ADHD, Time Blindness and Procrastination with ADHD Coach Sharon Collon

Today I'm going to talk about ADHD with special guest Sharon Colon. Enjoy the show, Sharon. A huge welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

I am so excited to be here, James, thanks for having me on.

Oh, thank you so much. I'm really excited because I want to talk about something that's really everywhere around me, where I look at this point in terms of my family. You know, ADHD has came up a lot. So for those that know the words of the acronym, what actually is adhd?

ADHD is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It's actually a really crappy name. It doesn't explain what it is at all. People with ADHD do not have an attention deficit. They have plenty of attention. It's just that they can't control where that attention goes. And so it's more about attention preference or direction disorder. And I don't actually like the word disorder. It's a neurotype. It is not a disorder as such. And what we would. It's a different brain, different brain wiring. And there is three types recognized across the world and those types are inattentive. So they're our daydreamers, the people who have a lot of trouble with ignition or getting started. Much more quiet presentation. Then we have the hyperactive presentation. These are the guys that get diagnosed early. Guys and girls who get diagnosed early, they. They get that early intervention because you don't miss it. It's like my family, we're on the roof. We're on the roof. And then we have the combined presentation where we are both. And that is the most common presentation. It's also important to recognise that with that inattentive or hyperactive presentation, in all the presentations, that people can show their symptoms very differently or how ADHD displays for them very differently. So they might be hyperactive, it just might be hyperactivity in their brain. They might be looking like they are very calm, but inside their brain is going 100 miles an hour.

Okay, that's really interesting. It's odd. I'm speaking with a lot of people and I talk about ADHD a lot and autism. I'm curious about it and I get really frustrated with people going, oh, doesn't everyone have that nowadays? I'm like, oh, God, like, give me a break. It's not cool. And actually it's the fact that we've got more awareness, we've got more tools, more accessibility. One thing that you and I chatted about briefly before was the fact that a lot of people are being educated in short form through YouTube shorts. TikTok, et cetera. And misinformation is a reality on those platforms. We're not being educated by professionals, we're being educated by someone who's having fun. Very unprofessional, but we're taking it as gospel.

So.

So what do we need to know about looking for the signs? And I know it might be maybe different for men and women, but what are some of the signs that we would look out for to go, maybe I, or someone I love or someone on my team has adhd.

Yes. So we're looking for executive function challenges. So I operate off the Brown model of executive function. So when we. Executive function, essentially what the frontal lobe of your brain, what it uses to direct things like short term memory recall, task prioritisation, frustration tolerance, stress resilience, emotional regulation, activation, those sorts of things are all executive functions. And with adhd we know that those things can be impaired. Now, it's very individual because everyone has executive function challenges, but we know that consistently with adhd, we see those ones are more challenging and everyone is very individual in the level. Like they might be quite good at activation but have trouble with short term memory recall. So it's very individual as to how they display those challenges.

Amazing. And would you be open to questioning me or going through with me and asking me some questions about how I show up to see if you're like, actually, James, you maybe present some of these things?

