Procrastivity (a.k.a. Sneaky Avoidance)

Everyone—ADHD or not—puts off tasks, including via procrastivity. Adults with ADHD, though, are at greater risk for experiencing more significant negative effects and impairments from it.

But what is it about procrastivity tasks that make them magically more enticing than priority tasks? The laundry and yard work themselves likely had been objects of procrastination before. Why the motivation to do them now?

A reverse engineering of procrastivity and the nature of the tasks used to avoid higher priorities offer some important lessons abouttheir particular features.

1) They tend to be manual or “hands on”

Procrastivity tasks tend to be more manual or hands-on than priority tasks. Priority tasks, on the other hand, are more mentally challenging, exacting greater cognitive load, such as administrative tasks, writing, homework, and many others. Even among these intellectual tasks, such as different homework assignments, there is a personal rock-paper-scissors algorithm of difficulty, such as “writing is harder than reading” and “reading is harder than a problem set.”

2) They offer a familiar script of onboarding steps for getting started

For the procrastivity tasks mentioned above, laundry and mowing the lawn, there is a clear, well-rehearsed set of steps to perform for getting started that is viewed as more “doable” than the higher priority task. This makes getting started on those tasks easier and probably fuels justifications for escape in the form of the thought “I’ll do this other thing first, then I’ll me ‘in the mood’ for the priority task.” (Have you ever really been "in the mood" for laundry or taxes?)

3) There is a clearer sense of making and maintaining progress

With procrastivity tasks, you can see the laundry and lawn getting done with a corresponding decrease in the amount of time and effort remaining, a countdown until the task is done. With most priority tasks, more than one work session is required, such as writing a paper or completing taxes, and there is a possibility of surprises or difficulties with the task that could conceivably end up taking more time and effort than was originally anticipated.

4) There is a clear end point

There is a clear stopping point with most procrastivity tasks at the job is completed and off the to-do list. This fact comes with a visceral sense of satisfaction of task completion, even with chores and other administrative matters. This positive feeling is underestimated despite the fact that procrastivity tasks are not the most existentially fulfilling matters. It feels good to get things done. And due to the vagaries and uncertainties inherent in many priority tasks, it is difficult to determine an exact end point that one is confident can be reached.

Even in cases of a clear deadline, such as for homework or taxes, there is uncertainty about how much progress will be made during the time spent on the priority task, which opens the door for escape to a task with greater certainty. In fact, many people are willing to devote more time and energy to a procrastivity task than to the priority task because the certainty of the outcome is more desirable to one’s sense of efficacy, the belief that one can do it. Thus, two hours of yard work is preferable to 45 minutes working on taxes.