Section 1: The Myth

My mom thinks I’m lazy.

She didn’t outright say it, but in a roundabout way it came out when we were discussing how my ADHD was affecting my ability to clean my room. Mind you, I am 48 yrs old and in my own place, but my mom was diagnosed with cancer and is staying with me. She is a very clean person and I am very messy. When I discuss ADHD with her or my brother, their eyes gloss over. As if I am using an excuse because they feel like if you want to do something, you would just do it. And therein lies the rub, because I want to do a lot of things. I want to clean my room. I want to have a clean house, on repeat. It’s actually quite urgent and important to keep a clean house because my mom is on chemo and here. So cleaning is not only something I wholeheartedly desire but believe is both urgent and important.

So then, why don’t I clean? Doesn’t my mother mean anything to me?

I bet you can see the dark path that goes down, and maybe you’ve been down that path yourself. The shame/guilt spiral.

And, as you can see, it’s not just the voice in your head, but what other people, say to you, what different productivity gurus preach, and what your family believes. But it’s more myth than fact.

You are lazy. You are unmotivated. You don’t care enough to do it. And if that were true, fixing it would be easy: Just care more, try harder, want it enough.

And the advice pours in from all sides:

• "Just do it" / "Just start"
• "Stop procrastinating and get it done"
• "The hardest part is starting: just begin"
• "Take the first step"
• "You're overthinking it: just dive in"
• "Stop making excuses and start"
• "If it was important, you'd have started by now"
• "Just break it into smaller steps" (without addressing why you can't start even the small step)
• "Set a timer and start for just 5 minutes"
• "You don't want it bad enough"

What's currently out there:

And some of these people, who might have had issues with this themselves but figured it out, gave us well-meaning books and methodologies like Atomic Habits.

Atomic Habits

TL;DR: Atomic Habits works for many by shaping cues and reducing friction. For ADHD, the friction isn’t just environmental; it’s noticing the cue, remembering the plan, and initiating across shifting states. The break point moves day to day, so the fix isn’t "care more," it’s designing starts that work in variable states.

The break point moves. Monday you act. Tuesday you miss the cue. Wednesday you want it but can’t start. Thursday you start and stall.

Atomic Habits is all about building discipline. And what is discipline? Simply put, it’s the act of successfully bridging the intention-action gap over and over until it becomes automatic. James Clear makes it easier for some to cross the bridge from intention to action by reducing friction, making cues visible, and stacking onto existing routines. I say for some, because it works, for sure. But mostly people with baseline executive function who:

• Notice cues when they appear
• Remember the habit stack in the moment
• Can initiate action once the trigger fires
• Have working memory that holds the plan stable

It assumes that if you design the environment right, your brain will naturally:

• See the cue
• Remember what to do
• Start the action
• Follow through.

The chain he uses to builds a habit: Cue → Craving → Response → Reward.

Clear assumes the chain is linear, consistent, and repeatable. That once each link is fixed, the pattern stabilizes and becomes automatic.

But, an ADHD brain has variable, state‑dependent friction points.

1. Atomic Habits doesn’t account for brains where step 1 (noticing), step 2 (remembering), or step 3 (initiating) are the actual friction points, not just the environment.
2. Also, the chain doesn’t necessarily break at the same place every time. How that chain might look for an ADHDer:
   • Day 1: Cue → Craving → Response → Reward - Monday, you execute perfectly.
   • Day 2: Cue → ??? - Tuesday, you don’t notice the cue.
   • Day 3: Cue → Craving → ??? - Wednesday, you notice and want it, but can’t start.
   • Day 4: Cue → Craving → Response → ??? - Thursday, you start but get derailed halfway through.

And this can be true of ADHDers or anyone who struggles with fear, anxiety, survival mode, or trauma. Or the lucky group of us that have all of the above.

Transition:

The Myth says: “try harder.” The reality is “start differently.” So, how about we name the real gap so we can design for it.

Section 2: The Reality

The intention–action gap:

You know what to do, you genuinely want to do it and want the outcome, but you don’t start. You don’t start because of your intention-action gap, the interplay of any combination of internal resistance and external frictions that can stop you from completing a full action sequence once, let alone repeatedly.

