Adult Add: Why Can't Somebody Else Do It?

When you're bored, and you have ADD, you procrastinate about doing boring things and become frustrated, and well... they just don't get done. There are many things that you can do. We’ve already really beaten into the ground the fact that, as soon as you can, you need to start outsourcing and delegating them one at a time to other people.

However, when you have to do the boring tasks—when you’ve got to do the dishes, take out the garbage, or some kind of accounting if your accountant is sick or you haven’t hired an accountant yet— and you have ADD, what can you do?

One thing is to go out and exercise right before doing something boring. You can do 10 minutes of jumping jacks. You can go take a jog around the block. You can run up and down the stairs a few times to get your heart pumping.

Whatever it is, you want to get the blood flowing to your brain, and get your ADD brain active so that you have the power to be thinking about something else while you’re doing that boring task. You already know you’re good at multi-tasking. You already know you’re good at shifting gears and switching from thing to thing. People with ADD just are.

So, give your ADD brain the fuel it needs to occupy its thoughts with something interesting, while you’re doing something boring. It sounds simple and that’s because it is simple. This is one of the most important things that people with ADD can do to immediately to engage their bodies and their minds, and to start getting things to move forward.

All of us have to do boring things once in a while.

If those of us with ADD can systematize a boring task, we stand a much greater chance of being able to ask someone else to help us with that boring task. For example, let’s say that you get up every day and, while it’s necessary, you really find it boring to feed your dogs in the morning. Well...

What if you have kids? Do you think that you could maybe delegate that task to the kids? Do you think that maybe you could write a system that says, “Put the food in the bowl. Put the wet food in. Give them a pill. Check it off when you’re done,” and make a little checklist that would be fun and exciting for them, that would get your task done. It would get the boring task off your plate

Or, if your kids have ADD, too, that's OK. In fact, that's great! You can start teaching them how to deal with boring tasks early on so it won't affect them so much when they're older. They'll already know how to bring in other senses to stimulate their ADD minds and make boring things less boring.

If they're older kids, you let them know that they can crank whatever music they want to at the top of its volume while they’re doing it. It’s interesting for them in the process. If they're young children, reward them in some way. If they aren't old enough for an allowance for tasks completed, they might love a special sticker. In fact, give them a card to fill with stickers because with ADD, they probably love to collect things. When the card's full, they've earned something, right? So, decide what that is, and there you go.

You're alleviating the boredom from your ADD brain and not feeling a bit guilty about it. You aren't just avoiding boredom, you're teaching your ADD children the value of money, too.

If you don't have kids to delegate things to, when you absolutely have to do a boring task, a great thing to do is set a timer. Your ability to sit down and fill out an application, fill out a form—or some of those things that ADD people get bored by, like dealing with money or whatever—you may be able to deal with all those things if, you look at them and say, “Okay, I’m going to do 15 minutes, and in that 15 minutes, I’m going to fill out this one form. Go!” Make it a game. “Let’s see if I can beat the clock.”

Or, turn up the music, get a candle going, involve all the senses, make things happen so that your ADD brain is actually a little bit more stimulated than just sitting there trying to focus on one thing. Otherwise, whatever it is might not get done. Don't allow your ADD to control you. Take control of your ADD.