In this solo talk, Dr. Jameca Cooper, an adult‑diagnosed ADHD patient and clinician, presents concrete strategies to help adults manage ADHD symptoms. She frames the discussion within her 30‑Days of Radical Healing series and emphasizes that ADHD in adults requires distinct approaches from childhood ADHD. The core advice centers on two pillars: time management and task management. For time management, she recommends using planners or digital calendars with notifications, establishing consistent daily routines, and avoiding over‑scheduling by building buffer time. For task management, she advocates making visual lists, breaking large projects into smaller, time‑boxed steps, and incorporating built‑in breaks to sustain focus. Throughout, she shares personal experience, stresses the importance of structure for confidence and motivation, and invites viewers to engage with the series and share their own strategies.
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Hi, thanks for joining us. We are still in the middle of our 30 Days of Radical Healing. The purpose in doing this is to make sure everyone gets on track and stays on track for 2022. So by doing this, I intended to cover a lot of different topics. Make sure you check out the videos. Today we're talking about radical healing from ADHD in adults. Make sure you check out the part 1 video where we talked about what it might look like in adults. It's very important because ADHD doesn't look the same in children and adults. Today we're talking specifically about solutions. So I want to tackle some of the questions I get a lot from different people, patients all across the world when I'm traveling, doing seminars, workshops, sometimes when I'm teaching classes. So I want to jump right in and talk about the solutions. If you are an adult, or you know an adult that suffers from attention deficit disorder, then there are some things they can do to make their life a little bit more structured and easier to manage. One of those things, a big thing, is they have to get organized. Organization is key when you're dealing with individuals with ADHD. Ask me how I know, because I'm one of them. I was an adult who was diagnosed with ADHD after I had already been married and started my family. Not in a college, um, not in college while I was in college, not while I was in college, or not while I was in high school or elementary school, but definitely as an adult. So it kind of makes sense for me. I think back on lots of times when I struggled in school to pay attention, but it all makes sense now. So I have a really good idea about how this works because I've used it in my own life. So make sure you like the video and subscribe to this channel before we go much further. But so, solutions. First thing, getting organized. So how does a person with ADHD get organized? Two different things that they have to tackle, and they have to tackle them up front. One thing is what I call task management. T-A-S-K, task management. So you have to be able to manage your tasks. For a person with ADHD, this can be very difficult. Because tasks could be overwhelming to a person that can't or has a difficult time focusing. So one of the things that an individual with ADHD has to do is to make their life easier. They have to be able to manage the task. The other part of that is they have to make their life easier by managing their time. Both of these things are very difficult with individuals with ADHD because they don't have the, the skills that a person without this has in order to be able to just sit down, figure it out what they're going to do, and do it. So time management is key as well. So with time management, some of the tips that I have would be for you to, one, get a planner. If that's a hard copy planner, that works fine. If not, you can also do this on your phone through Google Calendar or Outlook or whatever calendar that you use. But it's very important that you schedule things that need to be done whether it's work or family, friend-related, but they have to be on your calendar. And I would also suggest you setting up notifications on those calendars so that things alert you via sound, vibration, or through email, because that will keep you on task regarding the time that you can spend throughout your day on these various things and how long you can spend on them. The other thing is to establish very clear routines. By routines, I mean you do the same thing every day. So every day between this time and this time, you do the same thing. Every day, um, between 4 and 5, you eat dinner. Every day between 8 and 9, you get dressed for work. Every day, if you keep routines, it's easier for you to figure out where you have gaps, number one, and it's also easier for you to get into the habit of sticking to a structure. Again, this is another challenge that individuals with ADHD have. So this could help in that area as well. The other tip I would say regarding time management is to not overschedule. Um, for individuals with ADHD, sometimes that means, let's say, if you put in your calendar, I'm going to drive to work, and it really only takes you 15 minutes to drive to work, what you should put in your calendar is 30 minutes. So give yourself more time so that you're not running into issues like traffic and then getting stressed. Because with individuals with ADHD, once they kind of get this first bolt of stress or anxiety having to do with not being on task or being behind in a task or not being able to focus enough, then it— that anxiety and stress then impacts the rest of their day and then impacts the other things that they need to do to the extent that they might not be able to do them as productively. So Time management is key. The second thing is task management. Task management is the other thing I was referring to. And in order to be successful as an adult in life and work and in family, you have to be able to set aside things that are objectives or goals that you need to achieve in a day and then complete them. So making lists is very important for individuals with ADHD so that they can keep track visually of what needs to be done in that day. So remember, I already said it's important to have a planner, but you also need to make lists. So let's say on your planner you have grade papers, right? So within that grade papers, your list in front of you on a sticky note could say grade papers from here, spend this much time on it, blah blah blah, also blah blah blah. So within one thing on your planner, you can have lists for smaller tasks within that. Also, a list could be a way for you to achieve some type of success during the day. That is very important for individuals with ADHD, whether that's an adult or a child. So in other words, you have on your task like, I need to grade papers, I need to go grocery shopping, I need to call blah blah blah. So as you complete these tasks, whether again if your list is tangible, in person or on your phone, you can check these things off and say that you did them. So that gives you some level of success or accomplishment. Very important because again, this fueling this belief in your head that you can achieve and accomplish goals and tasks, which is again, very important for individuals with ADHD. Other things that are important is to break larger projects and tasks into smaller pieces. So instead of saying, I must finish this project from work by Friday, Maybe what you should list is that I need to first write an outline for the project. I need to create the visual parts of the outline. I need to do the writing part of the outline. I need to proofread parts of the outline. All those would be different sections that you can then schedule on different days or at different times of the day. The reasoning behind this is that individuals with ADHD can easily feel overwhelmed. Because they're keenly aware of how difficult it is for them to concentrate, focus, and have sustained attention. So saying, "Oh, I must complete this project," could be quite overwhelming, and it could be the thing that makes the individual not want to work on the project. However, it looks better and feels better for an individual with ADHD to say, "Okay, I can do an outline today because that's only gonna take me 30 minutes. I can do the writing part, that's only gonna take me 1 hour.". So if I can break them down into chunks, it makes it more likely that I'm going to then work on it to accomplish the task. It's going to be less overwhelming. The other thing is to break your work into time, smaller times. So, and as opposed to, like I said, I'm going to finish this large project today and it's going to take me 8 hours. That rarely ever works with individuals with ADHD because that's too long of a time. They, it's just impossible for them to sustain attention. And be engaged and productive for that amount of time. So it's necessary that they work in smaller pieces. So maybe they work 1 hour in the morning and then take a break. Then they work 1 hour in the afternoon, noon hour, and take a break. They have to be able to give themselves built-in breaks so that they can continue and maintain their productivity and work, because it is difficult if you have ADHD. The brain does not work in the same ways that it works with everyone else. So you have to figure out how to manage your life given the issues or the diagnosis that you have. That doesn't mean anything is wrong with you. It just means you have to work differently. You can still work smart, you can still be productive, you can still accomplish lots of goals, but you have to do it using the strategies that you know will work best for you. So these are just a few of my strategies for how to achieve radical healing from adult ADHD. Remember, I know it because I live it. These are some things I tell my patients and these are some things I do myself. So make sure you tune in to more 30 Days of Radical Healing with Dr. Jameca Cooper. Also check out part 1 of the ADHD, um, video to get ideas on what it might look like. And like the video, subscribe, drop some comments on some other strategies that you might have that have worked for you. I'm interested in hearing more. Thanks.
