ADHD and Running a Biz!

Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. I'm so happy to be talking to you this evening. I wanted to share a little bit about how I manage my ADHD and running a business, because I know it's a very specific challenge that I struggle with and many other small business owners struggle with. And you don't even have to be a small business owner. Like, the things that I do, you could literally apply to your life if you have ADD or you just think neurodivergently in any way, shape, or form. So want to just get into it. So here. Here are some things that happen with adhd. Is a. We lose track of time or we get anxiety about time. Okay? So keeping to a schedule is really hard for us. Okay? Now also, we have a hard time when things are out of sight, out of mind, okay. It's almost like they exist. They. I'm sorry, they cease to exist for us. Okay? So, like, say I buy my mom a birthday present. Her birthday is in October, and I buy it for her. And I'm like, okay, cool, I'm gonna hide this in the super secret birthday hiding spot where I get, you know, pre presents for people. I will find it three years from now and be like, who did I get this for? And then vaguely remember that I bought it for my mom. So things have to be out or else we forget. This is why people with ADD have notoriously messy desks, because we have to have everything out and in front of us. The other thing is we need variety. We need variety. Our minds jump from one thing to another, and we kind of just go with the things that feel exciting at the time, which is really great for us because, you know, we're only working on stuff that we enjoy. But not so great when you have regular activities that you have to do in your business and in your life. So I wanted to share with you. I actually, like, spent some time on Canva a while ago, and I made up all of these little forms that I do, like daily and weekly. So let me just go through them with you, and if you think I'm nuts, then welcome. You're not alone. I think I am, too. Okay? So first and foremost, so attention deficit hyperactive disorder. I actually don't see it that way. I. I see it as a dopamine deficiency, okay? Because what we lack is dopamine, and it's that chemical that you get when you finish stuff. Okay? So every day I pick up one of these little sheets. So I basically printed out this, and it's a, you know, just a letter piece of paper with four of these on here, but let me hold it up. So I have my morning routine and I have my evening routine. Okay? So here is one of my hate in the entrepreneurial space is like the 5am Club or the 4am Club. And you have like a strict routine that you stick to. This is pretty much impossible for someone with ADD to do. Okay. Because we have a really hard time sticking. Like, we thrive when there is structure, but we're also very bad at creating structure. And so, like, saying we're going to do things in a specific order every single morning is really, really difficult for us unless we have a structure that we're naturally following. Okay. But we also need to give ourselves credit for things early in the day. Okay? We need to give ourselves credit for getting little things done. So basically, you know, like, Luna, walk. I take my dog for a walk. I have to feed her breakfast, you know, because she's in my care. I have to have my coffee. And then usually when I come home, I pick up the paper from my stoop because I'm an old lady and I get it delivered. And then I do my abundance work. Hopefully most days I do my, my abundance work, my money mindset work. Some days I miss. Okay, I'm not perfect. Then I have breakfast. And people with add, we have to stay away from sugar. It really derails us. So I try to prioritize having at least 30 grams of protein. And then these are all, like, nice to have. So, like, I can journal for five minutes. I can meditate for 20 minutes. I can stretch for 10 minutes. I can work out for 30 minutes. I'll let you guess how often I cross that one off the list. Get ready. 30 minutes and social media for 30 minutes. So here I've like, done all the human things and I've given myself credit for them. So let me just show you how us people with ADD and you without add, if you, if you don't have it, can actually give yourself a boost of dopamine. Okay? So Luna has gotten all the walks. She also got breakfast, and I also did coffee and news. And I didn't do my abundance work today. That was the thing. I did have breakfast for 30 grams and I did journal and I worked out for 30 minutes later in the day. So I'm going to give myself credit for it there. I've just given myself little drips of dopamine now. These little drips of dopamine, finishing these little tasks make me so much more able to go and tackle the big stuff. Okay? The big stuff requires a lot of mental energy stuff. The planning stuff. Big tasks feel so huge for people with ADD because they're lacking dopamine. Dopamine is that carry on energy that helps you get stuff done. Okay, so something as simple as this helps you build that dopamine. I honestly most of the time forget to cross off stuff in the evening. But I mostly do it. But at that point I don't need the dopamine. Okay? So that is tool number one. By the way, if any of you want any of this and whoever's watching, welcome. If any of you want any of this, please just shoot me a DM and I'm happy to share with you the PDFs that I made for these. They're super helpful. Okay? Now, okay, so for my business, this is something I do weekly. Okay. So this is my business weekly organization to do's. Okay? So how I set this up feel like I'm teaching. So I have my week over here. The days of the week. Anything special that's happening on any of