Scrolling
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Sleep
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Go back to sleep because can’t think of what to do
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Wake up
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Still can’t think of anything to do ^(cba to wait for inspiration)
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Scrolling
This is what my weekends look like when I fail to find an event to go to in time.
The problem is that most tasks require
- Inspiration, which it usually takes several minutes of staring into the void (fun!) and waiting for an idea to get.
- Structure. I think this is broken in my brain because whenever I need to structure a task it’s super tiring, and that’s why I always revert to scrolling, which is unstructured. In scrolling the need to plan is replaced by an impulsive response to whatever happens to appear on your feed.
What does the diagram even look like for normal people? When do they get inspiration? How do they decide that now is the time to do thing no. xyz? What do I do about it hurting to structure free time activities (I’ve found strategies to navigate cooking etc)? Is there an alternative structureless passtime* to scrolling?
*(I’m actually able to structure when I do things with other people, but there are days when nobody’s around which leaves me helpless)
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What has helped me is taking notes. I use Obsidian for note taking (I don’t mean the app itself is the solution, just the one that works for me).
When I’m out and about I take notes whenever I think of something “oh, I should probably look into this book!” Or “make an app to do X and Y”.
When I’m at home and I have nothing better to do I tidy up my notes. Sometimes doing this is an entertainment in itself, and sometimes this reminds me that I wanted to watch a certain movie and it’s a great day for that.
I rarely get bored anymore because I capture the fleeting ideas I get through the day, and I’d need years to carry them all to fruition. On a given day reviewing my notes I might be interested only in 1 out of 10… But that’s still one idea that keeps me busy and entertained, and then it’s also something fulfilling because I’ve chosen it mindfully, unlike scrolling tiktok endlessly or watching whatever slop Netflix’s algorithm force feeds me that day.
That sounds good. I often revert to scrolling when my brain is tired and can’t be asked to plan any tasks (so I do scrolling which is structureless and without a plan). What would you replace that with? Did you say that browsing through your notes fills that function?
Yeah it does. I mark notes with #review (again, this is an obsidian-specific workflow purely because it’s the app I use), and then go through the notes with that tag, tidying them up and also looking for interesting things. Obsidian has a graph view which shows your notes as interconnected notes, which I look into and try to find disconnected notes to link them to something else. I find it quite rewarding and relaxing.
Fascinating.
Yeah the problem with scrolling is that it’s designed to keep you scrolling. You could put on a TV show instead. Either you’ll get sucked in and watch it or you’ll get bored and want to do something else. As long as you don’t get stuck scrolling, you can decide what you’d rather do.
I believe I have a similar issue as you. I’ve described it as being caught in a maximization trap. See, I spend all day thinking about the fun things I’ll do when I have free time. However, when I get home, I have a huge amount of difficulty selecting what activity to engage in from my plethora of options. I’m inexplicably terrified of making the “wrong” choice. Like, what if I choose to play Game A, but that only offers 6.9 units of fun per hour, when I could be playing game B, which offers 7.1? So, instead of actually doing anything, I sit down at an intersection of options and have a panic attack about my inability to actually do anything.
I wish I had a silver bullet recommendation for you, but this is an ongoing struggle for me. I try to be cognizant of when I’m starting to fall into the thinking trap of “maximizing fun” and shut it down before it spoils the evening. As others have said, taking notes throughout the day when inspiration does strike, rather than telling myself I’ll remember when I get home does help to some extent. Additionally being open to alternative forms of entertainment helps as well. What I mean is, sometimes when I’m upset with myself for not being able to force myself to just start a game and see if I like it, I’m so hyper fixated on the gaming aspect that I ignore the possibility my body/brain is saying, “probably enough screentime for today, don’t you think?”, and select a book instead. Or go for a walk. Or “meditate” (read as: listen to music while stoned).
Good luck buddy, keep your stick on the ice, and remember, we’re all in this together.
I’ve always known this as “analysis paralysis” and it’s super common in certain fields and certain people. I work with a lot of engineers and this is the bane of my existence some days at work. But I get it, I do the same thing sometimes.
I usually break out of cycles like this when something gets so bad I have to fix it which leads to a short period of hyper productivity that is exhausting but at least things are getting done? I also ask my wife to choose something to do, then I don’t get stuck letting perfect be the enemy of done.
