.

This wasn't as easy. Okay, I can stick with it and see if I can figure it out. Let me check the thesaurus for another word I can use here so I don't have to stop writing or some other ways to stay engaged. I don't have to be engaged all the time, but I can figure it out as I go. The acceptance and commitment to the task challenge, back end perfectionism.

I have to make this better. Maybe I should hand it in late and try to make, make it better and make an a paper. It's like, no, finished is good enough, so I'm going to let it go. Or I've done, the paper's good enough. And now I should switch the other homework assignment I have to do so I can get my other assignments done.

Trust your plan. See it through. Even if it means, like, okay, I'm procrastinating. Let me go back for at least two minutes so I can finish strong and finish my full 30 minutes.

Be mindful of beating yourself up. Your woulda, coulda, shoulda thoughts. Well, I should have started earlier. I could have started last week. Give yourself credit for what you're doing and focus on the strengths and the positives.

Now, I referred to distance self talk earlier on. Now, this is not specific to ADHD. It's the work of Ethan Cross with a k at the University of Michigan, and it's been found to be helpful with task initiation and also with emotional regulation. What distance self talk is, is talking to yourself by name or as you. So if I would be doing this for myself, it'd be Russ, you've got that manuscript you're working on.

You just need to get to your favorite coffee shop. 07:00 a.m. On Saturday morning. Reread the last two paragraphs you did last time. You, you always doubt yourself at the outset, but you'll be, you'll feel better if you put in an hour on it or if you, you type at least 100 words.

So I think how it operates. So it's been found to be helpful with task initiation and with soothing emotions. I think what it does is, one, it makes us pause. Two, you're formulating what you're thinking about doing and you're saying it to yourself. And there's probably some emotions tied in there, too.

So you're coaching yourself aloud. So saying it, push it through the language system. You're also hearing your. And speaking is motor saying it aloud. You're also hearing it.

And usually hearing it makes it sound more reasonable than we're just thinking about it. And these go beyond the data. But I think also, if we're saying it in you as we would be talking with somebody else. Very often people will say, I could coach somebody else what to do, or, I'm so much more compassionate with other people than I am with myself, that maybe putting it in the language like we're talking with somebody else, we're able to be more compassionate with ourselves. Now, those are conjectures, but it's my story and I'm sticking with it.

So how do we put this together in a takeaway? So I love this quote. When you press the pause button on a machine, it stops. But when you press the pause button on human beings, they start, and I'll just read the whole quote. For those of you listening to the recording, you start to reflect, you start to rethink your assumptions, you start to reimagine what is possible, and most importantly, you start to reconnect with your most deeply held beliefs.

Once you've done that, you can begin to reimagine a better path. So taking the pause to think through the task and use some of these procrastivity workarounds, you're never going to get to 100%. So let's just say somebody starts working with me and says, yeah, I probably. I only follow through maybe one out of five plans 20% of the time. And we work on this for a little bit, maybe we get that up to three out of five, very often adults with ADHD, and say, yeah, I'm still failing 40%, but I make the point that you've moved from one out of five to three out of five.

I think I had this right. That's a 300% increase. If we hadn't, if we invented a medication with those results, we're billionaires. But because it's behavioral, we're still focusing on the part that we're not doing. Nobody gets to 100%.

The relapse rate for procrastination is 100% with anybody with a human brain. So it's going to happen, but we want to reduce it and also be able to bounce back better. So putting this together, the how you don't do things for them, it's clumsy title because it's actually how do you get things done? But it's based on the reverse engineering of how we don't do it. And this form, it's in the form I put it in in my 2020 book, and it's going to be revised for the ADHD and anxiety workbook.

But first, starting off thinking like, what is it I'm not doing? What is the task or goal that I'm avoiding and sometimes I'm avoiding homework because maybe there's three different assignments. So the task becomes I've got to, I've had to choose one assignment and that becomes the task that I work on and why do I want to do it? What's its value to me? Including I just don't want to have to think about it again or I just want to feel better at 430, knowing that I got something done and then moving on to okay, whatever it is I'm doing.

How do I define it in more actionable terms, like a recipe of steps? What is it I actually have to do? Not homework or I have to get an a on the paper. It's I have to outline the paper. I have to go back and edit what I wrote already.

I have a problem set I have to do for a class. I need to put something together, whatever I have to make an appointment for something, whatever it is. What steps do I have to follow? I can log on to make the appointment. I have to find the instructions for whatever I'm putting together, whatever it is and what is and have a have a sequence.

What are the first few steps?

