Episode 8: Trapped by the To-Do List

In this weeks episode, I share a recap from a coaching session I had with a client who was feeling overwhelmed and trapped by all the things she felt like she had to do .  I will share how we uncovered some difficult experiences from her past that were contributing to the feeling of being trapped, how ADHD played a role in it all, and how this was actually preventing her from doing anything!   

I'll also talk about the importance of verbal processing for people with ADHD and how it can help make the to-do list feel more manageable as it allows us to organize and prioritize tasks as well as solve problems that were preventing us from getting started.  

If you are someone who feels tied to a never ending to-do list, I hope this episode offers some insight and support! 

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Disclaimer:
This podcast is not intended to be a substitute for coaching, therapy, or any other medical intervention. Rather it is a resource for you the listener to learn more about yourself and your ADHD. Furthermore, these sessions reflect MY personal style of coaching and how I was trained, and are not meant to be a representation of all ADHD coaching.

All sessions being highlighted in this podcast are being done so with permission from the client being featured. Some details may be slightly altered in order to keep their identity anonymous.

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Transcript

 Hello. Welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me again on Monday morning, ADHD coaching. I am your host and coach Emily. And today I'm going to be talking about a session I had with a client. Who was feeling very trapped by all the things she felt like she needed to do. She had a guest coming to stay with her in a few weeks and had a very long list of stuff she wanted to get done before that guest came. If you have ever felt overwhelmed or trapped by your to-do list. I think you'll be able to gain some insight from this episode. So let's get into it. And just as a heads up, this is going to be a two-part episode because there are two very distinct things that I'll be going over. 
And I didn't want to make this episode too long, so you will get the rest in the next episode. 

The session started with my client, telling me about a fun personal project that she had just started on, that she was very excited about and brought her a lot of joy. But I could also sense she was very hesitant about it for some reason. And I quickly found out why, as she went on to explain that she didn't really want to get caught up in it. And start hyper-focusing on it because   she had other projects that she said were less exciting, but more pressing.  She went on to explain that she had a guest coming in a week and there was so much she needed to get done before their arrival. So I asked her to talk through some of that stuff.  

There was a lot of cleaning of certain rooms, moving things out of the guestroom, but that meant cleaning space somewhere else, which meant going through piles of paper. Because she didn't want to just relocate them. And laundry and general house stuff. 

And I could see she was getting kind of worked up, just listing it all out. So I asked her how she felt in just listing these things. And she said, trapped. She felt so trapped by it all. And as we were narrowing down, some of the thoughts that were making her feel trapped. She said I'm not free to do other things until this stuff gets done. 

And by other things, she was referring to more enjoyable, fun things like this new project.  And as we spoke, it became apparent that not only did she have this huge list of things she wanted to do before her guests came. But then some of those things required chipping away at some other things on the bigger list of stuff. 

And so now she was starting to consider all the things that she had to do, and it really just started snowballing. And so what we came to realize is that she was really telling herself I'm not free to do other things until all the other stuff is done.  All the other stuff. That's so much. I mean, this included a whole bathroom renovation project they'd been talking about for years. 

So yeah, it was a lot.  

So I asked her when the last time she experienced this, this looking around and thinking, oh my gosh, I have to do all this stuff and feeling really trapped. And she said, it's exactly what happened two hours before our coaching session. She said she had two hours to get things done and she got zero done. And I could really sense in her demeanor and how she was talking, that she was really quite upset with herself for that. 

So I asked her to take me through what had happened. And she described how she was feeling very tired, but didn't want to nap because she had so much to do. So at first she started just kind of wandering between tasks. Not really doing much. But then got distracted by a sewing project that was in one of the rooms and thought of something she needed to order, but just sat staring at her computer screen for a long time. Kind of lost in ideas until she snapped out of it and told herself that's not what she should be doing.  She put on a podcast because she was getting pretty sleepy and hoped that would distract her so she could get some laundry done.  At one point, she just stared at the pile of papers in the guestroom and then said she basically ran away from them.  She said the paper piles were kind of looming in the back of her mind the whole time, because she knew she needed to tackle them, but they feel insurmountable. 

And she was also thinking about how all this stuff just keeps piling back up and never goes away and it will never actually get done.  Huh.  Okay, exhausting and such a relatable scenario.  And so what was happening was that in telling herself I'm not free to do other things until all the other stuff gets done.  Was that she was getting nothing done. And furthermore, she was actually trapping herself because she was also telling herself it will never get done. There's no way to be done. And so no way to be free, if this is what she's thinking. 

Now something else I could tell was at play here. And she later confirmed was that she was feeling really overwhelmed. When you have a huge, sometimes never ending list of things to do combined with thoughts, like I need to do it all. That can make you feel very overwhelmed. And from overwhelmed, we tend to avoid or procrastinate or bop from task to task. 

