DAE...

I will make up a story more elaborate than game of thrones before doing something I don't want to

"Write stuff down and put it where you'll see it!"
— proceeds to completely see through the stuff you wrote down because it is now blends into the background scenery —
- Yup. Getting tired of people saying "just write notes and reminders!"
  Okay, my brain immediately deleted the memory of the reminder once it popped up, now what.
  
  I carry a notebook around for this and that works pretty well. If I need to do something I write it in there first and that way even if I get sidetracked it's there. It also helps prevent getting sidetracked because I can put whatever is sidetracking me on the list instead.
- Alternative: about six years ago I was struck with an idea for a new campaign setting after watching a video about orbital resonance in tightly-packed planetary systems. I was about to get into the shower at the time, but I completely forgot about that for the next three hours as i started scribbling equations on the walls with soap and on the steamed-up mirrors with my fingers. That was the moment that made me realize I actually needed medication
- I'm in this picture and I don't like it.
- Yeah, this is why I have a physical calendar with stickers that I can place for tasks (they are called family calendars and have extra space to place pictograms and notes on each day of the months) and an app that notifies me of tasks to do at the same time (for any ADHD havers here, the app is called Habitica, it's the best app I've found for ADHD, try it out; it really helps).
  If I blend one out completely that day, the other reminds me non-stop on my phone (post-its were not helping at all on their own and weren't precise enough compared to a family calendar). It helps with getting more tasks done than if I didn't use those tools at all (I am medicated, but I still struggle with not doing tasks when my motivation is very low, you all know how it is).

The distractions are all on the inside of my brain going weeeeeee... so should i just remove my brain?
- Complete removal seems extreme. Maybe just disconnect some of it, as a treat.

If I don't have something to distract me I can't concentrate
- Yep, the goal is to find the correct balance of the correct types of distractions.
  Too much or the wrong ones and you veer off course and never make it back to the main task, too much the other way and the main task feels like too much to start.
  This is different for everyone which makes it all the more fun. It's a life skill people with adhd need to learn all on their own and other than telling rach other a path exists, we cannot actually guide each other from our own experience.
  And the sometimes what works shifts around or stops working all together as circumstances or surroundings change.
- I work best with music/podcasts/streaming all simultaneously blasting. Then I can concentrate.
  
  My wife finds it BAFFLING that I can listen to a TV show with audio description on, or an audiobook, or a podcast, while playing a video game, and be happy as a clam.

Me with distraction: feeling fine, barely getting work done
Me without distraction: rumination HELL, feel like shit, still barely getting work done
Give me interesting work and I will give you unlimited output
- Same. I don't struggle with difficult tasks that I can dig into and use my knowledge and problem solving skills to resolve. I spent 2 hours writing a script last week that will save me 2 days of work and didn't get distracted once. What I struggle with is tedious bullshit.
- This is the bane of my existence right now. I used to bounce between jobs because my work would get boring and made me lose interest in my job. I stuck on my current employer because the company specializes in research consulting so each project has kept me interested in the work but lately with the economy in the shitter the projects we took on is more run-of-the-mill and it's tanking my productivity.
- on a related note, when i dont have anything to do i feel like mosquitoes are assaulting me every half a second, 10% are real, the other ones i probably just imagine and it was just wind on my legs

I have to, I mean HAVE to, get paperwork done today.
So far today I have mowed/weed wacked the yard, weeded and watered my garden, pulled meat from the freezer to defrost and planned dinner for tonight, and took one phone call in regards to said paperwork. They called me, of course.
I'm now on break and it's nearly noon. This paperwork is over my head and I am overwhelmed. I could start on other chores just to avoid it, instead I uh, am taking break. I have to get this done, and I am annoyed as to why I have to do it at all.. I might just pull it out to look at it. That's step one no?
- Yes definitely pull it out. Celebrate any progress in the right direction. Write down one word. Fill out one tiny section. Now positively reinforce it - that section was easy, nice. If that's what you get done today then so be it. The next section will be easier.
  
