Difficulty Getting Stuff Done

While initiating tasks is quite a complex process involving different areas of cognition (such as prospective memory, planning, evaluation and consequential thinking for example) it can be especially difficult for neurodiverse people and there are many strategies and tools that are available (including technological tools) that can assist people with this issue.

A cognitive method I sometimes use is to break the selected activity into smaller components. Let's use the example of a 30 minute walk (This is our end goal). The first small component of this task is perhaps to retrieve your shoes and clothes from the closet. The second component would be to put on your shoes and clothes. Then you walk to the end of your street. Then walk for 5 minutes - and so on. The cognitive component of the intervention comes in from suggesting to the client that each step is completely non-committal. This means that once you complete the first step - getting your shoes out - there is no obligation to complete the next step - or any of the other steps that follow. If you like you can abandon the activity after that one step. In fact I often encourage my clients to do just that - just get your shoes out of the closet and then deliberately "abandon" the activity.

This either has the effect of spurring them to complete the whole task - or alternatively gives a sense of freedom and "breaks down" the task into smaller less cognitively demanding components compared to the unified more extended "complete activity" in its entirety that was causing the anxiety and avoidance preventing the initiation of the task - even a small starting step.

It helps, to ensure a guarantee of progress, to ask the client to have one "committed" action per day (just the initiation) - often in various domains such as self-care, enjoyable activities, cognitively stimulating activities, socialising, mindfulness etc. This can lead to a foundation of very solid and gradually strengthening activity in a client who might struggle or feel overwhelmed if they are concerned with multiple stressors simultaneously.

This is drawn from the behavioural approach of psychology which in this case focuses on an increase in activity or behaviour in the patient to potentially relieve their mental stress through increase in self-efficacy, expanded sense of self-worth, increased stimulation and a diversity of experiences which has a beneficial affect on mood also. Behavioural interventions are an evidenced based method that are often combined with cognitive therapy to effectively treat a range of mental health disorders and concerns.