How I Trick My ADHD Brain to Do Stuff I Don’t Want to Do (It’s Not Discipline)

Have you ever had something that you genuinely want to do but can't yourself start to take action, even if it's urgent, has consequences, and a deadline? And even when you logically know what exactly you need to do? And when you go online to solve this issue, most productivity advice assumes that you can already start. It's all about planning your day, just do it. And they say motivation comes after action. And yes, motivation oftentimes follow action, but that advice is useless if you can't take the first action. Because the real problem isn't actually about... productivity it's about task initiation and especially if you have ADHD struggling with depression or chronic procrastination then that is the part that we need to focus on task initiation and as someone who got diagnosed with major depression as well as ADHD and struggled for years I realized that there is a missing mechanism that's keeping us stuck that no one actually talks about so the most important concept of this video that I want you to remember is that task initiation fails when the dopamine gap is too big so if i would explain this simply basically that every activity gives your brain a certain level of stimulation and when you try to switch a task or you know do something your brain compares what you're doing right now and what you are about to do next and your brain versus switching from a highly stimulating activity to a low stimulation activity so for you to initiate the next task the next action has to feel either more rewarding more interesting or more urgent than the current one so if you're here like scrolling gaming, binging content, which all give high stimulation, and you're trying to do something like writing, studying, working, or getting admin work done, or maybe even going to the gym, which all have lower stimulation, then that jump can feel impossible because your brain is trying to avoid a massive drop in stimulation and it's not really prioritizing. Obviously this gap and struggling to go from high stimulation to low stimulation is difficult for everyone, but if you have ADHD, depression, or other issues, basically the effect can be stronger it can be even harder for you because this part of the brain is essentially messed up. That's why essentially if you have ADHD when you're locked into something even when you're hungry you want to drink something or even you know you want to go to the toilet you can hold it because what is in front of you right now is so stimulating that even a hunger cue is not enough for your brain to switch the context. Or on the opposite if the task in front of you is boring literally everything grabs your attention because they give more stimulation to your brain, hence they encourage your brain to do the activity instead of the current one. To give a concrete example, imagine you're on a bed scrolling right now, okay? And scrolling feels like plus 300 stimulation, whereas the task that you want to start, maybe opening a work document and working, feels like minus 10. And trying to go from plus 300 to minus 10 in one move is a huge dopamine gap. and your brain is like absolutely not like i don't want to do it this is why like telling your brain to just do the thing doesn't work because you're asking yourself to cross a gap that your nervous system is actively resisting so what should we do to solve this issue then should we give up no traditional advice says like dopamine detox delete addictive apps and remove stimulation from your life the logic actually makes sense because if you remove high stimulation inputs then the biggest possible gap shrinks and the starting boring but important tasks get easier because there is no steep difference between the stimulation that you get on a day-to-day basis which actually makes sense and it works like oftentimes if you could quit social media and also remove other like unhealthy habits then you're probably going to be way more productive because the gap between the different activities that you have in your day is not that steep therefore the transition is not that difficult think about it this way a lot of drug addicts struggle with anhedonia and they look for the next stimulation because compared to their highest now daily life is too boring now they seek for more and more and more which makes them get more addictive same as scrolling so it does make sense to remove all these addictions but it has three big problems the first one is that it turns your life into a daily fight against billion dollar companies that are designed to grab your attention and the second one is that it treats a systematic problem as a personal willpower problem and the third one is that it does not teach you how to transition back to low stimulation work when the stimulation inevitably returns because it just teaches you to block them but it does not really give you the ability to fight them even when there are distractions because like when i actually blocked social media on my phone which are blocked all the time i should be extremely productive right but i actually found myself plugging my arm here one by one with like a tweezer just to avoid the work that i was supposed to do and plugging my arm hair was more stimulating than the work itself that I did it like for an hour. So it's not just the phone. distractions have been always there and throughout the history people always procrastinated sure like phones are very easy and addictive and it makes sense but it's actually just one part of the equation so the goal isn't to eliminate distractions forever but it's to build a reliable way to transition into low stimulation work even when distractions are right there so there are actually two phases to this activation so here's what i actually found works task initiation like just starting isn't actually one problem it's actually two and you need a different tool for each one and there are two different distinct phases that you need to do so the first phase is all about starting going from whatever you're doing to the desired action task initiation and for this one we're going to use a method called dopamine stepwise downshifting that i found and i named it myself and it sounds so cool dopamine stepwise downshifting it's so nice isn't it i'm so proud of myself but anyway how it works is that essentially instead of like trying to go straight from a to d you take smaller steps you go to a to b b to c c to d so what are these a b c d's like are we learning the alphabet no essentially a represents the activity that you're doing right now is probably high stimulation and d is the task that you want to start lower stimulation and b and c are the in-between actions that feel easier to start and you do one small downshift step at a time and the only rule is that the next step must be less stimulating than what you're doing right now but still easy enough to actually start and you don't need to change your whole lifestyle or all the habits that you have right now okay i know this abcd doesn't make sense so let me give an example okay so for example like i'm scrolling on bed and i want to get started to work most productivity advice will tell you to start with the most important thing or hardest thing so that other tasks feels easy and you feel accomplished and done on that day so that that like feeling spills over other areas of life blah blah blah i actually completely disagree with that and i do the opposite with this abcd method so let's say i'm scrolling right now and i want to get to work but the gap between them is too big what i do is that i downshift like this i move to my desk and keep scrolling there from bed to desk because sitting makes it less comfortable therefore it's less stimulating and from my desk and scrolling then the next action that i do is that i open my pc in front of me like this Okay, and then I opened the same social media app whatever that is on my PC but on a browser because on a PC browsers are way less optimized and way less stimulating than on a phone and after that now we also dropped the dopamine a little bit right and then the next action is i scan my task list and start with the lowest friction task something that is easy that feels a bit rewarding especially something that can be done like pretty easily pretty quickly and something that i like and then i chain a second easy task then gradually step up difficulty once the momentum is there so instead of starting with the hardest task i slowly transition especially my location and then i start with the easy quick tasks and then i build my momentum from there by then my baseline stimulation is way low So the starting real work is small enough jump that I can start. So we went from 300 plus stimulation on the desk, 200. And then on the desk, now we are browsing on our PC. Now the stimulation is maybe 150. And then we start an easy task, which is maybe like 50. And then we do the second task, which is like 40. And maybe the difficult task is minus 10. Now we go from 40 to minus 10, which is only a 50 gap. right? In the start, the gap was 310. By getting closer to the desired action step by step, I found that it's way easier than just get up and sit down. Obviously, you might think like, this actually takes like such a long time, like why would I do that? Then you probably don't need this method because I found myself struggling, like literally just even going to the pee while I'm scrolling on bed is so hard that I just like hold it, right? And I'm scared of urinary tract infection. So if you're someone just like procrastinating here and there then obviously this method is not going to work for you because you don't struggle to the extent that i do but if you find yourself like actually wasting days and hours and hours then this transition method really works so basically i explained how downshifting framework works but actually the the most important step which is like finding the low friction task can be extremely difficult because most people look at their to-do list and see like 30 40 things that they need to do and like maybe 10 things forgotten from the past. All this list just like stares back at you. The issue with regular to-do lists is that they're all mixed together. Like the urgent stuff, boring stuff, admin stuff, even the things that you want to do, all of them are meshed up into together and it's just a chaos. And when you look at your to-do list, you just feel overwhelmed that finding an easy task out of that like a long to-do list is another work. Then you're not going to follow my advice. So what should we do instead? Organize the tasks by how they