Trouble doing more than one thing a day

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I have trouble switching from one type of activity to another. Like when I get home from work, or anything else that involves leaving the house, it's hard to focus on doing things at home. If I work outside in the yard, it's hard to make the transition back to doing things inside the house. If I get busy cleaning up the kitchen, I forget to do the laundry. If I spend a lot of time at the computer, pretty much everything else falls by the wayside.

Basically when I really get absorbed in something, it's likely to turn into a marathon, and it's hard to get my mind on doing something else.

Well, I sent my bike to the shop for repairs, bought a copy of Titanfall, wrote an exam, looked at some guitars at the pawn shop, tried out a restaurant I never ate at before (which I regret, since it was overpriced and the food sucked), messaged a friend I hadn't talked to in a while, put an offer down on a used Thinkpad, and threw a load of laundry in the wash. Today has been an unusually productive day for me, probably because this is the first time I've had any money in a while. It doesn't feel like I've done much of anything though, that's the weird part...

Yes, absolutely, despite dozens of to-do lists. Sometimes better, sometimes worse.

Yes, this can be a challenge for me a lot.

I've never liked it when I've felt "too busy" with a lot of demands on my time. I can only really cope well with one major "to do" in a day, and if I'm forced by circumstance to deal with more than that, I usually get through them all but then feel burned out. I have to make sure the day that follows, or at least the very next free day coming up, is a total "do nothing" day where I usually curl up on the couch feeling like I'm recovering from something.

If I do just one thing in a day, then I often do whatever it is to a point of thoroughness or perfection that no one has ever considered before.
Or not.

Do you become oblivious to the fact things need doing?

As this is what seems to happen with me after working. I come home and just don't notice there is laundry to do, or bins need emptying until I am told, then I realize the place is a mess which gives me anxiety.

Yeah. It is what I call "home-blindness".

Seems highly variable for me, but absolutely.

But I get more done when I don't have lists or chores or tasks. I tried to explain this to who I think is going to be a therapist for me and he seems stumped about how to move forward. The more I think about the things I should be doing, the harder it is to do them. Telling myself all the reasons I should do a thing just makes me extremely agitated to the point of breaking down. It is my block, like a wall in front of me. The harder I push on it, the harder it naturally pushes back, and I don't have the strength to push it down. I think that on days that I get more done I don't perceive it as doing lots of things. This can happen in situations where there's constant one thing after another and no down time at all inbetween, or if can happen if I zone out. Working around the wall, can't face it.

I don't experience much blindness unfortunately. I feel like as this problem becomes worse for me I am adopting blindness as a way of dealing with the dread that comes from pushing on the wall.

I usually plan one or two things to accomplish each day and I'm pretty good at keeping to it. But I can't often do something that I haven't planned on first. I will have to think about it and fit it into the plan for another day.

I struggle with this a lot. I thought it was just me.

When I was working, I would get home and not have the motivation to do anything else, including preparing anything for dinner despite feeling hungry. Some nights, my entire dinner consisted of a protein shake or a few crackers. Anything I could open up and just eat. Now that I'm not working, I start off the day with a list of things I want to get done, but I'm lucky if I can get three things on the list finished. Maybe I'll wash dishes, start a load of laundry (and then not fold the clean clothes for a few days), do some homework. By 2 or 3 in the afternoon, my motivation just crashes to nothing and I spend the rest of the day on the couch watching TV. I'm lucky if I have 2 or 3 hours of motivation per day in me. And, oddly, I put off what takes the most time because I feel like I'm rushing to get back to the TV ASAP. I find I can stay motivated a little longer if I can listen to some music or turn up the TV volume so I can hear the show while I'm working.

Then, maybe once every two weeks, I get a manic day when I'm extremely motivated and get a ton of stuff done. I clean the entire house, wash all the laundry, walk the dog and cook a fantastic meal including dessert. If I could have that kind of motivation every day, I'd have the most well-kept home and yard in the country.

