New Years is when everyone comes out with big plans and goals.

“Things will be different this time!”

“I’m committed to change!”

It’s a mantra that inspires ads for gym memberships across the globe. For most of us, it’s also simply a hollow promise.

It’s hollow, not because we lack the willpower or motivation. The reality is, maintaining the status quo is wired into our brains.

It’s an unfortunate reality that for some there’s a hardwired mental health concern, but that isn’t the only way that the deck can be stacked against us.

We all crave consistency

Have you ever bought something new, certain that it was going to bring you happiness, then shortly after the acquisition you become bored with it?

How about experiencing a misfortune, such as a break-up, expecting it to ruin you but then realizing, not long after, that it wasn’t the end of the world?

In the early 1970s, an essay by Brickman and Campbell coined the term “Hedonistic Adaptation” as they studied people who had experience great (but sudden) fortune or misfortune. The findings were that people recover fairly quickly from these changes back to a ‘normal’ level of happiness.

We humans like to think that change is as simple (and as fickle) as flipping one variable. Sadly, it isn’t.

Our brains are wired to adapt to repetition and consistent stimuli, so when something comes along that interrupts it, we experience a blip in our emotions briefly before returning to that normal.

The good news is, this adaptation is relative to our perceived circumstances and how we evaluate ourselves against others in our lives.

You can see how your happiness changes, or your behavior shifts, when hanging around a new peer group (such as going to school or a new job.) This is your brain adapting to new criteria.

What does this mean?

If you want to get in shape… If you want to learn French… If you want to make a change in your life, find others who want to make the same or similar changes.

It’s easier to venture into the unknown as a group than to go alone.

Humans create a worldview to support their beliefs

Sometimes the issue isn’t that we’re adapting back to the normal we already know, sometimes we’ve created a set of beliefs that keep us in the same space.

Limiting beliefs and learned helplessness are parts of a mental model we’re all susceptible to, either from our upbringing, from our peers, or from the information we’re presented about the world.

It isn’t uncommon to think you can never be wealthy or successful. Culturally (at least in the West) there are constant reminders that “Money is the Root of all Evil.” Unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that people with money do bad things.

Maybe the issue is that you don’t think you’re smart enough, or you think that you don’t want to lead. Perhaps you think college will make you a socialist, or that medication will change your personality.

If you look at your beliefs, you’ll find that you have “excuses” for why you aren’t succeeding at something. You’ve created a limiting belief about who you can become.

You may have to actively seek out the good side of your limiting beliefs.

If you want to be somebody else, change your mind

Beyond the beliefs we form, there is also the mindset you have about change or about the world.

Your mindset will directly affect your hedonistic adaptability, it will also affect your limiting beliefs.

No matter what change you’re trying to make in your life, you have to approach it from the perspective that it IS achievable, that you deserve it, and that you may have to give up your old way of thinking or doing things.

A “new you” doesn’t come cheap, the price is the effort to change.

The tools at your disposal include, but aren’t limited to:

• Your subconscious - This guy can do some heavy lifting, you just have to set it up for success. (BTW, the subconscious doesn’t understand negative vs positive, it ignores words like “not,” “won’t,” “isn’t”, “doesn’t”… all the n’t words are forbidden in chats with the subconscious.)

• Your perspective - Stop reading or consuming the things that defined the old you, spend time learning about the things that the new you would be doing. (Perspective is based on your education, read more things about what you want, talk to people about those things, journal about the new you, learn about re-framing.)

• Your surroundings - The people you talk to, the places you spend your time, they can either inspire you, or leave you trapped. (Put away the toxic content, decorate your space with things that affirm the new you.)

I won’t drop the phrase “growth mindset” but only mention that it’s a broad term that means, a willingness to increase your life. If you like the phrase, use it, but you can just as easily frame it as a “millionaire mindset” or “beach body mindset.”

Be the change…

There is this quote that Gandhi never said, but is still apt.

While there isn’t any proof that he ever uttered those words, the thought stands strong on two fronts.

By being the person you wish everyone would be, you’re creating a positive role model into the world. If you live as you think people should live, it’s easy for someone to have the courage to step up and behave the same.

On the back side, by living a life that you think improves the world, you’re encourage growth and success in your own life.

Here’s one of my favorite perspective shifting lifehacks:

• Stand up and assume the “superhero pose.” (see image at the top of the post)

• Chin up, Feet apart, hands on your hips.

• Proceed to ooze confidence in this pose for at least 30 seconds.

By standing in this pose, assuming the confidence that comes with being a superhero, it shifts your mood.

I love this exercise because it feels silly, it might even looks silly, but after a few breaths it shifts and you start to feel more heroic. I didn’t make it up, it’s got research behind it… honest!

Did you miss me? I took some end of year down time, my brain shifted around a lot in that time. What kinds of shifting?

• I’m moving my newsletter format around a bit, its still longish, its still about me and my experience, but it’s also about helping you. It’s stuff I learn, stuff I figure out and stuff I need to hear. I’ll get back on the Monday schedule now that I’ve dislodged my writers block. Action for you? None needed, keep subscribing, keep reading.

• I’m shifting my community format, while I’ll put some writing and some announcement behind Chaos Cooperative, I’m opening the door to an actual community (on its own platform and everything) in February. Details to follow in the coming weeks. Action for you? Nothing today, membership options coming soon.

• I’m hanging out a more official placard for coaching! If you’re anywhere on the Neurodivergent spectrum, or just have a chaotic brain and want to get organized, grab some time on my calendar, and we can talk about possible coaching options! Action for you? Book a Discovery Call!

Beyond that, comment with any perspective shifting hacks, or if you’re interested in joining the community when it goes live!

ADHD is forgetting your car keys, then going back to get them and forgetting why you were leaving, so then you sit down and start binging a new show on Netflix.

That’s not me. Maybe I’ve forgotten my car keys, or forgotten why I was doing something, so just did something else… but this perfect storm of absent-mindedness is not out of character for a greater social media description of ADHD.

“ADHD is…” can be the most triggering thing I see on the internet, or it can be a moment of freedom as you feel heard.

I bring it up because I saw a perfect example recently, that spun my brain into new directions.

When you start to doomscroll…

The advice offered to an ADHD Reddit community suggested that you just need to stop, drink some water, and go for a walk, and it’ll prevent doomscrolling.

