Time Management for ADD Entrepreneurs (and others)

Good evening, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. So excited to talk to you tonight. We're talking about ADD and adhd and. Sorry, my phone is alerting me that I went live. It always likes to do that. Speaking of ADD adhd, and the reason we're talking about this topic and the topic of how people with ADD handle time and tasks is because I posted yesterday about an experience that I'm having about, you know, trying to fit into how other people handle time. And it feels real crunchy. And I posted about this and I was astounded by how many people reacted, commented, sent me direct messages about their experience with this. And so. Hi, Larry. I came on, you said, speaking of ADD and ADD adhd, were you talking about me? Ah, yeah, absolutely. I'm talking about you. I'm talking about me. I'm talking about most of my clients. What's funny is I didn't realize that this was so ADD moment. You're going to have things that people resonate with in your business that makes people want to work with you that you won't realize is the reason they want to work with you until you start talking about it. So I started. I've always been very open about having addicted, and I didn't realize that that was a selling point for a lot of people to start working with me because people with ADD want to work with other people who have add. People who have a certain life experience want to work with other people who have a certain life experience. The thing that makes you broken or different is not necessarily a bad thing. It is something that sets you apart from the market. Hi, David Madara. Anderson. Hi, friend. Who's. Who's that? Anyway, there's a pineapple involved, so this is gonna be a very ADD call, by the way. So, anyway, again, I'm doing this through Streamyard, just a little housekeeping thing. So if you're commenting from the Facebooks or YouTube and they're not coming through, it's not you, it's just the technology. I've noticed that a lot of comments don't come through anyway. So what makes you different actually makes you more desirable in certain markets. Just want to put that there. There are clients that I have because I have add, and I've been open about having ADD because they know that I'll understand what they go through. So whatever that is for you, own it, talk about it, roll with it. There are going to be clients who will work with you specifically because you've struggled with the Same thing that they are struggling with. So what I was talking about yesterday in my post is that people with ADD have a really hard time handling time and tasks the way that neurally normal people handle them. Neurally normal is that. I don't know if that's the correct term, but we're just going to go with it. So I was running into this because I hired this public speaking coach who I absolutely adore. I think she's phenomenal. And also she is trying to get me to do something for 30 minutes day. And I have been beating myself up over this for the last three weeks. I've been completely punishing myself for it because I've been failing at it. And here's the thing about people with ADD is we can't do tasks like that. And she's, you know, it's like very roach, you know, repetitive work. We can't do tasks like that for just 30 minutes when we feel like we are going to have to have a process to get into flow and then there's an interruption that's planned. We can never actually get into flow and we actually can't get any work done unless we're in flow. The positive side of ADD being very distractible is that we have hyper focus. Hi, Stephanie. Thank you. You said great advice, David. I found this on my podcast. Being authentic, vulnerable and real. Draw people. Yeah, absolutely. When you're real, you give everyone else permission to be real. I think that's a beautiful thing. But anyway, so back to ADD moment. Hi. So people with add. So for instance, the Pomodoro method. And if you're not familiar with the Pomodoro method, I'm going to explain it right now. So the premise is that you have a list of to do things or to do items, and you set a timer and you give yourself like 25 minutes to get the first thing done and then you take a five minute break and then you do another timer for 25 minutes. This works for neurally normal people. I don't understand how it works for neurally normal people because I'm not neurally normal. But for ADD people, it is miserable. It is like a torture chamber because we spend our entire time looking at the task thinking, oh my gosh, how am I going to get into flow for this? And then we look at the clock and oh my God, I have 14 minutes before I'm going to be interrupted. I'm never going to be able to get anything done here if I'm going to be interrupted in 14 minutes. This is just not going to work. And then we start down the cycle of anxiety. Because everyone has told us that the Pomodoro method is amazing. Everyone has told us that we should be able to do this in a short amount of time. And it's just not how our brains work. We have to let our brains go into hyper focus. The downside of hyper focus is that we miss things. I have to be very careful about doing admin work in my business on days where I'm taking client calls because or I have to make sure that my phone is on and it's right there and it's going to ring when my clients call because I will actually miss the time. I will get so sucked into what I'm doing. It'll be two hours later. If there was a zoom call or anything that I had to be on, guess what? I didn't show up to it. And not to say that this happens in my business. I'm so aware of how I handle time. I have designed my business so that my admin work is blocked out and I never run into this problem. When I was in sales. This was, this is a strength of mine. I would go in super early. I would start calling because I lived in California and you know, my region was the whole United States. I would call the east coast, basically everyone as they woke up for four hours. I would just follow up with clients, I would follow up with prospects, the whole shebang. I would go to lunch and then I'd come back and I just do emails. You know, there was never that. I'm going to do