Important tax document and closed envelopes, opening them up, getting to the library. So what is the smallest specific, actionable step that will define moving from not doing to doing? Logging on and opening up the paper, starting to dial the number on the phone or logging into the physicians website to make an appointment, somehow touching the task. When am I going to do this? Doesn't always have to be today.

It might be Saturday morning at 10:00 what time? Start time and end time. It could be in the flow of your day. I'm going to do it on the way home for work, but before I I'm not going to be but before I get home. Because once I get home, I'm not going out again.

Or if it's something on the weekend I want to sleep in, but I want to take care of this task before lunch. That way my afternoon is free. It could be in the flow of your day, but something that is definitive enough that it will cue you in to do it. Where am I going to do it? And having a moving somewhere else, especially moving out of our living situation if that's going to be distracting or at least away from our entertainment center.

But sometimes having a go to place, people will say, yeah, I got the exercise machine in my basement, but it's better if I go to an exercise class or go to the gym because the very act of going there is priming.

Okay, once you have the plan, where will it be performed? Now? What are the potential barriers and how can I turn these barriers into strength? How might my thinking get in the way of doing it? Oh, I have to be in the mood to do it or I don't feel ready to do it.

Or I don't feel in the mood to do it. Now I know that's using feelings with thoughts, but sometimes, you know, they get interchanged, so. Or what I do is probably not going to be any good. Well, how do I know that yet? I haven't even tried.

And how can enhancing your trust in the task or at least being a trust in your ability to try it, the emotional interference, the Ugg feelings and remind yourself, I don't have to be discomfort free to get started and labeling emotions and saying, I can feel this and still I can still move my arms and legs and still get to the dining room table to do taxes or still get ready for my workout. Escape behaviors. What are things I know that I'll be prone to do instead or if I find myself starting to do? Oh, I just want to check if that item is still available on Amazon. I know I'm escaping and I can pivot, including using an effect why strategy.

Okay. I was distracted. If I get back to where I, you know, if I get back to my desk, then I can pick up on my homework and also being mindful of the procrastinati tasks you're most vulnerable to. And then what are some social distractions? Like if you're at the library and a roommate might come by and say hello.

But also, what are your social motivations? I want to get this done so I can spend time with my loved ones. I want to be on time with this project for the other members of the work team. Or you know what, I want to practice the instrument so I can, I'm ready for band practice, things like that. And then what is your implementation plan?

That if x, then y strategy, which I think is a nice synopsis of everything. So the relevance of the lessons, it gives you a way to understand what you're not doing and also a way to a model for figuring out what happened and why I didn't do it so we can get back to it. So I've run over a little bit. So I'm done with the presentation and I'm going to let the attitude team help field and fire questions at me for the rest of the time. Thank you so much, Doctor Ramsey.

Carol Fleck
Before we start the Q and A, I'd like to thank inflow once more for sponsoring this webinar. I'd also like to share the final results from today's poll questions we what factors contribute to differences in your productivity at work or at home? Here's what you said. 23% said my mood or emotional state influences my productivity, 22% said distractions or interruptions, 21% said physical energy levels influence productivity, 18% said my motivation fluctuates depending on my perceived importance of tasks and 14% said changes in my environment or routine influence productivity. And then we asked, what tools or techniques do you find most effective in enhancing productivity?

46% said I create daily or weekly to do lists to prioritize tasks and track progress. 16% said a dedicated workspace free from distractions. Another 16% said using task management apps to organize tasks, and 11% said they follow the Pomodoro technique or similar methods. Now to your questions. What are signals that show I'm procrastinating instead of thinking I'm being productive?

Russell Ramsey
One is checking in with yourself. If you had a plan to do something else, and if you notice having one of those seven distorted positive thoughts, yeah, I know this usually sucks me in, but I'll just do it for a little bit. Things that we all know probably aren't accurate, but we fall into it. That's why it's called a rationalization. It's using logic to convince ourselves to do something that's ultimately self defeating.

Oh, you know, at the little, the small sandwiches they have at parties or, you know, if you eat food at a picnic, at a holiday picnic with plastic utensils, it doesn't have as many calories or all work out twice as hard tomorrow. All the rationalizations or justifications we have. So that's one of them. Also, another thing about the procrastivity tasks, they usually the reason we don't get back to the other stuff because the other stuff is usually more mentally taxing and the mental is physical. It's called cognitive load.

Like writing is high cognitive load task. So it's probably even better if we can get the taxes, the writing assignment, the other mentally challenging things out of the way. Because then it's easier to switch from a high cognitive load task to something more manual like. Manual can be tiring too, but you know, things like unloading the dishwasher or errands or things like that that are relatively mindless. It's even if we say, okay, after I do the dishwasher model one, I'll be in the mood to do the other things.

