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Therapist explains how the viral 'dopamine anchoring' can be the best hack for conquering chores

You might already be doing it without knowing it.

Photo credit: Canva, @kyndalvcc/TikTok

A viral hack that actually works? We'll take it!

Actually completing mundane tasks isn’t just a challenge for neurodivergent folks. Nearly everyone has at least one boring, but necessary, chore that we simply cannot be bothered to get done. That one email to send, that one appointment to schedule, that one errand to run, that no matter what, we can’t seem to bring ourselves to do.

That’s where “dopamine anchoring” comes in. This viral productivity hack taking over TikTok might be geared towards those with ADHD, but it can certainly be co-opted for anyone hoping to make their to-do list a little more enjoyable (and therefore more doable).

The best part is—you might already be dopamine anchoring without even realizing it.

@thatll_do_podcast How do you dopamine anchor?? 🫶 looking for ideas 💡 #lifehack #dopamine #psychology ♬ Tchaikovsky "Dance of the Reed Flutes"(1257471) - kzy

The concept is simple: pair a not-so-enjoyable task with a simple, enjoyable treat or activity. Think grabbing a fancy iced latté after getting an oil change, or listening to your favorite podcast while folding laundry. This little “treat yourself” moment elicits a dopamine rush, causing you to feel pleasure while doing that undesirable task, which, over time, helps you form a positive connection with it because of the feel-good chemicals being released. Pavlovian productivity, if you will.

As Chicago-based therapist Kyndal explains, this strategy is vital for people with ADHD, since, due to their naturally lower levels of dopamine, their brains often refuse to do tasks that aren’t “incredibly interesting, immediately rewarding, or super urgent…It has to be that severe.”

@kyndalvcc #neurospicy #adhd #dopamineanchoring #mentalhealth ♬ original sound - Kyndal - Therapist

Sure, there’s something to be said about not relying purely on extrinsic rewards, but, as Kyndal notes, sometimes we also need to “work with our brains rather than against them.” And, hey, if it leads to overall healthier behaviors—which science has shown to be the case—it might be worth at least experimenting with.

In her clip, Kyndal offered a few examples of what dopamine anchoring can look like in various situations:

Environmental Anchoring

-Doing a boring task at a coffee shop (long live third spaces!)

-Playing a podcast while doing chores

-Lighting a scented candle while working on a project

Social Anchoring

-FaceTime a friend during a dull work block

-Pair doing a household chore with phoning someone

-Plan a coffee meetup after doing something hard

Sensory Anchoring

-Wear your favorite clothes to do tough work (or, if you’re like me, your fanciest clothes, whatever floats your boat)

-Save a special drink for challenging tasks

-Use a motivating playlist

If you’re looking to come up with your own list of dopamine anchors, other therapists, like Brianna Paruolo, and Najama Davis, MSW, LCSW, LCADC, have some tips as well.

“Keep the reward small, realistic, and reserved for that task—otherwise it can lose its power,” Davis told Bustle. “It’s not about tricking yourself—it’s about making life’s less fun moments a little more enjoyable.”

Davis also encouraged folks to remember your dopamine anchor doesn’t always have to come AFTER the task. You can start sipping on that strawberry match just before starting that email, so long as it doesn't completely distract you.

Furthermore, in an interview with VeryWellMind, therapist Brianna Paruolo suggested that the anchor matches the difficulty level of the task. Taxes, for example, might need a bit more hefty of an anchor, like going out to dinner, as opposed to folding laundry.

ADHD, dopamine, dopamine hacking, dopamine anchor, viral tiktok, therapists of tiktok, productivity Anything that ends with sushi can't be that bad. Photo credit: Canva

Paruolo also warned not to expect "instant results.” But as you're “rewiring neural pathways,” be patient with the process.

Bottom line: next time you're having difficulty getting something done, give yourself a little treat and a little grace.

