Plan ahead

By Elle - 14/05/2022 16:00

Today, my husband yet again procrastinated on a project for so long, that he now has to work during the weekend. When I asked whether or not we could still spend some free time together, he started ranting about how I ruin his career. He seriously thinks it's about us and not his horrible planning skills. FML
I agree, your life sucks 992
You deserved it 146

Same thing different taste

Top comments

Procrastination is actually a very common problem, and a lot of people are able to find techniques that help. There are numerous TED talks about it on Youtube, a ton of books, etc. My other recommendation would be for him to fill out a self-assessment test for ADHD (or ADD, though I understand that term isn't used anymore). I wasted the best years of my life with untreated ADHD; I'd get diagnosed as 'low level depression', or 'generalized anxiety disorder', or whatever. My life was fine, I was making good money, I had a good marriage-- I can see where a therapist might be rolling their eyes at my 'problems' and not looking very deeply, but come on; I went to therapists for 15 years before a nurse practioner tested my for ADHD. I was in my 50s. After getting the diagnoses and researching it, my life made a lot more sense. The medication has helped a lot, though sadly not as much as I'd like. Anyway, my point is, the kind of procrastination you're describing could easily be due to ADHD. The ADHD brain has a hard time getting motivated and keeping focus on tasks that the person is not genuinely interested and engaged with. However, that same ADHD brain is good at hyper-focusing if it has a reason to-- ideally that reason would be interest in the task at hand, but when that's not possible, the stress and immediate consequences of knowing something needs to be done Right Now, that it may have already been delayed too long, is enough to put the hyper-focusing part of the brain in control. Particularly if it's happening with work projects, my completely non-professional opinion is that ADHD could very well be the underlying reason. If that's the case, it's probably good news, because (1) medication helps-- for some people, it helps a *lot*; and (2) other common behavior from ADHD brains that can cause real problems in relationships, like being irritable and snappish when interrupted, also get treated by the same medication.

Comments

I'm going to write a witty comment on this. Wait on it...

Procrastination is actually a very common problem, and a lot of people are able to find techniques that help. There are numerous TED talks about it on Youtube, a ton of books, etc. My other recommendation would be for him to fill out a self-assessment test for ADHD (or ADD, though I understand that term isn't used anymore). I wasted the best years of my life with untreated ADHD; I'd get diagnosed as 'low level depression', or 'generalized anxiety disorder', or whatever. My life was fine, I was making good money, I had a good marriage-- I can see where a therapist might be rolling their eyes at my 'problems' and not looking very deeply, but come on; I went to therapists for 15 years before a nurse practioner tested my for ADHD. I was in my 50s. After getting the diagnoses and researching it, my life made a lot more sense. The medication has helped a lot, though sadly not as much as I'd like. Anyway, my point is, the kind of procrastination you're describing could easily be due to ADHD. The ADHD brain has a hard time getting motivated and keeping focus on tasks that the person is not genuinely interested and engaged with. However, that same ADHD brain is good at hyper-focusing if it has a reason to-- ideally that reason would be interest in the task at hand, but when that's not possible, the stress and immediate consequences of knowing something needs to be done Right Now, that it may have already been delayed too long, is enough to put the hyper-focusing part of the brain in control. Particularly if it's happening with work projects, my completely non-professional opinion is that ADHD could very well be the underlying reason. If that's the case, it's probably good news, because (1) medication helps-- for some people, it helps a *lot*; and (2) other common behavior from ADHD brains that can cause real problems in relationships, like being irritable and snappish when interrupted, also get treated by the same medication.

Sonotsuave 35

Jesus Christ dude are you writing an essay