Consistency gets treated as a character trait: disciplined people are consistent, and you, apparently, are not. Page 3 of the manual throws that out. Consistency is a design problem, not a discipline problem. If “work on my career” never gets started, it’s not because you’re lazy. It’s because “work on my career” isn’t a task at all — it’s a category. And an ADHD brain won’t load a task it can’t picture.
The task that’s secretly five tasks
Here’s the trap. You shrink “work on my career” down to “send one application” and feel like you’ve been reasonable. You haven’t. “Send one application” is five tasks wearing one coat: find the ad, read it, tailor the CV, write the cover letter, fill in the form. Your brain looks at that coat, senses the crowd underneath, and quietly refuses to start. It’s not vague enough to ignore and not small enough to load, so it just… sits there — and you call yourself inconsistent.
The real step is smaller than you think. It’s “open the job ad.” One verb, one object, no decisions. That’s a task.
The test: can you picture your hands doing it?
This is the whole tool, and it fits on a sticker: if you can’t picture your hands doing it, it’s not a task yet. “Improve my CV” — you can’t picture it. “Open my CV” — you can see your actual hand on the actual file. That gap is the difference between a thing that happens and a thing that haunts your list for three weeks.
Anything you can’t picture is still a category. Keep cutting until a single, physical first move drops out.
One step pulls the next
The reason this works isn’t willpower; it’s momentum. You only plan the one step — but doing it changes what you can see, like learning to walk. You take one step and the next leg follows on its own: you open the CV, and now “read the first line” is obvious in a way it wasn’t a second ago. You didn’t plan the whole walk. You took a step, and the next one appeared. Do that a few times and you look up to find you’re in hyperfocus, basically running.
The mistake is trying to plan the run before you’ve taken the step.
I built this video that way
I’m making this on the back of a red-eye, knackered, low on fuel — exactly when everything looks too big. I didn’t “record a video.” My first step was to sit down with my AI and ask one question: what would make a good episode? Then one more. Then “write one script.” And when it came to filming, my first step wasn’t “pick up the camera” — it was “open the script and read it.” Small enough that even tired, I could do it. And once I’d read it, I knew whether I had the energy to keep going. I didn’t, this morning — until that one step made the next one visible.
Today
Take whatever’s in front of you — a career move, a work task, something from your boss — and cut it down to one step. Not the plan. One step. “Check that one email,” not “clear the inbox.” “Open the job ad,” not “apply for jobs.”
And one honest rule: save this if you’re going to do it — don’t save it instead of doing it.
Show transcript
I'll help you for free, because I have no common sense — but I have this series, and this is another episode of the Career Operating Manual for neurodivergent people. I'm Łukasz; I have a dual diagnosis of autism and ADHD. I'm on the red-eye today, a bit knackered — which actually fits the topic, because my energy is low and it's so hard to start anything. Everything feels scary, everything feels too big. But I have a way to do it, and I'm using it right now to record this. Simple example: your career search. (Sorry — emails coming in; I'm on my lunch break, but stay with me.) Look at any task ahead of you and ask: do you see it as one complete item? If it's "I want to send CVs to get a job", that's too big, too vague — it's daunting, because there are so many other actions inside it. You have to split it down until it's atomic. Complete. Everything about that one action has to be in your sight; it has to be a single step. So if you're looking for a job, the one thing isn't even "redo my CV". The one thing could be: open that CV. Literally. Because then the next step follows on its own — like learning to walk. You take one step, and the next leg follows: "okay, I'll read it." That was the only thing you planned, but as you read, the next step becomes obvious, and the next. Babies start step by step; then you're walking fast, and before you notice you're in hyperfocus, basically running. But every time, you're only making one step. (My emails are going to kill me — that's what happens after a short holiday. Let me find my thoughts; I have ADHD, for God's sake.) So your task: whatever's in front of you — in your business, your career, a task from your boss — split it, especially at the start, down to one step. One step, nothing else. Don't plan to do all of it; just one step. After my lunch break, my step is "check that one email" — not all of them, that one. Same with this video: recording it has loads of steps, but I didn't "just start recording." My first step was to sit down with my AI and ask one question: what would be a good series for my audience? It answered; then the next question. One question at a time. Once I had it, I said, okay, now work on a script — one script. I didn't record everything up front; I made a plan, one step after another. And when it came to actually recording, my first step wasn't "pick up the camera" — it was "open the script and read it." If I read it, I find out whether I have the energy to continue. I didn't have it this morning; I'd had a coffee, but it was that one small step that let me start. I'm rambling — I need more coffee. Save this for later. I love you.