The ADHD crowd never likes that advice, the non-ADHD crowd has no idea why.

The problem with this advice is that it presumes to understand why someone with ADHD will doomscroll, or pursue a distraction.

Until you’ve experienced what is often called ADHD Paralysis, you presume it’s something that can be turned off. The problem is, this brain lock can be debilitating and heart breaking.

This behavior works something like this, at least for me:

• I know what I need to be working on.

• I know what I could do to get me working on it.

• I feel that it’s important to work on this thing.

• I can’t disengage my brain from this other thing, to work on the important thing.

• I can’t get my brain to engage with this thing I need to do.

It isn’t optional. There isn’t a choice. I will choose the thing I want to do, and my brain and body will not follow along.

What is choice, how often do we really choose?

The more I thought about the inability to do the suggested thing from the would-be helper, the more I realized that ‘choice’ is the part of this frustration.

A person with ADHD may experience several different executive dysfunctions, but the ability to choose seems to be tied to planning and to problem-solving.

The cure? Sadly is, don’t let it happen in the first place. (Yeah, easier said than done.)

All advice from the professionals requires some amount of pre-meditation. The suggestions are all about groundwork beforehand:

• have tasks so small that you can do them with minimal effort

• create a simple schedule so you never feel overwhelmed with too much to do.

• track things you complete, not being perfect

• do the things you love

• make things more interesting

The only one that really feels like you can do it in the moment is to get up and move. Go for a walk, or literally just put yourself in a different workspace.

I’ll be honest, sometimes it’s an absurd force of will to stop the thing you’re automatically doing and choose to go for a walk… it’s as much about choosing to stop the thing as it is choosing to start doing the thing.

“Choosing” in this scenario feels more like “Forcing” and doesn’t feel like something you want so much as something that’s non-negotiable.

Understanding yourself, understanding your ADHD afflicted loved one

Being able to choose is something we take for granted, feeling like you don’t get to choose can be devastated.

People with ADHD have a high rate of co-morbidity with depression and anxiety. Nobody is more disappointed than the person who is unable to flip that switch and start working. We feel lazy, we feel pathetic, we feel incompetent.

If you experience these moments of brain lock, or analysis paralysis, recognize that they’re temporary. Rarely do you have them on back to back days.

If you have a loved one with ADHD, recognize that they are trying, in spite of the lack of action. Don’t give them advice, it just makes them feel angry or worse. Instead, offer to be there. Work alongside them, there is no need to talk, just normalize working next to them.

Often, it’s as simple as feeling like you’re part of a bigger whole. This brain lock is more common with people working remotely, or studying by themself.

Be part of a community, meet regularly, normalize these struggles. The more you see that it isn’t you being “broken” the easier it is to slide out of the struggle and into action.

Nothing about us without us

The best thing you can do, if you don’t have ADHD, is to learn about it, not to just offer advice that worked for you.

If you have traits of a person with ADHD, consider how often it happens. If it prevents you from getting work done or functioning in society, how often.

Some things to remember, before you offer advice… even if you have ADHD:

• Not every fix works for every person.

• Not every fix works for the same person every time.

• Unsolicited advice is rarely going to be perceived as helpful.

  • Did you know that ADHD is an emotional dysregulation disorder as well?

When it comes to help, mindfulness and compassion are key. Recognizing our differences is more useful than a single, silver bullet style recommendation.

I want to add a final clarification, ADHD is a disorder, not a disease. It’s an emotional and executive function disorder, there isn’t a cure. Learning how it affects you and the people in your life is the answer, so that you can be helpful in a manner that is specific to that person’s “quirks.”

Also, look into your life and see when you’re making choices and when the decision is made before you arrive. Consider what you can do in advance to let you feel like your actions were yours all along.

Enjoy your day and week.

Hug someone today.

Cheers!

I saw an article this week stating what felt pretty obvious to me, “Is Being Busy Good for People With A.D.H.D.?” which was about a study that found ADHD is less severe for people with a demanding schedule.

Completely unrelated, a headline crossed my path the same day saying “Busy is the New Lazy.” Sadly, I didn’t bookmark it (or even open it in a new tab!) so I don’t recall where it was. Doing a search for the term reveals that it’s a widely held belief, and goes back over a decade.

Both are true, in their own context. The ‘lazy’ headline is just ‘good marketing’ since it gets you to click. The problem boils down to what we call ‘busy’ and how we manage our time.

I can be busy all day, doing things that are unimportant, I can be lazy all day playing games. At least with being lazy, I get some mental recharge.

I wrote about finding the right amount of Chaos a while back. We could swap Chaos and Busy in this headline and get the same results.

Chances are pretty good that you WANT to be busy, but you also want to feel like the things you’re busy doing actually MEAN something. The trick is finding a way to be busy while also doing something meaningful.

Channeling Chaos == Prioritizing Busy

I love the chaos in my life, when it feels like I’m able to work with it. I find that the chaos brings with it a need for creative thinking and problem-solving. If you re-frame “chaos” to mean “busy” then you can see how there is a good and a bad version.

Good Busy looks like performing tasks that move you towards a milestone or goal.

Bad Busy looks like performing tasks that appear to be ‘work related’ but they don’t directly ‘move the needle.’

For me, I’ve always found myself happiest as a product launch or deadline was looming. I was forced to live in ONLY Good Busy mode to get things done. More importantly, the pressure made each task obvious and easy to prioritize. The short time-line didn’t leave room for Bad Busy.

When I’m between projects, or if when I don’t have a clear project, I end up feeling like all I do is Bad Busy stuff.

How do we create a type of chaos that lets us be ‘Good Busy’?

Finding purpose, channeling chaos or just being the good kind of busy is all about 3 things:

• Prioritization - When we know what matters and what doesn’t, it becomes more obvious what we should work on.

• Imminence - While some people are able to care about something due in 3 months, many (maybe most?) of us are not going to prioritize tasks that won’t be noticed until closer to the deadline.

• Routine - Having enough of a regular schedule that allows Chaos Channeling for a finite amount of time, consistently, will let you get the things done that need to be done.

There are danger zones, it’s important that you spot them for yourself. Things that make it easy to slip into bad busy are:

• Boredom - You might have a full-time job, but if it feels pointless, is too easy or leaves you with more time than tasks, you can easily find yourself seeking something more stimulating to work on.