If we do it, that's fine. But usually the physical also wears a little bit. Like somebody with the answers said, the physical fatigue and physically fatigued, you know, we feel more fatigued and that can psych ourselves out. Mentally, it's usually easier to go from the high cognitive, low tasks to the physical tasks. And, you know, again, I think I might have said before, but if it's already on our to do list and we're doing something not on ours to do list, so even if there are other things, you know, sequencing what we're going to do, in what order, that also helps with the energy conservation.

And sometimes we know if we take an honest look at it, but I think social media and other things in the middle of our day or times where we typically don't want to be on it, that can be another cue of how we can check in with ourselves to figure it out. We might still procrastinate anyway, but at least maybe the next time, as we start drifting away, we may be able to go, oh, I see what I'm doing here. I want to steer back before I get too far afield. Okay, another question is, can you explain the difference between positive procrastination versus that which is based in fear or a lack of executive function planning? Well, procrastivity is positive.

It's also known as positive procrastination.

And, well, what's positive about it is that it is avoiding the priority task, so they actually work together. And the very fact that we're doing something like that is probably a sign that whatever we were, we put off doing instead, like putting off taxes to mow the lawn. It's positive because at least we're getting something done. But it's also a cue that taxes is somehow threatening. However we define that, it's usually that intolerance of uncertainty.

So it could be, what if I have to pay more money than I have? Or what if I make a mistake or things like that. The reason it's uncertainty. These are non zero risk. It could be a fact.

It could be that we owe more money than we think we're going to instead of getting a refund. But it may also be equally likely that we get a refund. And there's also the thing that we have to file by a certain time anyway, so we have to get them done one way or the other. So that's one answer. They go together because a defining feature of procrastivity or positive procrastination is it is to avoid something else.

And it's not always fear. Like I said, it's that intolerance of uncertainty. But there's some degree of risk, including we don't like feeling dumb and sometimes things like homework or doing taxes where we don't feel, feel totally competent in and we might get stuck. And so that leads us to avoid it in the first place. But even something like getting stuck in the middle, I would redefine that as, okay, if you reach a point, certain point in taxes or homework, and you get stuck, now getting unstuck is your task.

So it might be a break to consult with an accountant, reach out to a ta for a class schedule, office hours, or otherwise ask for help that can help get you back on track. So even within getting stuck on tasks or worst case happens, there's ways to work it through. Someone asks, are there differences in procrastination patterns between men and women? Do they present differently? Not that I'm aware of.

I mean, what would be more differences? Maybe in different roles, and it doesn't have to be a gender difference or anything like that, but I mean, there may be differences if in case, within a household, there's a division of labor where there are certain tasks and people are stuck doing something they don't like doing. Like whoever in the partnership is stuck doing taxes. Yeah, they're going to be more likely to procrastinate on taxes, but it may not be due to any gender differences. So I wouldn't say there's a, it's more about role.

What are the roles at work or school or if somebody's in a student role and they're maybe individual. I've heard people say, hey, I don't mind doing taxes. It's like a puzzle. But they might procrastinate on something else. But that's also, if you're in a partnership, you can, in a household, you can divide labor to go with things that you're better at and trading off things that maybe your partner's better at one thing and you're better at another thing.

And that's a way to. It's a win win situation. Well, that sort of leads into the next question, which is, my husband is a huge procrastinator. I've stopped bailing him out in certain situations, but it helped him. It doesn't, it hasn't helped him to be less of a procrastinator next time.

Carol Fleck
What should I try next?

Russell Ramsey
It's reaching out for help from other people, be it professionals. I don't know if the partner in that relationship who's the procrastinator is willing to reach out for help. You know what? There's a, there's a limit in what anybody can do, including me as a therapist, because very often people are coming to me and I'm not telling them anything different than they haven't heard elsewhere. Now, maybe things like how, how we break things down and, and being able to look at thoughts and be aware of emotions and the background in, you know, basic psychology and, you know, things like that can be helpful with, in terms of reframing and helping people have little aha.

Moments or these little kernels like the effects then y, that make things more doable. But, you know, what I would say is, you know, there is a motivating, a motivation factor, you know, one motivating factor. And I don't know if, I think it was the husband in this case, it's called spite motivation. And what it is, it's. And there is, I get no money from this, but I think a website devoted to this called stick, stick with two ks, I think following the notion that, you know, sometimes, sometimes you get results with the carrot, sometimes you get results with the stick.

