Task Paralysis
If ADHD stops you from boring tasks, try a 5-minute sprint
A five-minute sprint clears the stale pile: drop it, finish it, or make progress. Three outcomes, all wins, for tasks you keep putting off.
disclaimer: these posts are not medical advice and provided as information only, with no guarantees
Standard advice doesn't always work for ADHD brains, but some unconventional approaches do. This one's called sprinting.
Chances are you've got a pile of tasks you keep putting off: admin, household chores, emails that have gone unanswered for weeks. Nothing on it is urgent enough to jump the queue, but nothing on it is low enough stakes to just drop either. So it sits there, making the whole list feel heavier.
A sprint is a good way to clear it. Here's how it works.
The short version
The stale pile
Admin, chores, unanswered emails. Nothing urgent enough to jump the queue, nothing low enough to drop. So it sits.
Batch similar tasks
Pick ten to twelve similar tasks — admin together, chores together, emails together — so you stay in the same mindset.
Five minutes each
Set a timer for five minutes per task. There are only three outcomes, and all three count as a win.
Drop, finish, or progress
You drop it, you finish it, or you make real progress without finishing. Then you move to the next one.
Pick a batch of similar tasks (ten to twelve is a good number, though fewer or more is fine too). Similarity matters more than the exact count: admin together, chores together, emails together, so you stay in roughly the same mindset the whole way through.
Set a timer for five minutes per task. There are only three outcomes, and all three count as a win:
You decide it's not worth it and drop it. That's a genuine victory: one less thing weighing on you.
You actually finish it. That email you'd been avoiding might just write itself once there's a clock running, and you hit send.
You make real progress without finishing: you find out what you're missing, write a few sentences, or realize exactly what the next step is. That's a good outcome too. You now know precisely where you're stuck, and you don't have to solve it right this second.
📸 Screenshot/clip placeholder — grouping tasks into a sprint and setting the 5-minute check-in frequency goes here.
Once the timer's up, move to the next one. Same drill: drop it, finish it, or make progress. Within half an hour to an hour, the list will feel noticeably shorter, and more importantly, that stale, heavy feeling around it tends to lift too.
Try it today: group a batch of tasks into a single sprint in the app, and set your check-in frequency to five minutes for the duration. See how it goes.
The first version is Telegram for the waitlist. There isn't a store download yet. Join the waitlist if you want a launch email.
Keep reading
- ADHD task paralysis: break it down instead of “just do it”
- With ADHD, dropping tasks from a long to-do list is a win
- ADHD inner critic: why a two-minute win still counts
- ADHD one task at a time: why only one main
- Welcome to the Herding Chickens blog
- More on Task Paralysis
Herding Chickens is a productivity app in development, not medical advice, therapy, or an ADHD diagnosis. If you are struggling, talk to a qualified clinician. In the UK, start with the NHS ADHD in adults page.