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Sorry, Marie Kondo. This ADHD influencer's 'poop method' for decluttering is brilliant and hilarious.

Instead of asking "Does it spark joy?" try this.

Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash
white toilet bowl with cistern

Marie Kondo, in her heyday, taught us that there was one simple question we should ask ourselves when deciding whether we wanted to get rid of something in our home.

"Does this spark joy?"

The KonMarie method, as it was called, became really popular a few years ago for its simplicity — but it didn't work for everyone. Some people found it too vague, too subjective, or that it only confused them more.

TikToker Becka (@adhdorganized) recently went viral for urging us to ask a, um, different question while decluttering.

In a short video shared on TikTok and Instagram, Becka explains the "ADHD poop rule," that changed her life.

"I know that this sounds super gross, and this has nothing to do with the bathroom," she begins, speaking to the camera from the front seat of her car.

"The poop rule is if you are getting rid of items from your house, and you're purging and trying to organize or spring clean... you pick up an item and you think:

'Is this important enough that I would wash poop off of it?'

@adhdorganized

ADHD purging/organizing hack!! 💞💩 #adhd #organize #hack #cleaning #grwm

Much more black and white than the 'spark joy' technique, the poop rule can apply to both useful and sentimental items.

If something's not important enough to you that you'd clean feces off of it, it's probably something you can safely throw away without regret.

That old bottle of lotion at the back of your sink cabinet you've been saving for six years in case you need it? Probably not worth washing poop off of!

It's amazing how a little visceral disgust can clarify things.

The gross but effective advice was a huge hit with the ADHD community.

Becka, who shares her own journey of trying to organize her life while living with ADHD, found the video quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

Commenters mostly agreed that the rule was a game-changer.

"This will work better for me than sparking joy, too much sparks joy in my brain" one person wrote.

Others chimed in and said they had tried the poop rule with success themselves, or slight variations of it.

"I was doing this today and then my cat actually barfed on stuff I was probably keeping and suddenly I no longer cared about them lol," another user said.

Clutter and disorganization can be a big problem for people living with ADHD — not to mention everyone else.

People with ADHD can experience a lot of anxiety over the clutter in their homes and lives.

Getting overwhelmed by the growing mess is a big challenge for these folks, who may struggle with procrastination, avoidance, or difficulty focusing on completing a task like organizing or cleaning up.

Mindset tricks like the poop rule can help tremendously. In her video, Becka also briefly mentions that she has lots of techniques for motivating or tricking herself into staying organized — having a friend come over (or pretend to come over) to establish a hard deadline for cleaning up, for example.

But it's not only people with ADHD that struggle with clutter and organization.

The problem of too much stuff and the mental load that comes with it is something almost everyone can relate to.

It's nice to have another tool in our toolbox to help us with the agonizing decisions we sometimes face when trying to clean out our homes, cars, or workspaces.

More decluttering and organization hacks by and for people with ADHD

Avoid over-shopping - It's a lot easier to keep your life relatively tidy if you can reign in those impulse purchases you're bound to regret later.

Try a label maker - Itemize and clearly mark what's hidden away in your drawers and storage containers. Knowing what you have and being able to easily access it will help with unnecessary buying and also help clarify what you don't need!

Break down big, overwhelming tasks into smaller and more manageable pieces - Even Marie Kondo herself has changed her approach in recent years after becoming a mother. Anyone who's feeling overwhelmed by a gargantuan cleaning or organizing task should start small, even with just one drawer.

And whether you have ADHD or not, don't underestimate doing a little mental gymnastics to motivate yourself! Whether it's inviting company over, finding a one-minute quick win organization task, or even imagining a fleck of poop on all the stuff in your home — any small mental boost you can get can make a huge difference!

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Mom shares hacks for making sure her children with ADHD have a smooth morning

She pulls from her own experience with ADHD to help her kids.

That ADHD Life|TikTok

Mom shares helpful morning routine for ADHD kids.