Not really completing anything. We might distract ourselves with less important, but more instantly gratifying things. And sometimes we can get really exhausted from all the mental energy we use up thinking about all of these things and can kind of get like paralyzed where we feel like we can't do any of it.  All of this can make it so hard to make any meaningful progress.  And so if she's overwhelmed and not able to make progress on her to-do list,  but also feeling trapped and thus unable to do anything, but the to-do list. She's really just stuck in this place of doing nothing. Or I guess I should say, like doing nothing that's resulting in meaningful progress. 

So after I repeated back to her, the things she had told me, so she could see how it was playing out. This is kind of the awareness piece. She said she could really see how it was all happening, but also said, but maybe I have to trap myself to it.  And I will tell you she is not alone in thinking that, it's so common for many people, but especially those with ADHD to feel like they can't do those. Fun more enjoyable things until the whole list gets done. Otherwise, they won't do it. 

And while yes, sometimes that can make sense and maybe even be a helpful strategy. To use the more enjoyable stuff as a reward for getting some less enjoyable things done. But where it doesn't work is when the list is so unbelievably, endless and somewhat undefined. And you're trying to do all of it first  because you will constantly be avoiding and dreading it and never actually get to the reward. The fun stuff.  

So one part of this we needed to address was the list itself and how the number of things on the list and the lack of clarity or a plan to tackle the list. Was really leaving her quite overwhelmed, exhausted.  You know, the mental energy of going over the list again and again, and your brain is exhausting and stuck.  But I also really wanted to dig more into the trapped part of it, into why she felt like she wasn't free to do anything else until she finished all this stuff.  So remember back at the beginning, when she was talking about the project, she was excited about. But was saying she really couldn't get carried away with it. 

And so wasn't really letting herself work on it.  I asked her what happens if you allow yourself to get lost in it. And she responded. I get nothing done and a week and a half goes by and it turns into a panic. I want to avoid that. And she was referring to some of the stuff she wanted to do before her guest came. And then she would have to do all of that stuff at the last minute. And so here we can really see some of the black and white thinking  where in her mind, she felt like she either had to only do the to-do list stuff. Or she would end up only doing the fun stuff. It felt almost impossible to her that she could do both. She was really scared of that. Hyper-focus that comes along with getting lost in something you're really interested in and excited about. And rightfully so, because the reality is, is this likely has been what often happened to her all throughout her life. 

She told me how this type of juggling has been such a struggle for her in the past. She recalled when her kids were young and she was trying to pursue her work in graphic design while raising them.  And then she would get lost in her work and really fall into a hyper-focus and then ripping her attention away to think about, you know, what, to make her kids for dinner or what else they needed felt physically painful.  And things would kind of start to fall apart. If she couldn't pull herself away. She was able to identify that transition part as a real pain point. And could see how it played a part in driving her away from that career as she didn't see how she could continue to do both. You know, do the graphic design and care for her kids at the same time. I could see how upset she was in just recalling this experience from her past. And it really shows the impact ADHD can have, as it played a huge role in her giving up something she loved doing and wanted to make a career out of. 

I think so many people with ADHD can relate to that part of the, hyper-focus both the pain of ripping yourself away. And the pain from the fallout when you don't rip yourself away, where things fall apart, or people's feelings are hurt or work, deadlines are missed or appointments or commitments are forgotten. There can be a big range from minor to pretty severe. And that comes with so much shame and guilt and embarrassment regret. Lots of really painful emotions. So avoiding things that we might hyper-focus on, become something we do to protect ourselves. So we don't have to experience that pain and discomfort of either the transition or the fallout. But now we're just trading one pain point for another, or I should say one uncomfortable emotion for another. And that's exactly what was happening here. 

 She wasn't experiencing the discomfort that comes along with like transitioning out of a hyper-focus and she wasn't experiencing the shame from that. Hyper-focus fall out. But she was experiencing the feeling of being trapped and the frustration that she wasn't doing. Some of these more fun projects. 

 Identifying this part of it is so important because even if we tackle the overwhelm by addressing the source and breaking down the list and putting together a plan and recognizing, and tolerating certain emotions that will lead to procrastination and avoidance. She's still might not feel free to spend her time on her personal project. If she fears all that results from that potential, hyper-focus from kind of like getting lost in this project.  

So I knew it would be important to address how to find that gray area, because again, ADHDers tend to think in black and white, I need to get everything done. So I can't do this fun thing. Or if I do this fun thing, I'll get nothing else done. But what might it look like and how could she find a way to continue tackling the stuff she needed to do while also allowing for some freedom to do the fun stuff?  So we'll come back and address this part. In the next episode. 

