Dealing with inertia

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This post on inertia describes the problem very well. An excerpt:

"I have a great deal of difficulty getting anything done, even when I
want to very much. I often just sit around doing absolutely nothing, or
continue doing one thing, for extended periods. I just can't get my
brain and body "in sync" with my goal. It's just impossible for me to
get started. On the other hand, I can easily get "stuck" in what I'm
doing and be unable to stop."

This is exactly what I've been experiencing. Unfortunately, his advice on what to do about it didn't seem that helpful. Not that it's bad, just that I'd already figured out some of it, but it doesn't help that much, and already tried some of it and had it not work.

If anyone has any good strategies for dealing with inertia, please share. Especially if you've found ways to reduce it, not just work around it.

Things I do that work, in case they might be helpful to anybody else:

When I can't move (usually when I'm trying to get up out of bed), I start by wiggling my fingers and toes, and gradually work up to broader movements.

I use some software called ClockPro for my Palm, which can be set to chime every hour (or at any other interval). I've been using that to "interrupt" myself.

Last but not least... caffeine seems to help.

This is more a bookmark than anything else, Im interested to see if anyone has any advice because this happens to me on a regular basis. I am aware that I have things I should do, I may even want to do them because I need the outcome, but I still get locked into doing something else or really nothing at all.

One thing I use are kitchen timers to make sure I am paying attention when I am cooking or baking which I do a lot of.

I also use the toe wiggling and moving upwards to help with inertia which I have never told anyone about ever because I honestly thought I was crazy. Its been such a relief to find Asperger's and have it confirmed that I wasnt imagining this stuff.

Inertia is a major problem for me. "I will not procrastinate" was on my list of new semester's resolutions, but somewhere along the way became all I would do.

I hope someday someone will invent a magic pill, and that it won't be too expensive, to "cure" inertia. But until then...

Usually what I (try to) do is set the clock and schedule, but it's just too easy to turn off the alarm and overlook the schedule. I guess inertia is co-morbid with lack of willpower, in my case. No help there.


I just so happen to run on caffeine!

I think aspies have what's called viscous concentration. It's hard for us to concentrate on something, but once we concentrate on it it's hard to switch concentration to something else. This is at the base of obsessive interests, lots of talk about one's subject of interest instead of jumping from topic to topic as is done in smalltalk, deep thinking analysis, etc.

Trying to "solve" is a futile attempt. It's how we're built.

So yes, I think we have to find a way around it, that will help us live. I have my activities planned in such a way that they require minimum switching from one focus of concentration to another. Eg: all errands (ie being on the street) on Friday mornings. All internet activity in the evenings before bed. All housechores on Saturday afternoons. Grooming on Saturday mornings.

It's very hard for me, for example, to both go to the office to work and run errands on the same morning or afternoon.

crumbs, i so totally totally get all this, for years and years now, increasingly.
Recent thread on executive dysfunction which seems very connected to this, here:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt48669.htm

with the linked article here:
http://bsnpta.org/geeklog/public_html// ... c_Overview

It drives me totally mad.
Was thinking today it's like being a headless chicken, empty inside where should have captain, navigation etc.
A cluster of single-celled creatures trying to turn left.
Maybe all the horror films about being invaded by single-celled "alien" life which looks like a human etc, ( and which i love!! , as signs that i am not alone!!) have some basis in reality. The experience of life as if become a mammoth sized tanker very slow to react. As if can feel every single cell in the body, as if there is not enough of an intermediate organising/admin "layer" to take weight off few fragile "cells" up top!!

Sometimes think would love prison life ( if no brutality) cos everything would be fixed, set; I could complain about it all the time, and say how much more efficient it would be if did it in x, y, z, way, but nobody would listen to me, it would be under the control of the prison admin.
Or a nunnery/convent. Even school wasn't too bad.

Was thinking that the trouble i have, is that am always deconstructing, dismantling, criticising, and comparing existing systems/structures, disintegrating the apparent "have-to"s etc, and then finding myself with no convincing reason to do anything, ( except minimum of motherhood and basic physical needs etc ), i have made the routines disappear by demolishing them as stupid, unnecessary, not good enough, and now am in a wasteland of no frameworks except motherhood exigences .

Sick to death of this inertia.Want leader. Want captain. Want something or someone to fill this position of captain, navigator, etc etc. Have taken up/been drawn to people, interests, beliefs, groups etc in past , to fill this empty place where my chief executive should be.
Someones saying start up little routines; i've done that , started them, and stopped. I've done that so often and failed think will go mad from it.
Work round it, yes, do things in cluster of same activities; glue things together that take similar skills or actions. That gets the bare essential minimum done, but what about other things that other people do. Living .

I feel as if when i was younger there were still structures which propped me up, but as time's passed i have demolished more and more of them, " seen through" them, dismissed them , and am now without anything but the bare min for getting by. I trashed most of the reasons most people do things. How to reconvince myself that there is a point to doing this or that? ( even as simple as toothpaste or shampoo; my teeth and hair don't need either; i can be quite clean enough without) And on the other hand once get going on something can keep on just so long as there is no convincing reason to stop.

Last edited by ouinon on 23 Nov 2007, 3:25 pm, edited 16 times in total.