a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I had to just get into it and do it. Just checking up on the comments. So the thing that happens and there were so many people. LinkedIn user here for the add advice. Haha. Very relatable. Yeah, thank you. There were also a lot of people in the comments yesterday on that post who have children or loved ones who have addicted. And so if you have children with add, I want to just give you some advice. This is something that worked for me as a kid. My parents sent me to a Waldorf school which I was very privileged to go to. It's a private school. If you haven't heard of it. It's kind of like the German answer to Montessori. It's a very artistic and community centric school and they have you do a lot of activities while you're learning. So for instance, when I was learning my times tables, I didn't just learn them sitting down doing Flashcards? No, they had us walking on a balance beam throwing beanbags in the air. It's very interactive. So if you have kids who have add, the best thing you can do for them is challenge them. Like, how many things can you do at once? Because guess what? They need to get their energy out. They cannot sit still and try to learn something that is miserable for them. So have them bounce a basketball and have them, you know, recite their. Their spelling or have them like set up a balance beam and have them do that and have them do their multiplication tables. Have them do something like this and quiz them. It is work for you, but it's a lot more fun to do it this way than to just get so frustrated that they're not doing their homework. And all the fights that come of that. I know my poor parents went through this with me. It's avoidable. The other thing to remember with them is that switching subjects is really hard. So if there's any way you can talk to their teachers and ask them what the homework's gonna be for the week and have them be able to do like math one day and history the next day and reading the next day. It's the switching between topics that's really hard for people with addiction because we have that hyper focus when we get sucked in. It's just like, whoo. And we can go all through it. Stephanie, great tips for my 7 year old nephew who's struggling sitting down at home for learning. Yeah. Oh, my God, I feel so bad for the kids who are doing home learning at home learning. There are some who are doing really well, but I know I would have completely failed this year. It just. It's not. It wouldn't have even been an option. Even as an adult, doing online learning is really hard for me, so my heart goes out to them. Another thing to remember is that adults and children who have add. Your brain actually gets calmed by lactic acid that builds up in your muscles, which means that if you're about to do a task that requires you to focus, it would serve you very well to just do 100 squats right before. Or to go for a sprint. Not. Not like a long run, but you want to do a sprint. You want to do something that makes your muscles really, really sore. Yes. The joke here is that, yeah, you won't be able to stand up to do anything besides this work, but the truth of it is that the lactic acid, I forget what it does chemically, but it allows for your neurotransmitters in your brain to just calm down. So if you're having trouble doing focused work or sitting down in the first place, making sure that you're getting a workout early in the day is so important to doing this. Water being well hydrated. And actually now I say that I'm realizing I'm thirsty. Being well hydrated is so important if you have add. Case in point. Anyway, your brain can't function if it's not well lubricated. Steve Foley. Sorry I'm late. You're not late. You're right on time. Welcome. We're just talking ADD and I am going to be saving this video to my LinkedIn because I know a lot of people were wanting to see it. Sugar is the enemy, guys. I'm sorry. I know. I love my tasty treats, too. Sugar is the enemy. It brings you up and crashes you down. It affects your hormone systems. It just messes with your whole system. For people with add, this exacerbates everything that we go through to try to keep our attention on something so sugary. Treats. Fruit's great. Fruit is really good. But anything that's just straight sugar is just not good for us. What can you do to support another adult in your life who has this going on? So someone who commented yesterday mentioned that they have a spouse who has ADD and that time management thing. Stop asking them to do stuff in little spurts of time. Stop asking them, hey, do you mind fixing the sink within the 30 minutes that we have between now and then. Stop asking them to do little things that for you are going to be really easy. That for them. Turn into big projects and you'll know what kinds of big projects I'm talking about. It's not like redoing the house. It's like doing laundry. For me, that's a big project. I need some time and some space to do it. David Fryman. Steve Foley. This is add. No such thing as late. Exactly. We're just right on time to the party anytime we show up, because we remember to show up, you know, the bar set very low. What else? It's so funny. When I talk about add, my brain gets super ADD and jumps from point to point. It's like because I'm focusing on it, I get extra distracted. I don't know if any of you feel this way in your life when you start talking about add, so I wanted to talk about something else as well. That for someone with ADD whose brain works differently, when we have to try to explain why our brains don't work the same way or explain why we can't work in a certain way. It's very shaming for us because we've gone through a whole school system, college system, jobs, relationships where people have said, this is so easy. Why isn't easy for you? You should be able to do this. Like, what's wrong with you that you can't handle this down the line? And we internalize that. So when we feel like we're not doing things normally or being given instructions and they're just not working for us, having to explain to someone that we're neurally different feels like we're admitting to being broken or damaged. I just want to. Hi, Keith. Welcome. I just want to