You know, the carrot at the end of the stick, the positive reinforcer. This is avoiding negatives. So the notion behind it is you. You set a goal, you commit to a goal. Let's just say it's going to the gym a certain number of times in a week, and either you set it up or you empower somebody else where you have an agreement where if I do not go to the gym at least three times this week, I will give $50 to the presidential candidate, the political party, the political movement that I oppose.

And so sometimes the notion of getting in shape or reducing your cholesterol, that doesn't do it. But I so do not want this person getting my money, that I'm going to go to the gym out of spite. And that that's another way to motivate, you know, it's sort of, you know, rather than the positives aren't enough, maybe avoiding the negatives, which is actually negative reinforcement, it's not punishment, but it's the removal of a negative. I so don't want to give that money that I'll, I'll go and do it anyway. That's very unique, and I imagine that could be quite powerful.

Right, right. I mean, it could be stuff like, I don't know, you agree to wear the jersey of the sports team that is your favorite team's rival or something like that. So whatever works. Yes. All those things would motivate me very much.

Carol Fleck
Another question is, do certain moods contribute to procrastination? They can. I mean, I heard in the survey about one's mood or emotions at the moment. Well, that is, emotions for anybody, ADHD or not, are probably the main feature in procrastination. You know, what, not feeling like doing it or not feeling like, you know, not being in the mood to do it.

Russell Ramsey
But like I said, there's a lot of things we're not in the mood to do. Saving for retirement exercise is a hassle, but, you know, for some of these things, we develop a habit, or it's the pursuit of the longer, the larger later goal, which is really a hallmark of what the executive functions allow us to do. It's why they're uniquely human feature. Not exclusively. Some higher order social mammals have it, but it's to the degree that we have it, it's for those larger, later, you know, payoff.

So the emotions and being able to tolerate short term discomfort for the larger, more rewarding payoff as opposed to the smaller, sooner rewards. It's the battle of human nature. So yes, emotions play a central role. And mood and being depressed, being anxious about something, being anxious about something else, where you go, I can't focus on doing this right now because we're depleted. But also there are some things where we might be depleted.

Not all avoidance is procrastination or negative. Sometimes it's, we are tired, we need a rest. Our brain is telling us we're overworked, we're stressed. Emergencies come up, we need other things. There's a whole host of ways that we end up not doing what we set out to do that are not procrastination.

Carol Fleck
You had mentioned retirement and we had a few questions around that. The freedom of retirement seems to have made procrastination worse for some people. Is that common? And how can they overcome that? The lack of structure?

Russell Ramsey
Yeah, as much, and it's happened during the lockdowns in the pandemic. As much as we rail against school and work, it gets us up in the morning and even things like what I do for a living. I have people, I have appointments, people waiting for me. And actually I will have one now, so I'll have to wrap up relatively soon. But we having a routine.

That's why as cliche as it is about time management, a planner, a calendar, and it's less about the planner and calendar. I mean, they help with the extra. They are tools for externalizing time so we can see it because time just, it's fluid, it runs, it doesn't stop, it doesn't speed up, it doesn't slow down. It just goes and having the window or the routine and this could be body doubling and you go to the gym with your partner or, you know, with procrastination, you team up and work on things together, or at least getting jump started on things. Now I hear what that other partner was saying, I've had enough of it, which I can, I can understand.

But however you do it, it can be as a calendar, it could be a routine, including stuff like, okay, we're going to go out to breakfast on these days, go to the library these days, sign up for, you know, and this is where things like signing up for races or ten k walks or things like that where there is an external motivator. I should be able to get myself up and running on my own just for my health. But knowing I have to run even a five k, get somebody up and moving or some commitment with other people, volunteer work and again with the, with the spite motivation, maybe people go, that's so much of a hassle. I'm going to come up with my own routine at home so I don't have to go out and deal with people because that's why I retired. Okay, well, that has to be our last question, unfortunately.

Carol Fleck
But Doctor Ramsey, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your expertise with our ADHD community. Happy to do it, and thank you to today's listeners. If you would like to access the event resources, visit attitudemag.com and search podcast 501. The slides and recording are posted a few hours after each live webinar. If you're listening in replay mode, simply click on the episode description.

Please know that our full library of attitude webinars is available as a podcast. It's called the ADHD Experts podcast and it's available on all streaming platforms. Make sure you don't miss Future attitude webinars articles or research updates by signing up to receive our free email newsletters@attitudemag.com newsletters thanks everyone. Have a great day. For more attitude podcasts and information on living well with the time pension deficit, visit attitudemag.com.

That's additudemag.com.

501- ADHD & Procrastivity: How to Outsmart Procrastination and Improve Productivity

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1: Understanding Procrastivity

2: Cognitive Behavioral Approaches

3: Implementing Change

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