Getting kids up and out the door in the mornings can be a struggle whether your children have ADHD or not. A lot of mornings, it feels like anything goes, from your kid waking up looking like they just fought a flock of wild geese in their sleep to them forgetting their left shoe in the refrigerator.

Why was their shoe in there to begin with? No one knows.

Having kids is committing to organized chaos at any given moment, while also accepting that sometimes the chaos isn't organized at all. It's just a free-for-all, and all the tiny humans look like different versions of you. But Tarah, who created the TikTok page @thatadhdlife, has come up with a solution to morning chaos that helps get her kids out of the house on time and ready for the day.

Tarah is neurodivergent and so are her three children. All four of them have ADHD, but it was Tarah's personal experience with ADHD as a child that helped inform the routine she created for her children.

The mom of three explained to Upworthy that she struggled as a child, and with her parents being divorced, she didn't always have the support she needed. Up until recently, her hacks for before-school chaos were just kept between her and her family.

"I was on a live video—I try to do them every Monday—I was explaining this story about how I saw a little boy who was late and running to school all out of breath," Tarah said. "The look on his face reminded me of little me. When I was a kid, I was always stressed and always late."

@thatadhdlife

Im truly sharing this out of love because school mornings don’t have to be stressful. I’m not saying that you won’t occasionally have a couple flustered mornings once or twice a year but for the most part, it’s life changing. I had to do a part 2 because I talk too much when I’m passionate about something 🫠🤣 #thatadhdlife #justcallmeT #adhdkidsbelike #adhdkidsareamazing #adhdschoolmornings #adhdschool #adhdroutines #adhdsystems

Instead of just watching the boy run as she rode her bike home, she tried to encourage him by shouting, "Take a deep breath, you're going to be just fine. You're going to make it." It was the boy's response of "I'm always late," that Tarah said broke her heart and prompted her to tell her followers the story. This then led to people expressing their own frustration with trying to get kids out of the house on time in the mornings, so Tarah decided to upload a video explaining her routine.

In the TikTok video, Tarah tells her followers that they need to first "reverse engineer" their morning by observing their child's day to see what's going wrong. She explains that this could be anything from them not being able to find their shoes to them not remembering to brush their teeth.

After providing examples and a few side quest stories that tie back into the point, Tarah explains her system, which surprisingly starts the day before. They check the weather in order to pick out clothes, then they pack their lunches and clean out their backpacks, all before bed. Tarah says she's been doing this routine since her oldest son, who is 15, was in kindergarten. But it wasn't always like that.

When her oldest child was in kindergarten he was struggling until the mom of three changed things up.

"I really realized with him that he loved when he learned things that became muscle memory, so I made things really hands-on and interactive. I knew I needed to thrive and not just survive," Tarah told Upworthy.

In the video, she explains how this routine she implemented years ago has helped her children be much less stressed in the mornings. Each child has their own version of the same routine based on their age. Parents in the comments were impressed with Tarah's system. Some even said they were taking notes for themselves even though they didn't have children.

Listen to Tarah's helpful tips below:

@thatadhdlife

Replying to @thatadhdlife im just a neurodivergent momma who knew I wanted a different life for our neurodivergent kids. I promise it’s possible but this takes planning, persistence and patience. It’s never too late to start but just know that the older they are, the longer it’s going to take to become an intrinsic habit. Hold their hand through it until then and take a lot of deep breathes. You got this ❤️ ##thatadhdlife##justcallmeT##adhdschool##adhdschoollife##adhdschoolmornings##adhdsystems##nervoussystemregulation##nervoussystemhealing

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ADHD work from home productivity unlocked with these 5 items. No, the secret isn't making a list.

For the love … stop telling us to make a list.

Canva

ADHD work from home productivity unlocked.