Well, firstly, I'm not super qualified for that because I'm an ADHD coach, so we don't diagnose, but I definitely have a very good knowledge of adhd. So the difference I can explain what the professionals do is that that's helpful first. Yeah. Because I think that there's a lot of confusion around that and I find that people put their money in the wrong places. So what we do is we have the people who can diagnose. So in. In Australia at the moment, and I think it's the same in New Zealand, we have psychiatrists who diagnose in adults, developmental pediatricians that diagnose in children. And we are doing some reforms at the moment to see if gps can diagnose, because it's actually a very straightforward process. We have standardised testings and a diagnostic protocol for people that are going through. So we've got those three people, they're all the people that can diagnose. Some psychologists can also be trained to diagnose, but usually the pathways are psychiatrists and developmental peds. Then we have people that support people with ADHD and This is where you know, I'm a member of adpa, which is the ADHD Professionals Association. This is where ADHD coaching is seeing this massive boom at the moment. Now what an ADHD coach is trained in is specifically executive function challenges. So if you think of the psychologist as the why. So delving into and we absolutely need a great psychologist in our corner delving into what's underneath it, the emotional reasons, trauma that often comes along with adhd, all of that, that's psychologist. Now let's talk about the how. Okay, we can't get out the door in the morning. What are we going to do about it? This is a coach, okay, so we're the practical life skill stuff. And so we're not trained in trauma, although there are some coaches who are trained in both. We're trained in the how. Okay, how do we get out the door? How can we advocate for ourselves at work? How can we be on time? How can we manage our inbox? All of the things that can often cause little hiccups for people with adhd. So they are fantastic at their zone of genius. Now this is why we see so many incredible entrepreneurs and people in their zone that are just killing it with ADHD because their brain is an interest based brain. So this would be a great clue for you when you're thinking about whether you might have ADHD is the neurotypical brain is based on importance. The ADHD brain is based on interest and novelty. So here is our clear distinction. This is not a choice. Like the people are not just deciding that they want to focus on what they're interested in. Everyone has a lean that way way. This is recognizing won't from can't. So the neurotypical person can go, that's important. My boss told me to do it. I better do that because otherwise I'm going to get in trouble. I'm going to. Even though I don't want to do it, I still have the cognitive ability to override what my brain like what my want and get that task done. The ADHD can be, that can be harder for them because their brain wants to go to what they're interested in. So they probably find that they do the things that have that are new, novel, exciting that they know that they're good at the things that are easy for them and the things that they know that they're going to get praised for. This is a great clue for people in leadership positions. They will do those things first because they're more interesting or the things that they have intrinsic motivation to do because they're like, whoa, that thing looks cool. I'm going to do that thing and really struggle with the things that they're not interested in because their brain is just wired to go towards that interest and novel and anticipated piece.

Such important information, I guess just for the individual listening, but also for the person that has colleagues, team members or family members understanding how people are wired. And maybe when you're getting frustrated with someone because they're not doing the important things in your mind, actually it's because they're intrinsically driven to do something different and focus on what's novel, exciting, interesting.

And knowing that it's not a choice. They're not sitting there and going, you know what? I'm not going to do that report because I just don't want to. Because it looks like they don't want to. Right. But it's actually that their brain can't do it. So how can we make that task or break it down or make it interesting? And you can do different things. Like you can hack your environment, you can move, move desks, move to a coffee shop to go somewhere else. Like you can do things to make it more interesting, but recognizing that it is a, it is a can't, it's not a won't. So we've got to be able to support them to be able to get those tasks done. Now that's what, you know, an executive function ADHD coach is there for, to support them with that. How can we get. Because everyone has tasks in life that are boring and that aren't particularly interesting. How can we do it to help sparklines that task a little bit so that they can get it done? And we are so blessed in this.

This day and age because we have AI. You know, a lot of things we can put into AI, we can break it down into manageable steps. That was like base level ADHD knowledge. Like break it down into simple tasks, like little increments. Now we can just upload that task into AI and break that stuff down. Don't use your own brain power to do that. Sometimes people get so into making a plan, like let's make the perfect plan that by the time they go to do the task, they're too exhausted. Right, so outsource that stuff to AI. That's a tip. Tip number one.

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke spoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes. That's brilliant. So valuable. And I have to say, I use AI for that a lot. A hell of a lot. And for me personally, so I speak on stage a lot. And it's maybe some weeks, once a week, Other times it could be four days. In a week I'll be on stage. And for each of those are slides and I got to put slides together that are bespoke for the audience I'm speaking to.

And my God, do I leave those to the last minute. And I hate doing them and I know they're a very important part of what I do, but I absolutely dislike doing it and it gets left at the last minute. Email inbox. Absolute hot mess at 27,351 unread emails. And so over the last six months, I've been trying to figure out these things are important, how do I actually improve it? So, yeah, there's been certain things I've been doing that are helping a bit. And inbox, I'm fully delegating all of my emails to one of my team members and they've got beautiful folders and they say, james, this is the one folder you need to look at. We've responded to all the other stuff, but this one needs you. Okay. This is easy. I like it. So there's certain things.

Oh, sorry. I was just going to say when you said that, I just wanted to share with you a little analogy that I thought might be helpful. Is that okay?

Oh, please. Yeah.