• Overwhelm - When the list is too long, the instructions are confusing, or the timing is out of whack, you can end up feeling like it’s all ‘too much’ and just do the easiest thing you can reach that gives you a dopamine hit.

• Lack of Clarity - Whether its bad instructions or your own unfocused goal, when you’re not sure what to work on, you can easily get busy with the wrong things.

The perfect storm for a Good Busy working session is a keen understanding of why you’re working on that task, why you’re working on it right now, why it matters to you, a sense that now is the right time to be working on it, and plenty of room to work on this without distraction.

There is a lot of WHY involved in Good Busy.

Finding a Flow State

The goal is to have a perfect gumbo of all the good stuff mentioned above.

The more clear your goal and task, the easier it is to flow from one thing to the next productively.

The feeling that working on it ‘right now’ is the best solution means you’ve prioritized well enough (even if it’s involuntary) to let you confidently put other things out of mind.

If you want to be able to reproduce a Good Busy day, having a block of time that is untouched by distraction or other appointments is key. Setting a schedule for “Good Busy” makes it even easier to keep “Bad Busy” at bay.

For me, that looks like:

Creating a 90-minute chunk, typically in the morning, for my peak creative self. I have a mental picture of what I want to do… that means I’ve internalized the list of tasks, or the bigger goal.

I sit at my desk, close all the things, turn on music I can’t sing along to, open the digital creation solution (Notion, Substack Editor, Canva, whatever) and start to work.

Sometimes I have to sit and ‘get in the zone’ by reading my notes about the thing I’m working on, but typically it’s been bouncing around my head for a bit before I start. Again, having an internal vision helps a TON.

Chaos, or rather Busy-ness is Subjective, but Controllable

Whether you have ADHD, Autism, or are anywhere in the Neurodiverse Universe (Neurodi-universe?) you have your own chaos in your head or life. That isn’t a bad thing, contrary to the aforementioned article, it’s just YOUR thing.

If you’re finding a way to be busy with the things that matter to you, you’ll be able to complete your projects with a sense of confidence and pride.

When your vision is clear about what you’re creating, or doing, it’s easier to skip the overwhelm and spend time meaningfully creating.

Sure, people with a busy schedule manage their ADHD better. EVERYONE with a busy schedule manages their time better. It’s unsurprising.

While someone with ADHD has some peculiar wiring going on, they’re still the same basic meat sack with the same need to be productive. Some aspects of our brain make life harder, some make it easier, and leveraging your unique version of chaos is what will ultimately guarantee your success.

You don’t go golfing in a lightning storm.

You don’t go to the library in a speedo.

If you’re going to teach a class, you dress in a respectable manner, talk in a tone that is helpful and knowledgeable and generally follow a set of your own rules to make sure you’re as effective as possible.

Similarly, when researching you’re surrounding yourself with books, resources or people that can help you learn as much as possible.

There is a time and a place for most things. While there is often a rule or even a law to keep you doing the right thing at the right time, that isn’t always the case.

Most of the time, you have to set your own rules for your own effectiveness.

So, what’s my point? You need to put your head in the right place to “do the thing”, you might also need to put your body in then right place as well.

Your life has many contexts

There are physical contexts. — Where you are, what you have the tools for and your ability to physically do something.

There are emotional contexts. — How you feel, about the thing you’re doing, about yourself or about life, all affect how well you’ll perform.

There are mental contexts. — Much like emotions, there is your ability to do the task. Do you have the necessary skills, knowledge and mental capacity to work on that thing now?

Where are you? How do you feel? What’s in your head?

For example, you might be in your office at home, or on your couch. You might be working from a browser, or at a physical typewriter. You might be fretting over your sick dog, or an emotional interaction with a loved one. Or you might feel overwhelmed or anxious. These different variables will directly affect your ‘output.’

For me, with ADHD, some of these contexts can speak louder than others. When I get overwhelmed, I can get VERY overwhelmed (think ‘brain lock’, can’t complete sentences.) When I’m at a computer, if I don’t “lock in” to my task, it’s very easy to open a new tab and browse new things.

While I don’t suggest people should be 100% dialed in all of the time, seeking to eek out maximum productivity or performance, I do think that it’s important for people to learn how to set themselves up for success.

If you have something to do, be deliberate. Learn to recognize the necessary context. Know your tendency to become distracted or ineffective in certain conditions, and be able to put yourself in the right frame of mind for your task.

Creating a context or productivity “Cheat Sheet”

If you are blessed with the ability to just lock in and put aside every other distraction on command, good for you! This might not be a topic you need to explore. If you’re like me, sometimes you need to have a set of ‘rules’ and cues to ensure your success.

For example; I’m currently in a coffee shop, writing via my iPad with a keyboard. I have noise-canceling headphones on, music without lyrics playing and notifications all turned off.

This isn’t my standard setup, but matches some of my settings at home. I’ve recently noticed that I can easily fall out of my zone and open a tab to do something else. I have SO many distractions available at home.

Today’s setup has several conditions that optimize my productivity…

• I’m working in public, people can see me, so shame keeps me from opening a game.

• I’m away from my house, so I can’t be distracted by thoughts of chores to do.

• I’m working on a small screen that doesn’t really like to multitask, switching to another app takes deliberate action.

• I have music playing that has a beat, or a pace, but no words for me to start singing along or to shape my thoughts.

• My time is limited, I’m not going to set up camp and be here for 4 hours… it’s just not that cozy.

• I’m surrounded by strangers, so I’m not likely to start talking about things that need to get done around the house.

Obviously this is great for setting context for writing. I could (and do) the same basic setup if I’m doing research, though then I usually have a physical notebook nearby as well for capturing notes.

Another factor, I just finished a 45-minute walk outside in nature. I’ve tried to do this before, but then going home to work after the walk. Something about my house sucks me back into distraction mode. If I really want to get something done, I need to isolate myself.

So, a cheat sheet, what does that look like?

Before going any further, I feel like I should mention that the need for a context cheat sheet is mostly applicable to ‘knowledge work’ like writing, designing, coding and learning.

A cheat sheet will look different for everyone, both for what they are trying to do and how they need to do it.

It starts with identifying the thing you’re doing, where you can do it, what you need to be able to do it, and anything that might impede the work being done.

