I Went Upstairs to Check Something on My Laptop. Obviously, I Ended Up With 20 Pairs of Shoes on the Lawn.

I talk a lot about struggling to start things. Task paralysis, executive dysfunction, knowing perfectly well what I need to do but somehow being completely unable to make myself actually start doing it. But I've realised that's only half the problem. Because even when I do start, there's absolutely no guarantee I'm going to remain attached to the original task. I go off piste. And sometimes I go spectacularly off piste.

I only wanted to check something on my laptop

One weekend, I needed to check something on my laptop. My laptop was upstairs. That was it. Go upstairs. Check laptop. This should have been a fairly straightforward mission.

Here's what I actually did.

I went to go upstairs to the laptop but decided to use the bathroom on the way. Whilst I was there, I decided I needed to empty out the shoe cupboard, so I started sorting out shoes. Then I stopped to discuss whether my daughter should get a rabies shot to go to Uganda. Then it was back to sorting shoes, and at this point I somehow had 20+ pairs of shoes on the lawn.

Then I stopped to test the aquarium parameters. After that, I decided to vacuum out the now-empty shoe cupboard. I realised my husband's smelly running shoes needed washing, so I went to find a towel and, naturally, started putting away clothes instead. Eventually I put the running shoes on to wash, replaced the shelving in the shoe cupboard and put all the shoes back.

And when I'd finished, I was actually quite pleased with myself. The shoe cupboard was sorted and vacuumed. The shoes had been dealt with. My husband's awful running shoes were being washed. Some clothes had been put away. The aquarium parameters had been checked. We'd even considered the merits of a rabies vaccination for travel to Uganda.

I'd been extremely productive.

I had also been nowhere near my laptop.

The ridiculous thing is that every step made sense

Looking back at the whole sequence, it's completely ridiculous. But at no point did I consciously decide, Forget the laptop. What I really need right now is an entirely unrelated multi-stage shoe-cupboard renovation project.

Every individual diversion made perfect sense at the time. I'm passing the bathroom, so I might as well use it. I'm here now and that shoe cupboard really does need sorting. If I'm sorting the shoes, I might as well get them all out. The cupboard's empty now, so obviously this is the perfect opportunity to vacuum it. Those running shoes smell, so they really should go in the wash. I'll need a towel for that. Oh look, clothes that need putting away.

And on it goes.

That's the interesting part for me. I don't necessarily make a conscious decision to abandon the original task. The original task just quietly disappears while something else takes its place. Then that task gets replaced by another one, and another one, until I'm standing in the middle of a completely different job with absolutely no idea what happened to the thing I originally intended to do.

Staying focused with executive dysfunction: maybe the problem isn't just starting

This is something I've realised since building Faffalot. I originally thought one of my biggest problems was starting tasks, and it absolutely is. If something feels too big, too vague or too overwhelming, I can spend a ridiculous amount of time avoiding it. Breaking things down and showing myself just the next tiny step has made an enormous difference.

But there's another part of the problem that I hadn't really thought about before: staying with the task once I've started it.

Apparently my brain is perfectly capable of following a task. It's also perfectly capable of following another task, and another one, and another one. The difficulty is remembering that the fourth task wasn't actually the task I was supposed to be doing.

And the annoying thing is that the things I wander off to do aren't necessarily pointless. That's how I can spend an entire day being genuinely busy and productive while the one thing I actually meant to do remains completely untouched.

Why a to-do list doesn't necessarily solve it

This is one of the reasons ordinary to-do lists have never worked particularly well for me. A list might tell me to check something on the laptop, sort the shoe cupboard, test the aquarium, wash his running shoes and put some clothes away. But writing those things down doesn't mean I'll do them in that order. It doesn't even mean I'll remember I'm supposed to be working from the list.

Something catches my attention and suddenly that becomes the task. Then something catches my attention while I'm doing that, so that becomes the task instead. The original intention gets pushed further and further into the background until I've achieved six useful things and completely failed to do the one thing I actually got up to do.

This is why I've realised that my problem isn't simply, How do I make myself start? It's also, How do I keep hold of what I intended to do once the rest of the world starts throwing other possibilities at me?

This is why I need the next step outside my own head

Faffalot helps me because it keeps bringing me back to one thing. Not the entire list, not everything else I could potentially be doing, just the next step. It gives the original intention somewhere to live other than inside my head.

That doesn't mean I'm magically immune to distraction because I've built an app. I'm clearly not. I still wander off. I still notice things that suddenly seem more important. I still find myself halfway through a completely unrelated job wondering how on earth I got there.

But I think I'm beginning to understand the problem better. Sometimes I don't need help knowing what needs done. I don't even need help starting. I need something that keeps hold of the original intention when my brain lets go of it — and, crucially, gives me somewhere to return to when I realise I've wandered off.

Because apparently “go upstairs and check something on the laptop” isn't a simple instruction for my brain. It's merely the opening scene in an adventure involving a bathroom, a shoe cupboard, 20+ pairs of shoes on the lawn, a potential rabies vaccination, an aquarium, a vacuum cleaner, smelly running shoes, a towel and a pile of clothes.

And eventually, possibly, the laptop.