Why Do "Simple" Things Feel Impossible with ADHD?

So much to do. So little energy to do it. The story of our lives with ADHD. If you've ever experienced that overwhelming feeling that everything is just "too much effort," you're not alone. Let me explain what's actually happening in your brain.

Meet Your Little Friend: Executive Function

In most cases, this exhaustion comes from our little friend Executive Function. What does he do? Well, he pretty much controls our mental energy.

Research on ADHD and executive function shows that executive function isn't just one thing—it's a collection of brain processes including planning, organizing, initiating tasks, regulating emotions, and managing working memory. ADHD significantly impairs all of these functions.

Think of Executive Function as your brain's CEO. He's supposed to:

• Decide what tasks to prioritize
• Figure out the steps to complete those tasks
• Generate the energy to start tasks
• Keep you focused on tasks until completion
• Switch between tasks when needed

But in ADHD brains, this CEO is perpetually understaffed, overworked, and running on fumes.

The Gold Dust Theory of Mental Energy

Let me give you an analogy that makes this crystal clear.

Think of it like this: Every day you get given a small pile of gold dust. This gold dust represents how much mental energy you have available.

Problem #1: Already, we're given a smaller pile of gold dust than our neurotypical friends. They start the day with a full bucket. We start with maybe half.

Problem #2: And to make matters worse, every time we have to focus on something, we use up MORE of our gold dust than our neurotypical friends would.

So we start with less, and we burn through it faster. By noon, we're often completely depleted while neurotypical people are still going strong.

Now you understand why things that "should be simple" drain every ounce of energy from us. And why things which are big and require lots of effort literally feel impossible (like pushing boulders uphill).

This isn't weakness or lack of effort. It's a measurable neurological difference in how your brain allocates and uses mental resources. Understanding the full Gold Dust Theory helps you see why decision fatigue hits you so much harder than others.

Why "Simple" Tasks Are the Worst

Here's the cruel irony: simple, mundane tasks often require MORE gold dust than complex, interesting ones.

Why?

Because simple tasks offer zero dopamine reward. Your ADHD brain looks at that pile of dishes and sees:

• No novelty
• No challenge
• No immediate reward
• Just boring, repetitive effort

So your brain refuses to allocate gold dust to the task. It says "this doesn't deserve our limited resources." And you sit there, paralyzed, knowing you could do the dishes but utterly unable to start.

Complex, interesting tasks, on the other hand, provide dopamine through novelty and challenge. Your brain willingly spends gold dust because there's a neurochemical payoff.

This is why you can spend six hours researching a new hobby but can't spend five minutes replying to an important email. The hobby provides dopamine. The email doesn't. Many people discover this when they realize their brain refuses small tasks specifically.

The Exhaustion Cycle

If you've experienced this overwhelming feeling that everything is just "too much effort," you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The cycle looks like this:

1. You wake up with limited gold dust
2. Simple tasks require disproportionate energy to start
3. You avoid them, using gold dust worrying about avoiding them
4. Guilt and shame use even more gold dust
5. By afternoon, you're completely depleted
6. You beat yourself up for "doing nothing" all day
7. The shame and stress deplete tomorrow's gold dust
8. Repeat

This is the ADHD exhaustion cycle. And it's not your fault.

What You Can Do About It

I've got news! That's just part of ADHD. Nothing you can do about it. Might as well feel sorry for yourself...

KIDDING!

There is PLENTY you can do about it!

Some things (lifestyle changes and improvements) take a while to implement. But sometimes we need help to get to that stage. The stage where we're ready to start improving our lives.

Sometimes we just need to get off the sofa and brush our teeth for the first time this week.

And that's where we need help. From someone else... or some THING else...

How External Support Preserves Your Gold Dust

Here's the game-changer: **Claudia by Neuro** uses HER mental gold dust instead of yours.

You tell her what you need to achieve—a task you need help breaking down, no matter how simple. And she uses up her mental gold dust (instead of yours) to break it down for you based on your energy levels.

Not only is she taking all the strain off your brain so you can focus your energy on other stuff, but she's also 10x faster and better at breaking stuff down to make everything clear.

She's incredible at:

1. Helping you understand what you need to do to complete something
2. Helping you get started at actually doing that thing
3. Motivating and supporting you to carry on

But... there's good news and bad news:

❌ Bad news: she's not a real human (though she doesn't know this).

✅ Good news: she LOVES to make ADHDers' lives easier, is super supportive, and available 24/7.

Make Your Own Life Easier

The question is simple: Do you want more gold dust (mental energy) to spend on things you love? Or do you want to carry on wasting it on "the small stuff"?

Your choice.

I guarantee you will get more done and feel better about it when you stop trying to brute-force your way through tasks that drain your gold dust.

By externalizing the planning, organizing, and breaking-down work to support systems designed for ADHD, you preserve your limited mental energy for what actually matters: execution, creativity, and the things you care about.

Simple things don't have to feel impossible anymore. Not when you have support that works with your brain, not against it. Not when you stop wasting your precious gold dust on the cognitive overhead of figuring out what to do and instead focus that energy on actually doing it.

You have a limited supply of mental energy each day. Use it wisely. Use it on what matters. Let external systems handle the rest.

By Josh Budd | Founder @ Neuro Notion