50 ways to focus (and some gift ideas to help with that) when you're an ADHD entrepreneur

Hey, new listener. Thanks so much for checking us out. And there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on. Don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel. Squirrel. In this episode, we're talking about 50 ways to focus. Wait, no, who has time for 50? We're talking about five ways to focus when you're an ADHD entrepreneur. Squirrel. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the Weenie cast. Squirrel. When I was planning this episode, I was super excited to share 50 ways for you to focus as an ADHD business owner. But then I remembered, wait, we have adhd? That's way too many items. We don't have the attention span for that. I don't have the attention span to make that list, and you do not have the attention span to listen. So we're going to do the top five. One of the most common questions I get from my clients, from people who follow me on social media, and from you, my listeners, is how do you focus when you have ADHD and you run a business? Right? Because one of the things about having ADHD is we thrive in structure, but we massively suck at creating it for ourselves. And when you run a business, guess who's creating the structure around that? You are. And so finding different ways to focus becomes your new holy grail adventure. And the shitty thing about it is that what helps you focus will change over time. Right? Because we also need variety. And so what works for us for maybe three months will have an expiration date. At one point, it'll stop working and we have to switch tactics, which is why I'm giving you five. And because we are coming up on the holiday season, we'll have some great holiday present ideas for you and your ADHD family members and loved ones. So listen to the end so that you can hear that list. As I go through this list, I've heard from a lot of listeners that you're using a lot of the tips that I use for yourself and also for your kids. So I'm going to be giving you what works for you and also what will work for the little humans that live in your house as well, if they have adhd. What I share here, I'll also be sharing, like, how I did it as I was growing up, you know, through middle and high school and college, I didn't take any Medication. I found strategies that helped me focus, get through classes, get A's in some classes, Cs in others. But by using some really simple techniques, that really helped me get down to work. And so I'm gonna share those with you as well. And after having said that, the first one probably won't work for your kids, the first tactic for you to focus better as an ADHD business owner is to do some body doubling. Body doubling can look like a lot of different things. So for a lot of people, it's like a co working session. For others, it's just having someone else in your space while you're getting work done. You know those movies and those TV shows where like the main character at some point, like realizes that they have to get their life together, so they invite their girlfriends over and they clean out their closet with their friends there? I remember this scene specifically from Sex and the City that I'm actually convinced that is an ADHD thing. Right? Because how many times have you tried to do a household activity like cleaning out a closet or organizing your kitchen and alone you only get so far. And usually you get to the point where you've made the biggest possible mess that you possibly could and then you get tired and you're like, oh no, there's no going back. And also, I've lost all of my executive function to continue this project. One of the things that can really help you push through in those scenarios is by having a friend around. And they don't even necessarily have to help. They could literally just be there playing on their phone, having a glass of wine while you are doing everything that you need to do in your kitchen. But it makes a massive difference. You have company, you have. You have someone there who's almost holding you accountable to getting it done. Now the perk to having a friend over while you're doing this is like they're gonna feel like a dick if they don't actually help you. So you will ultimately get some help. But I wanna give you full permission to ask your friends to do this with you. And you can lure them over with cheese plates, wine, chocolate. You can put a movie on for them like they're a toddler that you're trying to keep occupied while you're doing something. And then you get to have a movie on in the background as well. You can even invite several friends over. I used to do this when I lived in San Francisco and I needed to meal prep. I would invite a friend or two over for dinner and I would cook dinner, but I would also cook a lot of the dinner so that I would have enough for my lunches for the next few days. It made all the difference. It made it so much more fun and it really kept me to a routine for the period of time that it worked for me. Cause like I said, it had an expiration date like most things, the other way that I've done body doubling in the past is I've reached out to friends who I know are also working on their businesses and I've asked them do you want to do a co working afternoon or a co working Sunday? And we decide on whoever's house has the biggest dining room table or the the most comfortable places for you to to sit down and the strongest wi fi and everyone brings their laptop and whatever things that they're working on and you hang out for a little bit, you maybe grab lunch and then you sit down and you do work. One of the best parts of this co working session is that whenever you have an idea or you're not sure about something, you can pop your head out of your laptop and you have a bunch of people around you who are also doing work but are also open to helping you talk through it. To make this effective for folks with adhd, you don't want the session to be too short. You want to give it at least three hours of actual work time so that you can really get into focus and get those creative juices flowing. You also have the option for doing body doubling virtually and this is actually something that we have in the Hyperfocus membership is one Friday a month from 1pm to 4pm Eastern Standard Time on one