Having ADHD is like having this weirdly inconvenient but sometimes timely super power. If you don't have ADHD then that sentence probably makes little sense and if you do have ADHD I'm currently giving you the Hunger Games three finger salute. Hilariously the acronym ADHD stands for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder but in reality, there's no issue with a deficit of attention. We just seem to focus on the thing we aren't supposed to be focused on because it's shiny and the task we should be doing is dull and repetitive. This can make working (you know, the thing adults are supposed to do) difficult.

The routine of going into the office to work in a different environment can be helpful so long as no one talks to you for hour-long stretches. But working from home when you have ADHD is a whole different type of beast, the distractions are abundant. Why would you want to focus on writing a brief or doing a spreadsheet when you suddenly realize you haven't cleaned your baseboard since you moved into the house seven years ago? Now the spreadsheet that should've taken two hours takes a full work day because you keep looking at the baseboards and before you know what's happening you're on your hands and knees with a wet rag working up a sweat.

I know, I got you. That's why I came up with a list to help ADHDers stay focused on the task they're actually supposed to be doing while still hitting that reward button, even when you work from home. Obviously this list isn't exhaustive and won't work for every ADHD brain because ADHD is truly like a box of chocolates. Sure there are similarities, it's all chocolate after all, but nearly every piece is different. See what works for you and toss the rest. Well, don't toss it because that would be wasteful, repurpose it or give it away. Without further ado, the list:

Visual timer.

Amazon

1. A big ol' visual timer

Yeah, a timer. That's where the reward comes in. You tell yourself you're going to do a task for 20 minutes, so you set the timer and see how much you can do before the time is up. Sometimes it's just the right amount of pressure to motivate you to do the thing that feels like watching paint dry. The reward for completing the task before the timer is done makes your brain light up and before you know it, you're setting that bad boy again. You can get it here.

White basket.

Amazon

2. A small everything basket

Sure, you're thinking, "Why do I need a basket if I'm at home? I can walk to the trash can." Stop that. The basket is for everything you will inevitably collect when you're on your fifth trip to the kitchen or bathroom. That sock you picked up will lead to you in turn collecting more laundry. The next thing you know you've got a load in the washer and dryer and you're folding clothes instead of working. The sock you picked up goes into this basket by your workspace. This is the "until I can put it away basket." It will save you from deviating from the task. Buy it here.

Fidget toy.

Amazon

3. Bubble popper fidget toy

Because meetings are boring and your energy has to go somewhere so you can actually hear what the person is saying. I personally prefer the animal shaped ones because I'm actually a child with a mortgage, but really any kind will do. They're quiet and mindless. You don't have to look down to concentrate on the activity so you can focus on the task at hand: pretending to be an adulty adult in the meeting. No one will know you're playing with a toy off camera. Grab it here.

Office chair.

Amazon

4. A sit any way you want chair

I'm not sure if it's an ADHD thing or if it's just a coincidence but I've yet to meet a person that has ADHD who can sit in a chair like chairs are intended. Legs just don't seem to work that way when you have ADHD. This isn't backed by science but I'm sure they can do a study on it and prove my hypothesis. A wide-seated chair will let you sit however your legs need to fold in order for your brain to focus. Sit criss cross apple sauce if you'd like. Having the right chair will help create the environment you need to focus. Pick it up here.

To-do list notebook

Amazon

5. A sweary notebook

Making a "to-do" list doesn't seem to work for ADHD people. I'm sure someone loves lists that also have ADHD, but I personally have not met one. I like to make a reverse list so at the end of the day I can see everything I've actually accomplished. So instead of writing a list in advance, as I finish things I just write them down and cross them off. Check. It's done. I've found this keeps me motivated to start the next task because there's no order I have to follow. You just do a thing then write it down and cross it off. Get the notebook here.

Everyone's needs will be different but if you find you're focusing on the wrong things while you're working from home, this list can help. If you have a hack that works for you, don't keep secrets. Share yours and help another human.

Editor's note: Upworthy may earn a proceed from items sold on this list.

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