This is something I'm going to have to think about. I've been sort of resisting forming habits in that way because I was rebelling against the idea that I was OCD. How could I be OCD if I didnt need to do specific tasks at specific times. I was seeing the negative instead of seeing the positive that such order in my life could bring. Its a harsh realization because I'm so good at understanding what I need in most situations. To think that all the time I have been working against myself here is kind of appalling.

I think that having specific times to get things done is a great idea that will allow me to prepare myself for what I need to do, and allow me time to focus on the things I want to do with less guilt about not getting the "neccessaries" done.

The difference with OCD is enormeous, because even though Saturday mornings are for laundry, I don't HAVE to do laundry (as is the case with OCD). I can if I want to. And if not, I go for a walk or take my breakfast to the park or just dance by the stereo player and laundry gets done whenever I feel like it.

It's just about grouping similar-focus activities together, to minimize concentration switches.

That was my problem. While I had OCD like traits, I could interrupt my behaviour and make modifications if neccesary.

This is a whole new light. Thank you.

Maybe could only feel happy/at ease with this inertia if there was absolutely nothing i had to do at all, bar eating when hungry and going to toilet, but if this is genuinely a case of neurological programming being dysfunctional then i could have done with some help long before now. Why wanted to put child up for adoption when born.Why jobs seemed more and more insane, like activities labelled "money earning", most of them utterly pointless.
IS this wiring? Puts me back with the single cells again.

Or is all this just the result of 44 years of consuming food-opioids, ( gluten and casein in wheat and dairy etc) as if I was the burnt-out wreck of longterm drug-use? What are the results of long term drug use? Specifically opiates?
Loss of executive control functions? Inertia? Tendency to sit/lie for long periods of time doing nothing but staring into space, except for periods of driven/obsessive/hyperfocussed activity ?
Must look.

Last edited by ouinon on 23 Nov 2007, 3:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

sorry, got so swept away by describing what feels to me like practically my worst problem that i forgot this was a thread to share ways of reducing or dealing with the problem.

So the way i am trying is to cut out gluten and casein from diet again. Longterm.
I have cut out gluten many times, dairy and sugar less often, and usually only for a few weeks or months at a go, ( resulting in greater calm, reduced sensory issues etc) BUT........

i once cut out gluten for well over a year, and i seem to remember feeling/BEING significantly more ACTIVE.
Projects began to take off, thoughts began to connect up with actions. I became effective. Full of "ert" !

Was just reading about opiate use , and how they have found that opiates can actually change the structure of the brain in rats. The effects of longterm opiate use in humans can take a year to really dissipate. Recovery can be long. The whole limbic system, to do with rewards etc, is disturbed by opiate use, and also the serotonin pathways etc. I already knew that clinical ecologists, working with food intolerances, say that recovery from glutens effects can take a year or more.
Well, I'm hoping. I keep reminding myself of the time when i cut it out for the longest period and how i felt. I am giving it another go. ( been excluding gluten since early oct,and dairy since early nov.)

Last edited by ouinon on 24 Nov 2007, 7:51 am, edited 2 times in total.

This has been me since August of 2004 or so...

What happened in 2004 ?
I know my tendency to inertia mushroomed after my breakdown with manic-depression over 3 years from 1989-92. Previous to that might have had trouble finishing projects, working steadily, etc but i was active, VERY. After the breakdown everything slowed down. But after the breakdown is also when i first started cutting out wheat etc ( because it seemed likely, on reading, that food intolerances might have been responsible for many of the problems i'd had since childhood) , basically beginning to experience withdrawal from the buzz. Now i know i can build up a bit of excitable hypo-manic behaviour if eat enough wheat, cheese, sugar etc, but i don't like the jabbering noise in head, grandiosity, and increased sensory issues that come with it.
What were you like before inertia hit ?

Ouinon: That's really interesting... I'm somewhat bipolar too, although I've never noticed it as being connected to diet. I did some reading and it really does seem like a gluten-free diet helps some people. I also found some references to using enzymes, especially Peptizyde, to achieve the same effect. I think I'm going to try that.

ouion, answered your questions via PM.

I am definitely affected by the inertia problem for most of my life, in which if I were sitting at my desk on the computer, woe to whoever disturbed me, but if I just finished an hour's worth of tasks, I would almost inadvertantly continue working on my own...

Inertia? Oh yes really, very much - the story of my life...

It's not very long ago I discovered this in myself as an aspie trait. Ie. not as mere laziness or bad self discipline or something of that kind, what I always thought before. (It can be a part of it too in my case, but not only.)
Not only as a matter of studies, but as a matter of little everyday things.
So, now I suddenly understand why I always think I have plenty of time, and suddenly I just haven't, and have to really hurry up, and it just happens again and again, without me learning from the error... :p
Or why it took me 2½ year to write a theological paper on 30 pages!
Or why I still sit here by the computer at 20:51 when I promised myself to go home early!
It's still a new discovery, so I'm trying to find out how I could practise getting things done. I think I'll be back in this thread to write more.

My executive functions just are sleeping like a log down in a corner of Lorna Wing's Triad!
So... I'll try to wake them up now, using my stringent aspie logic to tell me: What keeps you from going home? You have 2 legs to rise from the chair and walk out to the bike and so on...
... and now I'll switch off and go home!