"Just Do the Laundry" Isn't a Task. It's 12 Tasks Pretending to Be One | Alex Conner, PhD (Brain scientist, ADHD coach trainer, co-author of ADHD Unpacked)
How to break down impossible-feeling tasks into winnable steps that actually get your arms and legs to cooperate
You’re staring at the laundry basket. You know you need to do it. Your body just won’t move. Because your brain is screaming that “do the laundry” isn’t actually a task. It’s twelve tasks pretending to be one, and none of them have a finish line.
Alex Conner knows all about that paralysis. He’s a brain scientist with ADHD who co-hosts The ADHD Adults Podcast, one of the UK’s most popular ADHD resources with listeners in 190 countries. He co-founded the award-winning charity ADHDadultUK and co-authored ADHD Unpacked, blending science with the messy reality of living in an ADHD brain. As an Honorary Professor at Aston University, Alex has spent over a decade coaching adults with ADHD and now trains the next generation of ADHD-informed coaches through The ADHD Coaching Academy.
Inside this guest post, Alex shares the self-coaching framework that helped in his own life, breaking down how to turn foggy, impossible-feeling tasks into winnable steps that actually get your body moving.
I used to think I was just terrible at being an adult.
I had a PhD, I was teaching at a university, but I couldn’t consistently keep my kitchen clean. I’d stand there, frozen, feeling like the world’s biggest fraud. “Come on, Alex,” I’d think. “You wrote a thesis. You shouldn’t need a strategy for basic household chores.”
But I did. I needed to accept that my ADHD brain works differently.
Here’s the framework that helps me get unstuck. The six self-coaching questions that can turn impossible tasks into more doable ones.
1. Define What “Success” Actually Means
You’ve probably spent years measuring yourself against standards that were never designed for your brain. “Be a better parent.” “Get organized.” “Be more on top of things.”
These aren’t winnable tasks. They’re a sort of abstract value. Like infinite treadmills that ensure you’ll always feel like you’re failing. So how do you set a winnable task?
SELF-COACHING QUESTION #1: What EXACTLY is it I want to achieve?
Most of my clients start vague: “to be tidier” or “to be a better parent.” The problem? There’s no amount of tidying that makes this feel like a real checklist success. Our brain needs something concrete.
SELF-COACHING QUESTION #2: What specifically could I do to say out loud tomorrow, “I WAS TIDY YESTERDAY”?
This is harder than it sounds. How many minutes of reading to the kids makes you a good parent? How much tidying makes the house “tidy enough”?
If you can’t answer that, you can’t win. And your brain knows it. So that leads on to the next thing:
2. Make Sure You Know What a Win Looks Like
When you have ADHD, your brain needs the dopamine hit of checking something off a list. If you think you have a task but can’t specifically check it off, your arms and legs literally won’t cooperate.
What helps:
SELF-COACHING QUESTION #3: How can I set the task so tomorrow morning I can say “That task was DONE”?
One of my clients wanted “to be tidier.” We changed it to “clean the kitchen.” Better, but still not winnable because it isn’t clear what a “clean kitchen” means.
If you can’t confirm tomorrow that you “won,” you just have a vague idea of a task. Not an actual task. And that is demotivating as hell.
“Clean the kitchen” is actually several tasks. We listed them and chose one: “empty the dishwasher.”
A task broken into absurdly small steps is better than no task at all.
3. Break Down the Chunks
Most people think they’ve identified a “specific task” but it’s actually five tasks rolled into one.
SELF-COACHING QUESTION #4: What is the sequence of small events I need to do to complete this task?
Take “booking a doctor’s appointment.” Sounds simple, right? But your brain is asking: When is the office open? Can I phone them or do I need the portal? What if they ask questions I don’t know the answers to?
If you haven’t figured out the exact steps, your ADHD brain stalls out. It happens to me all the time.
Another example: “Fill out school forms for your daughter.”
Is it: find the forms, read all 8 pages, dig out her immunization records, remember her doctor’s office address, sign in three places, scan it, and email by Friday?
That’s not one task. That’s seven tasks, and three of them need information you don’t have on hand.
When faced with chunks, change the task from “complete this” to “find out if this is the right way to complete this.”
4. Make “No” an Option
If your task is “find out when the doctor’s office is open,” what happens if you can’t find out? If there’s a chance the task isn’t winnable, that’s an ADHD block.
Your ADHD brain can’t start a task with hidden failure points. This is your brain protecting you from ambiguity.
What helps:
SELF-COACHING QUESTION #5: What can I do to get a clear YES/NO answer?
Instead of “Find out when they’re open,” try: “Check if the office hours are on their website.”
This has a yes or no option. If yes, move to the next step. If no, you’ve still completed the task and you know to try calling during lunch tomorrow.
Both outcomes mean you get to check it off. That’s a win.
If even ONE small part of a task feels ambiguous, it becomes physically difficult to start any of it.
5. Identify the Tiny Barrier
Even after we made “empty the dishwasher” specific and winnable for my client, there was still a blockage.
SELF-COACHING QUESTION #6: What is a barrier to that first task?
When she really thought about it, there was ONE bowl she didn’t know where to put. It didn’t have a clear spot. And that one stupid bowl was blocking the entire task.
So the new task list became:
Find a spot for the weird bowl
Empty the dishwasher
Whether it’s the dishwasher bowl, the permission slip buried in your daughter’s backpack, or the “call Mom’s doctor” task you’ve been avoiding, the principle is the same.
When you’ve identified a barrier, removing that barrier BECOMES the first task.
In our book (shameless plug: ADHD Unpacked), we say “ADHD: Making simple things look difficult since 1775.”
6. Accept Your Brain Works Differently
I used to judge myself for needing this much thought process. But I’ve learned that I do need it, and that’s okay.
The practical stuff is helpful, but emotional acceptance is transformational.
Truly accepting that my ADHD brain needs this approach, that breaking tasks down into absurdly small steps isn’t a character flaw. That changed a lot for me.
You’re not alone. Millions of us are navigating tasks this way, one weird-shaped bowl at a time.
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I teared up multiple times at different points in the post. I felt really seen. Even though on an intellectual level, I know that this is my reality I’m often really hard on myself for being different and having different needs. And there’s also a little of frustration when you think of how neurotypicals don’t have to struggle with basic tasks like we do. It feels incredibly unfair and it really hurts. It often clouds the “superpowers and magic” that come with being ADHD. So that emotional acceptance part really hit home for me. I’m still learning to give myself compassion. Thank you for this post. You’re doing some really meaningful work and changing lives with this substack.
Man… this one spoke to my soul! Thank you so much this is actually so SO useful. Straight into the saved folder! I’ve an article coming up on a v similar thread, how taking out the bins isn’t a single task, it’s actually 20.
Slightly vulnerable moment coming up…
I thought I was crazy. I thought i was genuinely broken somehow. My partner and I would get into countless fights over stuff like this and I would always end up feeling so deflated and never able to express myself properly or explain why i didn’t find it as simple as, “just do the laundry.”
Your articles have been such a gift. So much of my life makes sense because of what I see you posting on substack- and not only that, i actually feel better equipped to handle them. This page is an essential resource for ADHD people. Can’t thank you enough. 🙏