Most likely, the only reason you need this type of help is that you’re prone to getting distracted or maybe overwhelmed. Spend time really noticing what distracts, or what mindset typically leads to distractions.

Earlier, I mentioned that when I get overwhelmed, I really crank it up to 11. Sometimes it’s the “distract yourself” overwhelm, sometimes it’s a “bite your nails and stress out” overwhelm, and sometimes it’s the dreaded “brain lock” overwhelm.

Things that cause overwhelm tend to be clutter related:

• Physical Clutter — Is my house/office/desk a mess, are things getting in my way?

• Virtual Clutter — Is my browser filled with open tabs, do I have unfinished documents opened or notes in too many places?

• Temporal Clutter — Do I have a calendar or to-do list that is overflowing, is there something looming that needs to be completed?

• Mental Clutter — Am I stressing over something, do I feel like I don’t know what to do, or is my brain filled with too many thoughts ?

Editor’s Note: Clutter is a catch-all. Overwhelm is also a catch-all. Don’t get hung up on those words. If you use different words, please feel free to share them below.

I would probably journal about these things, looking over my past week at the things that have caused me to lose time and productivity, then dig into the ‘why’ of it.

Revisiting my current working conditions from above:

• I’m in a coffee shop after walking because I’ve noticed when I tried to write after going for a walk, I’ll lose all of that intention upon entering my house.

• I have headphones on, otherwise I’ll listen to the people around me talking.

• I’m using a tablet instead of my laptop because, well because all the clutter on my laptop at home is still clutter on my laptop at a coffee shop.

I only know that I need to ‘beat those distractions’ because I looked at what has (or hasn’t) worked for me in the past.

Context switching, the elephant in the room

This last consideration is what started my entire thought process on contexts. I suck at context switching.

What’s context switching? It’s when you switch from one thing (writing a newsletter) to a different thing (playing a video game.) To make the switch, your brain changes gears to address the new task.

If my wife talks to me while I’m trying to get started writing, boom, progress stops. If my daughter shows up and wants to go for a drive while I’m writing, boom, hard reset. When someone lobs something at me while I’m trying to focus, it’s super easy for me to lose my momentum and focus on the new thing.

Alternately, if I’m playing a game on my iPad, PlayStation or computer… it’s easy to “just 5 more minutes” or “just one more quest” the day away. I have an incredibly difficult time stopping some things, and it can be nearly as hard to re-start something if I get pulled away.

Context switching into work is always harder than switching into ‘fun’ things.

Bonus Topic!

Temporal Context - Time-blindness requires the ability to work in contexts

Being completely honest, I don’t typically edit my posts. In my head, once it’s written, it’s done. This is the case for many or most things for a person with ADHD. We get trapped in the ‘now is the ONLY time that exists’ state.

I have trouble caring about setting long term plans. My context is almost always ‘right now,’ even when I create plans. Unfortunately, I don’t easily return to the things I’ve already done, and I struggle with returning to old ideas.

So, since I can’t context-switch easily, I try to set myself up for ‘absolute success, absolutely’ when doing something.

The goal is to create routines that have you doing something because of the routine, not because you want to accomplish a task or goal.

For me, motivation isn’t based on the end result, it’s based on the current interest.

Basically, if I can’t learn to play “Stairway to Heaven” today, I will probably never learn it… unless it’s a routine that has me just practicing a sequence at a time.

So that’s the final context, Temporal context. Finding a way to use time to your advantage. Learn to spot when you’re most creative (in the morning for me), when you’re low energy (mid-afternoon for me) and plan accordingly.

My record for number of open tabs in my desktop browser is 224 tabs.

I mock my wife when I see her browser and how many tabs she has open, but I don’t dare show her mine.

The secret is to group your tabs under groups, then nobody see’s that there are 73 tabs open, but unread.

I’ve posted on social media about it, I’ve joked with peers about it. Generally, I make light of the whole behavior, as it seems innocent enough.

But maybe there’s more to it…

Why are we opening tabs if we don’t immediately visit the page?

At first glance, it seems like the problem is simply that we got distracted or forgot about them. This is an obvious answer, but not a thoughtful one.

Since I can only talk for myself, I’ll walk through the process.

When I’m reading a link-laden story, or if I’m on a catalog of sorts, I recognize that going to a linked page will pull me away from my current objective. Clicking “Open link in new tab” is like saying “I’ll check this out later.” Sometimes the intensity of my focus means that a single page may generate 10+ fresh tabs to “check out later.”

Sometimes, I’ll get a link sent by a friend, so that gets a fresh tab.

Other times, I’ll open a link from an email, or a chapter from a lesson. These go to a new tab filled with possibilities.

The other, most innocent of behaviors is for me to create a collection of tabs that I use when I’m priming myself for some behavior. I have a folder called “Deep Work” which, when I open it, will open 10 tabs with different work specific pages and audio resources for white noise and productivity. This is the smart way to have too many tabs, I can close that whole batch after the job is done. But often, when I’m working, I’m opening tabs for reference.

My point is, it’s easy to fill up your browser with content that languishes for some future you to consume.

Mindfully, respectfully, we would all benefit by a hard rule of some finite number of tabs. If you can close your browser entirely then you’re on the path to peace and clarity.

Huge tab collections is the new silent killer

Opening a tab is innocent. Planning to read it later is aspirational. Leaving it untouched for a day… and it starts down the path of “snowballing.”

I’ve had days when I jump between my open tabs, thinking I’ll start to whatever that tab represents. Maybe I’ll research more about dopamine, maybe I’ll watch that video on creating templates in Notion. I can literally watch myself start to crush beneath the weight of options. Self-imposed responsibilities.

When my browser gets so loaded that I can’t even look at the collection of tabs, let alone start to process them, I know it’s going to be a bad day.

In the world of knowledge work, or of student work, every browser tab is something you could be or should be working on or processing. It’s not the same if you just use your computer for fun and consuming entertainment. When you work at your computer, the browser becomes your desktop. Each tab, an open book, turned to a specific page.

We all need to have a clear intent and recognize our relationship with the content we’ve saved in our browser.

What’s the answer? How do I manage all these tabs?

Generally, we had a clear reason for saving something to ‘check out later.’ Unfortunately, it’s often mindless. The solution is two parts:

• Be intentional when opening a tab.

• Be intentional when returning to a tab.

