Time management, small tasks vs big tasks and ADHD

Dear Coaches, I’m new to the collective so feel free to just direct me (or tell me a have to have another look) at information publicly available, if there is an answer available within the collective already. I’m (currently) struggling with to much to do and not enough time and looking at the helpful bonus class “about time”. I can definitely see, how the change from the unintentional model to the intentional one (esp. C = to do list) can be helpful but I had the experience, that I might be getting from one extreme to another. I know/knew phases of my work-life, where I was
a)super focused on research (microscopy work or writing) and consequently not even hearing my alarm reminding me of important (= funding depending on it, students depending on my teaching etc) meetings or
b) (as for some time now – let’s say since the beginning of the pandemic, with some short a-phases in-between). I got so many “small” tasks (done), that I do not “have time” to get into this deep focus and really get complex research done.

What I was trying, was to dedicate timeslots to administration, e-mails etc and blocks of time for research but even if I get myself to stick to these my brain is still scattered and thinking about possible follow ups, that I do often not manage to block it out and focus on my research work or if I do, it takes soo much energy (especially if I would need to do repetitive microscopy work). Any tips and tricks on how I get my brain to focus without loosing the ability to stay reliable for non research related tasks (that I also like doing)?

I want to mention, that I’m a person with ADHD and I have a ambivalent relation towards routine – I need it to some extent but if I get bored within it, it’s exacerbate my motivation and I have a tendency to get appatic and drained.

 

Answer:

We can put your work on your action line, which means that whether it’s the ‘smaller’ tasks or your research work, you can decide how you want to think and feel about each task. And folks with ADHD are often pretty inventive at coming up with amazing and novel ways of approaching things.

Something I want to check in on is if it’s a problem that you go from periods of deep focus to doing ‘smaller’ tasks? And what are you making this mean about you? You mentioned ‘staying reliable’, is there anything else that comes up?