I’m inexplicably terrified of making the “wrong” choice.
Haha, I had this, but with life. I was paralyzed for years. Finally solved it in September by setting mu life up to give me as much flexibility as possible. If I stop liking it here, nothing is (any longet) keeping me from moving cities at a week’s notice.
Sitting here on a Sunday evening seeing internet strangers describe my weekend as though they were here for it.
I have a reaction gif for this but don’t know where I saved it.
🤝 we are on the same boat. I think we should appreciate the Internet for enabling us to find each other.
It’s a strange boat, but it’s ours ✌️
Just going for a walk often resolves this for me. It often inspires me to do something and gets me into a doing things mode.
Also if it doesn’t, then no harm done. Fresh air and a bit of sun didn’t hurt.
No structures or inspiration needed. Just walk for a bit.
Yeah, I could walk hours and hours and become soooo inspired and into a doing things mode, but… as soon as I come back home it vanishes in a moment. :(
However walking helps me when e.g. I have to make some calls which I procrastinated, inspiration and feeling of being able to do things helps me to make such calls either during walk or in short time after walk.
Fun fact scrolling actually gums up your brain and prevents you from finding something to do. Your brain craves easy dopamine. Deprive it of the dopamine and you’ll find something
Try reframing how you think of these things slightly. Watch https://monotropism.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Monotropism-animation.mp4 and just believe your brain works like that for argument sake. I know it’s tough, especially because the act of telling you to do anything most likely will lead you to not wanting to do it, a frustrating trait of this brain.
Stop worrying about how normal people do things and try better to understand how your brain does things. Reframe how you see the problem as something where you’re trying to get fixed to be normal, and accept that’s not possible. Psychology’s best therapies offer drugs that help you put on a facade of normal, or worse, crank your apathy up to where you just don’t give a shit any more.
Have you ever done anything that you were so into, that you skipped meals, bathroom breaks, and other biological needs? Like, to the point of deep hunger, dehydration, nearly peeing yourself? “Normal” brains never do that, or even moderate versions of that. Like, there’s a category of self improvement literature that sells the idea of a flow state, because most people want that state of mind and will never obtain it. It’s simply something people observed successful people with monotropic brains doing, and made up into a new pop-psych thing to sell.
Spend time actively, consciously noticing what hooks you. Aggressively give up on those things that don’t. You may habitually spend time doing things that you don’t actually like, but you are unconsciously forcing yourself to keep doing. Step out of your comfort zone and try a new thing, activity, genre, media, person, sexuality, etc. Most people spend their whole life being forced into a mold, and that mold is almost certainly not compatible with the needs of a neurodivergent brain.
Structure is NOT a requirement, and for me, personally, isn’t compatible with anything that makes me happy. Still, my entire upbringing continuously shoved structure down my throat. School constantly reinforced that I needed to organize my binder, write in a planner, and multiple times I remember being assigned projects like setting an itinerary for a vacation. I hated it, felt unnatural, stressful, and I never managed to adopt the habits they were forcing on me, yet still managed to be a successful person. I could have self-loathed about it, but instead I managed to kick the bs and move on. When I eventually got married and started going on vacations, my wife (who has an ADHD diagnosis, though wasn’t diagnosed until after this story) planned a very structured itinerary for a 2 week vacation in the UK. The trip was stressful to plan, and our daily activities were on a tight schedule, leaving no room to linger where we wanted. While we had a good time, we both look back at random moments off the itinerary as the best ones, and have high regret for being forced to stay longer in some places, and not long enough in others. This same thing happened again on another vacation, we simply weren’t self aware enough to avoid it, or were too concerned about following a script of how to do a vacation. Finally, on our third vacation, we approached it very differently. The only preplanned/prebooked moment was what city we were arriving in and the one night stay there, the rest of the two weeks were vague possibilities at best. It was our best vacation, and it’s not even close, zero regrets, and that’s including a medical disaster. Sorry for the long story, but I feel like it was worth telling you.
I don’t fully subscribe to monotropism, even wholly rejected it prior to some of my own realizations. Like, it isn’t the final and complete explanation, but it’s a much better starting point than everything else out there.
