Procrastination isn’t laziness; it’s often a neurological struggle with motivation, memory, time and emotion. In this short practical guide, our founder, psychotherapist, ADHD coach and counsellor Duncan E. Stafford unpacks the hidden mechanisms of ADHD procrastination and shares how therapy and coaching might help to navigate each one. From task initiation to emotional overwhelm, this blog offers insight and direction for those living with ADHD and the people who support them.
(8 minute read)
1. Getting tasks started: The struggle to begin
The problem: You know what you need to do, but you just can’t seem to start.
What’s happening: ADHD may involve difficulty switching between the brain’s default mode network (DMN) – which is active during rest, mind-wandering and internal thought – and the executive control network – which supports focus and task completion. Neuroimaging studies suggest that people with ADHD often show reduced suppression of the DMN during goal-directed tasks. In effect, the ADHD brain can get “stuck” in the DMN, making it hard to transition into action – especially without external pressure, novelty or stimulation. Research in this area is still evolving, but it offers promising insights into the neural roots of ADHD-related procrastination.
Result: You find yourself caught in “I’ll do it later” cycles – even for simple or urgent tasks.
Therapy and coaching helps: One early strategy is to start small. With your therapist or coach, choose a task that’s stuck (e.g. clearing part of a room) or set a micro-goal (e.g. sending a daily text message as a log of progress). These small starts help to build momentum and support your task initiation skills.
2. Tick, tock, time passes without you …
The problem: You underestimate how long tasks take, or you lose track of time entirely.
What’s happening: This is often described as time blindness, a well-recognised trait in many people with ADHD. Time isn’t easily felt internally – there’s a reduced sense of how long things actually take or how much time is passing. Without this intuitive awareness, it’s harder to pace yourself, anticipate deadlines or feel urgency until the pressure becomes overwhelming or too late to act.
Result: Tasks are started too late, rushed in a panic or missed altogether.
Therapy and coaching helps: Working with a coach or therapist, you can co-design practical tools for breaking tasks into smaller steps, then timing how long each step takes. Starting with just one task avoids overload. You might also learn to recognise how time drifts away – even within the structure of a session – so you can begin noticing and managing it more intentionally.
3. Distraction control: The pull of everything else
The problem: You start a task, but your attention quickly drifts – either to your thoughts, your phone or anything more stimulating around you. Sometimes, this happens when your brain hasn’t fully shifted out of the DMN, which can undermine focus.
What’s happening: ADHD has been associated with lower, fluctuating or imbalanced dopamine levels. This impacts motivation and reward sensitivity, making novel or highly stimulating distractions especially hard to resist. Difficulties with neural switching delays and executive dysfunction further weaken sustained attention and the ability to stay on-task, especially when the task lacks immediate reward or novelty.
Result: Tasks are delayed, paused or dropped entirely. It’s less about willpower and more about how your brain processes attention and reward.
Therapy and coaching helps: While dopamine imbalance plays a role, interest-based motivation is equally important (see section 5). Coaching and therapy can help you to explore what holds your attention and why some tasks lose meaning quickly. So, it’s not about willpower, but more often about desire, relevance and emotional engagement.
4. Planning and structure: Where’s the roadmap?
The problem: You struggle to break down or sequence tasks clearly.
What’s happening: ADHD is often associated with impairments in working memory (also known as short-term memory), which is your brain’s ability to temporarily hold and manipulate information. When working memory is compromised, it becomes harder to plan, organise and juggle the steps involved in completing a task. This can make sequencing feel unclear and/or overwhelming.
Result: Tasks that seem straightforward to others can feel too big, vague or chaotic. Even if you’re motivated, the lack of internal structure can lead to overload, avoidance or shutdown.
Therapy and coaching helps: For ADHDers affected by working memory challenges, learning to “chunk” or break tasks into small manageable steps is essential. For example, rather than tackling “Decorate the living room”, break it into specific actions – e.g. “Pick a paint colour”, “Clear the furniture” and “Buy rollers”. You can build this skill in real time with a therapist or coach, developing a more tangible sense of what needs to happen – and in what order.
