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How to make yourself do stuff when you're paralyzed with overwhelm

19:501,270 summary words · ~6 min readEnglishBy Therapy in a NutshellTranscribed Aug 20, 2026
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Summary

Overwhelm paralysis is a nervous system freeze response, not laziness; overcoming it requires regulating your physiological state and building momentum through tiny, externalized, and gamified actions rather than trying to force discipline.

Attempting to push through freeze with self-criticism triggers threat responses that shut down problem-solving, whereas physiological state-shifting restores access to executive functioning without burnout.

Section summaries

0:00-2:00

The Physiology of Overwhelm and the Polyvagal Ladder

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Emma McAdam introduces task paralysis using a dramatized example of someone stuck on a porch for hours, clarifying that overwhelm is a physiological state rather than a character flaw. Using the polyvagal ladder model, she illustrates how overwhelm engages both sympathetic arousal (the gas) and freeze shutdown (the brake) simultaneously. The limbic system treats cognitive overload, such as an overflowing inbox, with the same survival response as an encounter with a predator. When the brain senses a threat, it suppresses prefrontal problem-solving circuits and floods the body with stress hormones. As a result, attempting to shame or force yourself into productivity only intensifies fear and deepens immobilization.

  • Overwhelm paralysis is a biological state where both the sympathetic and shutdown systems are active simultaneously.
  • The limbic system cannot distinguish between physical danger and high task volume.
  • Self-criticism increases threat signals, further impairing executive function.

Establishes the foundational biological mechanism behind task paralysis necessary to understand all following steps.

2:00-7:00

Step 1: Shift Your Nervous System State

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McAdam explains the first intervention: regulating the nervous system before attempting to solve practical problems. She shares a parenting example where turning morning resistance into an exaggerated 'angry game' shifted her daughter's nervous system from fear to play. She discusses how self-talk must establish safety (e.g., 'there is no fire here') rather than fueling catastrophe. Because the nervous system requires experiential proof of safety rather than just verbal affirmations, physical interventions are crucial. While some people benefit from vocal vibrations or tapping, McAdam notes that for many, calming down requires moving through activation first using walking, jumping jacks, cold water, or high-energy music.

  • Safety self-talk reframes tasks away from life-or-death stakes.
  • Moving through physical activation is often necessary to transition out of freeze.
  • The body responds to sensory cues and physical actions more reliably than pure logical thought.

Provides practical somatic and psychological tools to break out of acute freeze.

7:00-11:00

Step 2: Externalize Everything and Increase Clarity

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This section addresses working memory overload, comparing an overtaxed brain to a multi-colored pen where pressing every color simultaneously causes the mechanism to jam. When too many priorities compete for attention, the brain interprets the confusion as a survival threat and halts processing entirely. McAdam outlines how ADHD in particular hampers task filtering, meaning the true bottleneck is lack of clarity rather than task volume. The recommended protocol is performing a complete physical brain dump on paper, crossing off non-urgent items, and isolating just three actionable tasks. If that remains overwhelming, the viewer is advised to write only a single next step on a separate Post-it note while hiding the main list.

  • Mental multitasking triggers survival stress by overloading working memory.
  • Clarity reduces anxiety more effectively than attempting to do everything at once.
  • Hiding long task lists behind a single-item Post-it note shields executive function from visual overwhelm.

Details the step-by-step externalization technique to eliminate working-memory overload.

11:00-14:00

Step 3: Shrink the Task and Build Momentum

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McAdam critiques the conventional productivity advice of 'Eat That Frog' (tackling the hardest task first), arguing it frequently paralyzes neurodivergent or burnt-out individuals. Instead, she advocates shrinking tasks to embarrassingly small steps, such as putting one dish in the sink or writing a single sentence. Completing micro-tasks triggers dopamine release, establishing evidence of capability and converting helplessness into momentum. She cites author Casey Davis, suggesting reducing sensory overwhelm by closing doors to messy rooms or covering dishes with a towel. The section concludes with the recommendation to track and check off every micro-action—even unlisted ones—to maintain neurochemical reinforcement.

  • 'Eat That Frog' often fails during overwhelm; starting with trivial tasks builds essential momentum.
  • Dopamine is produced through action, meaning motivation follows execution rather than preceding it.
  • Reducing visual and sensory inputs makes micro-tasks significantly easier to start.

Directly refutes common productivity dogmas and provides actionable low-friction starting methods.