So I have a way of looking at the ADHD brain and this might help you in your journey, but also for the people listening about recognizing that, you know, the different brain modes. So I found that for my family because we've got ADHD all through the family and we've got autism, Tourette's, ocd, odd, like all of the letters. Right. It's all. There's a lot going on. I found that what was happening is when I was supporting people with ADHD and when I was my own children and they were dysregulated in front of me and nothing Dysregulates. You like your own children as well. I knew so much information about adhd, but I couldn't recall it when I was stressed. And this would happen in the workplace. So much you can know about ADHD and you can know how the brain is wired, but then when something's frustrating in front of you, you can't access it. So what I did is I pictured above my kids and my beautiful people with adhd, their heads, you know, pinball arms.

This is my analogy. You're not going to find this in textbooks. This is a charism. And I'm fully aware that ADHD is much more complex than this. It's just what my simple brain needed to be able to recall it in the heat of the moment. So we have three modes. So we have open. Now, this is that interest based brain model. This is when we're in flow, we're able to access, get through the emails, get through the tasks. We're able to do it. And this is interest. What opens it? Interest, novelty, anticipation. The sense that they like, the sense that they're doing well. Asking questions opens it. Allowing being asked questions and allowing them to ask questions. This is why in a work meeting, if you say hold your questions to the end, you're kind of putting the stop on all the, you know, the person with ADHD then has to think about remembering that question. So it can be tricky. So, you know, having some good frameworks around that. But the one that you mentioned there was with the slides was urgency. Now urgency is a key ADHD strategy and a lot of people leave the task to the last minute because they're waiting for open brain. But all of a sudden that urgency kicks in and now we can get the task done because we've gone into open brain mode and now urgency. And knowing that a lot of my clients work in emergency services, so hospitals, police, fire brigade, like all of those things where the urgency, open brain, we are in the zone. That's who you want in your corner when stuff's going down, right? Like if there's a huge drama, a PR drama in your company or something like that. Get that people with ADHD and they are built for that stuff, right? But what closes it is interesting. Closing it, negative emotion closes it. Now this is the tricky one, pressure, pressure and overwhelm. Now pressure is different to urgency. Urgency is open brain, pressure is closed. So things like negative emotion, negative feedback, overwhelm, boredom, monotony, these are the things that close it. So when we're talking, when we're working with someone with a closed brain, and I can see it like I picture their flippers closing. What do we get taught to do from a leadership perspective when someone's shutting down in front of you now, shut down can be quiet, like we're just not opting in now. Or it can be loud, as in a meltdown or someone yelling or becoming dysregulated. We get taught to push harder, right? So we start. What are you doing? What you're doing? Nothing. What are you doing? You got to get moving. This task is, we've got to get doing it. Like, what are you doing? Like, we get taught to push. And when you push against a closed brain, you are pushing that person into freeze or form, like it's not going to go well. And they are dysregulated. And dysregulated moments are not teachable moments. So they're gone into their monkey brain, into their amygdala, they're offline. So anything that happens after that, who knows? You're not going to get quality work out of those people. And so it's important to know about the flippers. So we've got open, close and then we've got neutral where it's neither open or closed. That's our habits, you know, like driving. You're not really thinking about it, kind of into it. Therefore, that's where we want to get to with those repetitive tasks. So we're not opting into actual engaged brain or closed brain. But it's important to know that as a leader, if you can, if you know that you're working with people with ADHD and they have been vulnerable enough to disclose that with you. We want to glean into those open brain strategies as much as possible because what a gift to have someone sitting there with open brain with those beautiful strengths of adhd, like creative thinking, like, you know, being able to do pattern recognition and all the things that people with ADHD can do that by far excel, the neuro, you know, excel beyond what a neurotypical person is capable of to use that to your advantage. You just got to know about the flippers and when they are closed. Because people can be dysregulated on any given day. Everyone can. We know not to push. We don't push against a closed brain. We look at what we can do to throw an open brain strategy to support that individual and that's how we can get the best out of our team.

That's beautiful. And in terms of helping to regulate. So I imagine if they're dysregulated it's probably our job to help them regulate by being regulated ourselves.

