AFM-3 · RE-ENTRY COLLAPSE

You opened your Claude project and didn’t recognize a single prompt

3 min read 1 EF unit · light

DESKRUNE

For when you come back.

01THE PATTERN

Here's what it looks like.

The pattern: you open a Claude project from 14 days ago. You have no idea what state it was in, what the goal was, or where you stopped. You read the last few messages, get overwhelmed, close the tab, and tell yourself you'll start fresh tomorrow. You don't.

02WHY IT HURTS

The cost isn't the time.

This is the single most expensive ADHD-AI failure mode, because it kills work that was already 80% done. The cost isn't the lost time inside the thread — it's the abandoned momentum, multiplied by every thread you've abandoned. Cumulative.

03THE SIGNALS

Three ways you'll know you're in it.

Hook by hook. If you recognize even one of these in the last week, this is the failure mode that's costing you.

  1. 01You open the project and immediately click 'New Chat' instead of scrolling
  2. 02You retype the first prompt from memory, then delete it because it feels wrong
  3. 03You start reading old responses like they’re someone else’s writing
04THE CIRCUIT BREAKER

The protocol that breaks the loop.

DESKRUNE PROTOCOL · AFM-3

When you walk away from a Claude project, you must leave three anchors: 1) A one-sentence summary in the project title, prefixed with [STATUS]. Example: [STATUS: Waiting on client feedback] Client onboarding flow — draft v3. 2) A pinned note with exactly one action item and one person. Example: Sam: confirm if we’re using HubSpot or Notion for tracking. 3) A timestamped comment on the last response: 'Pausing here. Next: test output with real client data.' No fluff. No 'thinking'. Just the next physical step. This isn’t documentation. It’s a neural handhold. You’re not organizing. You’re building a bridge back to your own mind.

06CONNECTED FAILURE MODES

Often shows up with these.

AFMs cluster. If this one hits, the next two probably also do.

07TAKE IT DEEPER

Kits that solve this directly.

See the full library →

99YOUR PATTERN

Log a moment when this hit you.

Most ADHD-AI loops feel random until you can see them next to each other. Log a moment in the form below — intensity, time, AI tool, brief context. After three or more entries, you'll see your own pattern in the recap. Stays in your browser. Nothing is sent to us.

SIGNAL TRACKER · RE-ENTRY COLLAPSE

When did Re-Entry Collapse last happen?

You don't have to be precise. The point is to capture enough that the pattern becomes visible. Future-you reading this in three weeks will have something concrete to work with.

Often hits in the same week as AFM-3

Deskrune. For when you come back.