14:00-17:00

Step 4: Make Tasks Interesting and Gamify Execution

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Addressing the dopamine regulation challenges inherent to ADHD and burnout, McAdam emphasizes adding novelty rather than demanding more discipline. Boring tasks register as physically uncomfortable, requiring stimulation through gamification, timing, or social support. Guest Christy Newrutzen explains how filming herself cleans chores faster by adding urgency and generating empirical proof that tasks take less time than feared. McAdam shares techniques from Dani Donovan's Anti-Planner, including racing the microwave timer and playing 'Procrastination Blackjack' with task lists. The section finishes by highlighting body doubling—working alongside friends or joining virtual co-working sessions—to sustain focus.

  • ADHD task avoidance stems from dopamine deficits rather than a lack of self-control.
  • Novelty, artificial timers, and self-recording introduce sufficient intensity to activate focus.
  • Body doubling provides social accountability that lowers task resistance.

Contains creative, field-tested gamification strategies and body-doubling techniques for low-dopamine states.

17:00-19:00

Step 5: Time Box Instead of Scheduling

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The final strategy differentiates between calendar scheduling and time boxing. McAdam explains that rigid scheduling often triggers anxiety because it demands predicting future focus, energy, and mood states. Time boxing solves this by committing to a strict 10-to-20-minute window using a Pomodoro timer, allowing the individual to stop when the timer rings regardless of completion status. She shares how rotating 20-to-30-minute intervals of disparate tasks (e.g., research, physical exercise, writing) helped her navigate graduate school. The section emphasizes that defined time boundaries eliminate the fear of endless, agonizing effort and protect against perfectionism.

  • Time boxing removes the unrealistic requirement to forecast future energy and mood.
  • A strict 10-to-20-minute time constraint lowers psychological resistance by guaranteeing a quick exit.
  • Interleaving work sprints with exercise or breaks prevents cognitive fatigue.

Explains how to implement time constraints to bypass perfectionism and dread.

19:00-19:00

Rapid Action Summary and Outro

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McAdam synthesizes the five pillars into an emergency immediate checklist for anyone actively stuck while watching the video. She directs viewers to immediately perform 20 jumping jacks, write down a single tiny task, alert a friend, and start a 10-minute timer. She closes by encouraging viewers to share the small action that initiated their momentum in the comments.

  • An immediate four-step emergency protocol combines movement, extreme task reduction, social signaling, and a short timer.

Serves as a rapid recap and closing sign-off.

Key points

  • Overwhelm as Simultaneous Gas and Brakes — Polyvagal theory shows that paralysis occurs when the nervous system enters sympathetic activation and dorsal vagal shutdown at the same time. The limbic system interprets high task volume as a physical survival threat and deactivates prefrontal problem-solving circuits.
  • State Regulation Precedes Problem-Solving — You cannot think your way out of a dysregulated body because the emotional brain responds to physical actions rather than logical reassurance. Shifting out of shutdown often requires moving through physical activation (e.g., movement, temperature shifts) before calm can occur.
  • Clarity and Externalization Over Pressure — The brain struggles with working-memory overload, where holding multiple competing tasks creates a cognitive traffic jam akin to pressing down all colors of a multi-pen at once. Transferring tasks to physical paper and selecting only one to three items restores clarity and lowers perceived threat.
  • Action Precedes Motivation — Dopamine is generated through task engagement rather than waiting for inspiration. Shrinking actions to embarrassingly small increments provides rapid, low-friction evidence of capability, dismantling the popular but paralyzing 'Eat That Frog' advice.
You can't think your way out of a dysregulated body. Emma McAdam
You don't need more pressure. You need more clarity. Emma McAdam

AI-generated from the transcript. May contain errors.

0:00

Does this feel familiar?

0:05

You can go on. You can do it.

0:11

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed that you just  feel paralyzed? Maybe the dishes keep piling up,  

0:17

the emails keep coming, your brain feels like  it's buzzing, and no matter how hard you try,  

0:22

you just can't get going. I got to get up. I got  to get up. I got to get up. I got I can do it.  

0:26

I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. Probably  won't take that long. How long would it actually  

0:31

take? Let's do it. All right, Christie.  You going to get up off this ground? I'm  

0:35

going to put on some PJs. Go. Let's go. Let's go.  Okay, Christy just spent two hours frozen on her  

0:42

porch. You start wondering what's wrong with  me? Like, why can't I just do the thing? But  

0:47

here's the truth. Nothing's wrong with you.  Your nervous system is just overwhelmed and  

0:51

it's hitting the gas and the brakes at the same  time. So, in this video, I'll show you five small  

0:56

practical nervous system shifts to help you  get moving again, gently, without shame. So,  

1:02

whether you have ADHD, depression, burnout,  or whatever is stopping you, we're going  

1:06

to take a nervous system-friendly approach  to getting started and getting stuff done.