  Got 7000 words done, fuck yeahhhhh Dinner was never made, but got a large chunk of it done! You folks are so supportive! Thank you! Warms my heart
- Hey, checking in. I know what this paralysis feels like. I do encourage you to JUST take it out. Maybe skim it if you can. Nothing else, then take another little break for a time. You got this <3
- You took a phone call? You overachiever, you
- I also get so insanely productive when I have something else to do. You're on the right track. You do the minimum possible step towards what you want to do even how small it is just find something small enough that you can manage.
- Paperwork and accounting are the absolute worst. Like, it feels like it was specifically designed to be torture.

I’ve learned that my brain’s ADHD department needs the opposite. It needs constant stimulation to keep it distracted so that it leaves me alone to have some semblance of executive function.
Audio stimulation works best. I used to always listen to podcasts, but I’ve found that specific types of music are best for getting work done. (in my case, it’s upbeat energetic thrash and groove metal)
- That’s interesting. I kind of go back and forth. Sometimes I’ve got the TV going and three other devices plus headphones in, sometimes I need everything quiet.
  
  One of my absolute favorite things to do is just lay on the bed in a cool dark room with the fan blowing at me. It’s both for cooling down because I’m heat sensitive (completely separate medical issue) and for the sensory deprivation and recharging.
  Sometimes I will still put on something to listen to, even in that case. Usually it isn’t typical music though. It will typically be a long form video of a video game speed run or some kind of asmr video with people talking in japanese.
  And at work, on days I’ve stayed late for whatever reason, it gets very peaceful and productive for sure.
  Being absorbed in my music while working brings that kind of peaceful productive feeling with it, actually. By occupying a certain part of my brain, it must prevent certain anxieties and distractions from getting that attention.
- This! Thrash metal or some good electronic music is the only thing that helps. Chiptunes too. I can pump out shitloads of work that way. Unfortunately, ever since Teams was introduced, people keep calling me without hesitation. People invite me to (recurring) meetings faster than I can decline them. I fucking hate the post covid era. I can't listen to music for more than 2 minutes before the next interruption.
  
  Hell yeah, some electronic & industrial sounds are always welcome. I do have chiptunes represented on my playlist too. There’s at least Strike The Earth from Shovel Knight.
  Fortunately mr job is pretty good about leaving me alone to work on things. (or not, as is often the case)
  
  hmm maybe headphones with transparency mode would help? you can still listen to music while having the call on speakers. just an idea, don't know if it's feasible
- Trance or DeepHouse here
- Audiobooks baby. Nothing too dense and full of symbolism. Good pulpy scifi works best for me.
  
  Oh yeah. This does it for me too. A 20-something volume series space-opera or tactical space-war is perfect for GSD. Works great for insomnia too.
  Fortunately we’re in a sci-fi golden-age so there’s lots of great stuff to keep a brain happily occupied while the body mindlessly toils. Urban fantasy is another great genre for this. There’s even urban-fantasy space-opera if that’s your thing, lol.

Would you look at that, I have hands.
- I remember back when I was in school and staring at my hands seemed infinitely more important than homework. Also watching shadows change as the sun moved across the sky.
  Thinking about really makes me appreciate Adderall.
  
  You had a WINDOW?! Lucky. I got a windowless room in school all by myself to do my homework in, as my reward for even having an IEP (that was never followed)
- "y'know, they call 'em fingers, but I never see them 'fing.' Oh, wait, there they go."
- "I have knife hands?"

Me sitting on the couch listening to my clock and making it go from "tick tock tick tock" to "tock tick tock tick" back and forth in my head for 27 minutes straight.
- Ouch, this one is too real!

Whenever someone suggests the ole remove distractions, I get reminded of that Rick and Morty scene that's like I NEED TO GET ALL OF THIS SKIN OUT OF MY PERSONAL SPACE. Then the character flays themselves.
Thinking about it, if this were possible, I'd probably continue picking whatever is underneath.
- I read this post, then read this comment. All while chewing my fingers. I wish i could say i learned something.
  
