Momentum: the easiest task you will do today is the second one

Once you are moving, the cost of the next task drops. Protect that window.

The short version: try one today

• Line up the next task before finishing the current one.
• Do not check your phone between tasks.
• Ride it for one more small thing, then rest.

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The first task of the day costs the most. You have to peel yourself off the sofa, find the thing, remember how it works and push through the wall of not wanting to. The second task is strangely cheap. You're already up, already moving, already a person who does things. That drop in cost is ADHD momentum.

It's one of the few forces that works in your favour without much effort. The catch is that it's short-lived and very easy to kill. Once you know how it behaves, you can protect it.

How ADHD momentum works

Starting is the expensive part with ADHD. Task initiation takes a big push from your executive function, which is why you can want to do something and still not move. There's more on that in your start button is stuck.

Once you've started, a few things are on your side. You've just finished something, which brings a small sense of reward. Your body is upright. Your brain is in doing mode and out of deciding mode. For a short window, the next task needs a nudge instead of a full launch.

Picture a Sunday. You finally put a wash on. While you're standing there, taking the bin out seems fine, so you do it. Then you wipe the counter. Twenty minutes later the kitchen is clean and you planned none of it. Compare that with the Sunday where you sat down after the wash for five minutes and resurfaced at dusk.

Line up the next task before you finish this one

Momentum dies in the gap between tasks. If you finish something and then have to decide what's next, you're back in deciding mode, and deciding is where ADHD brains stall.

So choose the next thing while you're still doing the current one. As you type the last line of the email, say it out loud: then the rent transfer. Better still, set it up physically. Open the banking tab before you hit send. Put the hoover in the hallway before you finish the dishes.

• Write a tiny queue of three tasks before you start the first
• Keep the queue in view, on a sticky note or at the top of your screen
• Make the second task easier than the first

Keep your phone out of the gap

The space between two tasks is exactly when your hand reaches for your phone. It feels like a harmless little pause. But your phone is built to be more interesting than whatever's next on the list, and with time blindness, two minutes turns into forty. When you look up, the momentum has gone and you're paying the full starting cost again.

You don't have to give up your phone for the day. Just keep it out of the gaps. Leave it in another room while you're on a roll, or face down on a shelf. If you need a pause, take one that leaves your brain where it was: a glass of water, a stretch, a look out of the window. Switching between tasks is a skill of its own, and time management: plan for transitions goes deeper.

One more small thing, then rest

When you feel like stopping, try one more small task first. Something two minutes long. Reply to that one text, put the clean clothes on the bed, rename the file. Often that little extra carries you through another half hour.

Then really rest. Momentum can tip into a frantic six hour blitz where you forget to eat and wake up wrecked the next day. Many women with ADHD know this boom and bust pattern well. Stopping on purpose, while you still have a bit left, makes it easier to begin again tomorrow.

And if today had no momentum at all, nothing has gone wrong. Do one tiny thing and see whether a second follows. Sometimes it does. Sometimes one was the whole day, and that's fine too.

Quick questions

How do you build momentum with ADHD?

Start with one very small task, then move straight to another small one before you have time to stop and decide. Lining up the next task in advance and keeping your phone away between tasks helps the run last. It won't work every day, and that's normal.

Why do I lose momentum so easily with ADHD?

Each break between tasks means your brain has to start up again, and starting is the hardest part with ADHD. Interruptions, phone checks and having to decide what's next all reset that cost. Shorter gaps and a ready-made next step make the drop less likely.