these days, I just fill in here. So say I have like a webinar that I'm doing on Wednesday, I'm going live with a friend on Thursday and Friday I have my Brave biz lab which by the way, if you haven't come, it's bomb. It's every first and third Friday of the month. Okay. At 11:00am Eastern. Anyway, so I fill that out, any special events, anything that I need to like send emails about, post to social media, whatever. You know, if I have a client starting then I want to follow up with them. Okay? So once I filled this out that I go over to like my little events page and I make a list of all the events that I have coming. Okay. Just so I have them in one space. And then I start thinking about, okay, if I have like a live or I have a workshop or a pop up training, cool. What kinds of things do I need to do to promote them? So any lives, I like to list out the topics and the guests. That way I can start thinking about how I'm going to promote them. Then my email marketing, how many emails do I need to send out to promote that work pop up workshop that I have. Oh, and I have a couple people in the chat, I wasn't even looking and hi Akram. Welcome. And hi Danette. Welcome or Donnie, I think, as you like to be called. Welcome. Amen. Yeah. Hallelujah. Are you there? Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool. And good evening, Akram. And I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Apologies if I'm not. Okay, so. And then my social media marketing. Okay, so social media is a huge part of running an online business. Okay. And so I like to make my little to do list. If I have to do TikToks, if I'm doing reels, if there's anything special I need to be doing for LinkedIn, I like to list those all there. I also, because I love setting goals for myself, I have all these little boxes for myself for sales calls. So as I book sales calls throughout the week with new potential clients or participants for byob, I list them all right there. And just for privacy sake, I'm showing you guys a blank one. I do have one that's filled out for the week. Hi, Astrid, welcome. I hope this is useful. Oh, Donnie, welcome. You're in a great club. And then of course, just because following up is not my forte, because kind of out of sight, out of mind, I like to have a little follow up here. This is honestly, it could be absolutely anything. It could be with people who were thinking about being a client before previous clients. It could also be, you know, following up with people about speaking engagements, you know, my own support staff. Do I have to follow up with them? So this is just like a magical tool that I made up. And by the way, like, you can rip this off, you can make this up for yourself. If this isn't the format that serves you go and make something like this because it is gold. Okay? This, this saves my butt. Because here's the thing. When I, when you have add, like, if there's something on here that doesn't excite me one week, I'm just going to forget to do it. I'm just going to forget to do it. It's not even in the radar of my brain to even think about doing it. And here I am forced to think about it every single week. Okay? So whatever your business is, if you have add, if you tend to be out of sight, out of mind, make something like this that makes you think about the stuff that you're not that excited about. Okay? I just love hearts. Thank you, Donnie. I'm feeling the love. Now. Lastly, just like my weekly organization, organizing business to dos. I'm gonna take a sip of water. Hold on, I'm about to talk about health. So, okay, so if you've ADD and you're running a business, you have all these things that are constantly commandeering your life and making you think, okay, I have to do this urgently. It has to happen now. Which means you're probably back ordering important things like healthy hats, like healthy living, like doing stuff for yourself. Now like I said before, people with ADD have a very hard time sticking to regular schedules and routines unless someone else or an organization or a group is setting the routine and holding the structure. Okay? We thrive in structure and we also suck at creating it. Okay? So we have to kind of give ourselves some credit here for the things that we are doing. Okay? So likewise. I do the days of the week. You know, what special event do I have going on in my personal life? So maybe I have like a date on Thursday night or I'm seeing friends on Saturday. Like we're going to the wine park. It's not actually a wine park. It's a, like a pop up place that you can go with a bottle of wine. But I like calling it the wine park because that sounds cool. Anyway, it's like going to Disney but for adults. You know, Monday I may have a dance class, you know, Tuesday I may have like a dog date with my dog and some other people. So I like to keep track of all that right there. Now some healthy living to do's that I find really feed into me being a good person who is productive in her work and a good friend and a good daughter and just a good human in the world. Is being pretty organized about some simple meals that I can do throughout the week. And notice that I really don't give myself a lot of space here because I'm not planning out like major meals. I'm basically saying, okay, cool, I'm gonna have chicken this many meals and or I'm gonna have steak two nights or whatever my sleep intentions. Okay? So this could change from week to week depending on what my, my weekly schedule is going to be. Okay. Because if I have a lot of late night stuff and I tell myself I'm going to go to sleep early, what I'm actually doing is setting myself up to feel like I failed. And that's not good when you have add, when you already have a