Why Does ADHD Make It Difficult To Get Started? A Clinical Psychology Podcast Episode.

People with ADHD typically struggle to get started with different tasks and this can really impact their ability to do things at work, home and school. Yet why does ADHD make it difficult to get started? In this clinical psychology podcast episode, you'll learn how ADHD impacts people's ability to process time, how their brain works and how we can support people with ADHD to start tasks and thrive. If you enjoy learning about ADHD, mental health support and working with neurodivergence then this will be a great episode for you.

Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Introduction To Psychotherapies: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Types of Psychotherapies. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Why Does ADHD Make It Difficult To Get Started?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) makes it difficult to get started because ADHD impacts how the person processes time, execution as well as motivation. Also, starting tasks is known as initiation and this is negatively impacted by ADHD. Hence, making it really hard to get started on tasks.

For example, my ex-partner used to say they would stare at their assignment for hours wanting to do work but struggling to get started. A former friend of mine said when him and his boyfriend went to the library together, he would take ages to start studying and typically, by the time his boyfriend wanted to leave, he was only just getting started. A final example is another former friend used to struggle to get assignments done because they would do everything they possibly could to avoid assignments because they couldn't get started. 

This is how the ADHD brain works and it doesn't make the person lazy, stupid or anything negative. This is simply how their brain works and we need to support them instead of criticising them.

What is Initiation in Cognitive Psychology?

Initiation is your ability to independently start an activity or task, and for people with ADHD, there is a gap between wanting to start and actually getting started. This isn’t because the person with ADHD lacks motivation, can’t be bothered or they’re being lazy. It is because there are neurological differences between them and people without ADHD that impact their dopamine regulation. According to MacDonald et al. (2024), dopamine regulation is important in our perception of time and prioritisation, and these are critical in our ability to get started or initiation.

In addition, this negatively impacted dopamine regulation seen in people with ADHD leads them to feel stuck even when they understand what and how they need to do a given task. For example, a young boy who I’m working with at the time of writing, he knows exactly how to do long multiplication but because he’s off his ADHD medication, he felt stuck and he couldn’t get started even though he point-blank said to me he knew what he needed to do.

Also, the dopamine dysregulation causes people with ADHD to become overwhelmed when making decisions, they don’t know where to start and they stay away from tasks that feel too boring or too large or tasks that will take a long time.

One example of this was a former friend of mine who would always avoid doing their university coursework. It wasn’t because they were unmotivated, they were dim or they didn’t understand it. They didn’t want to get started because the coursework would take too long, they were large pieces of coursework and it would take a long time.

Another consequence of this dopamine dysregulation is that people with ADHD need an absolute deadline or a “last-minute rush” to get anything done. For instance, another former friend of mine would honestly try to get their essays and coursework done a month before, but they just couldn’t. They would end up getting it done within a week before the deadline because it was how their brain worked.

However, the difficulty that these consequences cause is that the feelings of procrastination and inability to start tasks and activities can cause low self-esteem and a cycle of shame. As well as to the outside world, it might look like the person isn’t achieving anything and they’re being lazy, but in reality and on the inside, the person with ADHD is fighting a massive battle.

Personally, this is why I had so much respect for my ex-partner, because even though they had ADHD, they would sit staring at their laptop or their coursework for hours just trying to get their brain to comply with their desire to get the coursework done. I respect that because they’re trying and they’re attempting to overcome their inability to start tasks.

Moreover, I think as aspiring and qualified psychologists, I think for us, this information helps us to educate ourselves so we can challenge our own biases. There might be times when we look at people with ADHD and think they’re being lazy, they’re not trying and if “only” they tried harder they could succeed. When these thoughts happen, we need to catch ourselves, be kind to ourselves and just remind ourselves that people with ADHD aren’t lazy, this is a part of their condition that we need to support them with.

In addition, this knowledge can be useful to us because we might be supporting a client who is criticising, berating and having relationship difficulties with someone with ADHD because they think they’re lazy. This knowledge about ADHD helps us to gently educate the client about the impacts of ADHD and we can hopefully support the client whilst they see ADHD isn’t a problem.

It's just a thought on how we can apply this information in our clinical work.

Finally, for this section, this information about ADHD and initiation can be useful to teaching assistants and anyone who works with children with ADHD. It helps us to be compassionate towards them and supportive, so we don’t tell them off for not doing their work, and instead we focus on how to support them to get started, do their work and learn.

