
Hack your brain to get back on track.
ADHD is a strange beast when the dopamine tanks. Ask me how I know… 😉 When your brain is low on the neurotransmitter dopamine, you lack the motivation that others have at a fundamental level. So you might have to get creative to start the ball rolling on work tasks, family commitments, and even basic things like self-care.
I, myself, go through cycles of being highly motivated and then… not. Recently, however, I implemented a motivation hack that is surprisingly effective. For years, whenever I hit a milestone or achieved a goal, I’d tell folks I deserve a gold star, just like when we were kids and snagged a gold star sticker from our 3rd grade teachers for finishing an assignment. I adored earning those stickers, then, so why wouldn’t something like that work for me now?
You get a gold star!
So I went looking on Amazon for a little gold star system. And I did find some but I stumbled upon even more ideas for this kind of thing. So I got a bit creative and settled on some sea-colored rocks along with a couple of flower vases I found in buried in my laundry room cabinet.
Now whenever I finish a task (and this works particularly well for tasks I really don’t want to do—I’m looking at you laundry) I give myself a gem. I just snag one out of the vase full of them and pop it into the empty one.
Gems for all the things
I also give myself a gem for self-care activities and hobbies that I make progress on such as painting a portrait. It’s a bit like a game I play, which allows me to see my progress on all of my activities in real time. I set the vases under my television so I can see them at all times in the living room. So, if I start binge watching a TV show, it’s effortless to glance down and remember my gems. It puts my goals for the delay back into my mind.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Another quirk of the ADHD brain is that often things that are out of sight are out of mind when it comes to tasks. The tactile nature of moving the gems is useful in this regard. While I’m a HUGE fan of ask management apps on all my devices, they only work if you open them, right? So I don’t always pay close attention to my progress on various fronts because they are not always in my line of sight.
The Reverse Hourglass of Your Life
And there’s just something about having those jewels pile up on top of each other that feels a bit like a reverse hourglass. It’s sort of like a game on your iPhone where you have to run around and collect items to win the game. In this case, when the gems reach the tippy top of the vase, I’m going to give myself some kind of reward.
Reward Yourself!
To be honest, the gems themselves have been weirdly reward enough. Partly because I find myself saying in my head I can get a gem if I do XYZ right now, or I can get two gems if I do two hours on X task.
I haven’t even picked my first reward, but I’ve been pondering ideas:
- a day trip somewhere
- a nice dinner out on the town
- a trip to the beach
- a splurge purchase that I would normally not make
- a random day off work to only work on my hobbies
The Choice is Yours
Want to give this idea a try? Think outside the box and choose something that works best for you. Example you might want to track various things on a dry erase board, and actually have legit gold stars you stick on to it.
Pirate Booty, anyone?
A friend of mine plans to try this idea, but in her case, she wants to use gems that look like various types of jewels and intersperse those with gold coins, which she plans to give herself for extra difficult or special tasks. She’ll add up the coins at the end of the month, and make that a more special reward. Love that idea! Pirate treasure for the win!
Another option is to perhaps get a bag of smaller rocks and use smaller containers to house them as well. Eventually I want to get some cool looking potion bottles for mine. You could even try game pieces or poker chips or dice or marbles. Another option might be stickers on a specialty board or in a book.
And of course there are a lot of calendar task management options that you could try if you don’t need to see it in your main room or if you prefer to be able to see it on your mobile devices when away from home.
Sky’s the limit on this brain hack. And it will, indeed, kick off some neuroplasticity. Motivation builds on itself. There is a great deal to be said about that old classic adage: “an object in motion tends to stay in motion.”
Keep yourself moving, one jewel at a time. Yo ho, me hearties!