Lesson 02 · 13 min
What's Actually Blocking It
Six tasks can be stuck for six different reasons. The fix only works when it matches the block.
Listen first
Before you read: stop treating every stuck task the same
Spoken introduction · read aloud in your browser
Most starting advice assumes one cause and offers one remedy. That is why it works occasionally and mysteriously.
A task avoided because it is boring needs a completely different intervention from a task avoided because you are afraid of doing it badly.
This lesson is about diagnosis before strategy.
Six common blocks
The task isn't the problem — the block is
Unclear: you don't actually know what the first move is, so your brain returns 'error' every time you approach it.
Too big: the task is really eleven tasks holding hands, and the whole bundle has to be held in working memory at once.
Boring: there is nothing in it that generates interest, urgency, novelty or social presence.
Loaded: there is a feeling attached — shame, dread, a memory of last time.
Perfection-blocked: you cannot start because you cannot yet guarantee it will be good.
Depleted: you are genuinely out of resource, and the honest answer is rest, not strategy.
Why it matters
Matching the fix to the block
An unclear task needs definition, not discipline. A boring task needs stimulation, not clarity. A loaded task needs the feeling acknowledged before any timer will help.
When you apply the wrong fix, the task stays stuck and you collect one more piece of evidence that you are the problem. That evidence is false, but it accumulates.
Diagnosing the block takes about ninety seconds and changes what you do next entirely.
Course tool · Lesson 02
What's Actually Blocking This?
Six honest reasons a task hasn't started. Pick the one that's true today and get the matching move.
Pick one
Pick the block that fits the task you're avoiding right now
Quick win · 1 min
The honest sentence
Finish this out loud: 'I haven't started this because…'. The first honest ending is almost always the real block.
Try this
Ninety-second triage
Do this before you attempt any starting technique on a task that has been stuck more than a day.
- 01Write the task on paper in one sentence.
- 02Underneath, write the honest reason it hasn't started — one line, no self-criticism.
- 03Match it to one of the six blocks.
- 04Choose the matching move, not your usual move.
- 05Set a five-minute timer and do only the matching move.
You are not looking for the perfect strategy. You are looking for the one aimed at the right target.
Reframe
I procrastinate on everything.
Different tasks stall for different reasons, and each reason has a different way through.
Use an ADHDier tool
What's Making This Hard?
The full ADHDier version of this triage, saved to your account each time you run it.
Open the toolKeep this
Three things to take.
- 01Six blocks, six different fixes — the mismatch is why advice keeps failing.
- 02Naming the block takes ninety seconds and changes the whole approach.
- 03Depletion is a legitimate answer, and rest is the correct response to it.