Task Stuckness - Does anyone else have this happen?

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Here is a post I copied and pasted from the communication thread. I wanted to start a separate thread with this because I am curious if anyone else experiences this. It happens to me often. I am also wondering if anyone knows why it happens like why my brain does this.

"Here is one more big one for me. Sometimes I get stuck on one thing and can't move on to the next thing. For example, I need to clean my house today but it is a bit overwhelming because I have to do lots of laundry and clean the kitchen and bathrooms and vacuum and iron, lots to do and we have company tomorrow so I want to get it all done. But because it's a bit overwhelming I can't get started and I keep coming back to check WP and post. So right now I am stuck on posting. I used to do that in school too. If I was overwhelmed at starting on the work for one subject, I would keep doing work on the subject I felt comfortable on because it was like my brain could not make the switch. Sometimes I need an outside switch. Like my husband just called me and that was able to take my brain away from the stuck, break the stuck cycle it was on and help switch it to a be able to do something else. Sometimes I call my brother and talk to him for a second and that works too. But the key for me is to find a way to break the loop my brain is stuck in so that it can move on. And usually it can be done with gentle words from someone else and it does not even have to be about the subject at hand. It just needs to interrupt the loop. Sometimes I can even get myself to do it but it's harder to do it myself."

But sometimes it happens with tasks that are not overwhelming as well and even with tasks that only take a few minutes.

It's called hyperfocus and it's an autism thing.

It's the complete opposite of multitasking. It's the ability to stay focused on one item, keep on working on it to the complete exclusion of everything else. NT's have trouble staying on one item for a long time but autistic people can just keep going.

The pro side is that you can end up say, completely rewriting the laws of physics like Albert Einstein did.

The con side is the strong tendancy to get stuck on a given item, unable to break free to go on to something else unless an external stimulus breaks the cycle.

I've been know to forget to eat and drink for almost a day beacuse I'm so focussed on an item - until I get faint and dizzy and realize I'm about to pass out. I'm better at that now though.

Just let hubby and family know that you tend to hyperfocus and that they might need to throw you a "lifeline" sometimes.

Thank you so much Eggheadjr. That is really good to learn about since it affects me often. I will paste the link to this thread onto the communication thread as well so that Lauren, the teacher who started that thread, can refer to your post for insight and to anyone else's who will contribute here. Thanks again for explaining.

It is amazing. Sometimes I forget to eat and drink and brush my teeth and before I know it it is evening and I have not done a single thing other than what I was focused on. And sometimes even the interruptions are not enough and I just keep coming back to the thing. Other times I can mutitask and get a lot done. I wonder what makes the difference in when I hyperfocus and when I don't.

Yes. Absolutely.

I haven't got a solution for it, but I know that solutions exist, because I know that sometimes I'm better able to switch tasks successfully than at other times. That variation implies that there are factors that make it harder or easier.

Practice is probably one of them; the more you practice transitions, the easier it gets. Knowing the next step after the transition helps, too. Knowing when they are expected to happen makes them more natural. Routines help, doing the same thing every time so as not to get stuck because you don't know the next step.

Check out "executive dysfunction". That's basically what you're dealing with. Find tips that are meant for people who have the milder types of executive dysfunction, such as what comes with ADHD, (the negative symptoms of) schizophrenia, or brain injuries to the frontal lobe. The level of executive dysfunction that most of us deal with tends to be bad enough to be a real problem without being so bad that people have to prompt us through basic self-care (but that happens, too, especially for autistic children). It's more of a problem with switching mental gears and planning tasks on the fly.

I've found that many of the tips recommended to people with ADHD help me, too--provided that they're from people who know enough about ADHD to realize that the hyperfocus of ADHD is as real as the inability to focus. There's less literature out there for people with TBIs that cause executive dysfunction, but there's some. It's worth a look.

And if you find any really useful strategies, do come here and tell us; we might want to try them too.

Thanks Callista!

"task stuckness" has helped me immeasurably with my audio restoration work, a better name for it would be "sheer cussed stubbornness."

I think this may be a large part of why I've never been able to consistently get to work on time. My brain resists switching from the comfort-zone focus of puttering about the house, to the task of confronting the world of NT socialization.

if you don't mind, how did you get away with being late?

I have this and it's sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse.

I find a lot of the EF advice for autism is aimed at the parents of children rather than adults dealing with their lives and jobs.

There seems to be more information about EF issues in the workplace for people with ADHD, but I think a lot of it is transferable:
http://www.netplaces.com/adult-add-adhd ... ctions.htm
http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/862.html
http://www.tsa-usa.org/news/2012ConfPre ... kplace.pdf

This site is selling a service, but I thought a lot of what is there is very good:
http://www.bu.edu/fsao/2013/01/22/autis ... workplace/

Good luck with getting unstuck when you need to and using stuckness to your advantage at other times.

Thank you Adamantium. I will look at the links.

I worked in creative jobs where you don't punch a time clock, with other creative people who didn't clench their sphincters about a minute or three, either way. All the supervisors who had issues like that usually worked in the other end of the building, yelling at salespeople.

you are SO fortunate to be able to do something nice for a living instead of drudgery.

Blimey - that is uncanny, but I suppose to be expected. This very much describes a persistent problem of mine.

One thing I have found helps is background noise, specifically speech. I struggle to get through the day without speech (as opposed to music) radio - here in the UK, that would be Radio 4. That, or podcasts or lectures or radio dramas or audiobooks on my mp3 player. Something I can listen to whilst doing tasks on a kind of autopilot. It forces my attention to be split, otherwise I easily become stuck on the task at hand. I find it easier to shift my attention to what I'm listening to and then move to another task and get on with that.

That's the way it's been for me as a graphic designer, too. I am often quite late, though. My boss told me that if I was going to be more than an hour late, he would prefer that I just work from home. Which is great, when it happens. I am getting a new boss now and a traffic manager, and they are telling us we need to improve our people skills, so I don't know how it will go on from here.

I get this, in fact I should be cleaning the house right now, but here I am typing on the internet.
It seems that working (9-5) has made this much worse for me when it comes to doing things outside of work.

While looking for info ink this, I found this link - http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procr ... inate.html
which although it is targeted at procrastination, was a fairly good description of what is going on 'in my head' at these times.

Happens to me all the time. In fact earlier on, I was playing around with some audio tracks on Audacity, and my friend's dad told me that they were leaving shortly to watch a play and that I was. Well f**k, I wasn't dressed to go out, I hadn't even showered, and I sure as hell didn't feel like dropping what I was doing to go watch a play just out of nowhere. I might have went if they had told me two hours sooner and given me some time to make myself presentable, but by that point I was just feeling more like "no, f**k off, I'm busy."

People don't seem to understand that I can't just drop everything I'm doing to go do something spontaneously. I want to know what's going on ahead of time so I can finish what I'm doing and prepare myself, damn it!