The missing piece is the review process. This is a necessary function of knowledge management.

When you’re exploring ideas, you need an intelligent manner for organizing it, but more importantly, you need to take time when you will process the information and distill it into something useful.

Learning doesn’t come from the consumption of the content, but in its integration with the rest of your knowledge. That’s what makes each person valuable, we all integrate knowledge into our own unique collection and perspective.

It’s important to let things go as well, if you’re so overwhelmed by the possibility of all the ‘knowledge’ you’ve saved, it’s ok to walk away.

Sometimes you just have to declare bankruptcy

Sometimes you’ve just saved up too much content and don’t have a way to move past it. I’ve been there. It was so bad that I couldn’t do anything, not because my computer was running slowly, but because my brain was.

Sometimes our brain is like a computer, having a finite amount of storage or working memory. If we have too many things queued up, we’ll start to slow down and our performance becomes unmanageable.

Just like with a computer, sometimes you need to flush the cache or even restart the application altogether.

Learning to just say goodbye and giving up on those tabs may be the last skill you need to learn.

Don’t bury yourself with things you could or should be doing. When you can’t do anything, starting over is the only way.

When I don’t write words, and when I’m not avoiding productivity, I sometimes go out to my shop to make sawdust and wood chips.

Yeah, I have a flippin’ shop full of tools, and I’m sitting here at a desk typing things down.

Here’s the funny thing, when I’m out there, I have more fun coming up with jigs and solutions to help me ‘work more effectively.’ But then I don’t actually make things more effectively.

I have a friend who is an amateur blacksmith. He said you spend the first year or two of learning the hobby creating new types of clamps and hammers and ways to work with metal.

One of my favorite YouTube channels is an amateur machinist, he keeps a tally in the corner of his videos showing his side projects that come up when trying to create something.

Everywhere I look, people are using tools just to make more tools. It seems like madness, but I love it.

The reason this inspires me is that these people are all looking at a problem, and they’re then addressing it directly with a solution that solves it directly.

When I sit down at my computer, or in a chair to read a book, I constantly encounter ‘one size fits all’ advice for how to be a better person, or how to be more productive.

That isn’t how people work.

This is a slightly different post than normal for Channeling Chaos, I’ll get back to actually talking about actual techniques or thoughts next week.

The path to tool building

I’ve been writing for a while now, and I often come back to a handful of concepts and some frameworks that I repeat. For some reason, I keep thinking I should create a course or a workshop to create them.

At the same time, I find that I’m never interested in other people’s courses and workshops. In one ear, out the other… the activity doesn’t stick.

Funnily enough, I also feel it’s absurd to try to create something to share with people that I don’t even think I would use. So where does that leave me?

If you guessed “create a tool” you’re correct!

I’m not a fan of “complicated” though. I don’t like to have one big, convoluted contraption with switches and buttons that I forget how to use. K.I.S.S. is what I learned in my dad’s shop, and it’s what keeps my ADHD brain from getting overwhelmed.

What tools to build?

I’m of the school of thought that if I need something, there are others that need it too.

My short list of tools in the hopper, or already done:

• Done - Daily Journal

  • I built this a while back, it needs to be re-created. I’ve been using the Pro version for 6 months, and I feel it’s too complicated.

  • I’m dropping the price for a limited time on the Pro version while I work out the kinks, purchases are entitled to ‘lifetime updates’ meaning if you buy it and I change it, you’ll get the update for free.

  • If you’re a paid subscriber, ping me, and I’ll send it to you for free.

• In Progress - Daily Routine Generator

  • Sometimes I don’t feel like doing certain things. Some days I don’t have the mental energy to do too much. Some days I’m on fire.

  • Version 1 is focused on letting you randomly generate your morning routine each day, or just build one with things you like and then help you track it, habit tracker style.

• In Progress - Dopamine Cheat Sheet

  • What’s a good way to feel good in a healthy way. What’s the bad stuff. How can I get some in 5 minutes or less, stuff like that.

  • Simple stuff, it’ll be free to subscribers, paid or not.

That’s the list for now, I don’t want more than 3 things in my head or I’ll stop working on anything.

What tool do you wish YOU had?

If you struggle with life management, or productivity or generally handling knowledge in your world, then you probably have an idea of something you need. Let me know and we can see what is feasible.

If you need really bespoke solutions, let me know, we can talk.

Play the part.

Wearing different hats.

Put on your big boy pants.

Cowboy up.

There are a lot of odd ways to say, be someone different to get this thing done. Most importantly, though, it is normal enough that it’s a universal concept.

That being said, in the “neurodivergent” world, masking can be a double-edged sword.

Masking for people with ADHD or Autism is where you hide a part of yourself to fit in with the world. To be accepted as normal.

I don’t want to trivialize that type of masking, as it can sometimes be hard to manage.

If you do have thoughts or struggles with masking, I would truly love to hear them and hope you will respond to this email or message me in chat if you’d like.

The topic of masking, today, is more so to recognize that we can channel other perspectives and hopefully be able to put them on and take them off as needed.

What are the desirable masks to craft?

If your life is nothing but masks and nobody can see the real you, it can make you seem like a sociopath. Ideally, you should only lean into using a mask as a temporary solution.

The point of a mask is to put yourself in a mindset that is compatible with an activity. Here are some examples of times you shift your perspective:

• Doing taxes - You’re putting on your accountant mask, looking for deductions and being detail oriented about spending.

• Parenting - You have to stop and be serious with the kids sometimes, no funny business. Hold your ground and make it clear that the topic is important.

• Research - Be curious, be thorough, be diligent. You want to find information and resources efficiently and record it in a way that makes it easy to reference later.

• Dating - Particularly early in a relationship. People are on their best behavior and try to show the best version of themselves at the start of a relationship.

• Sporting Events (Participating) - They call it a ‘Game Face’ for a reason. Athletes performing their best are deliberate in staying focused during the event.

The more I add items to the list, the more it becomes clear that we’re swapping masks out all the time.

If you can identify a reason you need to be the best version of some aspect of yourself, then you can find a way to create a mask that goes with it.

What does mask creation look like?

I talked a while back about the ‘Primed 90’ system, where you set yourself up for success by having a routine before starting 90 minutes of deep work. That is basically what creating a mask looks like.

Decide what you’re getting out of the mask, it’s benefits or purpose.

