@vger@actuallyautistic@actuallyadhd Just adding another voice to say yep, also AuDHD and I get this too. For a few years now I’ve tried to stop the cycle by refusing to invest more in a particular hobby. It feels like I’m in a deadlock with a hobby, though. But for whatever reason, I just can’t get myself to do the hobby with the items I currently have. I never reached 10-20 hours like you described, I might manage 1 hour each time at best.
What has helped me is understanding that ADHD brains can be much more interest driven. I.e. how interesting and relevant is this hobby right NOW? Rather than being driven by longer-term or broader perspective goals.
I’ve been hacking this as part of my degree studies and didn’t realise:
I had low motivation for daily university work, would lose interest in assessments once they were mostly done and I had figured out the core parts… But I kept myself going by tapping into a major interest that drove me forward. For me, it’s knowing this was my LAST attempt at a degree, having waited almost 2 decades for it, and I imagined life after another failed attempt - knowing it was within my grasp, not due to external, uncontrollable factors - and I couldn’t see myself living with that reality. Also, I decided to study for this degree because it aligns with who I am, and all my major life values - I’ve done a lot of work on this. I know what my life is like without a degree, and I wanted to open new doors to create a MUCH better life for myself. So this ‘focus hacking’ was a combination of SIGNIFICANT, personal “carrots and sticks”, pulling and pushing me forward. And it has had to be a regular practice - like every week or so. It created ‘eustress’ (healthy stress) but could occasionally tip over into distress (unhealthy levels of stress).
Have no idea if you’d be able to figure out your own way of ‘focus hacking’ for your hobbies. I’m clearly not finding a way to apply it to my own hobby 🤣 But I’m hoping to figure something out eventually. E.g. Maybe it needs to be driven by an immediate purpose that might create enough eustress to pressure me into doing the hobby NOW.