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Comment by gibagger | Hacker News Reader

Do you also have an aversion to paperwork? Seems to be "a thing". Paperwork has paralysed me ever since I've been in high school. Have gotten in trouble and paid fines over procrastinating paperwork over my whole life.

I am also on the "Highly Likely", and currently on the waitlist for a clinic. The best thing I did was being open and honest with my partner, as my ADD behaviors would sometimes exasperate her. I did the same with my manager at work, and it can usually get you some degree of accommodation which can help you cope.

I suffer for the 3-for-1 Triple A special: Autism, Anxiety and ADD. Seems to be a fairly common combination. Physical exercise helps greatly with anxiety, and helps to some degree to ADD as it does generate a certain sense of "reward" in my brain.

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Paperwork is my nightmare. I don't forget to do them, I just can't seem to get started on them even if they're simple and quick. Things I've done in the past

- Put off paying a traffic citation until I got a late fine that doubled the amount

- Put off gathering paperwork for taxes until my accountant told me if I don't send it now he won't be able to file this year

- Drove around with expired plates for 6 months until the car got towed parked on the street

Looking back, it feels silly to procrastinate on these simple tasks for so long but I guess that's the ADHD brain at work.

Last year I sent a friend a package. It took me over a year to send the damn thing. Why? I just couldn't find the motivation to send it. I had all the contents packed up in a box ready to go, and I live like 0.2 mile walk away from a Post Office. Still took over a year to send it.

Oh! I have another. I once drove with expired car tags for like 3 to 6 months. I already had them renewed and everything. In fact, my tag sticker was in the damn glove compartment the whole time. I just kept procrastinating on putting the sticker on because I didn't want to carve out the 1 minute it takes to unscrew the license plate cover, clean the plate, and apply the sticker.

"I'll do it <insert future time>."

It's shit like this that kills me.

Ironically, I had less issues with this kind of stuff prior to being medicated, but I also was younger and had less responsibility in my day-to-day life, so medication might not be a correlated much.

FML I think my tags are expired, thanks

I totally get it and have been through exactly what you describe many times.

What finally helped me was (a) the advent of online services for nearly everything, so I can do it all in one session and not have to do multiple steps to accomplish something (or any back-and-forth phone/mail), and (b) a "just do it now" mindset. Like, when a bill comes I somehow finally have myself psyched to pay it online right away (don't ask me how I got here, I don't know. Maybe it's because I tied money handling to checking my bank balance when I get a paycheck - that's when I do most of my banking... seeing a higher balance and moving money around (and by extension, paying bills) feels exciting now to my lizard brain.) Otherwise, if I don't take care of it right away, I know it'll literally never happen.

I know that if I had been born 20 years earlier, I'd have a much worse credit score and probably be much poorer due to late fees. Online services and auto-bill-pay make such a difference.

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