Friday each month. And if you're curious about joining the Hyperfocus membership, then I want you to go to the link in the show notes and submit your name and email so that you can be on the short list to be notified first when we open the doors again we have a co working session and in this co working session you're on zoom and you check in in the beginning, you tell everyone what you're going to be working on and then we go off camera and off audio and work for basically the full three hours. And at the end we check in and tell everyone what we accomplished, we celebrate and then we go on with our day. The fun thing about body doubling is that you can actually do this without other people knowing by going to coffee shops. One of the things that I notice that works best for me is when I go to work in a coffee shop or even in a pub, it has to Be busy enough that you can't overhear and understand other people's conversations, right? Because if you're trying to think of how to say something and you're typing something up, but you have someone, like, complaining about their ex spouse sitting next to you and, like, that's all you can hear, you're not going to be able to focus on the thing. You're going to be eavesdropping on their gossip, which, I mean, no, shame on that. If you want to eavesdrop, you know, eavesdrop your heart out, but it won't help you do a lot of work. So you want to find the place that either has really bad acoustics for people having conversations and so there's a lot of ambient noise, or that's fairly quiet but has other people, you know, present. Now, I mentioned before that this is one of the few that will probably not work for your kids. And this is because your kids. And I'm speaking specifically about homework. No, kids want to do homework, especially kids with adhd. You put them in a setting with their friends, and they're not gonna do shit. They're gonna mess around. They're gonna find a way to avoid doing the work. And I'm sorry, kids, for outing you on this, but I've been there, and it just doesn't work. One thing that you could do if you're a parent and you have your own business and there's work that you need to do, is maybe you could do some coworking with your kids. Now, the only struggle here is you're gonna have to take a, like, that part of your brain that wants to nag them to focus and do their thing. You're gonna have to push that part of your brain to the backseat, right? And really focus on your work. One of the things that will help this be less about you making them do their homework is you get to ask them, hey, you know, I actually have this big project to work on, and I work better when I'm working along with someone. You know, do you want to do a coworking session? And do it in a way where they feel like this is a bonding experience where they're helping you as their parent and also getting to do some work themselves so that they don't have to do their homework later. This doesn't work for all kids, but it works for some. The next item on our 50 Focus Tips cut down to 5 Focus Tips list is moving while you work. Unless you've been living in a cave for the last year, you will have seen a ton of social media videos of people working at their standing desks while walking on one of those treadmills. Now, it seems silly, but this is something that really does help people who have ADHD focus more. When I was in seventh grade, I had this geography teacher who was a major hard ass. Did not care about making any of the topics interesting or easy to learn. All she cared about was us memorizing the capitals of countries and different geographical locations, whatever. It was really fucking boring. And I got. I like, failed or got a D on the first two tests because it just. I couldn't get myself into the mode of actually memorizing what she wanted me to memorize. Now, after talking to a couple people who were in the grade ahead of me who'd been in her class, I figured out a couple different strategies that would help me learn better. So, first and foremost, I got colored index cards. And not just like the pastel ones, the bright neon ones. Second, I went out and I bought, or I didn't buy. I was in seventh grade. My parents bought one of those little, like, tiny stepping machines that you don't really move that much, but, like, your legs are moving. We then bought a music stand that I would have right in front of me and I would go through my flashcards with the maps right in front of me and these index cards so that I can memorize information. Now, this is something that I urge you to do with your children if they have a really hard time memorizing stuff or if they have any work that they need to do that they really struggle to sit down and do. As an adult who runs my own business, oftentimes when I'm on the phone with my clients, I'm walking around my kitchen island. Other times when I'm brainstorming different programs, I want to roll out different freebies I want to create. I'll actually set up a bunch of papers and pens on the floor with my yoga mat and I'll be stretching. And as I stretch, I'll just kind of let the ideas come to me and mid stretch, I'll get an idea. I'll stop stretching because, you know, sometimes it's dangerous to write stuff while you're in a certain position. And I will make note of whatever the idea is and then I'll go back to stretching. You know, this is a great way to take care of your body at the same time as you're doing work. And I'm convinced that sometimes, like, ideas are locked in those knots that you have in your Muscles. And sometimes you just need to, like, roll them out or stretch them out. And all of a sudden the idea is like, hit your bloodstream and you have them and. And you can just run with them. Moving while you're working is absolutely essential to doing your work well. We operate best when we're in motion. The third item on this list is music. You want to find the right playlist for you to do a specific task. I've actually found some really interesting ways to do this. So, like, if you're reading something that's kind of boring, but you have to do for work, find some music that the theme kind of goes along with what you're talking about or what you're reading about, you know, and this is great for your kids, too. So say they have to read a fantasy novel for their English