Struggle with transitions?

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What are some of the daily transitions that you all have a hard time with? I am trying to figure out if I have a hard time with transitions. Like I have a hard time going stopping watching shows or doing artsy stuff to doing homework, or going from researching my favorite topics to really anything else but I feel like that is something everyone struggles with. So I would love to read some examples to see if I struggle with the same things.

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

One of the transitions that drives me crazy is when I start a task and then someone interrupts me by giving me another tasks that has to be done immediately.

Yeah thats frustrating!

After pondering my question myself I also was thinking about how I have a hard time leaving a location after I have been there for a bit. I tend to stay there until the last moment. I always joke around and say "now I just want to sit here and do nothing" Its like I need a break between doing things sometimes.

Pretty much all of the things mentioned previously are a problem for me. I also struggle a lot with transitions between different sensory environments - for example, if I'm meeting a friend in a pub or cafe, the transition from being outside walking there to being inside the place. Both might be equally tough on my senses; e.g. traffic noise outside and lots of voices inside - but it takes quite a while to acclimatise myself to the difference, before which, the new environment can be very confusing. It's like I have to re-tune all of my "filters". When meeting people it's really annoying, because the moment I arrive, people want to start doing greetings etc. while I'm still too bewildered to interact with them properly (as near to "properly" as I can ever manage, anyhow!)

I started another topic the other day about anxiety. I'd say transitions adds to my anxiety as well, no matter if the
transition is good or bad. I often find myself procrastinating the engaging of things. Getting interrupted drives me
crazy as well, such as when people come into the room unexpected while I'm doing or thinking about something
making me jump from shock inside.

When I was young, there were forced transitions all the time. I'd just be well involved in one subject when it would be time to change classes, eat, go outside, or something else. It is still hard for me to remember to clean up when it makes sense, I hated the interruptions to clean up so much.
It is fairly easy to transition to a familiar routine, but re-loading all the short-term memory for a creative job is not trivial. Scott Adams (Dilbert) remarks on the wholesale destruction of progress in engineering groups by having meetings called, wasting about two hours of mental imaging for each one invited.
Moving house and workshop is awful. It takes years to find and remember the best places for things.

I would definitely second that - I experienced it close-up in my last job working as part of a combined hardware/software development team. Project planning was taken over by a manager who's real experience was in sales/marketing, and who was forever calling ad-hoc stand-up meetings and expecting lunch-time socialising - the productivity of the entire team fell off a cliff. Tell me what problem I have to solve, shut me in a cupboard until I've nailed it, and I'll let you know when I'm ready to come out for a new assignment!

^^ There was one keen salesman in the early days of Silicon Gulch who tried to encourage his company engineers by dropping in frequently to ask if they had something new for him to sell. ROM was selling briskly even then, so they made him some brochures for Write-Only Memory and off he went, much to everyone's amusement, there and at his first call.

Meetings! I attended regular meetings for 33 years over my entire working life. I can confidently state that the only thing ever achieved in a meeting was to arrange more meetings.

Crap, I just remembered that I get to attend a departmental meeting today. I was hoping that I would accidentally forget about it, but that did not happen. Two plus hours of NTs going on and on about things that have no value to me. It would be different if we actually did something that greatly improved our department or our teaching, but that never happens. Guess I will quietly work on my version of string theory while they continue to drone on about themselves.

Is it just me or does it seem like the subject has kind of gotten lost.

I consider meetings a sub-set of forced transitions. Threads do get hijacked around here, sometimes with apologies, but this just looks like a scenic detour to me.

Transitions of all types are a problem for me. Since my diagnosis I now realize it is a problem and if I know in advance I can brace myself to a certain degree so some of them are less bad. Transitions have often been a source of negative thought loops for me. Being older I have experienced that the worst possible outcome most often does not happen and that has been a help.

I can definitely struggle with this.

I even have trouble starting things I enjoy these days. I'm always "about" to do something. I can't fathom why the undertaking of such simple things can be so mentally demanding, but I just sit around and do nothing in my free time, except for maybe reading something online or commenting somewhere.

This issue has gotten worse over time for me, and it's sort of crippling.

I can relate to this. Mostly when I'm at home though. When I for example have to leave the computer and go to bed or go take a shower. I can sit at the computer for at least an hour thinking "OK, it's time to turn it off and go to bed. Come on! Do it already!", but I just don't get to it. I just keep doing pointless things like browsing youtube, even though I know there are no new videos for me to watch. Same thing when I have to shower. I'll just have a hard time getting up and starting my shower routine. This also goes for chores. I could be standing next to the vacuum cleaner for 15 minutes thinking "time to start now" and my mom will be like "why are you just standing there?!" and I'll say "I'm mentally preparing" lol.

When it comes to leaving actual locations it's easier I think, because I'm already on the move. Though I do remember in high school that I sometimes could be quite slow with leaving after class had ended and when we had long lessons the teachers would give us like five minute breaks in the middle of class to take some fresh air and whatever and it felt like a chore to get up from my seat and walk out (I just assumed it's laziness though, how do you even know the difference?). I also have a memory from 1st grade when all my classmates had left the classroom and I was left drawing or something and the teacher kept telling me that I had to leave, but I just couldn't. Well, eventually I did of course.

Last edited by purplecloud on 04 May 2019, 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ahh yes, this is true for me too! Christmas 2017 I got polymer clay, because I wanted to start making small sculptures and jewelry. It been over a year and I haven't even opened the plastic packaging surrounding the clay. And it's not that I'm just depressed, because I haven't been depressed for almost two years now... So what's the problem? I just feel like there are so many steps involved in making these clay things. Thinking about it kind of overwhelms me and I keep thinking "I'll do it later someday".