feel. And I actually call this my sprinting method. I know I come up with like so many names for my methods, but they just make sense in my mind, okay? So what this sprinting method is, is that you take all of your tasks and sort them into categories. And not by activity type, but how they feel. Because even the same activities can feel different based on their urgency or how much you like them. Email from a government about taxes versus an email about a project that you're excited to work on can feel very different. To reply to an email from a government, you might need way more energy, way more... power but for the thing that you want to work on you don't really need that much of activation energy and resistance is not that high but the traditional methods treats them same because they're the same email but they're actually not so that's the reason why we use a sprinting method where we categorize the tasks based on how they feel so i actually have four different categories but you can have whatever categories that you want and I usually recommend like three to five. So the four categories that I have are urgent, deadline, admin, and creative. The first one, urgent, is whatever task, whatever that is, even if it's just like maybe cleaning up my house or an admin work or an important like project that I work on, if they are absolutely urgent and if they absolutely need to get done today and there's like such a high consequences in my life, then they go to here because the feeling of an urgent thing is extremely different. And then the second sprint that I have is deadlines. These are everything that's basically deadlines that are approaching. So these are like less urgent than the first one because the first sprint is the things that I absolutely need to get done. Whereas the second one is like, oh, it's better for me to get started because it's kind of like, you know, getting closer. So there's like a buffer time. And the sprint three is admin work and anything that I don't like doing is in sprint three. So it could be emails, scheduling chores, or maybe a document that I freaking hate that I need to read or any boring thing. okay comes here that doesn't have an urgent urgent urgent thing an upcoming deadline and then they're just like in sprint three and then the sprint four is creative and fun sprint This is my favorite sprint. I love creative work. I love ideas. I love coming up with things. And I love like any other thing that I love and I genuinely am excited to do are in sprint four. Basically, they're categorized on however they feel. When I'm stuck and when I need to downshift and when I need to find something that is going to give me the initial stimulation, then I usually look into sprint four because they're the things that I genuinely like so that the initial resistance will be way lower. Or I look into sprint three where there are admin tasks. Sure, there are boring. and i extremely hate them but oftentimes they're also very small tasks that needs to get done and once i built the momentum from either of these sprints then i slowly move towards my sprint one the urgent and big ones and when i'm usually doing like a sprint i usually try not to jump between sprints so that i don't task switch but for the first phase of initiation i can pick from whatever sprints that i work on so but like how are you going to use a sprinting method and this task initiation activation thing in your day-to-day life everything that i mentioned is actually already built on and ready to use in a system that i created for adhd people and also people that have chronic procrastination and i call the system a kaizen system it's a notion-based productivity system that i built from scratch coded parts of it and iterated iterated iterated for years and lounged for people just like you. I actually built it first for myself because any other traditional advice wasn't really working for me and I needed a specific solution that was working for my specific type of brain. And one of the things, one of the key things that I like about it is the sprinting method that I mentioned because I think it makes the task initiation way easier and when you stare into 40 different tasks in your to-do list, it just feels so overwhelming. But when you divide them into sprints and also when you combine it with the dopamine downshift method, dopamine downshifting method not only it helps you to start your task but also it makes it way easier to organize your day plan your day and get your things done when you use the sprinting dashboard on kaizen you can see them on a visual board like a kanban board so instead of 47 individual tasks staring at you you just see four categories based on how they feel you can decide what kind of categories that you want however you want and you can customize it as you want as well over 700 actually over a thousand people are already using the kaizen system and when you get it you can also join to our discord community where you can see how other people with adhd and other productivity issues customize their workflow and you can also ask me questions directly if you struggle to use the system if you want to try it go to rudyohama.com the link is also going to be in the description and if you're watching this early use the code dopamine at checkout for 10 but be quick because it's going to