What's happening
ADHD and prioritising can fall apart when everything arrives at once. The council tax reminder, an email from your manager, a form for school and a pile of washing all feel equally loud. Instead of picking one, you bounce between them, or pick up your phone while the list sits there. The job that shouts loudest tends to win, even when it isn't the one that matters most today.
How to get moving
Write every job on a sheet of paper, one per line. Next to each, write what actually happens if it isn't done by tonight. Be specific: "late fee", "boss chases me tomorrow", "no clean socks Thursday", "nothing, really". You'll usually find a few "nothing, really" jobs that only felt urgent because they were in front of you.
Circle the one with the worst real consequence today and do that first. If two still tie, pick the quicker one. At work, if your manager has given you three urgent things, it's fine to ask which one they want first. It hands the decision back to the person who knows, and it's quicker than guessing wrong.
Important tip
Once you've picked your job, fold the paper so only the circled line is showing. Seeing the whole list while you work keeps pulling your attention back to everything else, and that's how you end up switching halfway through. When the first job's done, unfold it, cross it off and ask the same question about what's left.
This is lived-experience content. It is not a promise that a particular idea will work for everybody.