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New Year’s resolutions for people with LD & ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder adhd) with Tips from the Instagram’s Co-founder, Kevin Systrom, for a Procrastination Cure.

Article Reviewed by Zahavit Paz

If you have ADHD, you’ve probably noticed that you tend to procrastinate more than your peers.  Why do you have a To-Do list that just became a To-Don’t list?  You find it a challenge to complete your goals and tasks.  We all procrastinate occasionally, however, some of us are chronic procrastinators constantly putting things off.  Procrastination often leads to the delaying of making important decisions and finally when your back is against the wall, you get it done or if you are lucky someone else does it for you.

Almost everything we have to do – we try to put off!  It can be a chore or something you really have trouble starting, but that you realize in your heart, it is a very important task – for me that important task is a “home improvement” project.  I have been putting it off it even though it is something I want to get done, but just can’t seem to focus on getting it done!  I instead check my email, social media, write a blog for the foundation and before I realize it “oops”, it’s too late.  Will it get done tomorrow, probably not?  Tomorrow becomes another day and another week goes by and another month.

Let’s get ORGANIZED and FOCUSED in 2023!

Made my “new” New Year’s  resolution list for 2023 and Guess What?  It will be a challenge getting it done, however I am now realistic about this problem and I know that I am not alone.  Take a moment to read the below article from Kevin Systrom – it is inspirational.  Setting set a goal “SMART” Goals that can be broken up into smaller attainable modules is the key.  Remember that the First step is the hardest one.  Try to surround yourself with positive upbeat friends that support you in your 2023 quests.

Five minutes doesn’t seem like enough time to accomplish anything of real importance. That’s why, when we have these little scraps of time to spare, we often just throw them away on social media or cat videos.

But according to Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, five minutes is actually all the time you need to conquer your fears and get started on that important project or big dream you’ve been persistently putting off.

When Axios’s Mike Allen asked the billionaire entrepreneur for his favorite life hack, Systrom didn’t wax poetic about some elaborate productivity system or extol the life-changing nature of his morning routine. Instead, he gave a dead-simple answer that anyone who has ever struggled with procrastination can put to use today:

“If you don’t want to do something, make a deal with yourself to do at least five minutes of it. After five minutes, you’ll end up doing the whole thing bad habit.”

Why is five minutes enough to beat procrastination?  It sounds like too simple a cure to be effective, but according to science, Systrom is onto something for a couple of reasons.

First, we often procrastinate out of fear of failure — a project seems just too big and scary to actually ever accomplish, so we end up throwing up our hands and conceding defeat before we even start. Breaking down your biggest goals into baby steps helps take away that terror. Writing a novel might sound beyond you, but no one can stress about five minutes of free writing.

So a tiny five-minute commitment gets us over the hurdle of our fear. It also shows us that the reality of the work is almost certainly less terrifying than we imagined before we got started. As writer Eliezer Yudkowsky points out, “On a moment-to-moment basis, being in the middle of doing the work is usually less painful than being in the middle of procrastinating.” (Hat tip to Jory MacKay for the quote.)

Finally, getting started on something, even just briefly, activates a psychological phenomenon known as the Zeigarnik effect, in which it’s much harder to get unfinished tasks out of your brain than completed ones. It’s why that half-done chore keeps popping into your mind, and also why once you write down tasks on a To-Do list, your mind quiets and you often forget about the list. The act of writing down a plan quiets the Zeigarnik effect.

Systrom’s five-minute hack uses the Zeigarnik effect to your advantage. By starting the task, you’re just begging your brain to continue nagging you to complete it, making it more likely you’ll finally finish what you’ve started.

For all these reasons, Systrom’s hack manages to be incredibly powerful despite its simplicity. So next time you have five minutes to spare, rather than just opening up Facebook or browsing the headlines, meet new people, stay in touch , why not start something you’ve been putting off?

The worst that can happen is you’ll miss out on five minutes of online nonsense.  The best that can happen– You’ll discover the best little procrastination cure going.

Go ahead and make it happen – 2023is your year.

Photo Credit by freestocks.org from Pexels

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