dopamine deficiency being set up to feel like you failed. Even if you're doing it to yourself and it's ludicrous, it still puts you further in the red for that dopamine. So every week I decide what my sleep intentions are going to be. Social time, okay? I'm an extrovert. If you can't tell, I'm an extrovert. Okay? So I have to actually be very Intentional about scheduling social time throughout the week or I get a little weird. Okay. I'm sure you guys, if you watch my Lives, I'm sure you could probably pinpoint the days where I have not had enough social interaction. Okay, Today's not one of those days, so just gonna answer that for you right there. Workout sessions, add. So here's something cool about working out when you have add. I'm really bad at referencing things. Okay? I'm just. This is secondhand knowledge. I don't remember where I heard this, but I found it to be true that when you work out and you do workouts that cause lactic acid to build up in your muscles, and I'm, like, pointing to my legs because it's where my lactic acid usually builds up. I'm talking weightlifting, I'm talking sprinting. Anything that causes that lactic acid to build up in your muscles, it somehow magically affects your brain and makes you better able to focus. Okay? So workout sessions. I have seven spaces here. That's a little ambitious, but if I can give myself, like, four of them, I feel like it's a win. Okay, so workout sessions throughout the week for me. I love the peloton. I also. I want to say I love running. I almost said it. It's kind of a lie. It's hard to go running when you have a dog because you feel guilty being out there. But she's just not good on the leash. Astrid. Thank you. I love it, too. Oops. Okay. All right, now, meditation. Okay, so for those of us who have add, our minds are constantly just running, running, running, running. We are very good at thinking up things to be stressed out about, doing some kind of practice that is mindful, that gets us into flow. This could be knitting, it could be cooking, could be cleaning for you weirdos out there. For me, it's meditation. Okay, So I try to meditate twice a day, usually only once, but AM And PM So I give myself a little box to check off. And finally, my abundance work. This is really critical for business owners. Okay. If you're not working on your money mindset and really building that muscle in you that believes the universe is abundant. Because it is. Unless you believe that it's not, and then it's not, it's going to be really hard to be in business. Oh. Anyway, just to summarize, these are the three sheets. So I have my daily little sheet here. My daily rituals that I do. Mostly the morning stuff. Sometimes I do the evening stuff. I mean, I always. I always do things like Brush my. Brush my teeth and wash my face, but I just sometimes forget to cross it off. And then I have my weekly organization for my business to dos. And like. Like, this is super easy for me to put together. I made this on Canva. If you want this, I'm more than happy to share it with you. Just shoot me a D and know that, like, whatever, like, it needs to be on one sheet. The other thing. So I usually just kind of leave these on my coffee table all. All week, you know, so throughout the day, I kind of look at them. As soon as it's stapled, the other one, the back page doesn't exist to me anymore. Okay. So they have to be loose. Okay, Hans. Yes. Walk the dogs. Yes, you have to walk the dogs. You know, and it's also the best part of the day, by the way, I have a sunburn from walking the dogs today. Finally, the sun's out lately. Yes, especially puppies. They need the exercise and. Hi, Hans. So, anyway, so those are my sheets. These are the things that I do to keep my ADD business running, brain on task, productive throughout the week, and feeling successful. Because here's the thing. When you lack dopamine, you can do a million things. But if you're not pausing and giving yourself credit for doing it and crossing it off the list, you actually don't feel like you're being successful at all. You feel like you're wasting time because you've spent so much of your life being told that you're wasting time on stuff. Okay, not the case. When you're in a business, everything you do can be in the. In the name of your business. And also, it's great to have physical reminders that keep you on track for the stuff that you don't always like to do. Anyway, that is all I have for you this evening. I thank you, Hans and Astrid and Donnie and Akram for joining and for everyone who joined but didn't tune in in the comments. If you commented and I didn't call you out, I apologize. Sometimes the technology just doesn't work. But otherwise, thank you for joining. I hope this was helpful. And like I said, if you have ADD and if you're a business owner and if you want these sheets, and if any of those are true or none of them are true, but you want the sheets. Dm. That doesn't even make sense. DM me and I will send them to you. Or if you DM me with your email, that's easiest because then I can just, like, send a BCC email to everyone who wants it tomorrow morning. Happy to share them. And if you found any of these tips helpful, I'd love to hear them in the comments. Anyway, I have to go moisturize my face because it's obviously sunburned. Let me see. Basher, you're sharing an important point with me. Great. To benefit me. Great. I can't click the link while I am going live, but I look forward to seeing it. Unless it's something weird on YouTube. So anyway, I have to go. Thank you for joining. I hope this is useful to you, and I look forward to going live with you tomorrow with a very special guest. Okay, thank you so much and I'll talk to you all soon.