Dysregulation is contagious. Think of it like chickenpox. Okay. It's common. So if one person is dysregulated, it is almost impossible for them to help another person regulate. So what we want, we want our team and we want the people that we work with to have solid regulation strategies, whether you're neurotypical or.

Neurodivergent. So what we want is everyone to know what those are. Now don't ask the person what their regulation strategy is when they're dysregulated because in monkey brain they don't know. They don't know. So these are good conversations to have in those team meetings. Not as like you have adhd, you need regulation strategies. Right. As in everybody needs regulation strategies. So for a lot of people that I work with, some great ones are having ice in your water. If you can have drinks with that are really, really cold, it brings it to a mouthfeel. Using your senses to your advantage can really help just bring things down a notch, you know, always don't be afraid to say it. I'm going to go away now and get back to you. I'll come back to this. We'll circle back around or I need to go to the bathroom. Go to the bathroom. Go regulate, you know, have some. Remove yourself from the situation. Earphones, noise canceling earphones, loop earplugs are great, you know, sensory tools. I worked with a beautiful lady that in a business meeting she was told to stop fiddling with a pen. Now she, they were like, can you just stop that? That's very distracting. But that's what she was using to regulate and doodling on the, on the notes. It looks like they're not paying attention. That's what they're doing. That's open brain. We're doing that to stay engaged. Same with, you know, any of the open brain things like asking questions. We want to allow that to happen. If we stifle that, we're then putting, we could be putting them into closed brain unintentionally.

That's so helpful. Yeah. My partner in the last year or so had been diagnosed with autism and nobody had really noticed it before. And very high performer in sport and academia. Ran multiple venues in hospitality. So like people like, you know, there's no signs but then lots of stimming and I didn't realize what it was. But as you say, like fidgeting with things and you know, at night, rather Than watching TV would be doing other things, whether it's crocheting or like being actively moving. So it's been fascinating for me to understand it a bit more and learn and the more I know, the more I see it around me. So each week I'm meeting thousands of humans, some from stage and some in smaller settings. And I'm seeing more and more of the stimming, these different activities that people are doing to literally just function in our neurotypical world. Because the world does not really set up to be neurodiverse friendly yet. I hope that that changes. But what do you think about ADHD as a spectrum in terms of some people might have that hyper focus, others might be slightly different. Like for me, there's certain things I do and I don't know if it's adhd, but I would lose my keys. My genuinely don't know where my keys are. 7 to 10 times a week I would leave the house without something incredibly important like my laptop. I would get to the airport and realize she's. I've left my passport at home. Like I just do it constantly and I get really frustrated with myself and I try and put things in order to remember, but other things just come up that are, I think, higher priority and I forget about those things, you know, Is that normal on adhd? Would that show up for an ADHD person?

Yes, because, well, what you're describing there is a whole series of very boring tasks, right? And those things aren't interesting. Remember your whole brain, like if it's adhd, your whole brain is geared towards interesting. You're not thinking about stupid keys and passports and stuff.

Even though important to my radar, like who cares?

It's not important. So your brain is going to what's interesting and deemed important by you, right? Not externally by you. And so it's very, very tricky. So this is that third mode of the flippers. This is that habit. If you've got a pro, if you've got, if you're experiencing a challenge that happens repeated a repeated challenge, right? Then that is a good sign that we need systems around it and structure around it. So this is not like, oh, okay, some generic advice that you read in a book or some advice where you see on Instagram where they're like, I have adhd, I lose my keys like all the time like this. What like, you know, that stuff. We need a system that works for you. And how do we know it uniquely works for you? Well, we don't tell you what it is. We ask you for clues for what it is, we look at the executive function in that particular piece that is causing that challenge and then create some experiments around it to work out what we can do to make that easier for you. So a challenge that comes up day in, day out is what I call a predictable problem. Right? So it's predictable. We know that that's something that happens a lot. And so that is, to me, it's neutral, right? It doesn't mean anything bad about the person. It's not, it's morally neutral. It just means it's just a little sign. Hey, we need some scaffolding around this and that's perfectly easy. Systems and scaffolding, environmental changes and those sorts of things that we would throw at something like that. That's the easiest, that's the low hanging fruit, right? But we want to check in with that individual about what would work for them. So this is why when we're talking about even workplace accommodations.