Get yourself hyped about the thing that needs the mask. Read about it, journal about it, listen to a podcast, watch a video.

Decide how a person that embodies that mask thinks and talks. What do they do. Why they’re the expert.

Ask yourself, “Why am I an expert at this mask’s purpose” (but, you know, say the purpose.)

Obviously different masks will have a different purpose, sometimes you want to have a bit of ritual like this, but sometimes you just assume the role out of habit.

When do you take it off? When do you stop using it altogether?

Regarding our mental health, masking can be problematic. If you feel the need to be someone else to function in society, it doesn’t feel good. You live a life thinking something is wrong with you. That type of masking can be tremendously draining, as you’re always pretending and always have your guard up.

If you’re creating a mask to be someone you’re not, you’re setting your life up for heartbreak and sadness. That isn’t what I’m hoping to promote here.

The temporary or situational masks I’ve described above are something you use to handle a task, or to help you become something new. If you wear the mask of Entrepreneur for a while, you start to think like that person.

If you create a mask that is the person you want to become, you can wear it until it isn’t a mask.

The mask of a focused athlete comes off after the game. You unwind and relax. Nobody wants to deal with ‘high intensity you’ at the dinner table.

Masks are tremendously useful if you can leverage them properly

When you can put on your game face and get something done, everybody wins. Being able to shift yourself temporarily to get things done is a high value skill. Being able to protect yourself with a mask is also useful, as long as you have a place in your life to take it off and still be yourself.

I started writing this after talking with several other people about how masking affects their lives. In both cases they’re living with autism and in both cases, they wish they could turn it off and on at will. I’m sympathetic and wish I could say this post is helpful to them, but I can’t be sure.

While I’ve lived most of my life masking some of my quirks, I feel like I have been able to be my authentic self most of the time. That being said, something I’ve endured, and maybe it’s not because of my ADHD, I feel like working a life in a corporate environment has stunted my growth. Living a life chasing other people’s dreams profits left me feeling drained, depressed and listless.

My goal is to create (or help create) a handful of masks to get us through ‘the hard stuff’ periodically, and otherwise chase our hopes and dreams with as much authenticity as possible.

Do you have any masks that you’re aware of?

Do you recognize when you’re putting it on or taking it off?

Do these masks help you or hurt you?

Comments are always welcome.

Triggered!

That word pops into my head every time I see a self professed guru on some social media or writing platform telling me what I need to do to be successful like them.

Sometimes they’re elaborate, “17 steps to success”, type lists. Sometimes they’re overly vague.

Almost every time I see them, they’re promising me that my life will change.

I hate that.

I hate it with a white-hot, burning passion.

We’re all unique, we’re all handling our own thing. Some of us literally have brains that work differently than others. You can’t really make that kind of promise and expect it to stick.

I say all that, and then boldly say that I recently, I wrote my own post on Medium about Rethinking the Morning Routine.

The issue isn’t with routines themselves, it’s with what we expect from them. Lets explore that.

The problem with the routine

I just said that routines aren’t the problem, then create a section that says the contrary? That’s confusing, but hear me out.

A routine is intended to give you a formula to reproduce specific results. Routines are simply recipes to produce an outcome.

The problem arises when you’re unable to adjust your recipe, er… routine.

If you’re at high elevation, you learn to adjust cook times and ingredients.

When you’re preparing a meal for someone who is lactose intolerant, or with a gluten sensitivity, you adjust the ingredients.

The point is, people are unique. Desired outcomes are unique. Therefore, the path to get there needs to be adjusted.

The problem with routines shared by others is that they’re typically designed as one size fits all. This is the case for most ‘self-improvement’ advice, it’s hard to write a book that is different for each person.

Adjust the recipe for your desired results

There are a handful of components that make up a good routine, recognizing that your routine should be designed for the result you’re trying to accomplish.

For a routine to start your day, it’s helpful to set your brain up for success. This is what we would usually call the “Morning Routine” but some people don’t wake up til noon. Let’s call it Guiding Routine, since it’s helping you locate your north start before you start doing something.

Craft your routine with the following framework, these are categories and there are tasks you can do within them:

• Intention — Keep it simple, re-establish why you’re doing this routine.

• Reflection — Consider your past and how it’s affecting your present and future.

• Planning — Prioritize your day, your life, your intention or your next step.

• Self-Care — Do something to support your mental and physical health.

You want to always have those 4 categories in place, as they all serve a purpose for your brain and for your success.

Let’s look at an example routine to clarify the exercise:

• Intention

  • Read your ‘Mission Statement.’

  • Write an affirmation for the day, or read/say an affirmation out loud 3 times with what you’ll accomplish.

• Reflection

  • Write 3–5 sentences recapping yesterday’s progress and activity.

  • Write 3 things you’re grateful for, make sure you’re deliberate and thoughtful as you write them.

  • Take a moment to thank ‘past you’ for setting ‘present and future you’ up for success.

• Planning

  • Write down 3 things you plan to get done today.

    • Define how long each one might take to complete and a simple follow-up step you could take afterwards if applicable.

  • Write down 3 life priorities, confirm that your ‘3 Things’ align with at least one of your life priorities.

• Self-Care

  • Do a Sun Salutation, or similar sequence of yoga poses.

  • Spend 10–15 minutes meditating.

  • Exercise (get sweaty) for 30+ minutes.

If you’re like me, you might benefit by having a rotating list of things under each category you might do on any given day. Maybe today feels more like a “Long Walk” day for Self-care, or Planning might include your quarterly goals.

Routines, they aren’t just for breakfast anymore

I’ve had many great morning routines that really set me on fire with activity when I did them, lasting all the way until… lunch.

For whatever reason, my brain resets when I go to another context. Generally I encounter my family at lunchtime, or I start doing some non-productive habit that derails me. It is more common that not, that I come back from lunch and struggle for a couple of hours before finding my footing… if I’m lucky enough to do so.

Often my non-productive afternoons turn into non-productive evenings that turn into frustrated ‘reflection’ time the next day.

A routine, as I said, isn’t just something to start the day, it can be used for anything.

An afternoon routine, or a ‘reset’ routine, is akin to the morning routine but lighter.

An example afternoon routine might look like:

• Reflection

  • Recap the morning.

  • Identify next steps.

  • How’s your energy and attention?

