An executive functioning skill, task initiation is defined as the ability to independently begin a task or activity without procrastination or hesitation. It is the green light, the gas pedal, which moves us from simply thinking about doing something to actually getting on with it. 

This skill is particularly tricky for neurodivergent folks, especially ADHDers, because we often have interest-led – rather than importance-led or priority-led – brains. To explain what I mean by interest-led brains it’s perhaps helpful to start by explaining how people who don’t have ADHD are able to motivate themselves to get started with a task. They are generally able to motivate themselves to do something simply because they know it is important, either to them personally or to the people around them. Even if they aren’t interested in it or don’t enjoy it, this importance is enough reason for their brains to get going. For example, they might not enjoy doing laundry, but they know that it is important that it gets done, and knowing this is enough motivation to get started.

However, when it comes to ADHDers, simply knowing that something is important isn’t enough; our interest-led brains need another motivating factor to get started. It is believed this is because ADHD brains regulate dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for stimulating us, in a different way than non-ADHD brains. Dopamine is known as the ‘reward’ hormone and plays an important role in memory, movement, motivation, mood, attention and more. Research has shown that people with ADHD have at least one defective gene, the DRD2 gene, which makes it difficult for neurons to respond to dopamine. The research in this area is very limited, but it has been suggested that where most people (non-ADHDers) have a fairly regular stream of dopamine (they do a task, they get rewarded, and that reward keeps them motivated), ADHD brains generally have a lower level of dopamine (which means we will struggle to concentrate or get started with things), and then when we do become interested in something, we will have a flood of too much dopamine (which might cause our intense hyperfocus states). This is one of the reasons that the name attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is considered to be inaccurate; it is not that we have a deficit of attention, it’s that our brains don’t regulate dopamine levels in the same way as people who don’t have ADHD. 

Although this is all a huge simplification of our brain’s complicated chemistry, thinking about my ADHD in regards to its dopamine levels has really helped me to work out how to get started on tasks by supporting myself to make task initiation easier. As a very logical problem solver, I started to think of it as an equation: if my brain generally has less dopamine than it needs to complete a task, and the task itself isn’t providing me with enough dopamine to get and stay motivated, all I need to do is top up the task with a little extra dopamine hit which will allow me to hit that magic threshold of motivation to get started. Hopefully, this novel way of thinking about task initiation will help you in the same way that it helped me.

When it comes to task initiation it can be helpful to think of our ADHD as an equation. If our brains generally have less dopamine than they need to complete a task, and the task itself doesn’t provide us with enough dopamine to get and stay motivated, all we need to do is top up the task with a little extra dopamine hit to reach the threshold. As I said earlier, this is a very simplified account of what is actually going on in our very complicated and complex brains, and much more research is needed to work out the reality of the hormones and neurotransmitters that affect the way we function. However, it can be a simple framework in helping us to find ways of best supporting ourselves and learning to work with our brains rather than against them. 

So if we’re considering it to be a case of finding little dopamine top-ups that we can add to tasks to make them more appealing, it is helpful to know what it actually is that motivates our interest-led brains.

The four things that best motivate ADHDers are usually defined as: 

Interest 

The first thing that motivates our interest-led brains is, of course, something that we find interesting, such as a topic we’re enthusiastic about or something that makes us curious. It makes sense that if something is interesting to us, we’re naturally going to be motivated to get started with it – but how can we use this to motivate ourselves to do something we’re not interested in? Well, in these cases, we can either find the interesting parts of a project we’re working on and start there, or we can find ways of weaving other things that we’re interested in into the task that doesn’t feel as interesting. For example, if you know that you’re a lover of spreadsheets, you could create a spreadsheet to plan out the task you need to do, or if you’re really into films, you could find a film about the topic you need to study.

Novelty

Our next motivator is something that is novel, or new. This can apply to tasks that we’ve never done before or tasks that feel as though they are leading us on a new, exciting adventure. This explains why ADHDers tend to have a love of learning new things, because the novelty factor motivates our brains and keeps us interested. We can use novelty to make other less exciting tasks more appealing to our interest-led brains by regularly changing the types of tasks we’re working on, trying to solve old problems in new ways, or adding something new while we’re doing a not-new task. 

This could look like working from a café that you’ve never been to before instead of working from home every day or buying yourself a new notepad or stationery for your study project. 

Challenge

Our third motivator is something that is challenging to us or something that involves an element of competition. This competition could be against ourselves, such as seeing how many words we’re able to write in a thirty-minute period and trying to break our record each day, or against other people, such as having an accountability partner or joining leaderboards on apps like Duolingo that encourage you to learn a new language. 

Urgency

Our final motivator is when something is urgent, and has a tight, time-based deadline, which is why many of us might find that we can only get things done at the very last minute (I’m looking at myself typing out these words when my book deadline is a measly four days away [which might make you think, ‘Wow, Ellie, that’s quite tight, but at least you’re not writing it the night before!’, but, really, I go on holiday tomorrow and I want to get it finished before I go so… I told you I’m far from having it all figured out myself!]).

This could look like inviting a friend round so you’re forced to tidy up before they come, or asking your manager to set you lots of shorter deadlines to complete different parts of a project rather than having one long deadline and knowing that you’ll leave it all until the last minute. 

• Not being able to immediately start any task on demand without prior warning.
• Needing to pair tasks together to make them more stimulating, for example listening to music while working, or watching your favourite TV show while exercising. 
• Starting with the easier, more appealing tasks first to build up to the bigger, more important tasks.
• Relying on accountability or rewards to get things done. 
• Leaving things until the last minute if you know that urgency is the only motivator that works for you. 
• Doing seemingly unrelated tasks before the main task that you need to do, not to procrastinate but because you need a clear workspace before you sit down to write, for example. 
• Doing fewer tasks each day, rather than thinking that you need to be in ‘go’ mode every second of every day.
• Taking the time to decompress or scroll on your phone between tasks without beating yourself up for putting other things off. 
• Getting started with two minutes of a task rather than thinking you have to commit to sitting down for multiple hours so that it’s easier to come back to when you’re ready.
• Working outside the traditional ‘9 to 5’ working hours if you know that you’re more productive in the early mornings or evenings.

This article is an edited extract from Ellie Middleton’s new book, How to be You: Say Goodbye to Should, Would and Could So That You Can, which is available to buy now.

Images: Getty