Understanding ADHD and Motivation
Strategies for motivating interest-based nervous systems
ADHD and Motivation
Strategies for motivating interest-based nervous systems
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Interest-based versus importance-based nervous systems
Neurotypical (NT) people are more easily able to get engaged when:
- The task is important and of great significance or value;
- There is a reward for doing the task; or
- There is a punishment or consequence if the task is not done.
NTs are more easily able to get engaged because:
- Tasks don’t have to be important right now — they can much more easily plan ahead for things that will be important in the future.
- NTs can prioritize and arrange things in order of importance.
- It is the importance of the task that helps the NT individual.
- They can engage on demand;
- NTs have more reliable access their intellect and abilities when they are needed; and
- They can more easily stay engaged all the way to the payoff.
ADHDers have an interest-based nervous system
- When engaged, people with ADHD tend to be much more energetic, positive, and social.
- Boredom and lack of engagement are almost physically painful for people with an ADHD nervous system.
- When bored, people with ADHD can become irritable, negativistic, tense, argumentative, and have no energy to do anything.
- People with ADHD will do almost anything to relieve this discomfort.
This can include various forms of stimulation-seeking:
- Self-medication: anywhere from drinking too much coffee or energy drinks to using illicit drugs;
- Picking a fight or stirring up “drama” (usually not a conscious choice made intentionally, rather it becomes a habitual pattern of behaviour);
- Eating and drinking for stimulation rather than sustenance (which can be absolutely fine in moderation, but can potentially become a health issue).
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P.I.N.C.H. yourself
Dr. William Dodson originally developed an acronym for the four things which motivate ADHDers. It started out as INCU (interest, novelty, challenge, and urgency), then evolved to INCUP when passion was added. It has since evolved again to a more memorable acronym: PINCH.
Passion, interest, novelty, challenge, and hurry
- These are very personal and subjective features. Life requires that we engage the most important activities as the situation demands.
- Things that are interesting today may not be interesting next week.
- As ADHDers with interest-based nervous systems, we need to be personally interested, challenged, or find a task novel or immediately urgent, or we may find it nearly impossible to complete — sometimes to even start — the task.
Difficulties of having an interest-based system
- Many solutions (especially “quick fixes” or major overhauls) do not last long-term.
- Things that were challenging today are not helpful once the challenge is met and mastered.
- Novelty and newness are time-limited. Everything becomes old hat after a while.
- Urgency substitutes for importance. We can’t necessarily get engaged with a task merely because it is important — in fact, this sometimes adds to the emotional and psychological weight keeping us stuck.
Implications
- Planning and organization are very difficult. Most planning systems are built for neurotypicals who can use Importance/priority and time….. Two things which the ADHD nervous system does not do well.
- Since it is hard to make use of the concepts of importance, priorities, and rewards, it is hard for people with an ADHD nervous system to figure out what is the best place to start projects. People with ADHD work best if they go backwards from the end to the beginning.
Effective strategies for ADHDers:
- Focus on how and when the ADHDer does well.
- Are highly personal and individualized.
- Keep track of when things go spectacularly well so that you can do them again.
- Adapt over time. Some techniques work for a month or two, then we have to use another technique until the original technique seems “fresh” again.
- Do not demand we do things in a neurotypical way — effective strategies work with our needs, preferences, and strengths, not against them.
Examples of some approaches that (generally) work:
- Implementer-finisher partner.
- Body doubling.
- Roll with it.
- Planning for deadlines.
- Injecting interest.
- Distinguishing progress from outcome.
- Trading interest for importance.
- Organize in ADHD friendly ways.
1) Implementer-finisher partner
- People with an ADHD nervous system are idea people.
- They are world class, intuitive problem solvers.
- “Cognitive dynamism”
- But once the problems are solved the project has no more interest, challenge, or novelty and the person loses interest. Lots of half- finished projects.
- Solution: Find someone who may not ever have great ideas and inventions but who will take the projects to completion. As partners they are unbeatable.
2) Body doubling
- A variation on the partner idea.
- Using another person’s ability to get engaged to get involved yourself.
- “A Study Buddy.”
- One of the most successful academic techniques.
3) Roll with it
- Accept your ADHD patterns and habits.
- Gameify tasks to make them fun.
- Do things in a way that works for you, rather than how you think you’re supposed to do them.
4) Planning for deadlines
- Accept your ADHD patterns and habits.
- Accept that, despite your good intentions, you frequently wait until the last possible moment to start a major project.
- If you know it’s going to happen, plan for it.
- Make sure there is nothing else competing for that time.
- You are still procrastinating but worry and guilt are not bothering you and you know nothing else will interfere with your **hyperfocus**.