normalize this. For anyone with add, that if you start feeling super defensive when you're trying to explain your workflow, if you're feeling like you're being attacked, even though the person is just giving you basic instructions, that is totally normal. You've internalized a lot of shit throughout your life. Take a deep breath. They're probably not meaning it the way that you're taking it. And also, this is a beautiful moment for you to explain to them what workflow works best for you and to educate them on and make a deal with them on what you can design going forward. Hi, Eric. Shiny Object Syndrome. Sos. Yeah, yeah, Shiny Object syndrome, for sure. My best friend and I used to work together. That's how we met. And she used to laugh at me because I would come into the office, we'd set things up for the day, and I'd get on my computer and she's like, what do you do for the first half hour of your day? And I was like, well, I log in and then I go to do the sign in thing for our work, but then I get distracted by the email. But then there's an email thing from Facebook. So then I go to Facebook and then I go here and then I go here, and then I remember that I forgot to do this thing, and then I remember that there was an email that I didn't remember to respond to. So I did that. And then I start my day. And for her, she had no idea how a brain could even go through that circuit. It just seems like a jungle gym of craziness. And yet, like, there are so many adults. Welcome, all of you, to this call. Whose brains function this way. And for us, this is perfectly normal. Now, the gift of ADD is that because we are spinning so many plates and our attention is looking in so many different places at the same time, we often see connections and Possibilities and opportunities that aren't obvious at first glance. We can very often think it's like the Melanie Griffith thing in Working Girl, you know, where she connects Trask Radio with buying something. I don't know, like Chic made that connection. It's a very ADD thing to do. You take a little bit of information over here and you blend it together. ADD people are generally so successful at their jobs if you can allow them to have a little leeway with how they manage their time. I think this is one of the reasons why sales and law finds a lot of people with add. Because in sales, your boss doesn't care, you know, how you do your work so long as you deliver results. At the end of the day, lawyers, you know, your clients don't care how you did the work or how you managed your time, so long as you do well and you win the case. Steve Foley, Squirrel. Yes, absolutely. We have that squirrel brain. What's cool about people with ADD though is that we can be in a conversation, see a squirrel, come back to the conversation, be in this, start another conversation, start another conversation over here, I can't even talk today and then come back to this conversation, then check in on the squirrel. Our brains know how to pivot that fast. This opens the door to a very common misconception though, is that people with ADD can multitask. No, multitasking is not a thing. Multitasking is doing three things badly when you could be doing one thing well. If a person with ADD is trying to multitask, it's because they are trying to fit themselves into time management of a neurally normal person. And guess what, they're going to fail at all three things. So if I have a three hour block and I have three things to do, guess what? I'm picking one of them. One of them is going to get my full attention. And guess what? I'm going to murder that task. It is going to be so done, it's going to be begging for mercy. When I'm done with it, it's just going to be off my to do list forever because I will have been able to get into that deep focus. If I try to do the three, I'm going to spend 30 minutes stressing about the other two while I'm trying to get into the first one. Then I'm going to get so much anxiety that I'm going to have to go get a glass of water or snack. Then I'm going to come back and I'm going to give up on the first one. And maybe start on the second one and then I'm going to spend the rest of my time stressing about, well, the third one I really need to get to. If you have add, you want to just give yourself one task at a time. It is the most important. That's the priority. You go with that. Eric Mertz I paint by numbers. 1-6837 LOL I've never done paint by numbers. And this is kind of funny. So, so many friends. And I'm sorry if you're one of these friends, I have never told you this. I think they just think because I have add, those adult coloring books are really where it's at for me, that that'll calm me down and keep me focused. Those things give me so much anxiety. I don't know what is relaxing about them. And please, if you're a friend of mine, please don't give them to me. I don't want them. But pain by numbers is the same. It just seems overwhelming. And here's, here's another thing about add. We are so easily overwhelmed. If you have a person with ADD in your life and you're trying to tackle projects or tasks together, give them one thing at a time. Don't overwhelm them with a whole gigantic list. They are going to just be deer in the headlights, stalled, not be able to make movement on anything. Give them one thing at a time. I know this is a little more emotional labor for you, but let me tell you, it's going to make your cooperation with them so much easier going forward. If you are a boss of someone that you suspect has ADD adhd, I think it's considered a learning disability. I don't consider it that. So you might not be able to ask. But if you suspect that and you're delegating work and you're noticing that they're getting overwhelmed really easily, tell them which one needs to be done first. Tell them which one they absolutely need to focus on before they go on to anything else. Or tell them, here's what I need you to do on this first one. And this is what good enough looks like. We're really good at following directions and hitting that mark if we know exactly what we're supposed to be doing. True story. When researching online, whether or not I had add, I had nine different tabs open reading. Do I have add? That is so common. That is so common. I was diagnosed with ADD when I was a kid and then I learned how to deal with it. And then I was curious and I did it again as an adult. And again, I have ADD and I forget just because I normalized it in myself so early. I forget that there are so many adults out there who are just discovering they have ADD ADHD right now and it's jarring to the system because up until now you maybe just thought you were lazy or kind of crazy or enter in any other negative adjective. Eric, I won't send you any coloring books, please. Thank you. I so appreciate, appreciate that. So, you know, getting the dying, the diagnosis, I don't really think it's that big of a deal. Getting the diagnosis can be such a huge relief. But then it can also feel really bad. There's nothing to feel bad about this. