Seeking anti-perfectionism strategies for a procrastinating academic & creative writer with raging ADHD

Question

Seeking anti-perfectionism strategies for a procrastinating academic & creative writer with raging ADHD <33

Space Camp · Answer

Go on a walk!: I have pretty intense ADHD and if I'm ever in a rut, a walk will usually help ease me out of it, at least a bit.

Jamie · Answer

take at least one day each week completely off: it is physically impossible for me to be on all the time and actually do whatever it is i need to be doing. through my most overwhelming, go go go periods in life, i have found that the key to being good at what i do is to protect the time that i’m not doing it. my preferred method is to give myself from friday evening to sunday morning to unabashedly, and without reservation, simply chill out. this has a very shabbat vibe to it that my ancestors would surely be thrilled about but i’m not talking about turning off every device, etc. (though that can be great if you enjoy it)

i’m talking leisure, whatever it means to you. but by scheduling it and staying consistent, i find that i can train my brain not to be stressed that i’m not being “productive” which is a feeling that i have when i take shorter breaks i haven’t planned in advance. have dinner with a friend, go for a hike, take a nap. and then when you’re done, if it’s still saturday (or whatever day you choose), pick another activity that isn’t productivity and enjoy it.

by building these mandatory, almost sacred, breaks into my week, i find that it’s so much easier to be on to get my work done the rest of the time. i don’t feel constantly burnt out, and i have the physical and emotional energy to make myself actually focus. of course there are periods of time when non-stop grind may be non-negotiable, but i really believe that in almost any profession, such periods should not be frequent.

so, basically, take a break! a long, real one, every single week! it has done much more for me over time than any little “hack” or “trick” to get myself to be productive on any given day

Maryn · Answer

Set a timer!: I have ADHD plus OCD, so big time solidarity here. It's so hard. One of the things that has helped me most is breaking tasks into chunks and then setting a timer! And once that time is up, no going back and ruminating on what you did — just keep moving along. This practice is brought to you by my OCD therapist. 🫶 (For real though, many of my sessions are spent doing exactly this!)

Linking a visual timer I have, but any timer will do!

Lida Richardson · Answer

Threading the needle (me)/ Understanding Unhelpful Perfectionism (Jennifer Kemp): Hiii it’s me again this is kind of a lot sorry. So perfectionism has kind of been one of the main antagonistic forces of my life, and I can really boil all my mental illnesses/OCD subtypes into perfectionism. I think of it as a “perfectionism triangle,” where I focus on moral perfectionism, perfectionism about my appearance, and “performance” perfectionism (academic/creative/job-related). Re academia, I dropped out of school when I was young because of debilitating academic perfectionism, and I had to do a whole kind of facing-down-of-the-dragon to get myself back in school. It’s still something I struggle with constantly, but I have thought a lot about it/ spent a lot of time navigating it if any of this is helpful.

I’m linking to an article by Jennifer Kemp that’s a nice little primer if you’re interested - this was my first time reading it, but I’'m pretty aligned with all of it.

Basically for me what I’ve learned is it’s really about threading a needle. Perfectionism isn’t something I can just turn off, or something I even want to turn off completely. It has worked for me in many ways — I am a conscientious, detail-oriented person, and that can really serve me. And then, it can also totally freeze me in place/make me absolutely miserable/make me want to shut myself up in a room and avoid the world. So with school, it’s not about: I’m doing perfectionism right now or I’m not doing perfectionism right now. It’s more about, huh, I sure have been working on this essay a long time, I wonder if I should set a timer and cut myself off after a point. Or, I know I’m harder on myself in the evenings, so maybe I’ll have a rule where I don’t work in the evenings. Or even just: I have all these ideas about how this isn’t good enough, but maybe at this point I know not to full-on trust my brain and take those thoughts with a grain of salt.

Generally for the procrastination of it all, I’m pretty strict about doing a small amount every day. Some days I can’t do anything, and that’s okay, but breaking it up is really helpful for me. I don’t have ADHD, and know that adds so much difficulty, but hopefully that’s still helpful. I also know I do my best thinking in the morning (I deal a lot with fatigue and brain fog), so I try to get my work done in the morning, and then take rest/not working seriously when I can.

Re writing: something I tell myself is, I can either write imperfectly, or I can not write at all. That’s really the deal. I am gonna write and it is gonna feel horrible and frankly disgusting sometimes, or I’m just not gonna write. When you break it down like that, it’s pretty simple. Another thing I tell myself: every single person I admire has failed spectacularly at some point. It’s very chic to do.

So sorry to just throw all this at you, but this is something that has really been hard for me and I wanted to share my thoughts. Solidarity <3