Tip! Count! Decide to move 30 items. Focus on the counting. Then have a look around and see how much more tidy it looks.

Here is one tip! Count! Decide to move 30 items. Focus on the counting. Then have a look around and see how much more tidy it looks.

If I go out to one place I get weak and can't go anywhere else.

Doing just one thing a day sounds like the thing my brain craves. I'm at my best when it's just me versus one task. Two things is usually bearable, several feels overwhelming. I'm not good at multi-tasking, and I don't track time very well, so even when there's plenty of time to do everything, I feel rushed. If I take on two things, what am I going to do if the first thing takes all day? I'm such a perfectionist that I often end up taking ages to do things. And focussing on one thing seems to drive the other out of my head. The other great thing about one task per day is that there's no changeover during the day, my brain has a whole night to rest between jobs. It's so tidy!

But I guess it depends on the size of the task and whether or not it's part of my routine. Small routine tasks don't really count, presumably because they don't need any thought. Just as well or I'd get out of bed and that would be all I could do for the day.

Also, many projects consist of a number of sub-tasks. I'm currently preparing for a difficult journey and I've been having trouble doing it all comfortably. Each sub-task is reasonably small, but none of them are routine things, and they're all rather different from each other, and I've been having a lousy time just trying to pick things to do. A lot of it, e.g. packing, can't really be done until close to departure, otherwise I've packed away stuff I'm going to need. So a lot of it remains undone for good reasons, but that makes me feel bad. I just want to pick up the first task, do it, check it off, next task, till I reach the end, then chill out, but it never works out that way, I get part of a task done and find I can't complete it yet, so I can't neatly check the tasks off, and it looks as if I've done nothing, and I can't easily estimate my progress. Even looking at the task list to try to pick something to do is difficult and somewhat scary. Just shifting my attention from one item to the next seems hard. So I'm only doing one thing, i.e. preparing for a journey, and the steps are all pretty small, but it really challenges my brain to co-ordinate it all. I find myself doing other, easier things, procrastinating and detouring. Everybody else just packs without a whimper.

At work one of my bosses would meet with me once a week and give me a number of jobs to do. He didn't mind if I couldn't complete them all, he just didn't want to give me too little and risk me being idle. I wasn't scared of hard work as such, but the awareness of so many things on my plate would make me feel overwhelmed and confused, and I longed for a system that would tell me of one job and then keep the rest secret from me until I'd completed the first task and asked for the next one. Once I knew about several tasks, I felt I had to immediately start planning my week around them as a whole, which is probably the most efficient way, if the brain can do such a thing. Mine can, but it's hard and it makes me feel anxious.

I guess a lot of the problem is that the Aspie brain doesn't readily flit from idea to idea on demand. It likes to choose one idea and think it through to the end. The only flitting it's likely to do is the uncontrollable analysis of whatever tangents occur to it during that process.

Yes, I completely understand!! ! I work as a Substitute Teacher as result so I can work when I have energy and am not overwhelmed. I either work or do one appointment per day because otherwise I get too anxious or tired to complete the second task. While it is unfortunate because most people do many things per day I am beginning to be okay with my limitations. Just know you aren't alone in this struggle!

Every single day. I have a one track mind, so I can only do one thing at a time. What I usually do is figure out what I want to do the most. For example, if I feel inspired to write... I'll do that first. Or, if I feel like playing Pokemon the most... then I do that. The best I've been able to multitask is listening to music while doing things. Other than that, I can't multitask for the life of me. DDD:

I don't really have a problem with doing multiple things in one day. Some days, I do... but that depends on my mood. I did go through a period when i first got into Visual Kei where I couldn't do anything. It took me a while to finally get back into my usual routine. I do notice that the only things I can alternate between are writing or playing pokemon. I have a harder time focusing on anything else. I've tried getting back into reading, but I find this difficult because while I want to do it, I don't at the same time.

It's hard to explain. ><