We see a lot of the time that workplaces want to be inclusive and we want to.

Be open minded to accommodations, but we don't actually consult the individual about what those accommodations would be. So we go, you know, we're very inclusive. We have fitballs for chairs and you know, we offer noise cancelling headphones and you know, and breakout spaces and blah, blah, blah, blah. But we haven't actually consulted that individual as to whether that accommodation suits their brand of, of their brain. And we've got to be able. That's why coaching, you know, for workplaces and for that individual is so important because. And also I want to flag that an accommodation is an accommodation if it's given as a punishment or with shame around it. So we've had circumstances where someone's gone, you know, you need to go to the breakout space.

That not an accommodation. That's shame. That is. So we've got to make sure that we're consulting the people about what they actually need, what's useful for them and what they also feel comfortable with. Because they might not feel comfortable asking for a break or doing something in public maybe that makes them, they don't want everyone to turn around and look at them. So it's always going back to that individual seeing people as, as unique beings and how can we get the best out of that person? Because everyone has such a unique set of skills. And so we're about maximizing those skills and being able to support them to do the best work they absolutely can in that environment.

And hearing curiosity being such a key part of this leaning in asking Questions. And I guess a lot of people be listening, going, okay, performance, let's get down to result. If we're running a team or a business, sporting or in the corporate world, you know, we want results. And so I guess my question is, through your work, have you seen that when people are led and coached really well, taking into the fact, you know, that there's neurodiversity across our teams, does that improve performance?

100%. Absolute 100%. Like, give projects a deadline for starters. Like, let's go for urgency, let's use it. It's an exhausting strategy and you definitely don't want it to be your only ADHD strategy. But it is a strategy, right? It's a solid one. Break down tasks and play to your team's strengths. So when I strength test every single one of my clients so I know what their strengths are and I can tell you consistently, for people with adhd, the top, usually in the top five strengths comes up with love of learning, kindness usually ranks very highly, and sense of fairness and justice. We like things to be fair. Okay? So find out what your team's strengths are and play to those. So if you've got someone whose key strength is love of learning, let them do the research part. Like, let them engage them about the why. Now, knowing that there's different processing modalities, so people process information differently. Some people auditory, Some people have to move like they're kinesthetic. Some people are conceptual. So for the conceptual learners and people with adhd, usually, and people can be more than one, are conceptual and kinesthetic and verbal. They have to talk it out. So you might have that conceptual piece. This is explaining why we're doing it, why this project is doing. They have to understand the why.

What is it that makes this project so important? Why have you chosen them to be a part of this team and what the outcome is like, what are we working towards as a team? Get them excited about the team. And this goes for all your team players. Explain. I think sometimes we're so in the doing that we forget to explain to our team members why it matters. Let's go for that intrinsic motivation and why it matters to them. You know, not why it matters to the company, but why it matters to them. What's their role? Like, how are they going to be a key figure in this? And then, you know, playing to the individual strength, you know, if their love of learning. Let's put them on the research, let's get them to discover, you know, why this would be the best part of that puzzle for them. And so, you know, really analyzing those things when we're giving those instructions. If you've got a kinesthetic learner and they need to move to be able to process the information, just let them move. Like sitting still is not a sign of respect. Because if they're sitting still and they're a kinesthetic learner, they're not listening anyway. So let them move. Like, you know, be a bit freer in our, in our boardrooms to be able to do that. If they need to stand up at the back and, you know, walk around. As long as it, as long as it's not getting in the way of anyone else learning, who cares? Let's, let's let it go because they, you will get the best out of all your team members and the best results in terms of performance. And it also might be really good when we're talking about performance specifically is to really go in those sprints. So if you're breaking a big project down, sprint it out. So let's go for. This is phase one. This sprint is due. Then activate urgency. Right. Then this sprint is here. Activate urgency. And another really key strategy is body doubling. So body doubling is when you do a task along with someone else. So matching someone with, you know, a group or another person that they work well with to do, they don't even have to be doing the same task. They're just working alongside each other. So go up into the meeting room, you guys work on that bit. Don't have to talk, but just get that bit done. Is a really nice way of activating open brain strategy. Because it's.

