ADHD & AUDHD Why You can't do the thing...

Okay, and we are live on YouTube, and here we go, everyone else. Good morning, everyone. This is Danielle and Vida from ND Out Loud and all kinds of other places. I hope you're having an awesome Monday. We're talking about that if I just— if I buy that perfect planner, if I just got organized, if I just got to bed on time, if I just got up on time, if I just— This is the topic for today because rarely— okay, never, never. If you just got that perfect planner, it's not gonna actually help. Sorry. I mean, they might be pretty, but you're never going to see them for more than a couple of weeks. No.

I mean, it's shiny ball syndrome, right? We, we need the new toy because it's funny, I used to do that a lot. I'm like, oh my gosh, okay, I need to look at this person's method of X, Y, and Z because Like, you know, it's new. It's probably more efficient. And a lot of the time, I would get it and try to utilize it. And what I found was my way was better already. Like I was more efficient on it. For example, I know a lot of people out there really, really love Dave Ramsey and his financial method, like the envelope method, and like how He talks to people about organizing like their financial records in a file cabinet. So envelope system, sure, if that works for you. It's a ton of executive function. But when I was going through trying to organize my file cabinet like he said, it felt very wrong to me. And when I got done, I hated it. Because my way was actually better because I could find the things. That's the whole point. And then I, uh, that was for me the, the one where I was like, man, I like did all this time, I spent all this money just to figure out that my way was better.

And a lot of the times we think that if I just got up on time, if I just went to bed on time, if I just exercised a little more, if I just did this thing, or if I just bought this thing, or if I just Just found the perfect whatever. That's rarely the thing that actually what we need, like next to zero, it's not what we need. 99% of the time, it's one, understanding how our brain works and how we actually operate. I mean, we understand our brain is chaos. We all get that. How does your brain actually work? Are you a kinetic learner? Are you a visual learner? Are you an auditory learner? Are you a combination of those things? A lot of us are multisensory learners, and that's the thing that we have to learn is we can't just watch a video, we can't just read a book, we can't just listen, we can't just— we need multiple things. Or, or, uh, if I just had more time in my day, I'd get all of these things done.

That to me is the one. Okay, like, so all the other ones, it's like It's a it's a thing, right? It is uh uh it is a shiny ball. But when people are like, well, if I just had more time, and I'm like, you get 24 hours every day. That's it. And I need you right now to allocate at least eight hours for sleep. So uh you know so you really don't have 24 hours. You have 16 hours. And then we're going to in this. Like, my daughter has anxiety, so this, this like cuts her right to the core. And I'm like, and now of those 16 hours, like, what are non-negotiables? Like, you need to allocate some time to eat. So now you're down to 15 or 14 and a half. And when we start doing this takeaway method for things that are non-negotiable, what we figure out is that most of us have 5 hours a day that we need to be really efficient with those 5 hours. And that's allocating for sleep, for eat, or for eating, for, um, time with your kids or time with your spouse or time for self-care or whatever. It's like, so we're not working with like, if I just had more time, it's like, you have 5 hours. What can we do in those 5 hours? And most neurodivergent people can do like a month's worth of work in 5 hours if we are on track and efficient. Mm-hmm.

But it's not just about being on track and efficient because 99% of us there, we all have days that we can operate in our bubble and completely isolated in our bubble. But if you talk to a successful neurodivergent human, actually, if you talk to a successful human, I'm going to take neurodivergence completely out of this. If you talk to a successful human, how do they get things done? They have accountability and support.

100%.

And they rely on them heavily. So how do I get 2 businesses— well, technically 3 businesses worth of stuff done in my 5 hours every day? I have somebody who's on my ass to make sure I get things done every day.

Yeah.

And they— it's some days it's, it's literally kicking me. Other days it's saying, hey Danielle, did you remember Other days it's saying, hey, what's your structure for today? What's going on? And I tell them and they're like, okay, you're efficient today. You don't need to talk to me today.

Right.

And it's having somebody who gets my brain and understands that. It's, it's understanding myself enough to know that today is going to be an awesome day and I don't need anybody in my world and they better all leave me alone and just let me do my thing. And then there are other days where I'm like, red flag, help. I need all the help. Help, help, help. Somebody get on a body doubling call. I need body doubling 24/7 today.

Well, and I think for us, that's— that is our— I didn't need a shiny ball. I didn't need a new planner. I didn't need this. What I needed was someone in this— this is gonna go all over a lot of people. It's not— I don't need someone to hold my hand. I need someone to occupy the space with me. Mm-hmm.

I don't need somebody to tell me what to do. I don't need somebody to tell me how to do anything unless I ask. I need somebody to just sit with me.

Now, there are days when I'm very low executive function where I, I need a hand. I need someone to hold my hand. And it's not— it's like, I don't need you to, to take me to the task. I don't need you to help me do the task. I need you to be like, I'm so overwhelmed, I cannot see what task I need to do. Like, outside opinion, what do you think? And Danielle and I talk about it a lot. Like, do you have anything that is a deadline or a safety and a security concern? Because on days that you can't figure out your priorities, start with those. Do you have any of those? Those should be things that you knock off first, and then we can move to your second tier priorities.

And your third tier and your fourth tier, because we all have like multiple things that have to be done. We have the personal things, we have the day job things that brings the money in, we have the things to keep the humans in our lives alive, including ourselves.

I mean, yeah, you're one of them.

You are one of them. Um, and the other thing that we need to understand is we need different ways to do the same thing. That's the other thing that we need. We don't need a perfect planner, we need 6 planners.

Yeah.

We don't need the perfect pen, we need 12 different kinds of pens. We don't need the perfect lipstick, we need 9 of them. We don't need the perfect earrings or the perfect sweatshirt, or— there is no one answer. And there, especially if you're neurodivergent, and this is where neurodivergents and neurotypicals stray, a neurotypical person needs one planner, we need 6. We need them all undated so that we can go back and forth between them. That's, that's the one thing that we need is so that we can go back and forth. We need different textures, we need different sights, we need different sounds, we need different smells, and we need to be able to switch between all of these things. When I learned that me switching between the 6 different planners, or 20 different planners depending on my year, if I find what I like, I got so much more done. Yeah. Because I wasn't occupying brain space worrying about trying to make myself use a system that's not working for me today.

But it's leaning into it, right? It's like, um, so Danielle and I have a friend, Britt Solgan. She's your ADHD fairy godmother. And, uh, so She will occasionally just sing her thoughts, and I had repressed that part of my brain so much that when I started working with Britt and she started doing it— now I do it a lot because I had a friend that did it and the world didn't end and no one like got on to her. So I was like, oh my gosh, so this is the thing we can do now.

Yes.

And so I do. And my husband will tell me, he's like, oh, okay, we're having one of those days today. And it's like, yes, we're having one of those days.

For me, it was— I have— okay, so you can't see, it's off camera. This is a rolling cart that has 3 tiers full of stickers and stuff for a planner. I invested a ton in that, and then I felt like I could only do it that way. But then, but that requires me to design my planning pages every day and decide how they're going to look and all of that. Some days I just can't. I don't have the executive functioning skills. Other days I need the planner that is all set up for me so I can just fill in the blanks. Um, there are other days that I need to not use a planner at all, and I just need to stick to my Google Calendar because my Google Calendar has everything in it, and I don't need to reproduce it and waste the energy reproducing it and rewriting it down. There are other days I need Gina, my assistant, to tell me what to do every 5 minutes. I just needed to know that. And some days I want this kind of paper. Ah, good. Kelly is having a good dopamine day.

Woo-hoo!

Awesome. Love to see that. But there are some days I don't like the feel of this paper and I just want to write on a different kind of paper. I need a different kind of pen. I need a whatever, whatever. Kelly, you do have a Gina inside of ADHD Upgrade. Just ask for the help because we have a Gina that is available to everyone over there. And it's— there are days I just, I need a different experience. I need a different texture. I need a different sound. I need to light a candle in order to remind me that it's— this is a calm space. Other days I need to go outside because I need to be in the chaos of nature. What do you need today? What we actually need is very rarely the thing that we're trying to focus— hyperfocus ourselves into convincing ourselves we need. And when we're trying to convince ourselves we need something, it's the thing that's going to completely derail us and keep us from succeeding.

Mm-hmm.

And then the other part of it is understanding that we have a huge sensory piece that goes with all of this. There's a lot of sensory needs. If you are overwhelmed, if it is too loud, too bright, too smelly, not smelly enough, all of these things, your shirt is bothering you, your headband is bothering, whatever it is, if it's too much, your overwhelm is going to completely keep you from having success in the day. And 99% of the time, Our overwhelm, our sensory overwhelm is the thing that's keeping us from finding success with all of the things.

I have to go.

Okay. You— I hear you. Your Zoom is getting in. So I hope you all have an amazing day today. Let us know what you need. We're here to support you. You have an amazing day, everyone. Bye-bye. Thanks.