Time management ADHD challenges faced by busy ADHD-preneurs

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. 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, 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 Pomodoro Time Blocking Chipping away at big projects does not work for us. In this episode I'm going to show you how to master your time management even with your ADHD brain. Squirrel Squirrel hi, I'm Katie McManus and this is business strategy for Weenie ADHDpreneurs. Squirrel. So one of the things that I've learned about myself in my lifespan of having ADHD and going from being a full time employee to working for myself is that I both strive in structured environments and I massively suck at creating structure for myself. And this really becomes a problem when you're trying to manage your time and managing your time as a business owner is critical. Critical, okay, if you spend too much time on one thing, say doing your taxes, which you know can take a really long time and you're not marketing, you're not going to have any clients. Likewise, like spending too much time on marketing and not fulfilling stuff for your clients, that's not good. You have to be able to balance all of the different hats or all of the different responsibilities that you have in your business and following neurotypical advice is never going to serve you. I have had so many clients come to me who have ADHD diagnosis and I've experienced this myself. Where you get this advice from neurotypicals who say you have to time block. You should do the Pomodoro method where you set a timer for 30 minutes, work hard for 30 minutes and then take a 5 minute break where they say, well, just chip it away at big projects like a little bit a day. And we try it, we genuinely try it and it just doesn't work for us. And I'm going to be going into why this doesn't work for us. But what ends up happening because it doesn't work for us. We start getting down on ourselves. It becomes this kind of self punishing cycle where we are just constantly Reminded of how we're quote, unquote, broken and not like other people. And so I just want to normalize for anyone who's listening, that you're not broken. Your brain just works in a different way and you're getting advice that doesn't work for your brain. 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. Likewise, if you have a guy who has a boat and a car and the boat's malfunctioning, the advice if someone who is a car mechanic tries to give him boat advice, maybe this is a bad example, because I don't know a lot about cars and boats. I hate to use a sports analogy. I also don't know a lot about sports. Side note, that's another thing that people with ADHD do is we start down a metaphor or an analogy, and then we realize halfway through that we have no idea what we're talking about. Back to the topic. Let's go with a metaphor that I actually know something about. So if a client were to come to me to try to get advice on their bookkeeping systems, I would probably not be the best person to talk to about that. My advice would probably be like, cool, well, play detective on yourself. Go through your bank statements and your credit card statements, highlight the stuff that seems like business stuff, and then forward that to your accountant to figure it out. Right? That's probably not good advice. And that's any accountant out there who's listening to this is going to just be like raising their fists at the sky saying, Damn you, Katie McManus. Don't tell people to do this because it's bad advice. And I agree with them. But this is the exact same thing that happens when ADHD people take advice from neurotypicals. Okay? Neurotypicals are telling you what works for them with their neurotypical brain. A neurodiverse brain operates differently. It's diverse from what's typical, okay? So that advice just simply does not fit. So if you Thrive in a structured environment. And you also suck at creating structure for yourself. There are some ways to work around this. There are three truths that you need to reckon with and accept in your day to day. First and foremost, take time. Blocking in its typically prescribed way is just not gonna work for you. Typically, time blocking is done in half hour or one hour increments. And for the ADHD brain, shifting gears is where we lose so much of our energy and we also have this fear of running over. We have this time anxiety because we have all gotten so sucked into a project that we forgot to show up to the next two or three zoom calls. So instead of setting up your day so that you're shifting gears every half hour or an hour, it's really helpful to do uninterrupted time blocking. And what that means is that you're giving yourself, especially when you're working on creative projects, you're giving yourself anywhere from three to five hours to get into deep focus on whatever it is that you're working on. Now, when I talk about deep focus, this is really typical for adhd. We know what this is. It's how we get. It's that flow mindset where we're really interested in what we're up to and we start working on it and all of a sudden it's like we're in a different universe. It's five or seven hours later. We haven't eaten, we haven't peed. We've accomplished more than what a neurotypical person could do in a week in that five to seven hour period. I've made like full historical costumes in a five hour period. I have quilted quilts in five hours. We can do amazingly creative things in those five to seven hours. But when we're running our own business, we feel guilty taking that time out of our week. Don't feel guilty. You need this. Especially if you're doing any done for you work or if you're creating a new offering or you're designing your new marketing strategy, you need time to get into it and get inspired and that's okay. You're going to get so much done in this big block of time. So that's the first thing that I want you to start blocking out in your calendar for number two. I want to go back to that idea of gear shifting. So when I started my business, I had this guilt. I felt like I owed all of my clients, all of my availability, all of all of the