As far as scrolling, it’s a tough thing. If you are feeling fulfilled when doing it, stop kicking yourself for it, and instead look to optimize the activity. For example, cut out content that you know you don’t enjoy. If instead it’s just something you’re doing to pass the time, with no real enjoyment, you should probably figure out a strategy to cut it back or out entirely. When brains like ours are bored, the compulsion to fix it is very strong, and will likely drive you quickly to something you will actually find fulfilling if you let it. If you’re really lucky, an activity you find fulfilling will be neurotypically amicable, and maybe even profitable, but you should not expect that. Don’t try to have multiple things at once, it’s not that you can’t, it’s that you will likely be happier sticking to one thing you enjoy until you don’t anymore, and then throwing yourself into the next thing. And try not to kick yourself too hard if/when that happens, sticking with something you don’t want to, or putting yourself down for it is antithetical to loving yourself. With this brain, it’s not about the destination, it’s the journey, and as soon as you do get to the destination you will find an emptiness that can only be filled by starting a new journey.
Happy to chat more deeply about this stuff, feels like there’s always more to say. Not sure how well it works with lemmy, but if you check my comments I recently wrote a response to someone in an ADHD community asking about watching movies that feels very similar to this question.
With this brain, it’s not about the destination, it’s the journey, and as soon as you do get to the destination you will find an emptiness that can only be filled by starting a new journey.
If you’re really lucky, an activity you find fulfilling will be neurotypically amicable, and maybe even profitable, but you should not expect that.
Thank you, this was very helpful. I can definitely see myself in that video.
I think for me the latter is the case with the scrolling. I’d like to be a person who, eg., plays with Lego for 1 hour, spends the next hour painting, then decides to go and fix his bike, then listens to music for a bit, etc… That’s how I picture free time well spent. The problem is that once engulfed in any of the above activities, my brain never produces the impulse to stop and move on to the next. But the bigger problem is that I usually can’t even remember the options for what there is to do in the first place. A hobby that I genuinely enjoy, stored in one of my drawers might as well not exist until I rediscover it while looking for something else, and in that case it’s an unwanted distraction that throws me off task (at times when I need to do something and am not able tonjust go with the flow). I forget about it until I see it, which I guess explains why I can usually think of nothing to do but scrolling.
That’s how powerless my attention is in the face of my surroundings. I guess what I’m saying is that I like my monotropism, but currently it’s like a wild animal and I want to learn to direct it.
I’d like to be a person who, eg., plays with Lego for 1 hour, spends the next hour painting, then decides to go and fix his bike, then listens to music for a bit, etc.
Why? There’s no evidence for this assertion, but all successful and fulfilled neurodivergent people throughout history were absorbed in whatever had them hooked. Idealizing neurotypical lifestyles will only lead you to feeling frustrated at something you will never be able to change, disregulated, and eventually depressed.
If you’re intent on engaging in multiple different interests like this, you should try very hard to combine them. As long as you feel like you are actively moving toward something singular, you’ll be good. Disengaging while hooked is traumatic, like, to the extent that you may avoid re-engaging with it until you feel it is safe to do so.
Putting activities out of sight is a great strategy to avoid being accidentally hooked by them, but you need to figure out an organizational system that fits your space/life. If you’re combatting storage and organization for multiple hobbies, it’s going to cost a lot more in both systems and in space. I’d argue it’s more sensible to scale back, and commit to some strategy where you only buy what you need, and you sell the niche if you get bored with it. There’s no shortage of hoarders in the ND community, not because of the inclination to amass stuff, but because getting rid of stuff requires admitting some hard things to yourself. It’s easier to imagine you’ll get back into it than to admit you won’t, and that you might have gone a bit overboard on spending while you were in the middle of the journey.
There’s some theory about how we intuitively avoid or engage with things depending on real and perceived levels of effort, and real or perceived benefit. There’s another concept in autism, something about momentum. You can intentionally exploit some things to make it more or less likely you’ll engage with something. Traditional (or let’s say neurotypical) organization systems aren’t built for neurodivergent people. Best to try to find ND people you can use as a role model and hope they haven’t just adapted to NT systems. I’ve not seen him say anything about being ND, but https://youtube.com/@zackfreedman comes to mind. Just know that what you want is weird by definition, don’t let that hold you back. The population of ND people isn’t a big enough percentage to justify a market apparently.
