Today wasn’t a good day at work.

It wasn’t a bad day — I’ve had a few of those and this wasn’t in the same league — it just wasn’t a good day.

Today was an unproductive day. It’s not like I was overwhelmed by too many outstanding tasks, nor was I scratching around trying to find something to do. My to-do list was the perfect length, containing two items that I could work on.

• Option 1: A high-priority task that needed wrapping up before the end of the week. Not complex, but a bit ambiguous.
• Option 2: A low priority, ongoing task which I need to make progress on at some point, but without any sort of deadline.

Can you guess which one I worked on today?

If you guessed Option 3: Do neither then of course you’d be right.

Why though? I’ve recently started a new job — a dream job in many ways — and I’m keen to impress and make an impact in my first few months. The work is interesting, it's well within my skill set, and there's plenty of time to get it done.

Why on Earth wouldn’t I get on with it then?

This is a question I’ve been asking myself for most of my life.

I'd ask it at University when I’d skip lectures or, on the occasions I did manage to attend, when I'd spend the whole time distracted, playing Minecraft on my laptop instead of paying attention.

I'd ask it when my school reports contained some variation on the phrase "Doing well, but could apply himself more".

And I asked it again today when I spent most of the day working on anything other than the things I actually needed and wanted to work on.

Ok, but why?

In recent years I’ve begun to wonder whether I’m neurodivergent in some way. I don't know enough about everything that term entails to say categorically one way or the other, but there are some ADHD symptoms that I identify with, although I've never taken any serious steps to explore this further. Looking at symptoms on the NHS website a fair few of them resonate with me, and some of them just make me laugh.

"Being unable to stick to tasks that are tedious or time-consuming" — Are you seriously telling me that there are people out there who can stick to tedious, time-consuming tasks?!

"Having difficulty organising tasks" — I've tried every freaking task management system under the sun and then some, I've just not found the right one to help me actually Get Things Done™ yet. Maybe the next one will be the one.

Ok cool, but why write all this on my website?

I don't know. I don't expect people to read this, and I'm not entirely sure that I want people to read this, but I wanted to write it.

I wanted to think about this topic in some depth and I know that I won't do that if I don't write it out fully, and I know that I won't write it out fully if I don't have somewhere to put it.

Scribbling down some random thoughts in a half-finished note buried somewhere in Obsidian that I'll never look at again isn't useful. Forcing myself to think about this enough to write something cohesive enough that it can be published online for the world (about 3 people on a good day) to see might be the kind of accountability I need to actually finish something. It seems to have worked this time. Maybe thinking and working in public is worth exploring more in the future.

Please let me know how much I owe you for this therapy session.