time. If I was going to be awake and sober, they deserved to be able to book on my calendar. And so it was basically a free for all. But what ended up happening is it would be like a Tuesday at noon and I'd look at my calendar and I'd see that I had a 3pm and I would mentally say cool, so I just have to wait for the 3pm and then I can do stuff. I couldn't get into work because I was so concerned that I would miss my 3pm appointment. So the best advice I got for managing my calendar is instead of letting all of my clients book willy nilly whenever they want is to pick two or three days where I accept client calls and the rest I block off for other stuff. And so literally in my business, if you were to look at my calendar, you would see Monday mornings are all meetings with my team getting structured and organized for the week, setting my priorities for the week, outsourcing what they need to be doing. Wednesday afternoons are for sales calls and for creating content for social media. Tuesdays are for client calls. I start work at 10am and I take client calls until about 4pm and then I'll leave a little time in the evenings to do a little admin work as needed. And Wednesdays are also for client calls and I typically go from 10 to 5 with a couple hour breaks in there for going for walks and having food because remember, if we get too into work we forget to eat. And then on Thursdays my mornings are all about admin. I need to catch up with work. From the last two days, anything that's come through that I haven't been able to give my full attention cause I was working with clients. Thursday afternoons I work with my BYOB group and Thursday evenings I typically do a lot of lives or other admin work that I have to catch up with. And on Fridays I have my Brave Biz Lab call which I'm super excited about. And I sometimes take client calls then. So the reason I block out my calendar this way is because if I know an interruption is coming, it's going to be really hard for me to get into deep focus. And so I know every single ADHD person knows that experience of waiting for someone to come to your house. Say like maybe you're going out with friends and they're late and so you're like okay, cool, well maybe I'll do something around the house because you literally cannot get into it because you don't know when they're going to show up and interrupt you. Even when you know they're going to interrupt you, even if you're if you're planning on going to see a show or something and you have a half hour, it's really hard for you to get into reading a book or watching a show or something. I had an ex boyfriend who told me that I was like a golden retriever who was waiting for their human to come home. Because every single time I was waiting for someone, I would sit on the couch for a minute and then I would go to the window and I'd look out and be like, are they here yet? Are they here yet? And then I come back and sit on the couch and I'd like look at my phone for a second and then I look around and then I go back up to the window and are they here yet? Are they here yet? We do this in our business. We do this when we're waiting for a client call to happen. We do this when we're waiting for a meeting with our team to happen. The way to mitigate this is to just have your calls back to back. Honestly mitigate the waiting time. That's why I have all my client calls on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. They're all blocked together because that way I'm not having a golden retriever moment looking are they here yet? Are they here yet? So each entrepreneur is going to have their own struggles with time based on what their business model is, what kinds of clients they have, and what projects they're working on. So if you're struggling with time management in your business, I invite you to come to the Brave Biz Lab call this week and ask me. Lay out your life for me and I will help strategize what will work best for you. This is a free group call that I do every Friday at 11:00am Eastern Standard Time, and I can't wait to see you there. Look for the link to register in the show notes. We have all gotten so sucked into a project that we forgot to show up to the next two or three zoom calls. I'm gonna burp sparkling water, water, water. Are you an entrepreneur? Are you struggling to stay focused and organized while juggling a million tasks? Are you looking for ways to improve your productivity but finding it hard to stay motivated? Then you need to get access to my Weeniecast for Winners show that's exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I know you might be thinking I've tried everything to stay on task and nothing works. But I'm enjoying the advice I'm getting here on the Weeniecast and let me tell you, I'm delighted to be able to help you and thousands of listeners just like you, my friend. But the Weeniecast for Winners podcast is next level and I'd hate for you to miss out on it. For just $1.99 a month, Weeniecast for Winners delivers in depth and actionable advice that's specifically designed for entrepreneurs, including those with adhd, whether diagnosed or suspected. I'll talk you through how to increase your salary, sales, conversions, keep your mindfulness on point, and even offer practical tips that can help you be more productive and successful in your business, all while catering to your unique needs of being an entrepreneur who might be struggling with adhd. With weeniecast for Winners, you'll get practical tips and strategies that you can use to drive your business forward without the frustrations and setbacks that often come with adhd. So if you're ready to start seeing real Results, subscribe to Winniecast for winners today@weenicast.com Winners for just 199amonth, you'll gain access to the valuable insights and strategies that can take your business to the next level. Weeniecast for Winners is a show that's worth every penny for entrepreneurs who want to succeed. Subscribe now and start enjoying the benefits for yourself. Join the weeniecast hyper focused 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 com hyperfocus all one word. That's Weeniecast. Com Hyperfocus.