189: Decisions Making with ADHD – Choosing the Lesser Evil

Making Decisions with ADHD: Choosing the Lesser Evil

After some listeners shared that this podcast’s talk on overwhelm versus underwhelm gave them a real aha moment, I wanted to lean further into that fine line we’re constantly balancing on. Today’s topic is what I almost called the Catch-22 of ADHD, that impossible-feeling situation where acting one way proves the case against the other, or in more current terms, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

I hesitate to bring up anything that sounds hopeless, because my whole goal is reframing our struggles in ways that create motion and momentum. But recognizing this particular bind is actually the reframe itself, because it shows you that you’re not broken, you’re choosing the lesser of two evils, and that’s a completely legitimate way to operate.

My own Catch-22: meal planning

Meal planning sends me into total paralysis. I could have eight hundred well-meaning monkeys explain how easy it actually is and how I’m overcomplicating it, and my brain still locks up completely at the thought of it. That’s the overwhelmed side. Since that direction is a dead end for me, my family has learned to live with the underwhelmed alternative: ask me at five o’clock what’s for dinner, and I genuinely won’t know. It drives them a little batty. But once the urgency hits, we’re hungry, we’re expected to eat, something gets thrown together. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s cereal, sometimes it’s takeout. Either way, we ate. Given the choice between the paralysis of planning and the mild chaos of scrambling, I’m choosing the lesser evil on purpose, and that’s okay.

Another common version: cleaning routines

Some of you have described a similar bind around cleaning. Following someone else’s tidy, well-structured cleaning routine feels paralyzing, so instead your house runs on scramble mode, a frantic deep clean right before anyone’s expected to visit. That’s exhausting for you and everyone around you, but it’s still the lesser evil compared to the paralysis a rigid routine would cause. If nobody visits for three months and the deep clean doesn’t happen until the very end of that stretch, what real damage has actually occurred? As long as dishes aren’t attracting bugs or rodents and nothing’s creating an actual health issue, you’re okay.

Finding a version of “meet in the middle”

None of this means you’re stuck permanently choosing between two bad options. A few ways to find something closer to a middle ground: instead of a rigid weekly routine covering everything at once, spread tasks out unevenly on purpose. Vacuum one week, scrub bathrooms the next, deep clean the kitchen the week after, and accept you’re never doing all three in the same week unless a guest is coming. For meal planning, I’ve started logging what I actually cooked after the fact rather than planning ahead. At the end of an evening or week, I jot it in my planner. When I want a plan without the paralysis of building one from scratch, I flip back through old weeks and just repeat one that already worked. It turns planning into logging, which sidesteps the freeze entirely.

Watch for the small supports that keep you out of paralysis

When you notice yourself stuck, it’s worth examining what regular habits have been quietly keeping your brain steadier, and whether you’ve let one slip. For me, that’s getting outside with my dogs daily and taking my Magic Mind shot with my morning coffee. When the weather turned brutally cold and I skipped my walks, and I let my Magic Mind subscription lapse instead of renewing it, I noticed I was getting less of the harder stuff done and had less focus and energy for it. Exercise works the same way, even ten minutes of it, along with meditation, eating well, and getting enough sleep, especially since insomnia shows up so often for us. None of these fix the underlying Catch-22, but they help you navigate it with a little more steadiness.

Your practical, actionable step

Pick one area where you feel stuck between two bad options, and instead of trying to force the “responsible” version that paralyzes you, ask what a genuinely meet-in-the-middle version could look like. Give yourself grace for choosing consistently imperfect over perfectly stuck.

Until next time, continue to choose joy.