Burn the List. Ask a Better Question

If this helped you name something you’ve been carrying alone, I’m glad you found this space. The pull of hyperfixation is real, but so is your capacity for something steadier. I’ll keep offering what I can. That’s what this Alliance is here for.

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Eventually, it all stops working for you

You look around and realize you're waking up late again.

The important stuff, what matters, it’s been pushed off for weeks.

You’re coasting through the things that run on habit, but everything that needs intention keeps getting skipped.

Exercise.

The dentist.

That hearing aid appointment from February.

Still nothing done.

You’re not ignoring these things because you don’t care.

You just keep slipping into that old ADHD loop.

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You go to check your phone, and suddenly you’re sitting on the edge of the bed, an hour gone and nothing moved.

Some of it even feels good, like you’re doing something.

But you know the difference between momentum and avoidance.

And so much of this just makes you feel floating. Disconnected.

No direction, just reaction.

I’ve made lists to fix this.

Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

Sometimes I look for something in my drawers and saw lists I made from 2007, 2012… And almost everything on them, guess, not accomplished!

I am making to-do lists for abour 40 years and collecting a shameful performance.

They don’t help, it’s a definite veredict.

The paper starts looking like proof I’m falling behind.

So yesterday I thought about what if I stopped listing?

I picked up a notebook to write, but especifically one without lines to avoid the temptation of go listing again, I wrote one sentence at the top:

What would make me proud of myself today?

Right now.

That really seemed something different.

What came out wasn’t a checklist. It wasn’t tasks. It was more like scraps of clarity.

Things like:

“moving my body every two days”

“start that book I am gathering so many interesting info for more thann a year”

“make sure I become a person who uses dental floss every day”

“don’t allow my phone to enter the bathroom”

“a new rule about not leaving dishes to wash in the next day”

“doing something on purpose, not just out of routine”

“accept my routine and do my basics without thinking too much”

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The page became a mirror.

This is not another to-do list. I sketched guidelines, not goals.

I tried to see myself out of my body and trying to think about what would make me proud of that person, what I would see that creature doing and think “I am finally proud of him?”

Not a new plan to follow, just a better way to remember what matters when I forget myself.

That’s how I started moving again, or tried to. This is the second day, actually.

When ADHD kicks in, it’s easy to drift.

Even easier to over-structure and rebel against it.

But this question doesn’t demand perfection. It just asks you to be real.

So try it.

Don’t consider it a system, but see it as a moment.

Blank page. No lines.

One sentence at the top:

What would make me proud of myself today?

No lists, no pressure.

Just a little compass that points you back to you.

Because you know very well what you need to do, and you will extract that from seeing your compass.

It won’t be there to tell you what you need to follow, but to make you feel the need to engage onto action.

This is your framework. Your guidelines. Your structure.

And as you know, your action most of the times doesn’t come when you respond to sentences that just scrub frustration in your face.

Your action will come when you understand your context.

After all, you are your context, not your actions.

Actions without a context are like fishes without a sea.

And you need to see the sea to see the fishes.

Because a fish without a sea is just a lifeless piece of body.

Just lifeless as a to-do list when we don’t really understand or just forget why they are there.

💚 If this put words to the quiet guilt of all those unfinished lists, send it to someone whose drawer is full of them too. They don’t need advice, they just need to feel seen.

💚 If you’ve ever stared at a to-do list and felt more shame than clarity, drop a comment. You’re not broken. You’re just ready to try something else, and this might be the start.