My Home Is a Horror of Unfinished Tasks

Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@theatlantic.com.

Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear James” in your inbox.

Dear James,

Unless there is money attached or a truly significant deadline (impending wedding, house sale, moving van arriving), I never seem to complete what I begin. I have so many unfinished projects: A sweater I was knitting just needs a button sewn on. I launched into cleaning a drawer by pulling everything out of it, and now the drawer’s contents still sit in a bag, waiting to be sorted.

My husband of 10 years pointed this all out to me yesterday (as if I didn’t know it about myself), as his frustration grew in anticipation of houseguests coming next week. My response was to start cleaning—our mudroom, my studio (which he doesn’t concern himself with), and the insides of the cupboards in our laundry room, whose contents I emptied into the space my husband had just vacuumed.

I rarely miss a work deadline. As I said, if you’re paying me, I’m delivering. But at home, I just can’t seem to finish any tasks—at least not until well after everyone else has gone to bed.

I cannot be the only human who acts this way. What’s wrong with me?

Dear Reader,

I was talking to a sculptor the other day—a man to whom I’d just been introduced, although the discovery that we were both Meshuggah fans had put us in immediate and profound sympathy. When metalhead meets metalhead, a primal understanding blooms: an assent to a shared nature. A many-petaled brotherliness.

Anyway, he was telling me that once a week, in the name of art, he takes a couple of his boyfriend’s ADHD pills and then proceeds to have the most prodigious and absurdly effective day. He flows through it; the energy runs smooth; the work is good; the ideas come; he doesn’t want to stop. No twitches or tweakiness, pure silvery streamlined productivity. Full-moon focus, an exalted state.

And afterward, no comedown. No hangover. Doesn’t that sound beautiful? Doesn’t that sound enviable?

Not that I’m suggesting you have ADHD, but this is where my mind went when I read your letter. And when I consider my own daily difficulties, the great and bristling field of reluctance that seems to interpose itself between me and doing anything at all, I wonder if an ADHD diagnosis might be coming my way. Here’s the thing, though: I quite like my farty, dreamy, last-minute brain. And in 10 years ADHD will be called something else. And in the end, like you, I get the job done, even if there’s a bit of neurobiological spillage on the way.

Perhaps you could be a little more respectful of your husband’s fine work with the vacuum. Perhaps I’m saying that only because I’m a man. Perhaps the right pills would fix everything. Or not. But it’s been known to happen.

Me, I’m for human mess, way past the point of reasonableness. Sit down, sit down, with your gaping cupboards and your rebellious buttons. Marvel at the power of entropy. Enjoy.

From among volcanoes of stuff,

James

By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.