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I don't have ADHD, but since I started WFH I've been having ups and downs in terms of productivity, including a period of a few weeks where I was getting about
by chives_yo 6y ago
I don't have ADHD, but since I started WFH I've been having ups and downs in terms of productivity, including a period of a few weeks where I was getting about 2-3 hours of work done per day at most like you describe. I don't know details about what your situation is like, but here's what I did that helps me at least most of the time.
I have my desk/office in a a room that was a storage room/unused office. I ended up removing anything from that room that I found myself doing instead of work: keep my phone in another room, delete bookmarks to blogs/news sites, move my stack of unread books into a different room, etc. Basically I got to a point where if I was sitting in that room, there was nothing to do but work.
The other thing I did was start framing tasks in terms of "doing this will make my life easier tomorrow" rather than thinking about later deadlines or the "big picture" of the project. E.g. "I can't get myself to audit all of these documents today, but if I set up the spreadsheet template it will make my life easier tomorrow." Sometimes when I start something like that I find it leads naturally into doing the actual task, but sometimes not. In those situations, as others have mentioned, it's important to have some self-compassion and try not get caught up in feelings of guilt. I started using an app called Woebot that can help with this. When you tell it you are depressed/anxious/guilty, it helps you look for ways to reframe those thoughts to be more productive.
Also, I have heard of studies that say the average employee is productive for 3-4 hours a day. Consider if you are actually getting less done or if your productive hours are just distributed differently. In an office where you get interrupted regularly it might be more evenly distributed throughout the day compared to if you have the opportunity at home to burn through those hours all in one chunk.