• Intention

  • What are you prepared to work on next?

  • How can you steer clear of distraction?

  • How can you regain energy?

• Planning

  • What can you start with that is still on your path?

  • What can you pivot on from that morning?

• Self-Care

  • Nap time!

  • Nature Time!

  • Take a walk without music or podcasts.

Again, having options to throw in and keep it from being stale may be what you need.

It’s probably a good idea to plan your secondary routine when doing the planning in your primary routine.

Additionally, it’s probably worth having a “Studying Routine” or “Administrative Routine” or at least having tasks that clearly support different aspects of your day.

I love the idea of routines. I love hearing how other people focus or stay rolling. A recent comment thread with emphasized how important momentum is in his routine, maybe the lesson there is to craft a routine that starts with a single small task with the preparation laid so that you can easily go from one small task to the next.

I’m curious to hear other routines, or suggestions for different categories or tasks types that I’m missing in my framework. I’m working on a comprehensive list of tasks based on categories that can be drawn from when crafting routines, so alternative tasks would be interesting to see as well.

Tell me your ideas! Tell me your routine! Or, use this framework and let me know how it works. (c:

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I mentioned the three most troublesome executive dysfunctions common to ADHD on Monday, with a tease that I’d dig into it further today. Well… it’s today!

Everyone, well, almost everyone, sometimes struggles with being productive or getting things done. I know this because the self-help industry is a billion-dollar business.

If you care about ‘productivity’ then you already know most of the tools, they’re repeated ad nauseam by authors, gurus, trainers, managers and influencers. Eat the Frog, Eisenhower Matrix, Get Things Done, The PARA Method, Priority Matrices, Kanban, Bullet Journaling, Atomic Habits…. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, most of these tools are focused on a ‘neurotypical brain’ or rather, they don’t allow for the ways that someone with ADHD may struggle.

Let’s talk about “The Dark Triad” and why some people with ADHD struggle to “Get Things Done.”

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Executive Functions Don’t always Function Properly

Depending on who you read, there are different “Executive Functions” but they tend to all link to each other and there is overlap between what everyone says. The two biggest names to have created their list are Dr. Russel Barkley and Dr. Thomas Brown, (the links go to their page talking about executive function.)

Without doing a comparative analysis of their definitions, I (a non-professional) am focusing on three areas that directly affect each other and one’s ability to wake up and be productive.

Getting up and getting things done has 3 main components:

• Decision-Making - This is impeded by impulse control and problems with prioritization. If the topic isn’t engaging, we struggle to care enough to make a decision. If our priorities aren’t clear, we will devalue the effort put into making a decision as well.

• Cognitive Flexibility - Sometimes this is called hyper-focus, sometimes it’s time-blindness. What it really amounts to is getting locked onto a topic and being unable to release it. When we try to change gears, we keep getting pulled back.

• Short Term Memory - We forget we made coffee, we forget what we were just talking about, we lose track of thoughts and get distracted by tangents. Short term memory makes it hard to “pick back up where we left off.”

Between these three major dysfunctions, it’s to get started on a project, hard to stay focused on a “boring” project and to return to something we’ve been working on.

We lock ourselves into seclusion, put on sounds to block out the world and try to remove every potential for distraction to stand a chance at success. Ironically, one of the tools to help with all of this is body doubling, by having someone nearby we have an implied accountability for our actions and are more likely to stay focused.

How Did ADHD Brains Thrive in “Ye Olden Tymes”

Older people with ADHD, or people that don’t have it at all, will often suggest it’s over-diagnosed today and that we used to be able to work successfully. That’s all a big mess of ignorance, though.

The issues that people with ADHD struggle with now are exacerbated by the availability of information, distraction and dopamine, but it doesn’t mean more people have it than they used to.

The biggest reason it seems more prevalent is that knowledge workers and those enmeshed in the knowledge industry are the ones who post and share their thoughts, they’re also the ones most likely to be impeded by their different ADHD brain.

I’ve always struggled with staving off boredom at a desk job. Whether it was last week or 30 years ago, sitting still and doing the same thing for the foreseeable future is a death sentence to me. This was true when there wasn’t an internet, and it was true when I didn’t have a diagnosis.

There are several things that have changed, besides the availability of diagnosis and excessive stimulation.

There were fewer people sitting at a desk all day in the past, even today many people with ADHD find better success in ‘active’ jobs, whether it’s in the trade industry or doing things that require the ability to be creative and adapt on a regular basis.

Decision-making, when you have many things to get done, is much easier. When there are tangible results, it’s easier to prioritize what to work on and there is motivation to see it through to completion.

Cognitive flexibility or task switching was similarly less problematic when you weren’t the entirety of your day wasn’t switching from one browser tab to another.

The different cognitive functions of a person with ADHD thrive in an active, changing environment. They only become dysfunctions in the more locked down model of work that is commonplace for knowledge workers.

The Difference Between Gen-X ADHD and Gen Z ADHD

While ADHD has been around for as long as humans, we didn’t start calling it ADHD until the 80s, first it was ADD, then ADHD got solidified in the early 90s.

There was no awareness, there were no accommodations, there was barely even an acknowledgement that you were anything other than lazy.

A Gen X person with ADHD, now in their 50s, learned to mask parts of their life to fit in. They also created systems and habits to stave off the minor symptoms. The world moved slower back then, so it was also easier to ‘fake it’ when dealing with deadlines. (I would literally do my homework for school in the hall before class, and graduated with an A in all courses other than writing… because that still took time that I didn’t allow for.)

A Gen Z person with ADHD, now working their way through their 20s, has always had too much stimulation. There have always been answers at their fingertips. They have also grown up in a time when we recognize that their brain is different and there are accommodations to help them… except when there aren’t.

How Do We Fix This?

The solution is a balance between how Gen X dealt with ADHD and how it’s handled by Gen Z now. Awareness, both of self and society, is essential so that those with different brain function can tackle things they’re better suited for. There is also a need to create systems that work for our unique needs.

While “Try Harder” will never work for a person with ADHD, “Work Smarter” will.

Comparing our behavior and results to others is always going to cause problems, because we’re not like others.

Each person with ADHD, at whatever level, with their own strengths and weaknesses, will need to be able to identify what they need help with on each day. They then need to have systems in place to manage their energy levels, both cognitive and physical, based on how they feel.