I see that in high performing sales individuals, they do a lot of body doubling where they procrastinate on sales calls. Unless they have another person that's doing sales calls alongside with them. And then, okay, you do yours, I'll do mine. We'll check in in an hour. It's really interesting watching that unfold.

And if you can do it in a non, like a non competitive way, but also like making it, gamifying it a little bit. So if you're doing sales calls, you know, having some sort of gamification, like after five, you know, we eat Maltesers or we go and get coffee or, you know, something like that, you know.

To.

Make it more exciting and more novel. I've had doctors clients that have gotten through their whole medicine degree based on Maltesers. Like the power of the Malteser shouldn't be ignored.

I love that. So interesting.

My book came out a couple of months ago. And I was reflecting on the journey of writing it, and obviously a pretty big journey, but as you're explaining what you just did, it was in sprints. And it was like, okay, James, first draft needs to be here in three months. Awesome. Every morning, 5am I'm in this very room that I'm in right now, and it's just me, two or three hours, bang. Like, awesome. Then that time came, I submitted it, and there was just silence for months so I could go and do other stuff and forget about the book. And then all of a sudden, hey, James, our editors have looked at it. Here's the next round. And so for the next three months, with a deadline, boom, I was back on it. So I do think that having specific goals, timelines, rewards, think that's how I operate. For sure. That's the only way I can make it through.

And it's also worthwhile. Like, when people talk about goal setting, really painting the picture of what it's going to look like when it's finished. So having a very clear picture in your mind, as I'm sure you would have done when you were writing your amazing book. And I've read it, it's amazing. By the way, I absolutely loved it. When you're picturing, I'm sure in your mind you had a picture of what it was like and what. What an actual physical book would be like and what it would be like to launch it and talk to people about it. And the sense of pride, like, really delve deep into that sense of pride and accomplishment that you would have had from writing that book. If you have that vision at the start, it is so much easier to deal with all the stuff that comes along the way. We're really making that conceptual piece quite. And the why very strong, 100%.

And the visualization is huge. And I literally did sit, visualize, meditate what it was going to look like, the color of the COVID seeing it in people's hands. And so that definitely helped, you know, bring it to life. And so it's really interesting. And for the person that's listening right now, one, I'm going to encourage them to go and do CliftonStrengths. You mentioned about strengths. I'd love them to go and do that. So I'll put a link in the show, but with people that want to get a diagnostic, not go clinical yet, but just kind of get a diagnostic online to see do I have some symptoms. Is there anywhere you would recommend they go to do that?

I think the best thing is to.

Go to a psychiatrist online test and.

Go straight to the look. I think it's a very hard test to get a wrong result on. There's some things that look like adhd, right? Like sleep challenges can look like adhd, trauma can look like adhd. There's a few things. But I think if you're suspecting it and you think that it might align with what's going on for you, then the power of knowing it. And people go, oh, I don't want the label. Right?

Yeah.

And I am so anti that because I think that it's been my experience from working with adults with ADHD that they gave themselves a label and it is a lot more nasty than adhd. They've called themselves lazy, stupid, dumb.

They almost grieve when they get their ADHD diagnosis because they have. They recognize that things could have been a lot easier for them had they given themselves some grace or some compassion or known how to make their different brain work for them. Because executive function skills are. Picture them like a muscle, right? You. You have adhd. It is like say to the listener, you have adhd. It's genetic, Right. So chances are your parents probably had it or your grandparents probably had it. Right? It's genetic. And imagine if you had different ways of building executive function skills to make it work for you. You have the brain you're born with. Absolutely. But you can also develop skills around it. Executive function skills are like a muscle. You can build them so you can make it work for you. And the individuals that I see that build their executive function skills and are able to advocate themselves, because we don't necessarily need people to tell us what accommodations that we should have, but are able to say, hey, I'm working on this project. This is what I need to succeed. Most companies are like, yeah, you can do that if you're going to succeed on this, like, we'll give it to you. Right. Most of these things are very simple. So they have the ability to advocate for themselves and they have really strong systems in place that work for them. There's no limit to what they can do. Right. They will, like the sky is the limit. Right. They can outperform us. They have that hyper focus. They can do things that are absolutely incredible. But we also need to have that executive function skill development. Even medication is not enough in terms of ADHD management. It definitely helps level the playing field, but the pills don't give you the skills. You still need to do executive function skills training. You need to have those how it relates to you so you can build those skills. And unfortunately, because of how ADHD has been treated historically, a lot of the parents that we're modeling off and a lot of the information, we just didn't know then what we know now. So the good news is there's so much we can do and get excited about. And that label is the opening of a door to go, okay, now I can go and discover what those things are and make it work for me and use it to my advantage. You only have to look at how many truly like, incredible sports people, celebrities, business people, like, they're absolutely killing it with ADHD because these are the people that have worked out how to make it work for them.