be only available for the first 100 people if you can't invest in it right now that's completely fine you can also do it like with other apps or maybe you can use like a pen and paper with a journal and you can try to create the same thing but if you don't want to spend time trying to build it because it actually took me months to build it maybe because i'm an overthinker then kaizen with kaizen you can already get started today it's essentially like a shortcut so if you're interested check out rodeohama.com okay so now let's talk about the phase two now you're used to downshifting to get into work you did the easy task and maybe you built a little bit of momentum but actually there is another problem waiting for us. Even after you started and built a little bit of momentum, the bigger tasks can feel still impossible. Especially like, you know, there are like projects and things that you've been keeping off like for a while. And for me personally, it's always the submitting my taxes. Every single freaking year I submit my taxes like that I pay like a fine thousands of dollars to the government and I still don't learn from it. You know, there are like some tasks like that. And even after you build in momentum with an easy task, they can still feel impossible. So essentially the dopamine gap actually shows up again between the tasks, right? Even if you're doing something productive, maybe the thing that you hate, the stimulation is so low. It's so boring. You hate it so much that like, you know, there's so many times that I were crying. while doing my taxes that even between productive tasks the gap is too big so how do we solve this issue because if you only work on the easy tasks because they feel good then you'll find yourself at the end of the day just doing the unimportant easy tasks and it's just lying to yourself so what is the solution people often like break bigger tasks into smaller tasks and chunked them up so that it's easier to start but for me personally already having a to-do list or already having a productivity system requires a lot of effort for me and now breaking that big task into smaller chunks is just too much work for my adhd brain to ask so what do we do instead time bound small chunks so instead of breaking the project into smaller steps you actually do a 15 minute micro focus session with a visual timer on just like this one that i'm using while filming how this works is that you set a timer for 15 minutes and it has to be visual like this one okay not just numbers a visual timer from whatever brand that you like and then you're going to decide what you're going to be focusing on for the next 15 minutes you can work on whatever you want the goal is basically the initiation not just completion and when the timer ends you decide you're either going to continue for another 15 minute micro focus session or you take a short break for 15 minutes and come back you're not allowed negotiate whether you're going to stop the micro focus session or not while it's going if you set it once you have to finish it and you basically keep doing this 15 minute micro sessions while you work so let's say there's like a tax submitting instead of telling yourself i'm going to submit the taxes the next task is that you just say i'm going to set a 15 minute timer and i'm gonna do i'm gonna see like how much i can do get done in this 15 minutes and that's it the goal is not getting the task tax documents submitted but working on it for 15 minutes why this actually works is that the first one is the low activation energy 15 minutes is small enough that your brain doesn't resist it if you struggle with it you can also do 10 by the way the required energy to start is dramatically lower than to committing to finishing the whole thing and the second one is that urgency actually creates focus when you set a visual timer like this and it's in front of you while you work it actually creates this pressure and deadline for your brain because essentially in 15 minutes you're trying to like finish at least like to hear or see how much you can get done and you take it very seriously okay and when you think there is a time pressure actually and you can see it visually that's why you need a visual one your brain produces noradrenaline which gets basically activated under pressure which helps you to focus and keep you alert it and the third important one which is the biggest reason why this one works is that completion shortens the dopamine loop feedback normally unless you finish the entire task right like unless you submit the taxes to the government you don't actually get that sense of completion for hard long tasks especially projects where one task maybe take like hours the dopamine feedback loop is painfully long but with high stimulating activities usually the dopamine feedback loop is very short for example with scrolling right social media with every swipe you get a feedback of a content so the loop is very very very short then it keeps you hooked but with long projects with boring ones the feedback loop is too long for our brain to feel stimulated when you break down your work into 15 minute like micro sessions and you accomplish them, it gives a signal to your brain that you accomplished something. And your brain releases dopamine and reinforces action, which makes you want to keep