What’s most frustrating to me about the issue is, every ND person I’ve had the pleasure of meeting is so open to sharing, if society was structured for ND people, you’d never feel like anything is wasted. You’d try out that thing without spending a dime, and if you did get deep into it, have somewhere you could feel safe in giving the stuff away for better use. Instead, the world is run by neurotypicals, and everyone has ulterior motives. A man can dream. If you live in a big city you might have a co-op, or hacker space, or even a public library with resources you can use.
I’m certainly rambling a lot here, I’d apologize if this was the NT world.
Another option, stop putting yourself down for engaging with “unwanted distractions”. Unless it’s something that’s going to ruin your life, try embracing it fully. If you didn’t want to do it, you wouldn’t do it. My wife has this fight with herself sometimes as we’re cleaning house, starting one task and ending up in the middle of multiple different cleaning activities. I do the exact same thing, the only difference is I love myself for it. I will eventually get to a clean house, and as long as I don’t keep stopping to self loathe, it will be cleaner, faster compared to an NT person. I know, because I’ve cleaned NT people’s houses and they are always blown away. I’ve got a model that is pretty close to monotropism that I think explains all these things, just cba to post about it yet.
There’s some theory about how we intuitively avoid or engage with things depending on real and perceived levels of effort
Hmm yes I’ve definitely experienced this too. Do you have any pointers on what to read? It woukd really help me if I could understand my seemingly irrational distaste towards learning some things.
I’ll check out Zack Fredman. So you say it’s good to be on the lookout for ND people to take inspiration from? There are YTers like William Osman, Michael Reeves, and Adam Savage who I believe have a very similar neurotype to me. Unfortunately their solution was to become youtubers which isn’t of much help to me (although I understand there are jobs with similar workflows).
Another option, stop putting yourself down for engaging with “unwanted distractions”. Unless it’s something that’s going to ruin your life, try embracing it fully.
I guess? It’s not that the old hobby I found in my cupboard when looking for sth else was an unwanted distraction in my life – it’s that it was an unwanted distraction in that specific moment. I’d have been happy to embrace it fully earlier that morning had I remembered I’d had it*. The problem was that it cropped up when I needed to complete a specific task (eg. paying taxes) at which point I objectively could not go with the flow even if I wanted to and at which point it was a hinderance.(*I guess the solution, then, is to develop a system that reminds me of all the potential things there are on offer to do whenever I’m bored.)
My wife has this fight with herself sometimes as we’re cleaning house, starting one task and ending up in the middle of multiple different cleaning activities. I do the exact same thing, the only difference is I love myself for it. I will eventually get to a clean house, and as long as I don’t keep stopping to self loathe, it will be cleaner, faster compared to an NT person. I know, because I’ve cleaned NT people’s houses and they are always blown away. I’ve got a model that is pretty close to monotropism that I think explains all these things, just cba to post about it yet.
Please do lmk, I need this!
Sounds like depression.
If you can, get some professional help.
Get exercise, get proper nutrition, make sure you are socializing, and start journaling.
The thing is, I don’t feel depressed (I have for short periods in my life so I know when I do). And whenever there’s school/a social event I go to it and I’m happy. I only get into this loop at weekends when there’s nothing to do. I could solve this by getting a job at the weekends (ie. again getting someone to structure my time for me). But the problem would persist that I’m unable to structure my free time due to executive dysfunction.
What works best for me is to focus on what I CAN fully control. Taking a hike and having fun is overwhelming, because who knows how I will feel. On the other hand, making the plan to eat my lunch sandwich at the lake (hiking destination) is totally doable.
When there is no list and the weekend starts, I work with implementation intention: Totally do keep scrolling until time X, then make the todo-list, then back to scrolling. Next thing would be to do ONE item from the list at time Y.
It’s similar with the “plan” to sleep at midnight. Better: By midnight, I’ll be setup perfectly so that I could sleep, the rest is not my job: Pyjamas, teeth brushed, room temperature, bed ready. Sometimes that leads to sleep, sometimes it doesn’t, but better than when I don’t even give it a chance, or when I feel pressure to fall asleep.
