The gas man cometh

Or, where motivation meets ADHD

TL:DW?! Too Long (almost) Didn’t Write.

In a nutshell, I have a Situation occurring and I’ve not got a lot of time. The Situation has been on the horizon for a few weeks, but suddenly it looms large and – to be frank – it’s a bit like a 🚀has been planted you-know-where.

And rather than push the fabled post about motivation down my publishing schedule* yet again, now seems the appropriate moment to talk about it. *I’m pulling your leg, I make it up as I go along.

The holy trinity of motivation

Basically, if you want someone with ADHD (could be yourself or someone else, doesn’t matter) to do something, whatever it is has to meet one of three criteria:

• Urgency

• Novelty

• Interest

What’s immediately obvious if you have any experience at all in trying to do this? If it doesn’t tick one of those boxes, it’s not going to happen. Or only with enormous quantities of stomping and fighting and muttering, or cajoling and outright bribery.

The real lightbulb for me was learning that even it does tick one of those boxes, it’s ALWAYS in that order. Urgency trumps absolutely everything, even the new shiny thing.

OK, fair enough, you say. Most things could fit into one of these three categories, yes? Even boring household tasks, eventually they’ll become urgent enough they’ll need doing? Or perhaps a new gadget could be just the ticket to make chores more interesting? And if urgency is the top of the list, then surely important things like appointments are kept, trains are caught, bills are paid, and deadlines are met? Hmmm…

Not so fast. There’s the little problem of “when”.

When exactly does a task become urgent? Because until that threshold is passed, the urgent flag isn’t raised, the light’s not on, there’s nobody home…

Turns out, two and a bit days before the British Gas electrician arrives to fix/change the smart meter is about right, as it was only at around 10.25 this morning, as I relaxed on my mat at the end of yoga class, that the awful reality of the Situation revealed itself.

• They’ll require access to the existing electricity meter. No sh!t Sherlock🕵️

• And where is the meter? In your room?

• And whereabouts exactly in your room? Oh…

• And how will they reach it and where will they put their tools…will you have to clear the surfaces and (heaven help us) move some furniture? The fabric drawers???

So this is where we’re at. Unstuffing and sorting the fabric and making the drawers work again was a task I’ve been planning to get to for quite some time, as you can imagine. It is, in fact, something I’m very interested in doing. It’s almost a treat, I’ve saved it up. It’s the sort of thing I could spend a happy week or so doing, sitting on the floor, surrounded by colourful fabric scraps, sorting into heaps and dreaming dreams…the sort of thing I half-imagined I could do between Christmas and New Year. I haven’t done it before now, because other shiny things were more interesting, and because it wasn’t ever urgent.

Until now.

On that note, more about this motivation malarkey another time. Until then, I’m off to pull out the furniture and my hair and attempt to create a clear space for the (British) Gas man.

Toodle-pip!