I coped some years with this, never trusted that someone else could solve it for me, but as of lately I learned that talking to people can give you some great insights!

I think the problem could be nested under the psychological/mental problems. I believe that I am spiritually in a good place & physically fine except from a bad diet(& not as much exercise I would’ve liked). Socially/Family-wise I am also in a good place. So giving the following aspects, I suspect my problem is in the mental department.
So I have been diagnosed with ADHD (at a later age because I could cope with it because of above average intelligent, said the psychologist), but I feel like it’s a bit different than the typical ADHD-patient (I could be wrong). I think I also suffer from perfectionism (either I do it perfect or I don’t do it all). Combined with my very analytical thinking and eye for details always, every task that I try to do becomes instantaneously an overwhelming mess, which often causes me to procrastinate. Coupled with the fact I cannot seem to prioritize (i.e. I don’t see the core of the task, everything is equally important + I can get lost in whatever catches my attention) & my natural broad interest make it worse. So I am all over the place with my thought’s and actions.

I think stemming from the fact that I was always overwhelmed and had so many thoughts(I overthink & analyse everything). It seems I learned my self to write everything down. And coupled with the eye for detail, I really write EVERYTHING down, even things that are not relevant, but I still have to write it down.I think maybe I rely so much on my notes, that I stopped thinking creatively & logically. I always think somewhere in my notes I will be able to find it or reconstruct what I was doing, but because I work in such details and lack structure/organization, It’s very hard to use these notes again. I suspect here we also have something to do with anxiety/ocd as a underlying cause. I have an history of (social) anxiety attacks, that are almost completely gone now (thank God). I also save everything like websites, files etc. I always also have around couple hundred tabs open. As a kid I tried to save every google image of Dragonball z. I don’t know why I did that, maybe afraid that I was not going to have internet anymore. Everytime I try to undertake a task I reminded that somewhere I have notes (scattered) about this, but I can never retrieve them and I don’t even try (because I am afraid of all the other millions of things I will see in my mess). But being an perfectionist I don’t finish the task, because I can’t find all my notes.

Now in addition to this everybody has a workflow/skillset to manage their lives. I completely lack structure in my life and/or realized too late that I need structure elements in my life. I don’t have a taskmanagement system, I don’t really have an calender system (every diary I ever tried to keep, became an cluttered mess). It’s almost like I forgot how to study, because I am so overwhelming myself and so overthinking. I analyse every action that I do now, which sucks a lot of mental energy.
These factors above combined have caused an unimaginable clutter in my life. To give an idea: maybe 10.000 notes, thousands of bookmarks, no really organizing folders & study files, Having pictures all over the place.

I want a reset button & clean all the clutter, so I can let go of my past, because in this clutter a part of me is hidden. So I want to reread everything: Whatsapp chats, websites, my thoughts/notes, my ambitions, my lessons etc, clean my emails(up to thousands), organise everything etc. But my problem is how can I find the time to retreat, process everything en let go of my past. Everyday really feels like I have to take on all the weight of the past. I can never focus on the future. I cannot make steps, I am afraid to undertake any actions, because I feel like I haven’t organized en read my relating notes on the matters at hand.

Ironically, as I am typing this I realize, it’s these same issues described above, that are overwhelming me to clean everything & to bring structure in my life and to find te focus to solve this problem. It’s the same procrastination that comes, because I am already (anticipating) anxious of the amount of mental effort it’s going to take me. I have identified some key principles: 20/80 rule, focus on the main body of the task, find a structure in life, make habits, etc. but somehow I cannot seem to get a good flow. I don’t know what the starting point is.

What do you guys think?