Amazing. And Sharon, for those that know that they've got adhd, they've been clinically diagnosed, have you got a tool or anything that could help them in terms of the executive functioning side of things?

I've got so many. The first thing I would recognize is I offer free 15 minute chats to everybody and whether they can work, whether I'm the right fit to work with them or not. I'm not really that interested in that. Like I care about that, but that's what I'm interested in, people getting the right support at the right time where they need it. And so I've got a great network because I'm a member of ADPA and things that I will direct people to the right people. So we've got psychologists, we've got psychologists that have a good understanding of adhd, psychiatrists, coaches, you know, all of the people that are properly trained. And it is very important when you're talking about this that you go for someone who is credentialed with the International Coaching Federation has done ADHD specific training because it is so nuanced. We really want our people to be, you know, have the right training, but I will support them. You know, I want, I actually genuinely care for our community that we're getting the right support at the right time and not putting our money where it's not going to make that impact because you only have to look at Facebook ads and I'm sure our algorithms are all like, there's a lot of quick fixes out there, right? You know, essential oil patches and all sorts of stuff that are going on. Don't waste your time on any of that. Just bring it back to executive function skill building every day of the week. So I'm really happy to support them. And you know, there's, there's so many resources. If I could just name A really quick one in terms of task management, an activation. So the base level of ADHD is break it down into smaller tasks. And you know, like, we get that as a. Everyone knows that. But that can feel like another job. Okay. And it can also exhaust you and stop you from getting the task. It can be a barrier. So there is a tool called Goblin Tools. It's free, online, on your phone. You can put the task in. So say if we choose something benign like clean your room right now, that is a very ambiguous instruction because, number one, what's clean means different to different people. It's also because people with ADHD suffer from time awareness challenges. So how long does that take? Is it a minute, an hour, two hours, five days? Like, who knows? So it's ambiguous. And we like our task to have a definite end. Okay. So if you're giving a task for someone with adhd, that's another clue. Give it a definite end due date or an end. So you can put it into Goblin Tools and then keep breaking it down based on what you're doing. Brain needs. So you can do that for work too. That's using AI specifically for your advantage. You can do it for even your morning routine. You can put it in there and it'll just break it down for you as much as you need. And you can even do time estimations and so you can get excellent data on how long things actually take. Because it's my experience that people are either time optimists or time pessimists. So I'm a time optimist. So you can say, hey, Sharon, you've got two hours. And I was like, in two hours, I absolutely can click, do all of this task, clear all my inbox. I can bake a cake. I'm doing all of this stuff in two hours and I genuinely believe it. And then you've got the time pessimist who's like, oh, that's going to take, like, that's going to take five days, so I better not start.

That's me. I'm the pessimist. My partner is the time optimist. She thinks you can do a million things. I'm like, that's not happening. Like, no. For me, if someone says, hey, James, so how long will that thing take you? When will you be done so that we can go and do the thing? And I'm like, it drives me nuts, almost. The frustration in me, like, I have no idea. This could. I could be done in three minutes or it could be three hours, I don't know. How to communicate that to them. Like, guys, just leave me alone to do the thing. I'll be done when I'm done. I find it very, very difficult to go that task will take me this length of time.

Well, it's that frame of reference. So it's some people who are time blindness. I actually don't like that term. I think it's time awareness. So you don't have the frame of reference sometimes because of short term memory recall, you know, remembering how long it took us last time, we're not able to access that in the moment. But thinking about like the only solution to the time optimist or the time pessimist is data. Like we want to track how long things actually take. So if you've got a morning routine and you know you've got to be work at 9, the neurotypical brain would sequence backwards, right? So we've got to be at nine, takes half an hour to get there. We've got to like have a shower with sequence backwards. The ADHD brain is interest based. So we're like, what is interesting, we're not thinking about sequencing. We have a bit of trouble with sequencing backwards. So the answer to that is data. We need to know for repetitive tasks, how long they actually take. Because we need to have that down somewhere so we can start getting better at estimating the things that are repetitive and we can actually use that for planning our day a little bit more. That is the antidote to that chronic lateness. Because we want to have skills around that. Because we don't want to live constantly like we're letting someone down or we're in rushing energy, because rushing energy, pressure, closed brain, you're going to put yourself into fight or flight every time. So knowing that about you and knowing that you're a time pessimist, there's a little bit of activation in there too. Okay, how can we get started? Because sometimes once you get started you go, oh, that was only like five minutes.

That literally happens all the time. I'm like, actually, I'm really sorry, Caroline. That literally took me three minutes. I thought it would have been an hour. Sorry. It's all sorted. So yeah, that happens frequently.

So that can be an activation thing and that can push you into procrastination. So the answer to that is data. The other thing is that old productivity device advice that people used to get give us would like eat the frog, you know, do the hardest thing first. ADHD wise, ADHD specifically, do not do the hardest thing first. Okay, so that's that's doomsday. Do the quickest, easiest, funnest thing first get the ignition. So we talk about ignition and momentum. So ignition is getting started, momentum is keeping going. Get the ignition, get over the barrier of ignition and then you will more likely keep going. And if you want to remove pressure, put a timer on and go, I'm just going to do this thing for five minutes and if after five minutes I want to stop, that's cool, I can stop. I've got permission to stop after five minutes. It's often taking away some of that pressure so you can get ignition to keep going.

That's awesome. That's so helpful. Look, Sharon, I want to be mindful of your time and space, but if someone's listening right now going, actually, yeah, I would love to a discussion with you, a 15 minute conversation or I would love to check out what you do. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Awesome. So my website is thefunctionalfamily.com I've got a podcast called the ADHD Families Podcast. And if you are looking for a credentialed ADHD coach, there is a website called ADHD Coaches Australasia that is where you will find all the credentialed coaches who are specifically trained in this area. You cannot get on that directory without the. It's also good if you're working with someone to check that they're on that directory to make sure. And also, yeah, I have a free thing you can book in the call. You know, we can discuss what you're looking for and I can always help direct you in the right places because I think it's very important for people to feel supported and to feel seen when they have adhd. And I think it's kind of.

Sort of brushed away these days, like, oh, everyone's got like, like you said that feedback of, oh, everyone's a bit ADHD or you know, like it's coming, becoming a bit of a throwaway line at the moment. But know that it is significant and that people do need it can, it can web you like, it can absolutely cause big disruptions to your life. It can also be the best thing that ever happened to you. Right. So we want to help people feel supported with the right support so that they can go, okay, this, now I get it, it's falling in line for me and now I can use it to my advantage. So I love, I absolutely adore hearing from people that, you know, need support and also hearing back from my clients about the amazing things that they're doing because it lights me up. I mean, I'm lucky I get to live it every day but also be trained in it. So I think one day my kids are going to write a book about me and it's not going to be very complimentary, like weird strategies mum made us do because I get to experiment on every everything with my family. But what, what we're doing is just approaching everything with that really nice, curious mindset of. That's interesting. I wonder if this will work and, and discovering what works for that individual.

That's really powerful. Sharon, I want to thank you just so much for taking the time to share your expertise. I'm going to encourage the listener right now to connect in with you, particularly if they've got ADHD or even if they're curious to find out do I have it, they can have a call with you. You be able to direct them to the right person. And please keep up with your great work. I'll make sure we put a link into your podcast as well for those that might want to go and listen to it.

Thank you. And I also forgot to mention before that if workplaces are interested in doing PD sessions or, you know, getting some more information around this in terms of their workplace, I'm very happy to support them with that as well, because I think that the more knowledge we have around this and the more practical action steps that we have around this, the better.

Yeah, I'm with you on that 100%. Hey, Sharon, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me.