Work-based anxiety and procrastination. Is it just me?

[Procrastinatingpenny]

I probably do have some form of neurodivergence but I’m not seeking a diagnosis, just desperately trying to get out of my own way and stop being my own worst enemy!

And, looking for a bit of understanding because I feel like such a failure / fraud / weirdo.

I was a straight A pupil at school. graduated degree with 1st class honours. Got a Masters and PhD. I’m not stupid… in a conventional way… but God Almighty am I stupid when it comes to work.

I procrastinate dreadfully. Not everything, just the hard tasks. I’ve tried all the tricks. But it’s like my brain just goes into freeze. This morning I woke at 4:30am, yes FOUR thirty to get a difficult piece of work (that I should have done yesterday on Friday two weeks ago ) and I lay there in bed thinking about how I was going to get up and do it for four bloody hours until I finally did get up and begin at 8:30 🤯

And here I am now, at the end of another day, and the blasted thing is still unfinished.

I have asked myself so many times why I do this. It’s as though the dreaded task and I are opposite poles of a magnet. It takes SO much effort (actually, it takes distress, not effort) to make contact and the easiest thing in the world to disengage again.

It got worse after I burned out at work six years ago, but if I’m honest it was a problem before then (and completely honestly was part of the reason I burned out).

I’m not afraid of hard work. That is god’s honest truth. I would LOVE to be able to blast through this stupid task. My failure over and over again just compounds the anxiety, the shame, the self-criticism, the guilt… I am CAPABLE of doing it…
And yet here I am… on Mumsnet.

I KNOW I am unreasonable. But does anyone else get this? Is it only me? Argh!

Me too! I can get more done on a Friday afternoon / evening than the whole week. It’s so frustrating!

Good support rhru work and ablity ti switch off to things we shouldnt take onboard.
Would you consider a talk to your gp for advice or counselling.
Being a academic high achiever usually makes it diffiuxlt to function in daily life nor excepts someone from being human in behaviour or feeling.

I had a very honest and frank discussion with my manager about it. I asked him to add some pressure and hold me accountable. We work remotely so not a typical office environment.
It helped.

I do this too. I had a light bulb moment a few years ago when I decided to decorate the lounge. I started out full of enthusiasm, I suppose because I’d never decorated before & was excited about my ideas, but then the excitement faded and I was getting up at 11am and dreading going downstairs. The key is to just not think about what has to be done. Be like a machine - as soon as the alarm goes off, get out of bed and get going. It’s revolutionised my working day, I’m in the office by 7am. I do still procrastinate when I get there.

🙄

I wonder how long it will be until so many people are diagnosed with ADHD that it's the norm, and it's the people without ADHD that are classified as neurodivergent...

Omg this is me. I’m a high earner but let myself fall behind ridiculously and stress myself out just scraping deadlines but can sit for two hours watching funny cat videos on YouTube in the middle of the day. Used to miss uni deadlines then hand in excellent essays a day later, I was not busy or incapable I just could not force myself to do it. Glad I’m not alone!

Body doubling has been mentioned a couple of times. Apparently you can log into online body doubling spaces, where you all sit there in silence working. I have just learned dd can only access her education properly on a 121. She is doing her A levels now. Lockdown 1 she wanted me next to her and help her to do her work, year 7. Year 8 really worked for her, as she would study in silence whilst on the phone to a friend.

I have always been the same. Dh and I have been told we should both get tested for autism and ADHD.

ADHD - classic symptoms of task paralysis and needing the Dopamine hit of a pending deadline to act. I have the same.

I have the same and have the PhD. I am trying to pavlov dog myself by putting loops in or coffee background noises on YouTube which signal "let's go" to get me to focus but it's so difficult. I've recently found dictating work is better for me.

Some ideas (I have spent many years trying to hack my brain):

Write a Done List rather than To Do List - can help to recognise what you have done rather than haven’t done.

Pomodoro is brilliant but sometimes 25 mins feels too far much - so set a timer for just 10 mins to get started….

I read something the other day about “reverse pomodoro” - work for 5 mins then faff for 25 mins.

Change location. Sometimes easier to work on a report in a coffee shop than either the office or my home desk.

I think it all gets worse if you’re not walking and exercising in some way during the day because then it’s impossible to sleep, so there’s that foo.

This has been such a helpful thread, thank you OP and everyone. I’m in my late 40s and my entire life has been blighted by procrastination and under-achievement. I’m currently in a not very well paid job working with people (who are lovely tbf!) half my age who are just starting out on their careers but due to my inertia I’ve never got anywhere. Moved from job to job, town to town, relationship to relationship (although now have a young child so the nomadic lifestyle has stopped).
A few years ago, I did an integrative counselling diploma but, although I was pretty good at the practical side and attended all classes, I was simply unable to complete the written work/journals etc. I was given several deadline extensions before finally being kicked off the course and placement, etc. It wasn’t cheap and could have been something I’d really got into, a proper skill which I could use to build a career but, instead, I’ve continued to drift from one job to another. I’m hoping this current job will be good for a bit though but I do find it depressing when I have much more senior managers who are 10/15 years younger than me. One positive is I enjoy working with younger people and it keeps my outlook young, I think.
but procrastination has been the absolute bane of my life 🥴

This thread has been so helpful.