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having add. And honestly, I feel like I have a tribe of ADD people in my Friday calls. The Being Brave call if you want to come to that. It's free. It's every Friday at 11am Eastern over. Zoom the register to or the link to register. Oh my God, I can't speak today is in my about section on LinkedIn and I'll post it in the comments here. But just know that there are so many people like you who struggle with all these crazy things, and there are also so many people who have no idea what it is that we're struggling with. The funniest thing to people without ADD is that we have object permanence issues. So when we put something away, we can actually forget that it exists. So this is the reason why people with add. I'm just going to show you my desk. It's really messy right now. You know, I have to have everything that I'm currently working on be visually represented on my desk because if it's not, I will actually forget it. Having nine different tabs open on your computer, that's actually underachieving. Steve, I hate to break it to you. Every time I have to restart my computer and Chrome has to start back up and I have to go to history to get the rest of my tabs back. It's like 30:45. There's a reason why my computer runs slowly. Sometimes if I close something out, I will generally forget that it exists, which is bad if I'm working on a project anyway. Wow. I feel like I've been running a marathon talking about this. Eric, When I ask someone to complete something and I ask them when they will have it completed, they are responsible for their own deadline. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And also with people with add, it can be really helpful if you ask them what time Are you carving out to get into this, Keith? I guess you don't have any pets then? Or if you do, they'll be hungry. Oh, well, Keith, I do have pets. They can beg me for food. That is the perk of having pets. I cannot have plants. I cannot have plants. Poor plants. They will die. They will wither. They will turn brown. I have never kept a plant alive in my life. Steve. 11 tabs that I typed this. Underachiever, apparently. Yeah. I'm sorry to break it to you, Steve. I think you're ADD Light. But anyway, I hope this super, super rambly live and video has shed some light on what it's like to be a person living with add. I say that like it's like this big thing. I don't think it's that big thing. What it's like to have your brain functioning with ADD technology. How about that? It's a little different. It's hard to. Hard to deal with when you're not used to it or if you don't understand it, but it's you. Honestly, like, if you know how to deal with it, if you know how to manage yourself or manage people who work with you who have add, then it just works so much better. It works so much better. And give yourself some slack. Chris the credit guy Hicks. So my four screens with four to five tabs on each screen is good? Oh, yeah, that's definitely ADD land. Welcome, Steve. Addl. Yeah, ADD Light. That's you. Anyway, can I just say I'm so excited for tomorrow. I have an admin day. This is one of the things that I realized after killing myself because building my business, I wasn't getting anything done. And I realized, oh, my God, I haven't given myself that block of time to go deep and to go into deep focus. That's when I get so much stuff done. Keith, I. Interesting. I never considered the making connections point before. Thanks, Katie. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. It's why we're really creative. It's why there are a lot of people with ADD who are artists. We're just brilliant at it. It's also why we are devastating in arguments. Okay. We can take a point from over here and a point from over there and a point from 10 years ago and bring it here. Oh, you do not want to be in an argument with us. Chris. Yes. Thanks for doing this. Oh, I'm so happy to do this. Yeah. And I hope this was. This is helpful. If you have any questions DM me, I'll most likely point you to the Being brave call, because my time is filling up really quickly these days. But I just want to make sure that, you know, you're not going nuts. You know, your brain isn't dysfunctional, it just works. It's using a different operating system. That's basically it. And there's a great way to. To instruct and educate the people in your world how they best work with you. And everyone's going to find their own way with that. But you just have to take a deep breath when you're feeling like you're being attacked or like you're being told you're doing something wrong and realize this is an educating moment. This is an opportunity to educate this human as to what works best for me to get this stuff done. Steve Foley. Busyness versus business. I love that distinction. Yeah, and sometimes they cross over. Anyway, it is Wednesday night, and on Wednesday nights, during the pandemic, the most exciting thing we do is go play lotto. So I'm gonna go buy some lotto tickets. Hopefully I win. If I do, you'll never know, except that I'll all of a sudden be in a much fancier background than I am right now. But I will never divulge that, because apparently you're not supposed to. And on that note, I'm going to say goodnight to you all. This has been lovely. Thank you for tuning in, and again, I hope this is helpful. Anyway, big, big love, and I'll talk to you all soon.