1:19

Okay, so first let's talk about what's going on  in your nervous system. If we take a look at the  

1:24

polyvagal ladder, when we're feeling overwhelmed,  it's when we're stuck in anxiety, the sympathetic  

1:30

or activated state and the shutdown state. It's  like your foot is on the gas and the brakes  

1:36

at the same time. Like, I can feel, like, the  overwhelm actually setting in. And I'm like, "Oh,  

1:42

this feels like we're going to be on doing nothing  for a few hours and just scroll on our phone.  

1:50

This feels like I'm going to lay down and I'm not  getting back up. Holy cow. And because you're in  

1:55

a fear state, you can't pressure yourself into  thinking more clearly. That pushes you further  

2:00

down into shutdown. You can't think your way out  of a dysregulated body. Your emotional brain,  

2:07

the limbic system down in here, cannot tell the  difference between a mountain lion and an inbox  

2:12

full of emails. So, its job is survival. So, it  shuts down your problem-solving circuits and pumps  

2:19

out all these stress hormones to get you to fight,  flight, or freeze, which is how we got stuck here.  

2:25

Now, a lot of people shame themselves. They think,  "Oh, I should be able to do this." But the more  

2:30

you pressure yourself, the more fear you feel and  the harder it is to move up the ladder into action  

2:37

or safety. So, you've got to regulate first and  then problem solve second. So, let's talk about  

2:43

how to do that. Step one is to change your state.  So instead of pressuring yourself to be different,  

2:49

you need to show yourself that you're capable and  that you're safe. You need to change your nervous  

2:55

system state before you change your tasks.  So let me give you an example. One morning,  

2:59

my six-year-old would not get out of bed for  school. She was just frozen in bed with dread.  

3:05

Now, I was short on time. I was sleep-deprived,  and I started feeling really irritable. I did not  

3:10

want to just yell or threaten her. I didn't  want to be all angry. So, and to be honest,  

3:16

I do not do this all the time, but I thought, "Oh,  how can I make this fun?" So, I told her, I said,  

3:21

"Hey, we can do this the robot way, the Dee Doo way,  or we can do this the angry way." Now, the robot  

3:29

and the Dee Doo way are games that we've played  before when we're doing chores and stuff. So,  

3:33

I was like super shocked when she chose the angry  way because that's the one I was trying to avoid.  

3:39

But because I'd already framed this as a game,  when I said to her, like in this exaggerated,  

3:45

loud angry voice, "Grace, you have to get dressed  right now." She giggled. So then when I grabbed  

3:54

her legs, she laughed even more. Doing this is  the angry way as a game made the whole thing  

3:59

fun for both of us. And pretty soon she was  getting moving and getting dressed. So making  

4:04

it a game shifts your state from fear to play and  helps you get activated instead of frozen. We'll  

4:12

talk more about gamifying things later, but what's  important here is to do it in your nervous system,  

4:18

to do it in your body. You've got to restore  safety with your self-talk. So instead of  

4:24

saying something like I'm so overwhelmed, I'm  such a loser. Why can't I just get it done?  

4:30

All of that adds more fear, which keeps pushing  us down this ladder, right? Instead, you might use  

4:35

some positive self-talk, like saying like, "Okay,  there's no fire here. There's no fire. This is not  

4:42

life or death. Okay, I'm not a bad person. I'm  just having a hard time prioritizing right now."  

4:48

So, you got to use like positive framing in your  talk to yourself to help you change the direction  

4:58

of this arrow from like more and more fear to like  more and more safety. I've had to learn this skill  

5:06

over a very long period of time. Like, over  this, I've been practicing it this whole year,  

5:11

and I still, you know, I still have to,  like, intentionally do it. When I'm actually  

5:18

overwhelmed, like I'm in the middle of it, like  I can't do anything. I have to first regulate  

5:23

myself. Now, let's talk about how to change that  state in your body. ADHD brains often get stuck  

5:28

because they're understimulated or overstimulated.  Anxious brains often get stuck because they're  

5:33

flooded with stress chemicals. So, before doing  anything, let's provide the body an opportunity  

