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Boredom Doesn’t Let Me Overcome My Multitasking Addiction

I confess. I’m watching ‘Harry Potter and the Phoenix Order’ now, while I’m working. I’ve been binge-watching the whole Harry Potter series this week, while I work.

Do you know what more? I’ll finish watching all the remaining three movies this week, guess what? While I work.

If I don’t have something interesting playing on a second screen, I can’t work because I get bored.

I’m a multitasking addict, an anxious writer with diagnosed ADHD, and I’ve been trying to fix it.

I’m failing terribly tho.

Please, enjoy the messy honesty of this post. 🫠

The Quiet Morning That Betrayed Me

Here’s a typical morning for me:

> wake at 5 a.m. full of excitement and ideas for writing
> open YouTube Music and push play on some highly energetic music (metal or punk rock)
> now I’m actually awake
> prepare my coffee
> feed my cats their fave French churu (fur babies must be properly fed before they go bird- and neighbor-watching in the windows).

30 minutes later, I’m already sitting at my desk. I turn my headphones off, and the quiet morning silence hits me like a brick, making me feel irrationally stressed.

I open the Guttenberg editor to start writing all my exciting ideas — but now, I’m bored.

I don’t know why, I’m just bored.

The silence, the wall in front of me, my laptop — everything looks f*cking boring.

But hey! Let’s turn on the second screen. Put my favorite 90s anime or fantasy movie, and suddenly I’m no longer bored. Now, I can write.

Now that I’m multitasking, I can focus on writing again.

Multitasking Feels Good… Until It Doesn’t

Yeah, yeah. Playing something interesting on the second screen broke the boredom enough for me to recover my energy to start my job (writing).

However, somehow it’s been an hour and a half and I’ve only written 300 words…

An hour and a half should be enough for me to FINISH a full 1200-word-long article, add all the images and links, and publish it.

I should already be moving to the second article of the morning, but for some reason, I couldn’t focus on my writing.

In other words, multitasking actually imposes a significant cost on the brain, and the price is high.

The Second Screen Monster I Accidentally Created

Let’s be honest, I’ve been feeding it. For years. I don’t recall when it all started, but I’ve always struggled to focus on things that even slightly bore me.

When I was a student, attending classes was always a nightmare; I couldn’t, for the life of me, focus.

That never happened when I was reading the Harry Potter series, and I’ve been binge-watching anime long before Netflix was a thing. I could also play PlayStation 1 for 12 hours straight by myself and never get bored.

But anything that felt like “get down to work” would bore me to death.

Then, one day, in my adult life and working from home, I discovered the second screen, and somehow I was doing more than I had ever managed to.

That’s when it got fixed in my brain that I needed it.

Related: 7 Reasons You Can Never Be Productive At Home

My Productivity Dies Somewhere Between Silence and Sirius Black

This is the tragic reality of my work life:

Too much silence? I can’t function.
Too much stimulation? I can’t function.

Somewhere between a quiet room and Sirius Black being a father figure to poor orphan Harry, my productivity gets crushed.

I need a middle ground… and I haven’t found it yet.

But I know that my current strategy — emotional support movies — is definitely not it.

My Attention Span Has Left the Chat

Sometimes I swear my attention span packs its bags and leaves the room the moment things get boring.

One second I’m typing.

Next, I’m checking YouTube, searching YouTube Music for another playlist, or staring into the void like a Victorian woman waiting for a letter.

My attention span doesn’t drift.

It ghosts.

The Boredom–Multitasking Loop I Can’t Break

You’d think I’d learn by now.

I get bored → I turn something on → it overstimulates me → I get behind on my tasks → I panic → I try to focus → the silence bores me again → repeat.

It’s like I’m stuck on a productivity hamster wheel with a broken brake. And somehow, every time I swear, “this will be the day I stay focused,” I end up watching wizards fight evil on my second screen at 6:30 a.m.

I can’t start without stimulation, but I can’t finish with it either. Multitasking makes my work feel disjointed or draining.

