I am diagnosed with ADHD and your experience sounds similar to mine, ie executive function disorder. Not getting anything done until the last possible moment, and then only the bare minimum because it was all I had time for.
Of the various strategies I’ve employed, having an accountability partner has been the most useful.
I Tell someone what I’m going to do, and when I’m going to do it by, and commit to talking to them about it reasonably soon after the time frame I set.
For example, I never had any success exercising until I started going to the gym with my father. It has been really good for both of us. We both want both of us to be healthier and we’re helping each other do it. Sometimes one of us can’t go and that’s okay, we acknowledge it, move on, and keep each other on track. This has been so successful that I even went to the gym on my birthday.
I would really like it if you’d spend 5 or more minutes brainstorming and listing some different people in your life you could sustainably use as accountability partners, before this post is 24 hours old.
Please either comment or DM me ASAP about whether or not you’re going to do this, and wait at least an hour before actually doing the brainstorming.
I don’t want to see the list but I’d love it if you could message me with the number of people on the list, and what areas of your life they intersect with.
I’m going to check this comment and my inbox sometime between 24 and 32 hours from now.
I can only speak from my own experience.
My strategy is committing to planning my day at the beginning of the day (9:10AM after I’ve gotten my kids to school) and then talking with my wife before bed about how well I managed to stick to the plan. Ie did I actually plan tasks for the day, did I accomplish those tasks, is there anything she’d like me to add to tomorrow’s tasks etc.
Planning my day includes assigning time frames for the tasks, including one task right after planning. If I know I’m likely to want to play video games that day, plan a time and duration, and set an alarm on my phone to interrupt my play at the time I thought I should stop.
Try really hard to frame things in an analog way. Ie As progress instead of as victory or failure.
What I mean is you didn’t do exactly what I asked, and that’s fine you made real progress towards developing a sustainable solution.
I use a paper productivity planner to plan my day and I’ve found it very helpful. maybe do 30 minutes of research into options available to you.