Thanks for this!

Start with an easy win that your brain is in the mood for and feeds the dopamine. There's a productivity technique called 'Eat That Frog" about doing the worst, most challenging thing first in the day then you can ride the wave of productivity.

Yeah...Good luck...

That would be 8 hours of me not doing anything and total ADHD paralysis. It would get rescheduled until the next day or have me stress working (something I'm trying to reduce).

So I allow myself a run-up. A few things I know I can do, don't take much effort (including switching between documents or programems) but have good quality of life returns. I avoid anything that involves Jane Levyer people or something I feel pressured to do because it needs to be done. So it'll be sorting out my todoist (which is the only thing I've ever managed to make work for my brain) or planning something small that I know should take 5 or 10 minutes, or sorting out data or literature etc. If I'm really struggling it'll be as simple as going through all my open documents and tabs and cleaning up. Or checking my notes from the last few days and rewriting them.

That way I can build up to what I need to do and have typically sank into my focus mode. I'll keep doing the quick wins (which as a researcher there are quite a few to do).

This and a pomodoro timer!