#task switching

hello here’s a really good resource explaining task switching for autistic ppl and how hard/painful it can be !!

Why 🥺

Ughh yea, stupidly common.

ADHDers struggle with task/ cognitive switching cause of our executive dysfunction. We can only think/ do one thing at a time. So when we’re looking forward to something or have plans, we can’t focus on anything else.

Trouble with task switching is difficulty transitioning from one activity to another.

A few examples:

At work recently, I was untangling a mess of twine and rolling it back into a tidy ball as part of the cleanup from a class activity.  A coworker asked me to send an email (which was more important and more time-sensitive than the twine thing) and my answer was “I need to finish this first.”  I was focused on the twine thing and I knew that setting it down and coming back to it in two minutes would be more stress on my brain than finishing it first and sending the email second.

When I was a kid, I always did my weekend homework on Friday afternoon even though most kids apparently did it on Sunday, because on Friday my brain was still in “school mode” and it was easy to do, whereas by Sunday my brain would be in “weekend mode” and I would find it difficult to focus on homework.

I’ve never been good at writing things in pieces.  In school when we had long-term assignments and were told to do a certain amount each night, I would just do the whole thing in one go because putting it down and coming back to it felt like more work than doing it all at once (even though this sometimes meant I would spend six straight hours on a presentation).  I love writing short stories, but I don’t expect I’ll ever write a novel for this reason.

I sometimes take a long time to get around to getting off tumblr and starting to cook dinner because, even though I’m a bit hungry and know I need to cook, the energy cost of switching tasks is such that I need to build up to it.

I hope this helps!