How do you all manage to finish things on time or at all?

I use my phone as the second half of my brain. Lots and lots of scheduled reminders. Which is not going to work for everyone, but it works for me.

It's a challenge to be sure. I can't say how I get something started necessarily, that's often just the luck of the draw and how well my meds are working that day.

But I have ADHD and I try to be aware and quickly recognize when I get into a "state of flow" and preserve that state whenever I'm there, for as long as possible.

What this looks like, is my husband bringing me food if I am on a bender cleaning out a closet or heads down working on a presentation at work.

It also looks like me staying at work late unexpectedly because I can't interrupt a good flow, or coming home and delving right back in as soon as possible.

Or me not remembering or caring to eat until I run down so much I can't keep going.

So as you can see, I use both healthy and non-healthy "coping mechanisms".

I exploit the state of flow whenever it comes, as much as possible, and muddle/hobble through when I'm not there. Of course, coming up to a deadline increases the chances that I'll get into a state of flow, if not just out of adrenaline and fear of really screwing up and missing a deliverable.

Edit: You mentioned that you're on meds for depression. If your primary diagnosis is something like ADHD and the depression is a secondary, comorbid condition, treating the ADHD will be very useful. My psychiatrist diagnosed my primary issue as ADHD and didn't want to start treating me for depression until we worked through getting me on ADHD meds and getting on the right meds, titrated at the right dose helped a huge amount. Once my ADHD was under control, my depression and anxiety were reduced considerably.

Honestly I (AuDHD) tend to leave things until the last possible minute and then panic-crunch to do the thing out of a fear of disappointing whoever the thing is for. The problem of course is if the thing doesn't have a hard deadline or person who needs it done then I can put it off indefinitely.

As others on this thread have said, ADHD medication at the proper doses can be a real life changer for motivation on these tasks that feel totally walled off.

SSRIs and other antidepressants are super helpful for keeping you out of those deep dark days, but I didn’t find it helped me much with motivation alone. Once I found the right SSRI and the right stimulant medication (Prozac and vyvanse for me), I started finding it a lot easier to just get chores done when I thought of them. If it’s something I can’t do right now (like groceries), I just write it down in my Reminders lists so that I’m not scrambling when I go out to get groceries. The apple reminders app is basically my second brain, and I always write down stuff I gotta do that I’m prone to forget about in there.

For hard things, that I don't like doing, this is quite an issue for me. I really have to do it now, or have a strict schedule for when I would do it. If I delay something till tomorrow, well, then it can probably also be done the day after that ... So generally I just try to avoid delaying things that don't need to be delayed.