5:38

to change states. Anything that provides more  action or more sense of safety helps. So, there's  

5:45

a couple things you can try. One is slowing down  your body and taking a breath or adding in some  

5:52

vibrations like tapping your face or humming or  singing. All of this can help send a message to  

5:58

your nervous system that you're safe. Or even  just talking to yourself can help. Now, for me,  

6:04

when it comes to deep breathing and slow breathing  and calming myself down, this honestly literally  

6:10

does not work that well for me. And here's  why. One of the interesting things about the  

6:13

polyvagal ladder is that most of the time we have  to move through activation to regulate. So for me,  

6:21

I'm usually only able to calm myself down after  some kind of movement, like going for a short walk  

6:26

or doing some jumping jacks. When you move your  body, it helps your nervous system shift from shut  

6:32

down to the activated state. There's some other  things you can try, too, like sensory stimulation,  

6:37

changing that sensory environment for yourself.  This could look like drinking some really cold  

6:42

water, putting on some high-energy music, maybe  changing environments like working from a coffee  

6:46

shop or a library. So, the important thing to  remember is you're not lazy. Your brain needs  

6:52

a state shift to unlock action. So, you regulate  your nervous system first. Your brain is kind of  

6:57

like a child. It listens more to what you do than  what you say. So, you can't just tell yourself,  

7:01

"I'm safe. I'm safe. I shouldn't feel this way."  That doesn't work. You have to show your nervous  

7:05

system that you're safe and capable by doing  something with your body and your senses.  

7:10

Just telling myself, "Oh, I can do it" is not as  effective as actually like, doing many experiments  

7:17

over and over and over again and having evidence  every single time. Oh, I did it. Oh, I did it. Oh,  

7:23

I did it. Yeah. Maybe this next time I can do it  again. So, it's not just about like getting calm.  

7:31

The goal here isn't just to be calm all the time.  It's about taking your foot off of the break so  

7:36

that you can get some action done. Okay, so step  two is externalize everything. Whether you've got  

7:42

too many projects at work or your ADHD brain  is like on fire or you're a postpartum parent  

7:47

with a cranky baby and you have serious sleep  deprivation. Maybe your mind is firing off a  

7:54

million things that you should be doing. This  literally feels like a survival threat and it  

8:01

triggers the fight, flight, freeze response.  Too many things to remember and pay attention  

8:06

to overwhelm your ability to sort and process. It  feels like a threat. You can't hold everything in  

8:16

your head at once. Multitasking literally feels  like a threat. If you think of your busy brain  

8:21

as a pen with 10 colors, being overwhelmed isn't  laziness. It's like your brain is trying to push  

8:27

down all of the 10 colors at once, which means  none of them work. Your brain freezes because it's  

8:33

trying to do everything at once. And that pressure  is stressful, which adds to your overwhelm. And  

8:39

when you're stressed, your emotions turn down  the thinking part of your brain, right? ADHD,  

8:46

one of the things with ADHD is it makes it really  hard to filter tasks and figure out which one is  

8:50

most important. The recipe for overwhelm is too  many tasks and lack of clarity. So what you need  

8:56

to do instead of saying I'm so overwhelmed, my  life is so hard. It's not the tasks that are  

9:01

the problem. The clarity is what you need to do.  You need to increase clarity. So you need to say,  

9:08

instead of saying I'm overwhelmed, say I need to  decide what matters most and go slow. When you say  

9:15

this, I need to, I need more clarity. I need to  decide what matters most. When you say this, your  

9:20

brain stops firing alarm signals and it starts  organizing information again. So talk to yourself  

9:26

nicely. Okay, we need to increase our clarity  around the task. You don't need more pressure.  

9:31

You need more clarity. So which color should  I start with? Oh, I'll go with this one. Tada.  

9:38

Clarity reduces anxiety more than doing everything  does. I try to get myself regulated first and then  

9:46

I sit down and I'm like, okay, what absolutely has  to be done today and what can be done later? Like,  

9:53

be really honest with yourself. Is it do you  actually have to do it this week? Do you actually  

10:00

have to do it today? Cuz a lot of the time my  overwhelm is like, if I don't do everything all  

10:05

the time right now, everything's going to crumble.  Everything is going to crumble and you are going  

10:11

to lose everything and everything you worked for  is going to be gone. Hold everything together  

10:18

all the time and you're perfect. That is how I  feel on the inside all the time. Yeah. And it's  

10:26

exhausting. That sounds exhausting. So to do this,  we need to support our processing. And to do that,  