But we started with the overwhelm and she talked about how she just always has a running list in her head. But really half the time, she doesn't even know what's on the list anymore.  She mentioned, maybe writing it all out, but was worried that would just overwhelm her more. And honestly, I agreed that can get really overwhelming, just writing out and everything I ever needed to do list. But what can be helpful is zooming in a bit and just seeing what needs to get done this week, or maybe even just today.  We actually zoomed into the week and I asked her what were some things that actually needed to get done this week? And she listed only a few musts. 

And that's pretty important to see because when we have all the to-do is just running around in our brains, it can feel like so much we need to do right now. And I'm not trying to say that she doesn't have a lot to do in general. I bet that main list is pretty big. Like it always is. But here's where the prioritization piece comes in. Because the reality is she doesn't have to do all of the things taking up space in her brain right now this week. And so when we can really zoom in and say, okay, what absolutely needs to get done? And what can wait. 

We find that the list is usually quite smaller than what it felt like. And that can really start to turn the volume down on the overwhelm that we're feeling.  So I asked her of those things. What was one thing she could do that would really have an impact? Like it would just really make a difference before her guest came. But one thing that also didn't hinge on for other things happening first or a spiral into 10 other things that would also have to get done. And this was hard for her, but it was also very enlightening. Because it really highlighted why she was struggling to make any progress.  

She said she wanted to get her office set up for her guests. And I asked her what that entailed. And she just said putting all her stuff in a different room, making the bed and putting up a few decorations. And admitted just that felt like a pretty manageable task and really all that was totally necessary before the guests came.  

But then went on to say that was tricky though, because the empty room, she would be putting the things into was the other room. her son was wanting to turn into his bedroom. And so it wouldn't make sense to put a ton of stuff. in that room because  then she would just have to take it back out and move her son's stuff in there. again. And. it's empty now. So it's a good opportunity to move his things into there. So why wouldn't she just switch his room first and.  As you can see, she really started spiraling into what was becoming a huge multi-step possibly multi-week project and. was getting very, worked up. She also mentioned a huge stack of paper. She wanted to go through and organize because she really didn't want her guests to see them. But every time she started going through them, she would get overwhelmed. 

So I encouraged her to just take a pause and see what was happening to just be aware that. Making the project bigger and bigger was preventing her from doing the one thing she wanted to do, which was get the room ready. And it's so common for people with ADHD to do this because we can really struggle to prioritize. Right. Everything feels important. 

So she took a deep breath and then was able to recognize that her son moving into his room. I was not an immediate priority and could really be taken out of the equation for now. Nor were the papers. But with that really means tolerating certain emotions, because right now she was trying to avoid them. She didn't want to experience feeling frustrated that yet again, they didn't get the room removed. Or feeling guilty that her son might be disappointed. So she was just trying to convince herself that she would get it done, because it feels better to believe that in the short term, But long-term means we still don't get it done and we don't get the more important things done either. Or we're stressed and scrambling to do them all at the last minute. And same with the papers. She didn't want to feel judged by the huge stacks of them. So. kept them on the list and hoped that trapping herself into doing them would make her do them. So allowing herself to acknowledge that she's going to be feeling those things. And begin to tolerate them. We'll give her a much better chance of getting the office turned into a guestroom. Like she wants.

And then she said it would be such a relief. When the room for her guest was all set up. And so we talked about the importance of keeping that thought in mind. One strategy might be putting it on a post-it somewhere, maybe many places as a visual reminder to help her see the future. Since, you know, we tend to live in the now. To see the future of why she is intentionally choosing to do it this way. And so every time she's tempted to add more steps or complexity to the project, because the reality is she probably will. She can just be reminded to stay on track because she wants to have the room set up and feel that relief. 

Another strategy we had talked about in the past and that she said could be useful. Is talking to herself out loud.  I remember when my coach used to talk about this and it felt so uncomfortable and weird to me. But it's seriously helps  Our inner dialogue to put it lightly. Is often useless. It moves too fast. It often says really unkind things to us, bops around convinces us that, you know, we'll do it tomorrow or just five more minutes or I'll remember. None of that is true. But what we say out loud can actually help. I often find myself procrastinating, you know, like scrolling on my phone, going down rabbit holes, organizing something unimportant. 

And I will literally say out loud stop. This is not what we're doing right now. Or Nope. You won't remember write this down or. What am I trying to do right now? Seriously. It's really useful. It feels weird, but it really does work.  And so now she has this in mind as a tool she can use when she gets sidetracked from her goal this week. Which she will. We always do. 

Okay. I'm now realizing that the other part of this probably requires another episode as it definitely spilled over into another session with this client as well. So next time I'm going to be talking about the hyper-focus piece of this that I kind of touched on today. She referred to it as the vortex, which is just so spot on.  And speaking of vortexes, I just got to the end of preparing this episode and I'm very hungry, very thirsty, and I really need to pee. Um, so I can't wait to talk more about this next time.