List less listlessness

“You know what you need? You need a to-do list!”

“Just make a list,” they say. And I die inside.

A lot of ADHDers seem to like lists. Lists supposedly provide structure and clarity, help to organise the linguine thoughts and reduce overwhelm. I am not one of those ADHDers. Lists are a real problem for me, they don’t help me one iota. On a good day I might be able to tackle the bullet point bastard like some mid-level bad guy, a second act set piece, before the real peril. Most days it’s more like the classic little, man big man wrestling match; with the list leaping around like a high flier and me, the lumbering ox in the middle of the ring, four steps behind. Just stop jumping all over the place so I can pummel you into submission, ya nimble prick. 

Photo by Jason Pofahl on Unsplash

Merely making a list becomes a task in itself. The list is not a collection of things for me to get done, it is a whole separate job to be done. For added shits and giggles I’m left-handed, so just writing the thing is arduous. Did you ever try dragging your hand over those spirals at the top of your average notepad? John Kramer and his gang of psychos could turn it into a trap in a Saw movie. “Hello, Lewis. I want to play a game.”

Once the light grating of my dominant hand has finished, we then get down to the real fun and games: smearing my hand across every word of my childish, spidery scrawl so it’s even less legible than it was when it left the pen mere seconds ago. Going shopping, are you? Want a list, do you? Here you go. Harder to read than the Bayeux Tapestry and in considerably worse nick. Have fun. 

Structuring the list becomes a job akin to building a new house from the ground up. I legit have to clear some space in my diary just to sit down and do it. Even something as simple as a shopping list becomes its own task. My dear old mum knows the local supermarket like the back of her hand. Always has. I remember when she’d bring us kids along to do the weekly shop, and her list would be in the order of the layout of the supermarket. The whole week laid out, in beautiful neat columns, in the order she planned to pick it up. She’s probably going to read this one day so sorry mum, but that’s witchcraft or something. A Proustian pact, maybe. You must’ve sold your soul for that sort of organisational prowess.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

My shopping list is a confused, slightly terrified scramble through the things I need to get in that immediate moment. Because I cannot be trusted to go shopping (think the “Just get the essentials” scene in Dumb & Dumber), we get our weekly shop delivered. The only time a trip to le supermarche is necessary is for odd bits at the weekend or when we’ve got people over. When people come over, I cook. I know exactly what I need to cook whatever it is I’m cooking, it’s my menu for fucksake. So why, in the name of Zeus’s butthole, is everything scribbled down in a frantic stream of consciousness?

Once I’m in the emporium galorium, the list (or rather, my focus on it) starts flitting around like a butterfly. Fruit and veg is over here, right? So go and get avocados, tomatoes, chillis and onions. Then get chicken and tofu (The Muse is vegan, there is almost always tofu). Wraps, refried beans, cool cool doing well, I’m a good host so get some wine in. Hang on, why coriander now?! Back to fruit and veg for what is basically a weed. I don’t fancy wine, back to booze for a few beers. Hold up, do we need mixers? We probably need mixers. Wait, why isn’t dessert on the list? We can’t not at least offer dessert. By this point I’m like a rabbit in Watership Down, gone tharn with fear and just looking for a lovely warm burrow to scurry into.

Photo by Peter Bond on Unsplash

The Muse is the most organised person I’ve ever met in my life, and she is the queen of a good list. You should’ve seen our wedding spreadsheet, it was a work of art. She can present me with an immaculate list, with sub-headings and bullet points, and I will attack it like a kid let loose at soft play. Bit of the most fun task first. Bit of the least fun task. All the in between tasks. Back to the fun task but let’s not complete it because I need to eek that fucker out. By this point those knackered dopamine receptors have completely taken over and I’m just Jackson Pollocking that bit of paper now. No wonder we have to set aside a full day for me to do a few basic household chores.

I don’t actually dislike the idea of a list. Ask me my 10 favourite albums, get me to rank all of Arnie’s films, or request a list of the best sandwiches¹ I ever ate and oh baby, we’re getting the flipchart out. I get to have a lovely little me party and talk about all my favourite things, and at the end of it I’ve bored to tears a captive audience dazzled a rapt audience.

It’s when the list is, or contains, a job that I glitch out. This may play into pathological demand avoidance (we’ll probably talk about it soon), but it definitely plays into delayed gratification. There is no sweet dopamine hit to be had from something as mundane as crossing off tasks and no dopamine, no Holmes.

This is an incredibly juvenile way to go about your life at the best of times, never mind when you’re halfway through your forties. You can’t ignore this sort of thing though, because ignoring the little things is what leads to ignoring the bigger things, which is what leads to burnout. And burnout means bad times for everybody. This must all sound so trivial to the neurotypical brain. I’d love to do you a lovely list of bullet points why it isn’t, but we’d be here all month.

1. Actually, don’t. I might be desperate for things to write about this time next year.