How You Can Maintain Consistency With ADHD

ByMarla
White daisies growing on a gray stone wall, symbolizing consistency and resilience with ADHD

Episode Summary

Consistency is one of the biggest struggles for ADHD adults, and it’s not because you don’t care or aren’t trying hard enough. In this episode, I dig into what consistency really means, why ADHD brains often find it so hard to maintain, and how to rethink the whole idea so you can focus on what truly matters.

Instead of beating yourself up for being “inconsistent,” you’ll learn how to work with your wiring, choose when consistency is essential, and build the right supports to make it possible.

What You’ll Learn About ADHD and Consistency

  • Why the traditional definition of consistency may not work for ADHD adults
  • How the ADHD brain’s interest-based nervous system impacts consistency
  • The role of frustration, time blindness, low dopamine and working memory in being inconsistent
  • When it’s okay (and even helpful) for ADHD adults to be “inconsistent”
  • Practical scaffolding strategies to support ADHD consistency where it really counts

Transcript: ADHD Consistency Strategies

Why ADHD Adults Struggle With Consistency (00:01):

Even when I start, I still can’t be consistent. Sure, I can try to start a habit today, but who knows how long that’ll last. Sound familiar? Stick around and find out why this is so common for ADHD adults and what you can do about it. You’ve tuned into Re-imagining Productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD adults like you who want to learn how to adopt the best strategies, tools, and skills to be able to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired.

I’m Marla Cummins, and I’m glad you decided to join me today on this journey so you can do what is important to you without trying to do it like everyone else. Today I’m going to answer a few questions related to consistency. My answer to the first question, which is “What does it mean to be consistent, may surprise you.”

(00:55):

Then we’ll look at how you decide where it’s important to be consistent and where actually it might be okay to be, well, inconsistent. And finally, we’ll answer the question that I know you really want to hear, which is, what strategies can help me become more consistent in areas that are truly important to me? First, let’s assume we’re talking about consistency as it relates to how you behave, take action, or perform specific tasks.

If you’re like many people I work with right now, you may think of consistency as doing the exact same thing again and again in the exact same way. When I looked it up, the definition was similar: acting or happening in the same way over time without significant variation. Since this is the traditional definition, let’s start there. Though, as a preview, we’re going to mix it up a little, and I’ll propose a different definition in a bit.

(01:50):

First, I know that it may be important to you right now to be consistent in areas like exercise, home maintenance, work tasks, et cetera. So I want to start by saying it’s important not to conflate your lack of consistency in any of these areas with the task not being important to you. You may have tried hard to be consistent in some of these areas, whether it’s long-term habits or short-term project-based habits.

So you want to exercise three times a week, spend an hour a week decluttering your home, or work for an hour two days a week preparing for your presentation. You want to build some consistency. And when you don’t follow through consistently, you may wonder if it’s just not that important to you—otherwise you would do it, right? I hear this all the time. The underlying inference is that if it were important, you would just do it.

(02:45):

Thank you, Nike. Alternatively, if you know it’s important to you, you may decide it must be that you’re not willing to exert enough willpower and muscle through it. Maybe you’re even lazy, so your thinking goes. None of this is black and white, so sure, like anyone else, there might be times with a little push you could rise to the occasion. But while there may be other reasons, your ADHD can make it hard to do those things that, while important to you, are just not intrinsically interesting, at least in the moment when you’re considering whether to start or not.

Let’s look at some of the reasons related to your ADHD that may make it hard for you to be consistent. First, it’s important to remember that the ADHD nervous system is interest-based. What this means is that you are primarily motivated by those things that are, well, interesting, novel, a challenge, or present some urgency.

(03:50):

This happens primarily because the ADHD brain has lower baseline dopamine levels, though the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin are also players here. In any case, when something is interesting or novel, it triggers a dopamine release that provides the motivation to act.

But when something is just important or an obligation but not intrinsically interesting, not enough dopamine gets released to prompt the same motivation. Neurotypical adults, on the other hand, have an importance-based nervous system.

They have sufficient baseline dopamine that they can be motivated by things that are, well, important, even when those things aren’t particularly interesting to them. So while something that is important or is an obligation may be a piece of the puzzle for your motivation, it’s just not primary for ADHD adults in the way it is for neurotypical folks—until, as we know, it becomes a fire drill. Urgency kicks in, and it’s not a character flaw or lack of willpower.

How Does ADHD and Dopamine Affect Consistency? (04:59):

It’s literally how your brain is wired. So things that have a future payoff but not an immediate reward are just harder to do. In addition, in the moment when, for example, you’re trying to decide whether to exercise because, well, it is Wednesday and you said you would exercise every Wednesday, because of your additional challenges with working memory, you may not even remember the importance to you of exercising if there is something more interesting pulling at your attention, because you just aren’t able to hold that much information in your working memory to be able to weigh out your options.