  I'm a little better these days. It takes a lot of mental bandwidth for a lot of time. I've retrained myself to just rub my fingers together or sth. Meds help to stay on it. Also lots of moisturizing, so 1) you get to do sth with your hands and 2) there's less stuff to pick at. I'm far from cured though- managed to grow my nails out, but still get my cuticles bleeding regularly.

My fingers are fucking fascinating. As are my toes. Not to mention all the bullshit going on in my head.

When our house is filthy I tell my wife to gtfo and I overcaffinate and just "stream of consciousness" that removed. I will hyperactively flit from room to room taking care of a small percentage of one of the hundreds of little jobs that compromise cleaning the house. The moment I get bored or the shits about one task I just wander off and find another to chip away at. Give me 6 hours and its a new house.
Drives my OCD wife utterly mad, because it takes her 6 hours to find the right size containers for the linen press, drive to 3 shops to get enough, then decide on a font for the labels she is going to make on her cricut, print the labels and get them on the tubs and I get home to the hallway full of linen and what I'm sure one day will be a perfectly organised linen press.

Even with relaxing. Just yesterday I told myself, “Hell yeah it’s Sunday I’m having a gaming day for myself!!”
I turned on my game and sat there for 5 hours doing nothing. I hate it.

Yes. I hate myself.

I thought removing distractions would help too. But even with no distractions, attending a meeting feels like I’m listening to a radio while driving between states.

In school, because I was disruptive, I was often told to copy parts of the dictionary as "punishment." I can only assume this was meant for normies. I would instead actually read the dictionary as that was far more interesting than writing it down.
Anyway, afterwards when I hadn't written anywhere near enough they'd ask what I did instead of writing. "I read it." So they'd take it away and quiz me on what was there. Naturally I was able to answer their questions as I had actually read it. Eventually they decided that the TAG program was the best way to keep me from interrupting the kids who needed the class.

I literally clutter my space in the vain hope that random mis-positioned object x will remind me to do task y. Blank wall isn't going to remind me to do shit.

Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I need some form of background noise to concentrate on anything. Whether that be music or someone endlessly yapping with a monotone voice in a video. Just anything that drowns out my endless stream of thoughts that have 0 to do with my task.
- Excellent username really unique I like it
  
  Same to you!

It's simple: remove the wall as well.
/s
- Has anyone tried removing the CEO? Say a nice deserted island with nothing to distract them.

I always tell people "I need something to ignore"
And it's mostly true...I need background sound. And not just white noise - I need something with meaning
Put me in nature, and I'm fine. Bird tweets, rustling of the leaves - I'm at peace. I'll hear even a squirrel hundreds of yards away, but I know what's going on. I just need to know what's going on around me in a way that makes sense. The creaking of the building, distant cars, muffled footsteps... Just the unnatural silence
That's what freaks me out

Are you sure it's not just depression?
- There is probably also depression in there. It is pretty easy to get depressed when you have ADHD.
- but ADHD is such a gift how could we ever end up depressed??!?
  
  I've seen this mentality way too much on Reddit subs. Often by the same people that say they are just "neurospicy" and that ADHD is quirky and makes up their entire identity. God that shit is cringe.
  Even saw someone recently ask people if they would cure their ADHD if scientists came up with a cure. 90% of the responses were by sane people saying, "WTF question is that? Yes, I would cure it, it's a disability!" and the op was just replying to them that ADHD was the reason they were creative and was their identity... Bro... Sometimes, I feel like some of these people aren't even real.
- throws you down a cliff like a sack of potatoes

Yeah. I’m my own distraction.

Can ADHD be almost the right way to handle undesired work?
If one doesn't want to do work, it's straight forward to not do it. If that isn't allowed then doing everything else is the closest thing to avoiding that work. In that sense, ADHD is either a way of avoiding to be broken or the inability to integrate work into one's accepted goals.
How could it be possible to accept work that one doesn't want to do?
- In modern society you either work or starve. There's no adventurous alternative as would have been available before modernity.
  
