Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

circling

2022-07-24 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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circling
Votey panel for circling
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Explanation

This comic is a short two-panel joke about ADHD and procrastination. A boss tells an employee to "circle the task like a hawk circling its prey, waiting for the moment to strike." The employee is shown looking at a piece of paper labeled "#1" with apparent intensity.

The caption reads: "ADHD has gotten a lot more awesome since I discovered this metaphor." The humor is in the reframing: people with ADHD often struggle with task initiation -- they circle around a task endlessly, unable to begin. By adopting the "hawk" metaphor, the person reinterprets their procrastination and avoidance as something predatory, strategic, and cool rather than a frustrating executive-function deficit. It's a self-deprecating joke about finding a way to feel good about a common ADHD struggle.

View History (1) Original Comic