Katie McManus walks through a Monday routine she uses with clients: a 30-minute check-in where you brain-dump tasks, then pick three things to finish today and three for the week. She stresses starting with forgiveness instead of self-criticism, especially for people with ADHD, because shame kills motivation when dopamine is inconsistent.
Chapters
Hello and good evening. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. Happy Monday, everyone. I. Sorry, I was just using this. This stick to get a knot in my back, and I, like, got into it, and then I got completely distracted from what I was gonna talk about. So. Hi. I wanted to talk to you this evening about something that I've started doing with my clients in and the context by which we do it that makes it more effective. Okay? So I've started doing this thing on Mondays for my one on one clients where they get to log in with me for a half hour. It's not considered a session or anything. They get to log in with me for a half hour. Altogether, we spend about 10 minutes kind of brain dumping everything that is on our minds that we have to do for the week. And then in those 10 minutes, we also pull out three things that we want to finish that day and three things that we want to do that week. Okay? And then, of course, this list is like a working list. So for the rest of the week, you know, if they are struggling to prioritize, they get to go back to the list and say, okay, here's one more thing I get to do. Here's two more things I get to do. And slowly but surely, you chip away at this list. Now, this is week two of doing this. And I could sense in the room that there was a little like, oh, I failed last week. I didn't do all the things. And I was feeling it myself. This is something that I struggle with myself. So one of the rules that I made is that Mondays are not for hating on yourself for all the shit that you didn't get to do last week. Okay? That's not what Mondays are for. Okay? That's not what any day of the week should be for. Whenever you're trying to get organized for what you need to be doing, you know, whatever it is. Oh, sorry, my dog's making word noises. She's fine, though. Whenever you're trying to get organized with all of the activities that you need to do, all of your priorities, it does not help you to already make yourself back behind with it. Okay? This is especially true for those of you with adhd, including myself. Hi, sadeep. And I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Welcome. Hi. So when you have adhd, you have a lack of dopamine, okay? And so dopamine is that little chemical that gets released in your brain. It's a hormone. It gets released during a few different things that activities you do throughout your day but get. Getting things done and crossing them off your list is one of them. So people with adhd, we don't have consistent dopamine, okay? So dopamine gets released like in floods for some things, and like very. It's very, very dry for others. And so dopamine, once you have, like a good level of dopamine in your system, you're able to go and get more done. It's kind of like that get up and go hormone, right? If you have three things on your to do list and two of them you already feel like you're behind on, like, you. It's a fail already. Guess what's gonna happen if you already don't have enough dopamine and you try to go do them and you maybe do them and finish them? What's gonna happen in your brain system if you're not already guessing this? Because I can't hear you because it's live, and that's not how the technology works. You have the right answer if you said, well, you're not gonna get the dopamine because you already failed at it. So you're setting yourself up to stay in this dopamine neutral or dopamine negative kind of ecosystem in your brain, and we don't want that. So on Mondays, on Mondays, whatever your system is, whatever your practice is to get organized for the week. And this doesn't have to be on Mondays, by the way. If you start your week on Thursdays, it can do. It can happen then, too. It's really helpful to just do a brain dump of everything that you need to do for the week or need to do in general. And you're hoping to get some of that stuff accomplished that week and break it down into like, like a short list of things. I say three. But, you know, you get to pick what works for you. And even if it's something that you've already missed the deadline on, like, I want you in your mind to just wash away the deadlines. Okay? So if you're already late on it. Nope, not anymore. You get to have full forgiveness here, and you get to give yourself the dopamine and the satisfaction of going and getting it done. We have this. This belief system in our culture that, you know, we got to beat up on ourselves, we got to be tough. We gotta, like, you know, manhandle and, and beat the crap out of this part of our brain that holds ourselves back from doing stuff. And, you know, can I just tell you, I've tried that for like 34 years. And it just doesn't. Doesn't work. Just doesn't work. You know, I have tried to cajole and intimidate and belittle parts of my brain for, you know, not getting stuff done when I said I was going to get it done. And all it does is slow me down. All it does is make me avoid doing that thing even longer because it's already associated with failure. And I find that when I, When I start with forgiveness, when I start with clearing the slate of, you know what, like I am just going to start from zero here. Nothing is overdue in my mind. Everything is just an opportunity for me to do this week. I actually get way more shit done, you know, because I'm actually giving myself that dopamine drip as I go. So take this for what it is. If you find it helpful, I hope it. I hope you utilize it in your day to day. But for today, Happy Monday. I want you to forgive yourself for whatever it is that you're behind on. Zach. This is really good. Thank you, Zach. I appreciate that. I hope it's helpful. I want you to forgive yourself for whatever it is that you're behind on, okay? Because guess what? Your life hasn't blown up yet. No one's died. You're still in your circumstances, okay? Hopefully you've had food and shelter and water and someone to love today, okay? Nothing bad has really happened. If you. Since you haven't done that, one thing, okay, Life is going to continue to go on just as it has been. More likely or not than not if you, you know, continue to put it off. So if it's already not hurting you, if it's already not hurting you, why are you making it hurt you? Like, that doesn't even make sense. Why do we do that to ourselves? Stop it. Stop it. Forgiveness. Forgiveness all around for. Well, not for really bad things, like if you killed someone, you should probably go to the police and turn yourself in, but forgiveness for, you know, not submitting a form that you needed to do. Forgiveness for not reading that book that you said that you were going to read. Forgiveness for like not organizing something the way you wanted to. Like, whatever it is, it's fine. Forgiveness. Okay, we're going to start. Mondays are for forgiveness. That's all. Mondays are for forgiving ourselves. And that's the rule that I just made up. So we're all going to follow it now. Okay? Anyway, I'm going to keep this short because I don't know, my back is super crunchy. If anyone lives in the Philadelphia area and you have a really talented massage therapist. Could really use a recommendation. And I'm going to go use my thera cane thing to, you know, beat the crap out of these grouchy muscles. Anyway, Sudeep and Zach, thank you both for joining. I hope you found this super useful. And for anyone else who tuned in and hasn't tuned in or chimed in in the comments, thank you for being here. I'm going to be going live every day this week during the week, not the weekend. If you have any topics you'd like me to go live on, please DM them to me. I love having some inspiration. Anyway, have a great night everyone and I will talk to you soon. Bye.
