#109 🚫 The ADHD Prioritization Paradox: Why You Freeze When Stakes Are Highest
Why knowing something is critical makes it harder, not easier, to start
Welcome to Tech Atypically 👋, your weekly blog for navigating the challenges of ADHD and being in the tech industry.
I am an ADHD and product management coach, helping you change one belief and take one action each week.
🐼Do you work in Tech and are tired of struggling? Get ADHD and job skill coaching with Tech Atypically.
🦋 The Takeaways
Belief: Important tasks should be easier to start.
Reality: High stakes trigger avoidance through past trauma and anxiety.
Action: Recognize your avoidance patterns and externalize tasks before prioritizing.
⭐️ Introduction
Welcome to part 8 of the Inclusive Performance Coaching Series, where I explore topics that help you improve your work performance in ways that work for your brain. This week: Prioritization (Part 1).
You have a critical deliverable due by the end of the day. Your manager is waiting for it. Missing it could seriously get you in trouble. You know exactly how important it is.
So, why are you suddenly doing a deep clean of your bathroom? (Or watching anime if you’re me)
This is the ADHD prioritization paradox: the more important something is, the more likely we are to avoid it. To find out why, I need to lean on my partner coaches Michael Asaku-Yeboah (licensed therapist) and Rupert Dallas (tech executive).
By the end of this issue, you'll be better equipped to stop avoiding important tasks without telling yourself to simply "try harder."
😵💫 The Belief - Important Tasks Should Be Easier to Start
Logic tells you that when something is truly critical—when your job depends on it, when people are counting on you, when the stakes are highest—you should naturally prioritize it. The importance should create urgency, and urgency should create action.
This belief gets reinforced by productivity advice that assumes you're a rational human who can simply decide what's most important and then do it. "Just prioritize your high-impact work!" they say. "Focus on what matters most!"
For neurotypical people, this might work. Higher stakes create helpful pressure that motivates action.
However, for brains with ADHD, something entirely different happens at the worst times: you freeze. Stuck in place with the fears of what could go wrong if you mess this up. Internally, you’re spiraling with the worst scenarios possible. Externally, you’re playing Pokémon Pocket (or whatever mindless game you prefer), and people think you’re lazy.
🤝 The Reality - High Stakes Trigger Avoidance Through Past Trauma and Anxiety
Here's what happens when we know something is critically important: our brain goes into protection mode.
Michael explains that this often stems from complex trauma, negative feedback we received around similar activities from parents, teachers, or managers we respected. Every time we approach a high-stakes task, it unconsciously evokes those negative emotions. Our brain thinks: "This feels familiar. Last time something like this mattered, I got hurt."
So instead of diving in, we find ourselves doing literally anything else. That's when you remember your bathroom needs cleaning. That's when folding laundry becomes absolutely urgent. These become the "most important" things to do because they feel safe.
This isn't a case of laziness or poor time management. It's demand avoidance—a protective mechanism where you know you have to do something, you know the stakes are high, but you cannot bring yourself to start. You sit there like a deer in headlights, paralyzed by the very importance of the task.
Rupert adds another layer: when we're overwhelmed by competing priorities, analysis paralysis kicks in. We get so hyper-focused on figuring out the "perfect" approach that we never start. We become the problem instead of the solution.
The cruel irony? The more important the task, the more our brain wants to protect us from potential failure—which guarantees the very failure we're trying to avoid.
🛠️ The Action - Recognize Your Avoidance Patterns and Externalize Tasks
Here's how to break the prioritization paradox:
1. Identify Your Avoidance Signals
Start recognizing when you're in avoidance mode:
Suddenly noticing "urgent" cleaning or organizing tasks
Endless scrolling or checking emails instead of working
Feeling overwhelmed and choosing easier, less important work
Getting stuck researching the "best" approach instead of starting
The key is catching yourself before you're deep in the avoidance spiral.
2. Understand Your Triggers
Ask yourself:
When has high-stakes work felt scary before?
What feedback or criticism am I unconsciously trying to avoid?
Michael helps clients trace this back—often it's an essay that got harsh criticism, a presentation that went poorly, or a project where someone said something that shattered their confidence.
Understanding your triggers doesn't make them disappear, but it helps you recognize when they're driving your behavior.
3. Externalize the Task
When you're stuck in your head, everything looks bigger and scarier than it is. Get the task out of your brain and onto paper (or screen):
Brain dump everything about the task that's making you anxious
Break it into smaller, visible pieces so it becomes tangible instead of this massive, looming thing
Use visual tools like mind maps, lists, or even simple sketches to make it concrete
Once it's external, you can manipulate and organize it. You can see that it's not one giant, impossible task—it's several smaller, manageable pieces.
4. Separate the Emotion from the Task
Remember: your anxiety is about past experiences, not the current task. The work itself isn't dangerous—your brain just thinks it might be based on previous patterns.
You can acknowledge the anxiety ("I notice I'm feeling scared about this") without letting it dictate your actions ("but I can still take one small step forward").
✨ Conclusion
The ADHD prioritization paradox is real: important tasks often feel harder to start because our brains are trying to protect us from perceived danger. But once you understand this pattern, you can work with it instead of fighting it.
The goal isn't to eliminate the anxiety—it's to recognize when it's driving your behavior and have strategies to move forward despite it. Your brain might always flag high-stakes work as potentially dangerous, but you can learn to respond differently.
Next time you find yourself organizing your sock drawer when a major deadline looms, remember: this isn't a character flaw. It's your brain trying to help. Thank it for the concern, then gently redirect that energy toward breaking down the real task into something manageable.
What task are you avoiding right now because it feels too important to mess up?
🐼 Ready to break through prioritization paralysis? Get personalized ADHD coaching that helps you recognize your patterns and build sustainable strategies for tackling high-stakes work.
⏭️Next Week
How to have prioritization conversations with your manager that help instead of making you feel incompetent.