10:32

we need to externalize everything. That means  you need to get this list out of your head and  

10:37

dump your to-do list onto paper. Okay. Next, cross  off anything that's not urgent or important. And  

10:44

then just circle three actionable things. Now, if  writing all of this down on a piece of paper still  

10:50

feels overwhelming, you can write it all down on a  piece of paper and then put that paper to the side  

10:55

and write on a Post-it note the next thing you're  going to do. Just one small step. Okay? And then  

11:00

you can just hide that piece of paper with the  list. If you get your one Post-it note done today,  

11:06

that's a success. Okay? You're not trying to  make the perfect plan. You're just trying to  

11:11

turn that brain noise into a list. The brain  hates confusion more than it hates work. Okay? So,  

11:17

externalize everything. You've got to make it  physical. You've got to make it visual. And then  

11:21

you've got to choose what's most important. Now,  this works as a short-term crisis method like this  

11:27

brain dump. But in the long run, if we really want  to manage overwhelm, we've got to create these  

11:32

external systems to help you remember and organize  stuff like visual calendars, using whiteboards,  

11:38

or setting reminders on your phone. Okay, step  number three, shrink the task. So, shrink the task  

11:45

until it's almost embarrassing. There is a popular  book out there titled Eat That Frog that basically  

11:50

says, Do the hardest thing in your day first. Eat  that frog. But for people who are paralyzed with  

11:56

stress or ADHD, that can lead to like, endless  overwhelm and procrastination; eating the frog is  

12:02

not helpful. So instead, start with the smallest  task first and get some momentum. And guess what?  

12:08

It doesn't matter if you start with a ridiculously  small and easy task. When you've done a tiny task,  

12:14

you gain confidence, which fuels momentum for  the next task. So don't clean the kitchen.  

12:21

You're going to put a plate in the sink. Don't  say, like I have to finish this report. You're  

12:26

gonna set a task like I'm gonna open the document  and write the first line. Getting a little bit of  

12:32

momentum can help your nervous system shift from  I'm helpless to I can do this. Okay? It's going  

12:39

to help your nervous system feel more capable and  more safe. And that can help you get out of that  

12:44

freeze or overwhelm state. And by the way, the way  that dopamine works is that action actually fuels  

12:50

motivation, not the other way around. So, dopamine  comes from doing stuff. Motivation comes from  

12:55

doing stuff. One of my one of the things I think  is really important with this is you might have  

13:01

to limit your sensory input to do this. So, like  with the pen example, you've got to be pushing  

13:07

down less colors at once. Casey Davis, she's the  author of How to Keep House while Drowning. She  

13:13

recommends, like, closing doors to messy rooms  in your house or covering up the dishes in your  

13:19

sink with a towel so that you can decrease that  overwhelm, decrease that noise, right? And just  

13:24

work on one tiny problem at a time. Like put  one sock away, title the document, write one  

13:33

sentence. Okay, so that's number three. Instead  of eat that frog, just get moving. Movement leads  

13:40

to motivation. Don't make yourself do the hardest  things first. You can do the hardest tasks when  

13:44

you're most motivated. Just start small and build  momentum as you go. And I think another thing  

13:49

that's important to know with motivation is it's  really important to celebrate tiny wins. So that  

13:56

might look like check marks. Check off everything.  If you finish something and it wasn't on your  

14:00

checklist, write it down and check it off anyway.  Every check mark gives a little dopamine boost,  

14:05

which gives you more motivation in the future and  helps you feel more capable. Okay, step four. Make  

14:10

the task more interesting, not more disciplined.  Right? You don't need more discipline. ADHD is not  

14:16

a motivation problem. It's a dopamine regulation  problem. So, boring tasks can feel physically  

14:22

painful to ADHD brains. You don't need more  self-control. You probably need to make the  

14:26

task more interesting. And again, we're shifting  states, but we're actually making them more  

14:31

intense instead of more calm. So, you would ask  like, "How can I add novelty? How could I gamify  

14:37

this?" When I was a kid and I had to mow the lawn,  I would imagine there was like an Olympic sport of  

14:42

efficient lawnmowing. Like, how fast could I  do it while doing it well and making like the  

14:48

wheel of the lawn mower run just right along the  last row that I'd mowed? And that was one way to  

14:54

gamify this, right? Gamifying is a great way  to shift states and make tasks more fun. So,  

14:58

Christy Newrutzen does this by filming herself,  timing herself, dancing, doing it with friends.