going. Because scientists have found that dopamine isn't just like released by receiving a reward, it's actually released in a response to a reward prediction error. When you complete something and it feels better than expected, your brain marks that behavior as worth repeating. And that creates a feedback loop of effort goes satisfaction and it creates momentum. And a 15 minute sprint gives you that loop every 15 minutes instead of once you finish. the task. So you shorten the feedback loop way faster. The one way that I found actually to make this stick and make this addictive, because I abandoned every single productivity method that I created, so I decided to gamify this. And how you gamify this is basically you put, you keep like a journal, or you can also do this on Notion by the way, where you track how many 15 minute micro sprints that you have done. So for example i have this like physical notebook calendar that i wasn't using that i decided to use for my mini sprint you can see that i am logging i am basically putting a mark every time that i finish a 15 minute block and every time i finish i color one and i can visually see how many i finished in a given moment and each week you can also do it like on a calendar view and you can write down like how many of them you got done physical or digital doesn't matter and with each thing what you're trying to do is that instead of trying to get more chunks done what you're essentially trying to do is getting more things done with fewer amounts of micro sessions so trying to reduce that chunk as much as you can so instead of saying like oh i did 20 yesterday i want to do like 25 you say i want to accomplish all the to-dos that i have within 15 mini chunks then you become way more efficient and you start to measure the right metric not how long you worked but how much you got done and if you treat 15 minutes like actually valuable time blocks that you can use then you find more time to get things done because most of us like if you have 20 minutes between like each thing then we find ourselves scrolling but if you're already implementing the 15 minute block then every time you have more than 15 minutes you can just tell to yourself i'm gonna get one block done and i'm gonna like color my notebook so it becomes way more addictive way more fun in my opinion so i highly highly highly recommend this method so let's summarize the whole video Our whole point when we are struggling to take action is all about reducing the gap between what we are doing right now and the desire of action. and you can do this in multiple ways right first you can follow the traditional advice of dopamine detoxing so that your daily baseline is lower the second one is you can do the dopamine stepwise downshifting so that you slowly transition and while working on a boring task that you don't want to do you can use this 15 minute micro focus sessions so that you shorten the dopamine loop and you increase the stimulation of the activity and to make this happen on a day-to-day basis you gotta check out my kaizen system on radiohama.com and also don't forget the discount code dopamine for 10% off. If you are in the first 100 people, you can get it. Don't forget about it. And let me know how this goes. I want you to try this method, okay? Instead of going for another video when scrolling for another hour, do a micro focus session. Okay, and if you're watching this video right now and thinking, but how am I supposed to plan my days? How am I supposed to figure out what I'm going to do in a day? Then you have to watch this video because I go in depth how you can plan your day, figure out what you need to do, and be extremely gut-like productive. See you!

🚀 Want to maximize your ADHD brain and stay on top of to-dos + projects?
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⏰ Time Stamps: 
0:00 —Why You Can’t Start (Even When You Know What To Do)
0:49 — The Dopamine Gap: The Real Reason You’re Stuck
2:55 — Why Dopamine Detox Doesn’t Actually Work
5:10 — Phase 1: Dopamine Stepwise Downshifting
6:25 — Real Example: From Scrolling in Bed to Deep Work
9:02 — The Sprinting Method: Organize Tasks by How They Feel
10:28 — The 4 Sprint Categories Explained
12:34 — The Kaizen System: Everything Built Into One Place
14:44 — Phase 2: 15-Minute Micro Focus Sessions
16:31 — How to Use a Visual Timer to Trick Your Brain
18:35 — Why Short Feedback Loops Make You Unstoppable
19:34 — How to Gamify Your Productivity (And Make It Addictive)
21:18 — Full Summary: The 3 Ways to Close the Dopamine Gap

You know what you need to do. You’ve planned it. You’ve thought about it. But you still can’t start. If you have ADHD, depression, or chronic procrastination. The problem isn’t motivation. It’s task initiation. And in this video, I break down the exact science behind why your brain resists starting tasks (the Dopamine Gap), and the 2-phase system I use every single day to get myself to take action, even on the tasks I hate.

I⚠️ Important: This content is based on my personal experience and is not intended as medical advice. ADHD affects everyone differently, and medication decisions should be made with a qualified healthcare professional. Please consult a psychiatrist specialized in ADHD for guidance specific to your situation.

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