class and they're really not into it because they're not interested in fantasy at all. But find a soundtrack from Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or another fantasy movie and make a playlist with on Spotify with only the ones that don't have any vocalizations. Right. Because instrumentals tend to be more helpful because we don't have that voice in our head distracting us. This creates a really cool, immersive experience for the person who's reading because not only are they reading about this fantasy world, but they have this music in their mind that kind of creates this extra level of ambiance. Now say you have to read a marketing book about doing Facebook ads, You know, put on some electronic music. You know, I don't. I haven't actually seen the movie the Social Network. I can't imagine the soundtrack is very good. But, you know, maybe you could listen to that, but who knows? And if you don't know what the Social Network is, it's a movie about the creation of Facebook. Anyway, I probably didn't need to explain that. I remember back when I was studying for my certified sommelier exam where you have to just memorize a crap ton of information from soil types to what's the grade of the hillside in Germany where the Riesling grapes are grown, to different alcohol percentages that are allowed in France versus California to be qualified as a wine or to be qualified as something else. It was not fascinating stuff to learn, just those little itty bitty nuggets. And I remember it was around the time that I'd heard a song by Massive Attack, which we can link in the show notes for you. It's kind of dark, twisted music, but for some reason it was What I needed to be able to sit down and study. I played one of their albums on Repeat probably about 500 times while I was studying. For you, you need to figure out what music is going to work best for you. And if you're a music lover, it's really tempting when you start listening to music that you really love, to just listen to the music that's not the right music for you. It has to be music that can kind of like fade into the background, but it takes up enough of your brain space that you're not able to get distracted. The fourth item on our list of 50 cut down to 5 is you want to exercise before you do the work. Now, I've talked about this a little bit before, about how lactic acid impacts your brain and allows you to focus more. Now, I'm really bad at referencing information. And so before I recorded this episode, I actually went online and I found a very, very technical article about how this actually works. And I did not understand a word. So I copied and pasted that paragraph and put it into ChatGPT and asked ChatGPT to reword it in a way that a seventh grader could understand it. Which, by the way, is my new favorite hack. If you want to take it, please be my guest. And ChatGPT very kindly came up with this. In simple terms, when your body is working normally, a substance called lactic acid in your brain helps give energy to your brain cells. It also sends signals to control how your brain works, helps your brain remember things better, and makes connections between nerve cells stronger. So lactic acid is a chemical that's released in your muscles when you're doing certain exercises. So if you lift weights, you know how you feel really, really sore the day after you lift weights? That's because you have lactic acid in your muscles. And of course, it doesn't stay in your muscles. It travels all throughout your body and ends up in your brain and helps you focus more. Another thing that can help you build up some lactic acid in your system is if you do intermittent sprints, you can do this in a very short amount of time. If you have 20 minutes and you're willing to get a little sweaty, go outside, sprint as hard as you can for 15 seconds, and then walk for a minute, and then sprint as hard as you can for another 15 seconds, and then walk for a minute and repeat that until your time is up. That will be enough for you to build up some lactic acid and be able to focus really well later on in the day. So if you're committed to doing exercise as your thing to help you focus better on your work, you wanna be aware of two things. Okay? So first and foremost, you wanna be sure that you're giving your body enough protein. Because when you have lactic acid in your body because you've worked your muscles, it means your muscles are actually breaking themselves down and rebuilding. So you're getting stronger, but your body's gonna need the building blocks to be able to do that. I don't care if it's protein powder, if it's chicken, having some extra eggs each day, make sure you're fueling your body correctly. And also water intake. Your brain cannot function well if it's not lubed up properly. So make sure that your brain has enough water to function. Which brings me final item on this list of ways to focus. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. One of the biggest challenges I hear from new business owners is how hard it is to figure out what to post on social media and to stick to consistent schedule with it. Because it's hard. And so in the month of May, I'm actually launching a challenge to help you build that muscle of posting every single day. Each participant will get their own customizable content plan for the month of May, an extensive list of content prompts so you have an endless bank of ideas of things you can post that work with your content plan. Every Monday through Friday we will have a 45 minute Zoom call at 9am Eastern where you will create your content and one lucky person per day will be able to volunteer for for the coaching hot seat where I will help you fine tune your messaging so that your content can help you attract high paying clients. If you can prove that you posted every single day for the 31 days, you will win a 30 minute one on one coaching call with me. Normally I charge $497 for this, but for the whole challenge, for your content plan, for the content prompts for those 23 daily calls that you're going to get throughout the month. It's only $197. This is my birthday gift to you this year and I'm so excited to hold your feet to the fire and make you post every day about your business and get more clients. If you're down for a challenge and you want to