I'm so mad that a crucial piece of ADHD infrastructure for me has been learning to leave shit half done. It flies in the face of all conventional wisdom. It flies in the face of my own experience, as a serial ongoing project neglector. I gotta just stop, and stop where it makes the LEAST amount of sense to stop.
If I say "just let me just get to a good stopping point," that is the devil speaking through me. If I get to a good stopping point, I wrap up a big chunk of a project, I put everything away, mentally and physically. Getting to a good stopping point means finishing up all the easy stuff you already figured out how to do, so the next step when you try to get back to it is all hard stuff, AND you have to get all the Tools and Materials out again? Nothing will come of this. One million quilt blocks be upon ye, and no finished quilt.
And if I say "I'll power through and finish now, and then I'll be done," this is an even bigger and meaner devil. I know I CAN work when I'm getting progressively more tired, hungry, or frustrated, but I also know my efficiently is going to start dropping rapidly. There is NO POINT in pushing through that, if you aren't in high school. Adult deadlines aren't real. File for an extension on your taxes and do that shit whenever. Don't finish Now. Finish in the morning, finish after lunch, after you've taken a little walk. You have to fight the demon that really really REALLY wants to be Done, because when you force yourself to work while not at your best you cause it to take twice as long and make you four times as miserable. I know you're thinking "but if I don't finish while I have motivation I might never finish", and that's true, but only if you stop WRONG
You gotta stop time's up pencils down NO last minute final touches. Leave the needle in the fabric. Do not tie a knot. For the love of god do not put anything away if you can help it. Do not save and exist that word document. Listen, it fucking hurts. It rankles at you the rest of the day, the feeling of "oooh I was so close, I just gotta do this one little thing." That's GOOD. That feeling is what breaks the cycle, the tendency to put something down and not touch it for a month or more. That one little thing is a gift to yourself in the morning. It gets you back in. Then when you're high on having finished your big task and STILL full of energy because it's a new day and you only did one little thing?? Maybe you're going to bask in that for a while, but if you're anything like me that's when you start the next hard thing. Because you're already up and doing stuff, and you've just proven to yourself that projects do get finished sometimes. And THIS is how you build momentum. This is how you regain faith in yourself.
