87: How to Get Started – The Hardest Step for ADHD Brains

How Fish Brains Actually Get Started

Getting started is, hands down, the hardest step for an ADHD brain. Ever since building this podcast community, one theme keeps surfacing over and over in the questions people bring: where do I start, how do I start, when do I start. It’s rarely about not knowing what to do. It’s about not being able to make yourself begin.

Why linear advice doesn’t translate

Most organizing advice comes from what I call monkey brains, naturally linear, structured thinkers with plenty of executive function to draw from. For them, a task looks like standing at the base of a tree, seeing the first branch, and climbing steadily upward, clear starting point, clear finish, clear steps in between. That really is that simple for them, and that’s genuinely wonderful if it’s how your brain works. But for a fish brain, no task looks like that tree at all. Every task immediately branches into a thousand dependencies, I can’t do this step until that other thing is moved, and that can’t happen until this other mess is dealt with, until the whole thing collapses into a frozen, paralyzed no.

Ditch the idea that there’s a “right” place to start

The fix isn’t to force your brain into the monkey’s linear tree. It’s to stop looking for a right place, right time, or right method to begin at all. Picture yourself swimming in an open body of water, your house, filled with things to do in every direction, with no obvious starting point and no obvious path forward. In that water, you’re free to start anywhere. Look around for whatever feels easy right now, something you already know exactly what to do with, that doesn’t set off a chain reaction of other unfinished dependencies. The simple act of starting, of generating any forward motion at all, loosens the pressure enough for the rest to follow.

A real example from setting up my son’s apartment

While helping my son move into his first apartment, the kitchen quickly became overwhelming, hand-me-down items with unclear overlaps, no clear plan for how he’d actually want it organized. So I walked away from it mid-task and looked for something easier instead. His small linen closet had a clear, obvious purpose: towels, bathroom overflow, medicine, a first aid kit. That was simple, so I started there. Being in that space put me right next to the laundry room, another easy win, just soap and dryer supplies. From there, momentum carried into sorting his closet into work clothes and casual clothes. By the time I circled back to the kitchen, I still didn’t have a full plan, but I had enough momentum to just start washing everything that needed it, then grouping items by category, cooking tools, dishes, Tupperware, before finally deciding where each group made sense relative to the fridge, the dishwasher, and the stove. None of it required an answer up front. It just required starting somewhere small and following the momentum.

Building in structure that supports you, not restrains you

A few things helped that day beyond just picking an easy starting point. There was a real deadline, a finite amount of time before we had to leave. There were other people in the space, my daughter kept me from over-loading him with duplicate items he genuinely didn’t need, and simply having people present nearby, even doing something unrelated in another room, can help you stay accountable. If you don’t feel a natural burst of motivation to begin, give yourself permission to do just one small thing, move one item to where it belongs, or set a short timer and commit only to working until it goes off.

Finding your own accountability

If you don’t have someone available to work alongside, consider an accountability partner, a community, or a simple before-and-after check-in, snap a picture of the mess, set a timer for fifteen minutes, snap a picture of the progress. There’s real value in judgment-free encouragement for even small, partial wins.

Your practical, actionable step

Next time you feel frozen before a task, stop looking for the “right” place to begin. Instead, look around for the one thing that feels genuinely easy and self-contained, with no hidden dependencies, and start there. Let that small bit of motion carry you into the next thing.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.