join us, then go to weaningcast.com forward/challenge. I can't wait to see you there. Which brings me to our Final item on this list of ways to focus. You want to come up with your own comfort checklist. This will be different for most people, but there are some standard items that go across the board for all of us. Now, speaking of hydration, you want to have on your checklist your drinking vessel, your water drinking vessel. And I say it like that because we all know that we all have one particular container that we will drink water out of. If we don't have access to that container, we won't drink water. You can give me mugs, you can give me smaller cups. I won't drink water out of them. I will drink them out of this massive bottle that my producer Neil actually bought for me. And I love it because it kind of operates like a sippy cup and I feel like a toddler because it's massive and my hands look really small around it. We're gonna link this bottle in the show notes. So if you're missing, like a hydration vessel in your life, you can really check this out and see if it's the right vessel for you. The other cool thing about this vessel is it's literally half a gallon of water. And so I try to make sure that I drink three of them. I fill it up three times in a day. That makes sure you're plenty hydrated. And of course, a lot of these items that I'm going to mention are great Christmas gifts if you know what works for your ADHD loved one. Speaking of beverages, if you have adhd, chances are you're not satisfied with just one beverage. You need at least three. You need one to hydrate, one to caffeinate, and one for fun. So you need to make sure that on your comfort checklist you have your favorite mug and you also have whatever that fun drink is. So for me, this is Spindrift, which is is my go to sparkling water or any kind of sparkling water. So if you have an ADHD loved one who loves sparkling water and that's their fun drink, a great gift to get them is a SodaStream. They can have endless sparkling water for a fraction of the price. And no, I'm not being sponsored by SodaStream, but if they want to pay me money. Hi, SodaStream people. Our email is katyatiemcmanis.com and really, if any of the brands that I've mentioned in this episode would like to sponsor this podcast. So again, my email is Katie@katimcmanus.com Other things on your checklist you want to think about. What are the things that you will get up to get when you're trying to sit down and focus to work. Right. So for me it's beverages, it's snacks. One of my favorite places to order snacks from is this place, it's called nuts.com n u t s.com they have a whole variety of different snacks and tons of nuts, which are a very healthy snack. I try to keep these on the healthy side cause you know, like it's really easy to just mindlessly snack while you're trying to get something done. Be very conscious of what you're picking for this. Other things that can distract you from your work are if your clothes aren't comfortable. There's nothing wrong with wearing soft pants. If you're sitting down to do creative work, if you're doing the work from home mullet where it's professional up top and fun on the bottom, then make sure that those professional tops feel actually comfortable. So often, especially us women will sacrifice our comfort to look professional and that we're not doing that anymore. If something's not comfortable, it does not belong in your closet. And this includes, if any tags bother you, cut them out. I also like to keep a different selection of shoes under my desk. I don't really do this consciously, but it kind of works that way. Cause when I get to my desk I always just take my shoes off. Which is kind of why whenever I can't find my shoes, my go to place is my office. Like your feet can get cold or they can get hot. So you want to have different shoes available to you. I'm not really a sock person. I know some of you are. I just don't understand it. In addition to that, you want to make sure that you have any blankets, pillows, other things that will allow for you to be comfortable, but not so comfortable that you fall asleep while you're doing all this focus work. So fuzzy blankets, pillows that actually support your lower back. Cause let's be real, none of us are getting any younger. And back support is really important. And when you have this comfort checklist, what you wanna do is literally write it down or type it up. And anytime you are about to sit down for a good several hours worth of work, you have to get a ton done. You have to really focus, you have to be creative. You want to make sure you go through this checklist and get everything on it so that it is available to you wherever you are. This will allow for you to get into focus faster because you're not thinking, oh, I forgot this thing. Oh I forgot this other thing. Oh, I'm hungry. Oh, I want this. The only thing that really can distract you is that you'll have to pee because you have so many beverages. One of the most critical items for your comfort checklist is your favorite type of pen. And you know what I'm talking about. We all have them. For me, it's the Pilot G2 38. It's a clicky pen. I always chew the top of the clicky bit, but I'll chew it to the point where, like, I'll chew it off and then I can't use the pen anymore, partially because it's too hard to click, but also because, like, I can't chew it. Then there's no part to chew. Then I have to get a new one. Now we're going to include a bunch of links to different things that you can buy for your ADA ADHD loved ones. But I'll be real. I'm going to include an Amazon wish list on here. If you want to gift me any of these things, I will love it. If you're ready to stop being a weenie and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book a generate income strategy call with me by going to weeniecast.com forward/strategy call. On this call, we will talk about your goals, your dreams, and your frustration frustrations in getting there. And if it's a fit for both of us, then we can talk about different ways to work together. I'll include like 10 packs of this on the Amazon she really likes pension. Squirrel. Squirrel. Join the weeniecast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls, turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus.