You’re Not Lazy: Why You Don’t Finish Simple Tasks #272
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You start the day with good intentions. “This afternoon, I’m going to drop off this return real quick.” But then you can’t find the box. Or the tape. And now your printer is out of ink. Suddenly, the whole day’s gone, and the box is still sitting by the door. Sound familiar?
In this episode—recorded from my car in full chauffeur-mom mode—I’m breaking down why your ADHD brain struggles to finish simple tasks. Spoiler: it’s not because you’re lazy. It’s because what looks like one small task is actually a full project with multiple steps... and no one told us that.
I’ll walk you through the three phases of any project (even the “easy” ones): deciding, preparing, and doing. And more importantly, how recognizing those steps can save your time, your energy, and your self-esteem.
If you’ve ever beat yourself up over why that return never made it to the post office, this one’s for you. You’re not lazy. Your brain just needs a different approach.
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Patricia Sung [00:00:00]:
Hey there, successful mama. It's your friend Patricia Sung. I am trying something new today. You know I love to experiment. I am recording this in my car while I am in my chauffeur era as a mom. And I think the sound not my favorite, not my best quality, but I am trying to not be perfectionistic about this. Now if you listen this and you're like, please don't.
Patricia Sung [00:00:22]:
I cannot. This is too much. You just let me know. Won't do it again, but it's passable. It's. And since I'm in my chauffeur era and I am like, where am I gonna get all this stuff done? This is the perfect time to multitask. So this episode’s gonna be in the car. I'm gonna give it a whirl.
Patricia Sung [00:00:37]:
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy? You can't figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family. I get you, mama. Parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life. Creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully and in turn, lead our families well. At the end of the day, we just want to be good moms.
Patricia Sung [00:01:23]:
But spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama. You can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story, and I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to Motherhood in ADHD.
Patricia Sung [00:01:43]:
This morning, I was talking to a client who is has been recently diagnosed with adhd and I consider recently diagnosed anything in the last two years. She admittedly is like, I have no idea how my brain works. I didn't have a family who understood organization and didn't teach me how to do that. And I've always craved that structure because I didn't have it. And I like, she knew her brain was chaotic. You know, she's like, and I wanted this more clarity and structure, and my family didn't function that way. Like, they didn't know how to do that. But yet she instinctively knew that she needed more structure in order to function.
Patricia Sung [00:02:21]:
So a lot of the stuff we've been working on in coaching is like, the basics of, like, how to work with an ADHD brain because she runs her own business and does not have the luxury with two small kids to be disorganized because she doesn't have a lot of extra free time. And, like, this is part of why being a mom is so hard when you have adhd, because it cuts back on your resources so much. Maybe that's not the right word. Maybe it's not cutting back. It reallocates the way that you use your resources. And so much more is going towards other people and to yourself in order to care for those people that you don't have a lot left over. So this is why a lot of moms feel so strapped, is because now you're trying to function with significantly less disposable income version of capacity. You have less disposable capacity, and you don't have the option to take your time or, like, piddle diddle around because you have things to do, people to care for, and there's a lot to get done.
Patricia Sung [00:03:22]:
But I digress. Let me get back on track here. We've been working on her schedule and how to set up weeks so that things run more smoothly. And we've moved her hours around so that she gets at least one day a week that allows her to work on the business instead of in the business. But what happens is that when she goes to do the stuff on the business day, she starts working on, like, stuff around the house. And, like, you know, oh, my gosh, the floors really haven't been mopped in forever. I need to do that. And she had sidetracked by things around the house because when she goes to think about what needs to get done on her business admin day, she's like, I don't know what to do first.
Patricia Sung [00:04:04]:
And it's because she doesn't have a plan or structure or routine in place. And when you're overwhelmed by all the choices, immediately your brain's gonna go to the thing that knows how to do, because that feels much more safe, much more comfortable to be like, I need to get something done. You know what? I know how to mop floors. That's really easy. I'm gonna go do that. And so, yes, things get done, but it's not what you wanted to get done. And then you start to feel bad about yourself because that's not what you wanted to do with this time. So we wanted to make it really easy that when she shows up on biz admin day, it's like, hey, this is what's gonna get done.
Patricia Sung [00:04:34]:
But that means that we can't be making the decisions then. And what happens when we have ADHD is we think like, oh, you know what? On Friday, I really need to go return this thing to Amazon. You know, like, I'm gonna go run into the UPS store and return this thing. Can we consider that one task that is now it took one task I'm gonna do. I'll return this thing to the UPS store. And we've now set our expectation that this one singular task is gonna get done. And our brains do not recognize that that one task is actually a project. And that project is made up of several steps and several t within that project.
Patricia Sung [00:05:08]:
It feels like a simple thing. Like, I'm just gonna return this thing. I'm just gonna drop off this box. And so it feels like, well, why couldn't you have gotten that done? That's such a simple thing to do is just return this thing. You know, just. Just drop off the box at the UPS store. When actually that required a lot of steps. So Friday shows up and you're like, I gotta return this thing.
Patricia Sung [00:05:26]:
All of a sudden it's like, oh, my gosh, I don't have a box. Where's my tape? I didn't get a QR code. Like, there's so many steps involved. So you've already used up your mental capacity to decide, like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. Then you use up your mental capacity to find a box and, like, look for the tape and then go to the store because you didn't have any tape. And then now you've used up all your time and you still haven't gone to UPS and you feel like a failure.
Patricia Sung [00:05:53]:
It's time to be who you are, unapologetically. No more contorting or shrinking yourself to fit inside the box. Instead, you're going to feel the freedom of just being yourself because you are more accepting of who you truly are. You're invited, Mama, to this year's fourth annual Successful as a Mother weekend retreat. It is time to relax, unwind, rest, and take care of a very important person in the family, which is you. This year's retreat is on October 10th, 12th, 2025, and you are invited. This is an all inclusive retreat. It covers your meals, your hotel, all of your activities.
Patricia Sung [00:06:29]:
You literally only have to show up and I will take it from there. We are staying at the peaceful Happy Goat Retreat just outside of Houston, Texas. I have rented the entire property, so we have it all to ourselves. Where we will enjoy nature and breathe deep in the fresh air and the calm of the lake and the sway of the trees. But this is not camping. This is glamping. You will stay in your very own adorable, modern, tiny home with your own comfy queen size bed, your own private bathroom and living space that's just for you. Go check out the pictures I posted on my website because it is so cute.
Patricia Sung [00:07:05]:
We will spend the weekend learning about our ADHD and tune into who you are and what you need so that.
Patricia Sung [00:07:11]:
You can trust your gut and love yourself a little bit more.
Patricia Sung [00:07:14]:
All while eating delicious food you didn't cook, you didn't clean up and hanging out with awesome other ADHD mamas who are just like you in this journey of understanding ADHD and also trying to do all the things. But not this weekend. This weekend you are doing none of the things. You are relaxing. I will take care of everything and you get to focus on you. Head over to my website patriciasung.com/retreat and get your ticket. This is a small group of 14 mamas and we already have a bunch of mamas going, so I don't have a ton of spots left. This means do not wait, do not procrastinate.
Patricia Sung [00:07:49]:
When you hear this, this is your sign. Go sign up, get your ticket and by signing up now, you have access to the shrinking payment plan before it's gone. There's no extra charges for that. So go sign up, get your ticket and take a weekend to relax and take care of yourself while I do all the work. Head over to patriciasung.com/retreat and get your ticket for the fourth annual ADHD Mom's Amazing Getaway Week weekend and relax. Patriciasung.com/retreat.
Patricia Sung [00:08:22]:
So when we're looking at these projects, first we want to label them as a project and not as a task. And then we divide it into sections. The first thing is the deciding, so deciding the choosing, that first step of like, okay, this is what needs to get done on Friday. We want to separate that out. So we're going to decide what to do on that Business Admin day before Business Admin day shows up. So that when you walk into Business Admin day, immediately you know this is what's going to happen. And this is not just a business decision. This is also like a life decision.
Patricia Sung [00:08:50]:
If you're like on Tuesday I'm going to run errands and then you like leave the house and realize like you never thought about what errands need to get run. You didn't think about making A list of what you need at the grocery store. You forgot to put the return in the car. That's because all that stuff is, like, preparation for the task that we didn't consider. So this follows for both business and personal life stuff. So first section, first job is deciding what's going to happen on that day, and that needs to happen beforehand. So, like, with this client, we figured out, okay, what on Thursday, when can you figure out what needs to happen on Biz admin date. She's like, I can do it while I'm eating lunch on my lunch break.
Patricia Sung [00:09:22]:
I will decide what to do. I'm like, okay, great. So that's been marked down. That's step one. Step two is actually all the preparation that needs to happen. So, for example, with this return to Amazon UPS situation, there is find the box, find the tape. You might have to go to the store to get tape, go to the Amazon app and find the qr, you know, and, like, do the actual, like, putting in the return to get the QR code, actually putting the things in the box, attaching the label, putting the thing in your car so that when you walk out the door, it's already in the vehicle because otherwise you left it at home. All those preparation steps, they might be able to happen on Friday, but the actual, like, now I can check this off, is walking into the UPS store and handing them the box.
Patricia Sung [00:10:05]:
And we think that this is a singular task and it's not that it's a project. And there are all these tasks that go into preparing for that actual, like, driving to the UPS store. So this step two is all of your preparation items. And then once you have found the box of the tape and all that, then step three is the actual doing, which is actually like, step 10 is driving to the store and handing it to the attendant that works there. As you figure out how your brain works, you might be like, cool, I can get all that stuff out on Friday. That worked for me, no problem. And you also might be like, hey, okay, on Friday, my job isn't to actually go to the UPS store. My job on Friday is to do all that preparation stuff and I'm gonna put in my car, and then on Saturday, I'll actually drop off the thing.
Patricia Sung [00:10:49]:
And so giving yourself the space to do each specific task within the project is really helpful. But then also recognizing that, like, you weren't giving yourself any credit for steps one through nine, you were only giving yourself credit for step ten, because, yes, that's when you got to check it off and be like, ta da and done. And that is like the most visible step. That's the step where we get to make the like check mark or the cross it off the list. But all those other tasks have to get done in order to get to that. So they're just as valuable as the last one. So if you changing the way that you look at the project as a project instead of a task and noticing like, hey, if you got five of those steps done on Friday, like you did five tasks, that's amazing. Instead of like, I didn't get the project done, I only half finished this.
Patricia Sung [00:11:31]:
If you're considering it one task, I only half finished this task. Well then if you have finished a task, it's not actually a task, that's a project. Because if it has multiple steps, it's no longer a task, it's a project. So figuring out how to work your life includes shifting the way that you think about tasks to making them projects and giving yourself the grace to know it's not a singular thing. That is the accomplishment. Getting all those steps ahead of time done to get to the last one and celebrate also hold value and allowing yourself the space to do that. This will also help you with time blindness because the time blindness tells us, oh, this task only takes 5 minutes. I just have to run into the UPS store and hand them this box.
Patricia Sung [00:12:10]:
And our brain does not account for the steps one through nine that made number 10 possible. And that's actually, that's not a five minute task. That's like a 30 minute project. And that's why you have not returned so many things. FYI. I'll talk to you soon. Successful mom.
Patricia Sung [00:12:25]:
For more resources, classes and community, head over to my website, motherhoodinadhd.com.