Remember, ADHD is really a misnomer. It’s not a deficit of attention. It’s attention on too many things, meaning your laser-like focus will zero in on what’s most interesting in the moment. That’s why something that is not intrinsically interesting or boring may not capture your attention as much as something that is interesting.

(06:05):

You get that, and I see this all the time. I bet you do. Another reason that consistency is often a challenge for ADHD adults is the challenge with emotional regulation, specifically the prominence of frustration. That is, you may give up on something prematurely when there is some friction or barrier to doing something. For example, let’s say you decide to set aside time every day for admin work, like checking and responding to email, updating the status of your projects, reviewing meeting notes, et cetera. But it’s just not happening every day. There seems to be something else that gets in the way. So eventually, you may get frustrated enough that you decide it’s just not possible and give up, rather than look for ways to modify how you do your admin time. Another ADHD challenge that may make it difficult to be consistent is time blindness.

(07:06):

The way this often plays out is that even if, for example, you know how long your admin time takes or that exercise routine, because there is a cascading effect of poor time estimation for everything else, the admin time or workout routine in this example can get crowded out. No doubt there are contexts where you do need to be consistent, and I’ll talk about the strategies you can use to do that in a minute.

But before I do that, I want to introduce the idea that perhaps trying to be consistent in all contexts may actually be getting in your way of being productive generally and doing what is most important to you in a way that works for you. The alternative is to focus on persisting toward a goal and being willing to modify your approach along the way. For example, let’s say you want to get enough sleep and you’re naturally predisposed towards staying up late and getting up late.

What’s a Better Way to Think About ADHD Consistency? (08:12):

As can be true for many ADHD adults, but you’ve internalized the belief that the early bird catches the worm, so now you think that if you want to be productive, you not only need to get up early, but you need to get up at the same time every day. Of course, I know this may not be possible for everyone, but if you work at home or have your own business, or maybe you don’t work outside the home and don’t have other obligations in the morning like kids, why not honor your natural sleep patterns? Who wants to eat worms anyway, right?

If it makes a difference, and for full transparency, I’m an early riser. But if your goal is to get enough sleep and be productive, maybe it doesn’t matter when that happens. Here’s another example. I often hear from people that after adopting a tool like a task manager and using it for a while, they just stop using it, and often they can’t explain why.

(09:16):

I think this is typical for ADHD adults. If this happens for you, it may be that you forgot about it, or you got bored, or maybe it got too difficult to use. But if you beat yourself up for dropping the ball, it’s less likely that you’ll figure out how to track your tasks because that’s really your goal, right? Not using that particular tool. If you’re bored with the tool, maybe you can adopt a new one. Yes, I know there will be a cost to trying to adopt a new tool.

You’ll have to expend more time and effort learning how to use it, but better to have something to track your tasks than not at all, right? I’ll end this part with one more example, and that is exercise. I think many adults with ADHD trip up by the idea that they should be passionate about activities that they start, meaning that they should do them forever.

(10:14):

When thinking about exercise, the first step is to decide what your goal is. If your goal is to run a half-marathon or even a marathon, then yes, obviously, consistency is essential. But what if your goal is to be physically and emotionally healthy? Then you might be able to reach this goal by doing something that captures your interest right now, because you’ll be more motivated to do it. I’ll use myself as an example.

I love being active, and it’s even better when it’s outside. What I’ve discovered that works well for me—and I’m not suggesting that you do this also—is that I cycle in and out of different types of exercise. Over the years, I’ve had long stretches of running, yoga, hiking, and biking for many years. When I was younger, I was into blading too. I’ve also had a treadmill, an elliptical, and a rower.

(11:08):

None of them seems to work for me for longer than a year. I’ve also belonged to gyms on and off. Last year, it was pickleball and hiking. Right now, it’s all about walking and biking, and I’m thinking about joining a CrossFit gym. I don’t join any place that requires a contract, though, beyond month to month. I think you see where this is going. Instead of thinking of consistency in the way that we traditionally envision it, what would be possible if your goal is to consistently persist towards your main objective, whatever that is?

Well, there may be contexts where you don’t need to be consistent in the way you carry out a task. Of course, there are other areas where consistency is really important. If you take medication to treat a condition, you generally need to take it at the same time. If you don’t want to pay late fees, you do need to pay your bills by the deadline.