My main driver for all of this behaviour is lack of purpose. Its like I'm on a treadmill, I have no passion for my job and it's just bringing in a nice wage each month.

I find it so worrying that so many people assume it has to be ADHD. I personally think it's a million distractions of daily life and social media, working alone which isnt natural, and working in a corporate environment in which I lack purpose.

None of these things are normal things for humans, its a modern way of living which doesn't suit our brains (especially females dare I say).

I put a timer on. I am going to do x task for 20 mins and then do something else.

This is me. I frequently do nothing all day, get into my work at about 5 and then essentially start a working day then. Leads to insomnia and the whole cycle starting again

A change of environment helps, if WFH I sometimes go to the library. Pomodoro moderately useful too

I know you don't want a diagnosis, but you have ADHD and medication is LIFE CHANGING.

I'm autistic. I don't struggle with procrastinating, as such, but it really impacts my mental health to have too much that's stessful on my plate - not because of the tasks themselves, mind, not at all... It's the transitions. I struggle with changing from one activity to another.

If I could somehow get a teleporter that would somehow take me from bed and plop me in the middle of my most difficult task at work, I'd get it done fine. I work hard and am good at what I do. Ditto plopping me in the gym, I could get a workout done fine. The teleporter would also have to make sure I'm dressed and presented properly, clean hair and teeth, etc.

It's not the big difficult tasks themselves. It's the bits around it and transitioning from one thing to another that I find stressful and too much. I make myself get up and do it, but I get true burnout from the most usual daily things and transitions if I'm doing it too much.

I was the same, have ADHD and Autism diagnosis, i have to say the ADHD medication was a game changer...

Before the meds and diagnosis i fluffed through it by massive organisation structure 😂 im talking colour coded spreadsheets, breaking complex tasks down into a step by step instruction manuals so if my brain shut off i could literally just "do"

I would have jobs open on multiple devices and switch tasks constantly so a full on multi-task set up 😅

Working when i had my spurts at 1am...

But yeah, with meds that effort and hardcore managing myself isnt needed..i just can now switch to single tasks now 😅

I have this but I’m not neurodivergent. Mine stems from childhood issues. It isn’t automatically ADHD and there is substantial symptom crossover between the two issues, so make sure you actually see someone before you self diagnose.

AI has been enormously useful in breaking the back of getting going for me. I tend to say to it, I’ve got an hour to work on XYZ, search my emails for it, tell me what I can realistically get done and what should I do first.

This seems to kick me out of the initial loop of “oh there’s an email, oh there’s a Teams message, oh I haven’t replied to John about his invoice, actually I really need a cup of tea before I start this..” AI is actually very good at distilling the issues and making the first step easy.

Weirdly I also find a form of body doubling helps when WFH. I turn on reality TV and let it play through my headphones.

I have a professional and well paid job and similar academic path. It’s not just you.

Not necessarily, I’m very anxious and have (probably) cptsd from childhood stuff. I seem to display quite a few of the traits people attribute to Neuro divergence but it’s anxiety. Is this not pda? I used to put off stuff as a child/teenager - jobs my parents would give me and get terribly in trouble

I've learned over many years to break a task into bite-sized chunks (whether a work task, or cooking the dinner). So I do a bit early on and then at least I've started and it's not so daunting.

I've also found that tasks you imagine are going to be a nightmare are often not as bad as you think, and just making a start is the key. Conversely, things I've sometimes thought will be a doddle have proved much more difficult and complicated - but you don't know till you take that first step.

Don't think of the whole task - just MAKE yourself take the first step or two and that helps enormously, I found. And start as soon as you can - that's better than fretting night and day about actually starting.

This is a strategy which has worked for me - I offer it humbly and I'm not suggesting it's the full answer.

I know you said you're not seeking a diagnosis but ADHD medication overcomes this for me. It's life changing.

ETA that also you are not being unreasonable and you might find the book 'Laziness Does Not Exist' by Devon Price insightful. My response to struggling has always been to push myself harder and my understanding now is that's what leads to burnout. I think the shame of being unable to 'just do the thing' makes it even more difficult so it's like a self-pepertuating cycle that gets worse over time. So finding a way to feel less shame/frustration might help you move through the procrastination quicker.

I never procrastinated in school or university really either so for me it started as self doubt about my abilities crept in once I was in the workplace and expectations were less clear or unspoken. So maybe if you can build your confidence or do more of what you're naturally good at, that might help.

Fuck. Spent my morning procrastinating by reading this (helpful) thread. Time to get a wiggle on and start some work... But first... Getting dressed 😭

One thing which does help me a bit (I won't pretend it's a game changer!) is to have space in my task list to write down the next step that I need to take to progress that particular task. Sometimes it is as simple as "open x document" but I do find that having clarity about the next micro action that I need to take helps a bit with task initiation and not getting paralysed.

We live in an age where everything has to be labelled, but I think most people are like this in some way or another 🤷‍♀️ There’s such a need these days to diagnose and label what are actually just normal human behaviours.