Three Strategies to Help People With ADHD Get Started

I always like to give you practical tips and reflections in my podcast episodes, so in the rest of this episode, I’ll give you three tips to help people with ADHD to get started, how they apply to aspiring and qualified psychologists and teaching assistants.

Why Can A Consistent Routine Help Someone with ADHD to Get Started?

Creating a consistent routine helps someone with ADHD to get started because it helps the person not have to think about what needs to be done every day. This means they have to spend less mental effort and energy on their routine and this frees up their energy to focus on remembering things and getting activities and tasks done.

In addition, this technique works because we understand that the ADHD brain struggles with self-direction and remembering “what comes next”. Therefore, if you have a consistent routine then this reduces the amount of energy needed to start an activity or task (MacDonald et al., 2023).

To apply this in a practical context, for a young child, it’s useful to have consistent morning, after-school and bedtime routines. Due to this ensures that the sequence of events remains the same every day so there are no new things to adjust to so they can focus on getting things done instead of dealing with the adjustment.

For teenagers as well as young adults, their consistent routine can include placing certain items in certain places so they can easily be picked up in the morning. For example, even though I don’t have ADHD (probably and that is slightly up for debate), every evening before I go to bed, I make sure that my glasses are in the same position, that my supplements and tablets are in a certain place and more so the next morning, I can just get up and go instead of searching for these important items.

Then for adults and parents, a consistent routine might include making the lunches at night and setting everything up that they’re going to need for the next day the night before.

Applying this to aspiring and qualified psychologists, this technique can be a useful activity to do with clients so we can sit with them, talk about their routines and get them to plan their routines. If they’re resistant to the idea then we can try something small in the beginning, because the very act of making a routine is something new so this will be difficult for them to start. We might also want to encourage some kind of reward to increase their behavioural activation so they start doing their new routine and over time, it will become habit and hopefully the client can see the positive impact this is having on their life.

Personally, as a SEN teaching assistant, I’ve seen this technique in different ways and it’s important for all children with special educational needs. Even more so for children with ADHD. Their morning routine and their weekly school routine is very important because it decreases uncertainty, it allows them to focus on the task at hand instead of wondering (and most of the time worrying) about what’s next. This is one of the reasons why in my school all classrooms at the school, there is a clear timetable on the wall so the children can see what’s happening next. As well as some children even have a specific timetable or board in front of them so they can understand what’s happening “now” and “next”.

How does the “Just Five Minutes” Strategy Help People With ADHD to Get Started?

When a person with ADHD is struggling to get started, if you get them to tell themselves that they can just work on this activity or task for five minutes then this can help the task feel more doable, manageable and it can start movement on the task. This works because it helps to make the task feel small and this creates momentum.

Once the student or person has momentum and they’re starting on the task and the five-minute timer is finished. They can see how they feel and they will probably continue the task so they keep going and going until the task is finished. Or if they do stop after five minutes then they’ve still achieved five minutes more than they have before, and that is an achievement. Then they can keep chipping away at the task in five-minute chunks until it’s done.

Again, applying this to aspiring or qualified psychologists, we might be working with a client who’s ADHD is causing them clinically significant levels of distress. They might be struggling to do work at their day job, struggling to complete coursework and their work and school life might be suffering because of it. Yet introducing this strategy to a client’s life can be very impactful, useful and it can make previously “impossible” tasks seem more doable so they can hopefully practise it, and their work and school life might get easier.

As a teaching assistant, I already technically use this strategy with another young boy who I do one-on-one work with. I don’t remember if ADHD is on his care plan off the top of my head, but I allow him to listen to some K-pop and do maths games on his Chromebook if he does so much work beforehand. This is more about a reward but he is a lot more willing and happier to get started on work, because he knows he’s only going to be doing work for ten or fifteen minutes before a break. Therefore, if I’m working with a child with ADHD then I can adapt this strategy and what I already do to help them get started, learn and hopefully thrive in the future.

How does A Body Double or Turning on Music Help People with ADHD to Get Started?

When I was at university and involved with the neurodivergent society, one of their activities was a body-doubling session and this is very effective for people with ADHD. As well as one of my former friends actually asked me a few times to be in the same room as them whilst they worked so they could get stuff done. I always had writing, business and other activities to do so I didn’t mind too much. Yet body-doubling is a very effective strategy to help people with ADHD get started.