  It's mind boggling how different the modern concept of work is from how it was for 99.9% of human existence.
  I'm sure the hyper-optimization, hyper-specialization, the alienation, and the constant flux of modern work contributes greatly to the problems we are experiencing.
  Even when there was no "adventurous alternative", work was a lot more grounded in society and had a lot more downtime at pretty much any point in history.
- I think there's still a problem in that you need to do some things that are undesired in order to maintain yourself - Household chores, for example. Some things are non negotiable, and for those you need to be able to force yourself, as unpleasant as it is.

My mind is a distraction.

I am my own distraction

By "wall" I assume this means smartphone. Because if you're sitting for 6 hours doing nothing but staring at a wall I think there's something else going on.
EDIT:
I get that the meme is being hyperbolic, but I find it kind of misleading. As someone who likely has ADHD or/and is on the spectrum, the idea of “sitting still and staring at a wall for 6 hours” doesn’t match how ADHD usually works. If I remove distractions, I don’t just freeze - I end up doing something else entirely, like watching YouTube or pacing around. The paralysis is real, but it’s more about being stuck in a loop of avoiding the right task while still seeking stimulation. So the meme's wording just doesn’t land for me because it confuses task paralysis with total inactivity, which feels more like depression or burnout than ADHD. Maybe I’m just being too literal, but this is why it doesn’t click with me.
- If you’re removing distractions, you should probably also remove smartphones /tablets/smartwatches/whatever else people might have. But again, even if people try to remove my distractions, I’ll entertain myself. I personally like to guess and check cube roots, which is much easier to do with paper and pencil, but can be done without. It’s an effective way to kill time.
  
  the task i need to do on the computer:
- Comments like this give me the feeling that it's the neurotypicals that actually have something wrong with them and they just convinced ND people that they're the normal ones.
- I've been diagnosed twice with ADHD. I have it. I've tried a bunch of different meds and some work sometimes etc etc
  Ive definitely had spacey days where I will literally lose myself staring at nothing for 15 minutes. That's rare though. Most of the time removing distractions, setting a routine, and ensuring I am on task when meds kick in help a bunch. The last one especially. With meds I HAVE to actually be doing the thing I'm supposed to with little opportunity for distraction when they kick in or I will fuck around.
  This meme and many others do not match my experience with ADHD. I'm sure it does for some.
  Hot take? I think a lot of people with ADHD (me included) use it as an excuse to not try. It's typically not impossible to overcome but it does make it more difficult. I say this having more often than not failing to over come my adhd.
  People with ADHD are often impulsive and self destructive and memes like this, to me, are an expression of that self destructive part.
  Tbf to the meme though if you are deep in a spiral of self destructive procrastinating for months and that's lead to issues at work, home etc then it's easy to hit burnout and be depressed.
  But at the end of the day you have to use methods like removing distractions, taking notes and making checklists or whatever works for you so you don't fall down those ADHD doomspirals. At least I don't know any other way to stop it lol
  
  Adult diagnosed forty years person here. Basically this is my experience, can add to these excellent tips to provide yourself with a lagom, level headed amount of stimuli, you research what is correct for you, it may be jungle rain, iron works sounds, sped up techno with echo, but don't be a problem and make it excessive or extravagant just use it for its purpose and don't make it your identity to be eccentric, just find the frequencies that tune fork vibes your brain activates from and use it.
- You have a functioning brain right? You don't need smartphone to get thinking.
  
  Mostly functional yes, but not compatible with sitting still for 6 hours and doing nothing.
- No. By wall they mean wall/ceiling/floor.
- You may be thinking of (stereotypical) hyperactive ADHD. ADHD inattentive type has little issue sitting still and retreating from reality into the brain (which is why it often goes unnoticed).