5) Injecting interest
- Much of what we need to do day-to-day is repetitive and unchallenging. (Even neurotypicals struggle to get engaged and stay engaged).
- Accept we will need strategies in order to manage our engagement with the tasks of our lives.
- Know our personal passions and motivators that we can use to get engaged.
- Use creativity to infuse PINCH. That is, develop ways to spark your passion, interest, novelty, challenge, and hurry (urgency).
6) Distinguishing wanting the process from wanting the outcome
- Be honest with yourself.
- If a task is not interesting, challenging, creative, or urgent, consider delegating it to someone else if possible.
- Or potentially trade the task for something else.
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Process over outcome
Have you ever put a significant amount of work into something, only to get to the finished product and then lose interest?
Once my son and I worked on a major creative project together. We created an entire amusement park out of recycled cardboard boxes, lego, and paint. We made a mini-golf course, a skateboard park, a soccer pitch, cabin, and a beach with a dock for fishing.
We worked on it for days and days, and had a lot of fun doing it. We played with it once, but have zero regrets. In this case, the process of making it together was more important than the final product.
My son was a lot like that with his lego sets. He would spend hours putting them together, play with them a little, and then set them aside. The joy was in the process, not the outcome.
Outcome over process
Then there are times when we push through discomfort and difficulty because the end goal is important and interesting to us, because we’re passionate about the outcome.
For example, some people don’t like cleaning their house, but really really want and need to have a clean house. They do the dirty work in order to get a result in which they are highly invested.
Many people don’t like their jobs, but go to them on a full-time basis anyway, because the paycheque is a necessity to meeting basic needs. The process is not one they enjoy, but they do it because the outcome is too important for them to not reach it. In these situations, the outcome is so important or motivating, that it trumps the unpleasant process.
Problems arise if the outcome is not absolutely essential or a very significant motivator. Those of us with interest-based nervous systems may not be able to push past the disinterest, discomfort, or difficulty in order to hang in there until the process is complete.
7) Trading importance for that which is interesting
or… make your own fun!
Something may be an important task to get done, but not necessarily to us, in which case we may need to:
- Find other ways to attain the end goal.
- Teamwork / collaborate: Work with others in a way which utilizes each person’s talents in completing the task.
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Make your own fun
As a light-hearted example, when we ask our (now-12-year-old) son (who also has ADHD) to take out the recycling, it is not a “simple” task. No, that would be much too boring. Instead of merely taking the recycling bins from in the house and emptying them into the larger bin out front, my son needs to make things interesting for himself.
He’ll set up trick shots for the recycling that’s in the upstairs bathroom, trying to get it into the bin on the main floor. Since it’s mostly things like cardboard rolls from toilet paper, it’s not likely to cause any damage, so we let him roll with it. It’s a useful skill for him to find ways to motivate himself to complete tedious or uninteresting tasks by making them a little more fun for himself.
8) Organize In ADHD-Friendly Ways
- Most organization systems are designed for neurotypicals and are designed to focus on priorities and time management.
- These are two things the ADHD nervous system does not do well for sustained periods of time.
An example of something that has a much better chance of being successful as an ADHD-friendly organization strategy. Using 5 colour-coded folders, coloured paper (i.e. printer paper or post-it notes), or colour-coded to-do lists:
- Red for urgent items needing to be done right away (i.e. due today or tomorrow);
- Orange for important tasks which should be done very soon (i.e. within the next 2–3 days);
- Yellow for deadlines coming up in near future that you need to keep on your radar;
- Green for new ideas or future tasks that come up and you don’t want to forget, but are not currently time-sensitive.
Yes, it’s about a lot more than checklists
As a fellow ADHDer, I get it. Checklists and colour-coding may seem irritatingly simple, and if those were a solution no one would have ADHD anymore, we’d all just have planners and checklists and all our problems would be solved.
I am not promising that colour-coded checklists or planners will be the answer to every organizational challenge — not at all.
What I am saying, however, is this.
Our ADHD and **executive functioning* (EF) struggles — especially with motivation, organization, and prioritization — can feel huge at times, and they are* because they can have a significant impact on our lives.
As a result we tend to think large, impactful challenges require massive, life-changing solutions. When it comes to things like motivation and organization, especially as they relate to EF difficulties, it’s often most effective to keep it simple.
© Jillian Enright, Neurodiversity MB
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References
Brown, T.E. (2013). *A New Understanding of ADHD in Children and Adults: Executive Function Impairments*. Routledge.
Dodson, W. (2022). How ADHD Shapes Your Perceptions, Emotions, and Motivation. [Presentation]. The ADHD Association of Denmark.
Saline, S. (2018). *What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew: Working together to empower kids for success in school and life*. TarcherPerigee.
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