This is because the ADHD brain craves constant stimulation and in comparison, daily tasks and activities feel boring. Therefore, a task and activity feels more doable to someone with ADHD if you pair it with something they enjoy, like music. For example, my ex-partner would listen to music during their coursework, and on one of our dates we laughed about this. They would listen to some nice classical music, maybe a podcast or something else peaceful whilst doing this coursework. All whilst I would be listening to dramatic music from the anime Demonslayer. In fact, as I write this podcast episode, I’m listening to some epic Christmas music because it matches the level of stimulation that I need.

I cannot do things in silence.

As a result, one way how people with ADHD can use this technique to get started, and even combine it with the other strategies mentioned in this episode, is to do a task for the duration of a song. As well as put on some music or your favourite podcast whilst you’re doing a boring task. This is similar to asking your friends, family members or loved ones to sit with you or at least be in the same room when you’re trying to do things.

Instead of us aspiring or qualified psychologists trying to apply this tip to our clients, let’s apply this tip to psychologists with ADHD. Of course, we shouldn’t really listen to music during a therapy session with our clients. Yet you can definitely be listening to music or a podcast when you’re writing up your cases or clinical notes. As well as if clinically appropriate and if it’s okay with the client, I don’t really see why you couldn’t have some soothing music in the background of your therapy room.

If you’re supporting a client with special educational needs, neurodivergence or high anxiety, then they might actually make your therapy space more welcoming and inclusive if you play some soothing music. I imagine it’s similar to what I do as a SEN teaching assistant. The first thing the students do in the morning is their self-regulation activities and soothing music is always playing in the background.

Recently, when I was teaching the class because the teacher wasn’t in, I played some Demonslayer lo-fi music for the students. It was still relaxing and it gave me the stimulation I needed too. It created a nice, relaxing and welcoming space for all of us.

That’s actually a nice idea to consider.

Clinical Psychology Conclusion

Personally, I really have enjoyed today’s psychology podcast episode, it’s been a lot of fun to learn more about ADHD, how ADHD makes it difficult to get started and how we can support people with the condition to get started. Therefore, we now understand that ADHD initiation is a real struggle and it isn’t the result of a character or personality flaw because they’re lazy. It is a real neurological difference that can be overcome with the strategies and techniques discussed in today’s episode.

As a recap, here are the strategies you can use to help a person with ADHD get started on a task or activity:

·       Listen to music or body double

·       Create a consistent routine

·       Just do five minutes

I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.

If you want to learn more, please check out:

FREE 8 PSYCHOLOGY BOOK BOXSET

Introduction To Psychotherapies: A Clinical Psychology Introduction To Types of Psychotherapies. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

Patreon for exclusive access and rewards

Have a great day.

Clinical Psychology References and Further Reading

Arnold, L. E., Hodgkins, P., Kahle, J., Madhoo, M., & Kewley, G. (2020). Long-term outcomes of ADHD: academic achievement and performance. Journal of attention disorders, 24(1), 73-85.

Fidosieva, H. R. (2025). Strategies for supporting students with ADHD: Overcoming challenges and enhancing success. European Journal of Special Education Research, 10(8).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/special-matters/202511/why-is-getting-started-so-difficult-with-adhd

Karhu, A., Närhi, V., & Savolainen, H. (2018). Inclusion of pupils with ADHD symptoms in mainstream classes with PBS. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 22(5), 475-489.

Khan, M. U., & Aslani, P. (2021). Exploring factors influencing initiation, implementation and discontinuation of medications in adults with ADHD. Health Expectations, 24, 82-94.

MacDonald, H.J., Kleppe, R., Szigetvaria, P.D., & Haavik, J. (2024). "The dopamine

hypothesis for ADHD: An evaluation of evidence accumulated from human studies and animal models." Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Mastoras, S. M., Saklofske, D. H., Schwean, V. L., & Climie, E. A. (2018). Social support in children with ADHD: An exploration of resilience. Journal of attention disorders, 22(8), 712-723.

McDougal, E., Tai, C., Stewart, T. M., Booth, J. N., & Rhodes, S. M. (2023). Understanding and supporting attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the primary school classroom: Perspectives of children with ADHD and their teachers. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 53(9), 3406-3421.

I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and if you feel like supporting the blog on an ongoing basis and get lots of rewards, then please head to my Patreon page.

However, if want to show one-time support and appreciation, the place to do that is PayPal. If you do that, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you.

Which I am going to say right now. Thank you!

Click  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/connorwhiteley for a one-time bit of support.