15:08

Does adding in filming and adding in intensity  help you actually be motivated to do something?  

15:16

Yes, I would say it does make it harder, but it  also adds more motivation. Yeah. Like activation,  

15:23

right? Like movement. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I get that  reward and like there's there's like this added  

15:29

like, oh, I'm being filmed at the same time. So,  it definitely adds like a fire underneath me to  

15:37

get it done. And by the way, when she notices  how long it takes, which is not that long,  

15:43

and she writes it down, that actually  reinforces to the brain that tasks in  

15:48

general are surmountable. Another favorite creator  is Dani Donovan. She has some really amazing ways  

15:54

to do this in her anti-planner planner. Look, I  have it here. This is not a paid promotion. I just  

15:59

like Dani. Here's a few of my favorites. Use your  microwave timer as a countdown clock. So, you put  

16:04

like a warm drink or leftovers in for 2 minutes  or whatever and then you race to see how much you  

16:10

can clean in the kitchen in that time before your  microwave chimes. The other one I really like is  

16:16

procrastination blackjack. You write down three  small tasks that you've been putting off for a  

16:21

while and then you play blackjack with yourself.  If you hit a perfect 21, you don't have to do any  

16:26

of the chores. Woohoo. If you score 18 to 20, you  do one task right away. If you score under 17,  

16:35

you do two tasks. And if you go over 21, you  have to do all three. I just think that's a  

16:42

fun game. Okay. Body doubling is another great  way to add novelty and support and motivation.  

16:49

I do this with gardening or other deep cleaning  chores that I avoid. We schedule an hour with a  

16:55

friend and take turns at each other's houses  doing these things. My ADHD therapist friend,  

17:00

KJ offers virtual body doubling over Zoom. Or  even just like texting someone be like, "Hey,  

17:06

I'm about to start cleaning my bathroom  or talking with them on the phone while  

17:11

you clean your kitchen." Like all of that can  help. KJ, just by the way, KJ also helps with  

17:17

live calls for my members. My membership has 10  courses to help you regulate your nervous system  

17:23

and work through anxiety or trauma and build up  your emotion processing skills. So if you want  

17:28

to learn more ways to process your emotions,  check out the link in the description. Okay,  

17:33

step five. This is the last one. Don't time plan,  time box. Planning a time to work on a task can  

17:41

feel really overwhelming because that can require  you to kind of predict your energy, your focus,  

17:46

and your mood. Instead, try time boxing. Set a 10  to 20 minute timer and work until it ends even if  

17:52

you don't finish the whole task. And this makes  it easier because you know, like, this is not an  

17:57

endless task. It'll help protect you from, like,  perfectionism and burnout cycles. So, honestly,  

18:02

it's easier to get things done when you only have  a few minutes or hours to do them. In grad school,  

18:07

I would rotate through dreary tasks. I would do  like 30 minutes of research and then I'd do 30  

18:12

minutes of biking and then 30 minutes of writing  an essay and 20 minutes to eat dinner and then  

18:17

30 more minutes of reading. So rotating those  times can be really helpful. I think just forcing  

18:23

yourself to commit to something for 20 minutes is  a great way to do hard things. And that's when I  

18:27

use my Pomodoro timer to help myself with this.  So it's just easier when you say, like, "Oh, I  

18:32

only have to work on this for 20 minutes and then  I can stop." Decreases that overwhelm quite a bit.  

18:39

I did this with my taxes. I thought they were  going to be so hard and so painful. I forced  

18:44

myself to do them. They only took, okay, they took  too long, but it was less than I expected. Okay,  

18:50

so when you're stuck in overwhelm or ADHD  paralysis, don't just try harder and be  

18:56

more organized, do these five steps instead. Shift  your nervous system state, externalize everything,  

19:03

shrink the task, make the task more interesting,  or time box. Okay. Is that too many ideas? You  

19:10

could just if you're having a hard time getting  started right now, pause the screen and do this.  

19:16

20 jumping jacks. Write down the first task.  Make it tinier. Tell your friend you're getting  

19:21

started and set a 10-minute timer. Okay, there  you go. That's how you're going to get started.  

19:27

Just like making any change, you've got to  start small enough that you know you can make  

19:31

it happen. I would love to hear your comments on  one thing you did to start building motivation and  

19:36

momentum. Hey, thank you so much for being here.  I really appreciate the work you're putting in to  

19:41

becoming a better person every day. And  thank you so much and please take care.

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