Hex Does the Blog Thing

August 2, 2026: Tricking My Own Brain

making my idea list for blaugust did the thing that always happens when i make idea lists. somehow it makes my brain think, "we've already acknowledged that item, so it no longer needs to be addressed," which of course defeats the entire purpose of to-do lists. i'm usually okay with lists that involve chores or required actions. but lists of things i i to do completely kills the motivation.

it definitely feels like an adhd-adjacent thing, though i haven't heard of anyone else having this issue, adhd or otherwise. my usual solution is to just not make the list at all. this works alright if there's one or two things i know i'm really keen on, because i can remember that. but of course it means i'm way more likely to lose track of the rest.

an adhd thing i've definitely heard others mention before is how hard it is to "trick" your brain into doing anything. i cannot convince my brain that, if i do a Chore, i can then have a treat. i'm an adult, i can have a treat anytime i want! (i have read advice that people like me ought to have that treat while they work. this usually works for me!)

instead i have a different method. i tell myself, if i do my Chores, i can spend the rest of the day not caring about responsibilities. this works because Chores have mental weight. i know a lot of people find themselves unable to enjoy rest time because of how society has ingrained in us that we must always be productive, that being productive is the only measure of worth and success. thus being "unproductive" causes feelings of guilt.

i've mostly managed to shed that - a trait i ascribe to being an enneagram type nine, which i'll talk about in a future post, if i get the motivation - but obviously there are still things i need to do and bad feelings if i don't do them, and i've found a way to use it to my advantage.

so i set myself a list of Chores, and do as many as i can, and honestly if i don't get to all of them i don't sweat it because i still did something. usually i end up also doing things other than what was on my list! and i try to make the list reasonable, with appropriately bite-sized items and not too many. and once i feel like i've accomplished a decent amount of stuff, i release myself from responsibility.

you'd think i could use that for blaugust or something. put "write a post" on my to-do list. but it's not the same. it's not like cleaning the kitchen or working on a commission. it's something i'm doing for my own sake, and the Chore to-do list has a very different vibe than the Creative to-do list. if i tell myself i "have to" do this every day or on any kind of schedule, i will quickly grow to resent it and suck all the fun out of it.

Chore lists are, for whatever reason, easy to tackle one at a time. but when i make a Creative list, it suddenly gets overwhelming and i don't want to do any of it. it's almost as if all the motivation i have gets spread out across all the ideas and i no longer have enough to make any one thing happen. when i avoid making the list at all, it lets me focus on one idea by brushing the rest aside.

(incidentally, the method of using a randomizer to pick an item also doesn't work for me. it just makes my brain go "not that one, not that one, not that one...")

...so anyway, i used this as an excuse to write a post. i have a lot of thoughts about adhd and my mental state. i think it would be nice to get into this tomorrow, as a continuation of today's post. but i won't stop myself if another idea jumps to the front of the line. i've learned by now that i have to seize any motivation that comes to me when it does, because i don't always get it back.