How Can ADHD Adults Build Supports to Stay Consistent? (12:04):

You may also decide there are other areas where, perhaps not absolutely necessary to be consistent in an objective sense, it is important for you. And habits—doing something consistently by their nature helps to pull you to do that action. So the next question is, how do you do things consistently in those areas where it is important? Because of course, even if it’s one of your lesser developed strengths, it’s just not a good look to pick up your kid late from school anyway.

Let’s revisit sleep as an example, and say you do need to get up at a particular time. It can be complicated to untangle what’s needed in each individual situation when it comes to sleep. So let me just share with you what worked for one of my clients who needed to get to work on time. One of the friction points was not having clothes ready in the morning, so he ordered more scrubs.

(13:05):

He’s a doctor, so he wouldn’t have to worry about running out, and occasionally started using a laundry service for his other clothes. Then he set his clothes out on Sunday for the week. He also set his alarm for half an hour before he needed to get up and took his ADHD meds then, so it would be easier to get out of bed when the second alarm went off, which was a half hour later. These two seemingly small changes made a big difference.

Obviously, this isn’t an exhaustive plan, but if getting up on time is a challenge for you, you’ll need to think about where your friction points are and how you can reduce them. How about in the example of needing to use a tool consistently? It’s just not an option for you not to use it. For example, one of my clients is in banking and is expected to keep the information in Salesforce up to date each week.

(14:04):

He fully intended to do this once a week, but he would get busy and wouldn’t have time, or would just forget. So he decided to spend a little bit of time first thing each weekday updating any information he had. Often, it didn’t take very much time, but doing it each day meant he didn’t have to try to remember to do it, or he didn’t have to decide when he should do it. And how about exercise? What if you do need to do a particular exercise on a consistent basis?

Because, for example, as I mentioned before, you’re training for a marathon or a half-marathon and you’re not confident that you’ll run on a regular basis if left to your own devices. Think of what scaffolding might help you. Is it joining a running club, working with a running coach, joining an online running group, or signing up for a couple of 10Ks along the way? Or maybe having an accountability partnership with a friend who also runs but lives across the country?

(15:12):

When consistency is necessary to reach your goal, ask yourself, “What can I do to make that happen?” So far, I’ve talked about choosing the contexts where it’s okay to be inconsistent, and then figuring out the scaffolding you need to be consistent in the contexts where it is important. But one thing that may not change is the consistency—or rather the inconsistency—of your day-to-day productivity. That is, some days you may be on fire and other days you’re barely slogging through.

With ADHD, it’s inevitable that your energy levels will ebb and flow, which makes your ability to do different types of work unreliable. And I know that this can be really frustrating. Here’s what I’ve discovered. Sure, there are some things that you might be able to do to even this out, like taking care of yourself, making sure you eat well, sleep well, get enough water, socialize, exercise, et cetera. But this won’t fix the problem entirely.

What Are the Best Strategies to Be Consistent With ADHD? (16:22):

Instead, what I suggest is to adopt a dollar cost-averaging approach to completing tasks. For those of you who aren’t aware of this term, it applies to investing money regularly rather than trying to time the market. Over the long run, presumably, you’ll make money. You can also apply this to the ADHD brain. Since you can’t time when you’re going to be at your best, instead, you can put in the time consistently and accept that some days you’ll get a lot done, and some days you won’t.

But over the long run, as long as you’re putting in the time, you’ll get done what you need to get done. Here’s how it works for me. As many of you know who have been listening to me for a while, I have written a lot, whether for a blog or a podcast. The way that I’m able to do that is that I write every day for at least half an hour, and more if I have the time and the energy.

(17:18):

I know that if I tried to put aside a big chunk of time on one particular day, I may be sunk because I have no idea if I’ll be able to do the work on the day that I choose. So some days the writing is effortless and it just flows, and other days I barely get out three sentences in half an hour. But I know over the long run, I’ll produce a podcast or blog, and I just don’t beat myself up for those days when it’s just not happening because I’ve had the experience of it turning around the next day or so.

So, where can you apply this strategy to your own work? So here’s what I want you to take away from today. You don’t have to be consistent in everything to be successful. In fact, for many with ADHD, trying to be consistent everywhere is a recipe for shame and frustration.

(18:18):

Instead, get really clear about where consistency truly matters, and then give yourself permission to be inconsistent in the way you pursue your other goals. Remember, persistence towards what matters most will always beat perfect consistency in how you get there. That’s it for now. I’m really glad you joined me. If this resonated with you and you want to hear more strategies for working with your ADHD, hit like and follow so you don’t miss future episodes about re-imagining what productivity could look like with ADHD. Until next time, this has been Re-imagining Productivity with ADHD. I’m Marla Cummins, and I’m so glad you’re here doing the work.

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