I’m Not Distracted — I’m Understimulated

This is the part most people don’t get.

I’m not chasing distractions. I’m chasing stimulation.

My brain doesn’t wander because it’s weak — it wanders because the current task isn’t giving me enough fuel to stay present.

So I seek stimulation elsewhere: noise, screens, music, anime, literally anything that makes my brain wake up again.

It’s not distraction. It’s survival.

The ADHD Lie: “I’m More Productive With Background Noise”

This one hurts because… I’ve believed it for a long time.

Yes, background noise helps me start. But it also eats my attention alive.

It feels productive because I’m moving, typing, doing something.

But when I look at the actual output? I have 300 words, two empty coffee cups, and an emotional hangover from watching fictional characters die.

So no — I’m not “more productive” with noise.

I’m just more stimulated. Totally different thing.

The ADHD Productivity Trap I Fall Into Daily

Here’s where things get nerdy—but personal.

ADHD brains crave dopamine, but boredom feels like dopamine starvation.

So my brain tries to fix it by multitasking, seeking stimulation, bouncing between tabs — all in an attempt to create little dopamine hits to stay “online.”

But that same strategy drains the dopamine I need for actual tasks. It’s like pouring water into a bucket with twenty holes.

More stimulation = less ability to finish anything.

I’m not failing because I don’t try. I’m failing because my brain is trying too hard in the wrong direction.

Writing With ADHD: Why “Just Focus” Isn’t a Thing

People love to give me advice: “You just need to focus.”

Okay, Susan. If focusing were a light switch, I’d flip it every morning and write five articles before breakfast.

But the ADHD focus is either:
hyperfocus (I forget the world exists)
or
no-focus (I forget I exist).

There’s no comfy middle where I can work gently and consistently. Either there’s chaos, or there’s nothing.

I Don’t Know How to Do Just One Thing (And I’m Trying?)

I swear, I want to be that person who can sit at a desk, open a doc, type, and boom — finished.

But my brain sees one task and goes, “Cute. What else we got?”

That’s how I end up writing while making coffee while texting my brother while playing with the cats while plotting my next blog series while checking analytics while

No wonder nothing gets done on time. My brain thinks it’s an octopus.

You’re not Naruto, Andie – you can’t make the Shadow Clone Justu!

I’m Not Lazy — I’m Just Bored to Death

This is my official declaration of innocence: I am not lazy.

I don’t procrastinate because I don’t care. I procrastinate because my brain refuses to engage with something unless it’s practically throwing fireworks in my face.

Boredom isn’t a small feeling for me — it’s a shutdown trigger.

And once it hits, I’m done.
Flatlined.
Brain offline.
Please try again later.

Related: How to Stop Being Lazy (For Real): 10 Facts Most People Ignore

Boredom Isn’t Harmless — It Hijacks My Whole Day

People think boredom is just sitting still, staring at a wall.

Um… no.

My boredom hijacks my entire workflow. If the first 30 minutes of my morning go sideways, the whole day gets sucked into the black hole. I’m not even kidding!

Suddenly, everything feels heavier, slower, harder. One uninteresting moment snowballs into 12 hours of catching up.

Boredom isn’t neutral.
It’s expensive.

Maybe I’m Not Broken — Maybe My Workflow Is

Here’s the part where I stop roasting myself and try to be a grown adult for five seconds.

I don’t think I am the problem.
I think my workflow is outdated for a brain like mine.

If I want to write faster, better, and without losing three hours to emotional damage from wizard movies, I have to rethink how I work.

Maybe I need less noise.
Maybe I need structured bursts.
Maybe I need better transitions.
Maybe I need to finally stop multitasking (yes, future post coming).

I don’t want to keep being at war with my own brain — I want to empower it.

And I’m going to try harder — not in a toxic way, but in a “let’s finally figure out what works for me” way.

Because I don’t want to stay stuck in this boredom–multitasking loop forever.
And I know I can change… even if I write the first draft while watching Harry Potter.