Sounds like a specialized productivity tool would be of little help there, since no tasklist can withstand the problem of just not being able to get started on a task. And something like GTD is only going to be another burdensome and anxiety-inducing task for someone with executive dysfunction.

A simple but constant reminder system (perhaps with a smartwatch or phone) can be of more use.

ADHD has two primary symptoms:

1. Executive Dysfunction

2. Limited working memory

Organizational tools can help with #2, and can also help break down tasks to be less daunting, which can help sometimes help #1, but only if the executive disfunction is being managed with other means like medication.

This depends on exactly which executive functions are impaired, which are not always the same even for those with an ADHD diagnosis.

Breaking task down into small single actions can be very helpful for those with executive function disorders.

This is part of GTD.

And then if you use a system malleable enough to reduce starting effort to 0 across anything (project or task) you do... you just about solve that problem

How can a productivity system reduce the starting effort of any task to zero? There’s such a thing as activation energy.

Sure, you can try breaking a task down to its smallest component, but not all problems can chunk like that. And even the smallest component will take non-zero work.

I would be curious to learn about a system that could actually accomplish that.

> How can a productivity system reduce the starting effort of any task to zero? There’s such a thing as activation energy.

For my side projects and explorations I use org-roam, Nix, and direnv.

So activation energy is:

- org-roam-find-file, type, "so me proj string", enter

- C-c C-n to go to heading

- C-c C-a f to open project directory attached to heading

- envrc-mode sets buffer local PATH values according to flake.nix 100% reproducible environment

So tying this to my productivity system with org-mode and org-agenda is either org links that can execute arbitrary elisp like:

    elisp:(org-roam-find-file "so me proj string")

Or more often these days emacs bookmarks which can be set with C-x r m by default.

These combine to rule out the biggest factors preventing from moving side projects forward:

- build issues or the chance of them that inevitably arise with anything less than 100% reproducibility

- a way to talk about and organize each project and ascribe meaning to groups of projects because each is an org-roam node

- a radical assault on anything monotonous I feel the computer should be doing for me or anything that annoys me at all

- the freedom to wander aimlessly and make progress, yet never lose a given starting place

Bit by bit add all the links, phone numbers and information to do the task to the todo, once it is all right there then it becomes much more possible.

You are correct that many tasks cannot be made that small, if they cannot be achieved then the task becomes locate and ask for assistance.

That is incorrect. Organizing information about commitments and plans is an enormous help.