5. Motivation and dopamine: The missing drive
The problem: You don’t feel like doing the task – even when it matters.
What’s happening: Models of ADHD since the 1970s have focused on dopamine dysfunction as the cause of poor motivation. Newer views suggest ADHDers respond better to tasks with emotional or meaningful relevance for motivation and task engagement. The “generative purpose” model shows tasks are easier to start when emotionally resonant.
Result: Tasks that are boring or feel pointless lead to total disconnection. Purpose-based strategies can help to build momentum.
Therapy and coaching helps: Find your personal motivators – fascination, novelty, competition, challenge or urgency. These can all spark momentum and form an interest-based nervous system as outlined by psychiatrist William Dodson (see Dodson, 2022).
6. Emotional regulation: When feelings get in the way
The problem: Overwhelm, shame and/or anxiety freeze you in place.
What’s happening: Emotional regulation challenges are common in ADHD and can make it difficult to process “inputs” – such as tasks, feedback or even internal thoughts – calmly or proportionately. When unsure how to respond or act, an ADHDer’s “output” may become emotionally intense or reactive as a way to quickly discharge the emotional overload. This response can appear overly expressive or out of proportion to others, who may misinterpret it and miss the underlying distress.
Result: Tasks are avoided not because they’re hard, but because they feel emotionally unsafe. Fear of failure, shame or internalised criticism often play a central role.
Therapy and coaching helps: Talking through your emotional responses in coaching or therapy can hold great value – especially with someone who deeply understands ADHD. As you explore emotional regulation, you may also begin to make sense of other ADHD-related experiences, such as Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) – an intense sensitivity to perceived rejection or criticism, even when it’s not intended. (Click here for Duncan’s blog about RSD)
ADHD procrastination at a glance
| ADHD factor | How it fuels procrastination |
| Task initiation | “I don’t know where to start.” |
| Time blindness | “I thought I had more time.” |
| Distraction | “I got pulled into something else again.” |
| Planning and structure | “It’s too overwhelming or unclear.” |
| Motivation and dopamine | “I just don’t feel like doing this.” |
| Emotional regulation | “This feels too uncomfortable, so I’ll avoid it.” |
Final thoughts
Like all human experiences, ADHD presents a wide range of ways in which people think, feel and respond to life’s demands and social systems. It’s not like having a broken leg – it doesn’t show up the same way for everyone. While there are shared patterns, ADHD expresses itself differently across individuals. Still, there’s value in discussing these challenges collectively, so we can better tailor support to the individual.
In ADHD, procrastination is rarely just a simple delay; it’s a signal of deeper, more complex issues both emotional and neurological. What looks like avoidance or laziness from the outside is often a reflection of real cognitive and emotional barriers on the inside (as well as the difficulty of managing how we take in and act on information).
With self-awareness, support and strategies tailored to the ADHD brain (e.g. coaching, therapy, medication and environmental adjustments), change is not just possible, it can be expected.
Further reading
Edmund Sonuga-Barke and Xavier Castellanos lay out the theory of default mode network (DMN) interference causing attention lapses in ADHD and other disorders. See Sonuga-Barke, E.J.S. & Castellanos, F.X. (2007). Spontaneous attentional fluctuations in impaired states and pathological conditions: A neurobiological hypothesis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 31(7), 977–986.
Accessed 30 June 2025: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014976340700022X?via%3Dihub
William Dodson, an ADHD coach and psychiatrist, is known for the “Interest-Based Nervous System” model of ADHD motivation and task engagement. See Dodson, W. (2022). How ADHD shapes your perceptions, emotions & motivation. Presentation. Accessed 30 June 2025:
https://adhd.dk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/05/Dodson-How-ADHD-Shapes-Your-Perceptions-Emotions-.pdf
Click the links if you’d like to visit Duncan’s therapy website or his directory entry on Attention Allies.
Published 4 July 2025
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