31: How to Increase the Likelihood of Completing a Task if you have ADHD

Why Some Tasks Click and Others Don’t

After a stretch of back-to-back daily podcasting, a real question came up worth reflecting on: why do some tasks pull us in effortlessly while others, ones that objectively matter just as much, never seem to get done at all? There’s a useful framework for thinking this through.

The NICU framework

Credit here goes to Dr. Brian, an ADHD specialist who shares bite-sized insights online. His framework says an ADHD brain is far more likely to engage with something that is Novel, Interesting, Challenging, or Urgent. An overflowing email inbox, for example, usually has none of those qualities in the moment: nothing new, nothing particularly interesting, no real challenge, and no urgency until it suddenly becomes a fire to put out. Without any of those four ingredients lit up, there’s simply nothing pulling the brain toward action, so the task quietly stalls.

Looking back at a personal streak

Running that same framework over a recent stretch of daily podcasting explains a lot. It was still genuinely novel, being new enough to the format that there was plenty left to learn. It was interesting, tying favorite topics together with a seasonal twist. It was challenging, pushing well past an original one-a-week pace. And it carried real urgency, a self-imposed daily deadline tied to a specific date. All four factors lighting up at once made it feel almost effortless to keep going, even through days that would normally have been hard to show up for.

A childhood parallel

The same four factors explain a period of life that, in hindsight, felt unexpectedly locked-in and consistent: the years when four kids were all seven and under. Every day was different, nothing repeated, there was constant novelty and challenge, and urgency was baked into nearly every hour. It wasn’t until that stage passed and life became more predictable that the absence of novelty, challenge, and urgency made everyday tasks noticeably harder to follow through on.

Two more ingredients worth adding: accountability and feedback

Beyond the original four, two more factors seem to matter just as much in practice: accountability to someone else, and a feedback loop that shows the effort mattered. Working directly with organizing clients supplies both automatically, someone counting on the work in the moment, and the immediate, visible payoff of a finished space. Tasks like laundry or ongoing decluttering often supply neither: no one’s directly waiting on the load in the dryer, and there’s no clear finish line signaling “done.”

A quick real-world example

A recent school project drove this home. A high schooler dove all in on a creative math project built around a topic he genuinely loved, tied to bonus points and a specific deadline, novelty, interest, challenge, and urgency all present at once. He finished with time to spare, then promptly forgot to bring it to school. Urgency alone, once the deadline actually arrived that morning, was enough to get it there and turned in for a near-perfect score. It’s a reminder that even one strong factor, urgency especially, can carry a task across the finish line when the others are missing.

Your practical, actionable step

Next time a task keeps getting pushed aside, run it through the list: is it novel, interesting, challenging, or urgent? If none of those apply, look for a way to add one artificially, a small self-imposed deadline, a new twist, or someone to be accountable to, and notice whether that shifts how easily you’re able to start.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.