Speedbumps

"Speedbumps" are things that prevent you from maintaining momentum on your path. They force you to slow down or divert from your primary goal. This may be a good thing in a grocery store parking lot, but it's a disaster in your brain.

Examples

Speedbumps take a lot of different forms, but there are two main categories that I've defined from my experience:

• Delay
• Distraction

These are not 100% discrete categories, as a delay can turn into a distraction and a distraction can cause a delay, but in general I'd say that delays are largely external (caused by something outside of yourself) and distractions are internal (caused by your brain). That's also not to say that delays are legitimate and distractions are bullshit - distractions can be a reaction to other people, delays can be caused by inattention. You're not "one of the good ones" if your speedbumps are all delays. Don't beat yourself up if you're prone to distraction. (I'm writing this because it's a distraction; sometimes distractions are really productive, just in the wrong direction.)

Delays

• You are setting up a website. You own the domain name, you know what software you want to use, you know what host you want to use, you have several pages written and images created for the site. In order to host the website the way you want to, you need to have the domain registered with the host you want to use. Your domain is currently registered with a different registrar and needs to be transferred, an action which takes a few days to process. You cannot work on the website until your domain transfers.
• You are replacing the brake pads on your car. You have time blocked out, you have the parts in hand, you know the weather will be good, you cannot find your jack. You can't do the work until you can find the jack.
• You are placing an order at work; to get the order shipped to the right address you need to submit a sales tax certificate for the state you're shipping to.

Distractions

• You are setting up a website. While looking up how to use a particular type of markdown, you stumble across an interesting article on the history of markdown languages. This leads to a wikipedia hole.
• You are replacing the brake pads on your car. After you have the first wheel off, you realize you need to use the restroom. You use the restroom, but on your way back to the driveway you get a call from your friend who has a question about your weekend plans. You go look at your calendar to answer the question, and then ask them a question about their week. This turns into a long conversation, and the weather has changed when you make it back to the driveway.
• You are placing an order at work; while retrieving the MFA code from your email, you see an urgent message in the team slack that you can respond to. You reply to your coworker and collect information on the customer, then add your time to the ticket and discuss the next steps to resolve the client issue with your coworker. You build a configuration that includes the missing information you discovered while responding and update the process documentation for this software. Two hours later, you realize you never placed the order.

Mitigation

Much like in the real world, the best way to mitigate speedbumps is to know they're coming and, if at all possible, avoid them. You can't always know what speedbumps are coming up, but you can know when they're likely to come up and can pre-plan a strategy to handle them. Most of this comes down to preparation, but some comes from developing time management skills, organization skills, and the ability to say 'no' when it might upset people. It's a process.

Mitigating Delays

• Mis en Place - in baking, this is the process of reading a recipe and preparing all the ingredients and tools before you start actually baking. When working on a car, this might mean making sure that your tools, jacks, parts, and instructions are all ready to go before you start working. When setting up a website, this might mean waiting to start until you are certain that your domain is registered with your host.
• Start early - people with ADHD are very bad at estimating how long tasks take; if you give yourself more time at the beginning you are going to be less harried by a delay.
• Have multiple projects to bounce between - sometimes you really can't do anything about a delay, but you can still get something else accomplished while you wait. If you wanted to bake but you didn't realize your pie plate was in the dishwasher and the cycle has another hour, don't say "I guess I'll play a game on my phone while I wait" and let the baking momentum stop - start chopping vegetables for dinner, or take out the trash, or start mixing up brownie batter, but keep yourself in the kitchen so that you keep up the momentum for kitchen work. This isn't effective if you decide that while waiting for your pie plate you're going to outline the next chapter of your story because then your momentum will be directed at the story. Think of this as like supersets at the gym - you generally do supersets by doing similar actions: one bodyweight exercise followed by another, a lat pulldown on the cable machine followed by a leg extension on the cable machine; if you did five pushups on the workout mats then walked across the gym to do a thirty second flexed arm hang on the back wall then came back to do another five pushups you'd mostly be wasting a lot of time and losing a lot of momentum.

Mitigating Distractions

• Limit how much distractions can intrude on your project - if I'm going to work on the yard, I make sure that my headphones are charged, I've got podcasts downloaded on my phone, I've got a full water bottle, I've got a sun hat, I've got a chair outside that I can sit on, I've got my gloves, I've gone to the restroom recently, and I've got my gardening tools, because if I go back inside even for a moment I'm going to get distracted. You can do this through preparation (that might be considered mis en place for gardening), but you can also do this by setting do-not-disturb mode on your office message or phone, or using setting your phone on the other side of the room while you work so you can't check socials.
• Set a timer - timers are a very effective way for me to redirect myself back to the task at hand if I get distracted. It doesn't prevent the distraction, but it reminds me that there's a task I'm distracted from
• Use focus tools - perhaps there's a particular kind of music or a particular kind of movie that really helps you to focus; make sure to turn that on before you get started.
• Time your meds if possible - if you're medicated, and your meds are the kind of thing you have some flexibility with, it can be really helpful to take your meds shortly before starting a project so that they're hitting your bloodstream and enabling focus when you need it the most.
• Build Success Traps