Think about that…

Now take any one of those advice statements from earlier and imagine bridging an intention-action gap with it and tell me that’s not laughable. 🤣😭🤔🤬

So many people beat themselves up for not doing a “simple” thing like brushing their teeth or their list of to-do’s, but if they broke down each of the actions they want to execute into their micro parts and connected the dots to where an ADHDer can get derailed, they’d see it isn’t as easy as they think it is and maybe give themselves some slack and compassion.

The attention–action gap:

I’ve never heard of the attention-action gap. What is it and how is it different than the intention-action gap?

This is when your attention doesn’t line up with the moment of doing. The clues don’t land at all, your focus slips mid-sequence, or working memory drops the next step. For this gap, it’s not about caring or deciding; it’s about noticing, holding, and guiding attention through the steps.

The problem with the intention-action gap is that the commitment doesn’t convert into movement. The “start button” handoff fails, if this is Tuesday, I mean (from above).

The problem with the attention-action gap is that your attention doesn’t lock onto the task long enough to start, again, if this is Tuesday (from above).

Brushing your teeth, step by step why it can be hard

Intention-action gap: You think “I need to brush my teeth,” but you remain in bed or at your desk. You don’t start. That’s just one moment where you were derailed, but if you get past this moment, you can be derailed at any point in that table.

Attention-action gap: You don’t notice it’s time because the cue doesn’t register. You don’t start. Again, that’s just one moment where you were derailed, but if you get past this moment, you can be derailed at any point in that table.

If a simple task has this many places to break, it’s not a willpower problem.

Section 3: The Truth

So, we’ve established, It’s not laziness, and absence of willpower or motivation, or not caring enough. “Simple” tasks can fail because the handoffs between intention and action, and between attention and action, break in different places for ADHD. When the bridge breaks, it’s a design mismatch, not a moral or personal failure.

But if ADHD is only affecting small things like brushing your teeth, then you should be good to go, right?

Nope.

ADHD is an equal‑opportunity condition. Things can be urgent, important, and desirable, and you still might not be able to do them. To the detriment of yourself and your family. I ended up with a $70k hospital bill even though I had two insurances because I didn’t understand my ADHD at the time and I couldn’t bridge the intention to call and confirm which was primary and which was secondary.

The letters started arriving about a hospital bill. I never opened them (ADHD start issue) so I didn’t even know what the problem was. But eventually, the hospital started calling, and once I picked up the phone and learned that the bill hadn’t been paid and I would have to call the insurance company, I had the intention to do it.

I kept saying, “I’ll call tomorrow,” and I meant it. But my tomorrow button didn’t work. Depression made everything feel flat. Anxiety made a simple phone call feel like a courtroom. The reminders didn’t land. The plan wouldn’t stick. The first movement never came. In therapy upstate, someone sat with me, no advice, just body doubling my intention. With them there, I dialed. It was too late for one insurer, not for the other. Then I learned it wasn’t one call; it was a sequence. I thought I’d finished, but the bridge had more handoffs, and I fell through the next gap. This wasn’t a character flaw. It was a system of handoffs, intention to action, attention to action, breaking in a few predictable places.

Bringing it home

Point is, if you have ADHD, or any other condition that alters the way your brain works in a similar fashion, there is a reason for every time you didn’t do what you said you would. And, it’s not your fault. It’s your responsibility, but not your fault.

But the beauty of this is, if you know the problem, then you can find the solution. It may take time, a lot of trial and error, but there is a light at the end of your intention-action gap tunnel.

This is where I am at. I have been studying myself and my expression of ADHD, trying different things, with some wins and some losses. It is a slow and painstaking process, OMG, but if by doing this myself I can help not just me but others, it’s so worth it.

I have actually started running experiments to determine what works for me. I wanted to write here what I've found because I am so close to solving my own intention/attention-action chasm, but this is already a long article, so next time, yeah?

I invite you to find your own breakpoint(s) using the table above. The example is brushing your teeth but you can insert any task or action that you struggle with. Even use AI as a helper. Off the top of my head, you can copy and paste this article into any of the AI’s and explain your own bottleneck and ask it to create a table like this one but switching out the brushing your teeth task with your own. Ask it to ask you any questions needed to help pinpoint your breakpoints.

Would love to hear from you, especially if you get stuck anywhere or need someone to help you start. I’m here for it.