The solution is a bespoke set of rules and routines for each person. It also means looking at jobs and professions with a realistic sense of what works for them. Instead of a blanket “become an engineer” recommendation, sometimes the answer might be “work in theater.”

What about me? What about you?

I spend each day trying to understand my energy level and my level of distraction. I try to adjust my activities so that they happen in an order that leaves me able to contribute to the world and not just locked up in a room sorting Pokémon cards by type. Most days I’m great, some days I’m not.

You may be in the same boat, you may have figured out a system that works and become frustrated that sometimes it doesn’t. Even worse, you might have had a system in the past that doesn’t even “kind of” work anymore. You may be starting school, or just graduating. You may have a new job or be freshly laid off. You might be starting a relationship or just had your first child. All the variables change regularly, so you want to learn the tools to let you adapt.

It starts with self-awareness, then planning and system building, and finally with accountability. With all of those in place, anyone with ADHD can thrive.

“I don’t wanna!”

AKA

“I don’t feel like it!”

The mantra of the ADHD afflicted is easily interpreted as being lazy.

I get it, it FEELS like we’re being lazy!

When it comes to ADHD brains, sometimes we get a brainlock that prevents us from being able to start a task, let alone a project, that we know we need to work on. We’ll take our prescription amphetamine and try again. Infuriatingly, that will often fail as well.

The reason for the ADHD shutdown can vary, but it is typically some variation of overwhelm or executive dysfunction that just won’t let you take the next step. When you hit this state… deliberate, brute force can work, but the results may be mediocre.

At this point, the rest of the world might say that you just need to have “Grit.”

Yeah, whatever dude…

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What is “Grit” anyway?

“Grit” is a personality trait, according to Wikipedia. That definition is chock-full of a LOT of information. Let’s go with the three characteristics that Google Gemini shares instead:

• Deliberate Practice - This is goal setting, seeking and taking feedback and generally being intentional at improving. See Growth Mindset

• Resilience - Being able to recover quickly from difficulties and approach life with optimism and a sense of humor. See Positive Mindset.

• Willingness to Step Out of Their Comfort Zones - Doing whatever it takes to get results.

We can work with that, or at least we can figure out parts of it that are ADHD friendly. You might see a trend in these summaries below.

The Good Stuff

• Planning & Goal Setting - A good ADHD brain is great at this, so great that it can opt to never actually start taking steps. But you can improve that by building systems with the goal in mind.

• Optimism? Sense of Humor? - Definitely in the wheelhouse of ADHD folk. We have it in spades, if we can’t laugh out ourselves, who can we laugh at? A vision of a brighter tomorrow? Also, a common tool in trade. (On our good days, anyway.)

• Stepping out of your Comfort Zone - Change, new and novel experiences, this is all about getting away from the status quo.

• Competitive - We like to be the first or the best. A great intrinsic motivator

The Less Good Stuff

• Recovering from difficulties - This is challenging, especially if you suffer from RSD. It can be overcome, if you can get in the right mindset.

• Fear of Failure - Getting out of your comfort zone seems easy, unless you get trapped in the fear that you’ll screw up.

• Self-Control or Impulse Control - At any given moment, this can be a problem. If it’s happening while you’re trying to be productive, you could be in trouble.

So, there is a mix of stuff that is built right into an ADHD brain and stuff that we struggle with.

The biggest issue with “Grit” and the ADHD brain is how to have it when you need it.

How Do You Get It?

Grit for the “neurotypicals” is something they can learn through discipline and mindset.

Grit for an ADHD brain is a bit of that, definitely a mindset, but your discipline is something you often need to hack into your life.

As is always the case, a huge helping of ‘self-awareness’ is the starting point. Know your ups and downs, your strengths and weaknesses, and learn to use them accordingly.

You need to learn how to cope with difficulties and fears of failure so that they don’t immediately throw you into a spiral when they come up. Journaling, meditating and mindful activities aimed at helping you understand what affects you and when.

With that information, you will need to use your “up” time to do your planning and goal setting.

From your goal setting, you need to create systems that take you toward the goal and commit to them. That’s the discipline part. Committing to a clear vision and to a repeatable plan of action at the start. Once you’re committing, that plan just becomes what you do.

• Sit down,

• Start a timer,

• Do the thing(s) for 90 minutes.

• Take a break.

• Repeat (when possible.)

Between 90-minute work sessions and 90 day goal-sprints, you can create sustainable discipline habits that behave like grit.

Questions to Ask Yourself

You might journal about these or just think about them, just explore them.

• When am I most productive? Or least?

• When do I have the most energy? Or least?

• Can I change those by doing something before them? Or with rewards?

• What is my relationship with failure, or a fear of it?

• How defensive do I get when anyone talks to me about discipline, laziness, or work ethic?

(I find the more defensive I get about something, the more likely it hits closer to home than I like to admit.)

Grit Isn’t Just for the Normals

Recognize that sometimes we’re using different words to say the same thing. Whether it’s Grit or Discipline, there is always a system that can be implemented to make it work for you.

Get out there and get something done!

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Being overwhelmed can suck.

You need to get something done and can’t find where to begin?

Suck

People are expecting ‘deliverables’ from you and you’re busy with something else?

Suck

Just started a job, or school, and you’re inundated with new information?

Suck!

When we get too much queued up in our brain, we struggle to process all of it and if you’re lucky enough to have ADHD, you may just shut down. If you’re lucky, you can spot the overwhelm and try to nip it in the bud. If you’re experienced, you may have some strategies to handle it. And if you’ve created systems to manage time and information, you may never even notice.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you don’t have those tools. Or haven’t had them every time you needed them.

Channeling Chaos is about building those tools, but sometimes you might not need them.

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Why does it suck? Does it have to?

That’s a dumb question, really. Overwhelm sucks because it makes us feel weak. Overwhelm is deflating, as it shrinks our sense of agency and leaves us feeling incompetent.

It sucks because it makes us feel bad.

It also sucks because it prevents us from accomplishing the things we want to accomplish.

It doesn’t have to suck though. Learning to spot your sense of overwhelm and isolate why you’re feeling that way, and it can give you the power to reframe it.

As you take steps to change your life or improve the areas where you feel lacking, you slowly start to change your mind. Change your mind in the good way. With each step towards self-improvement, ideally you’re seeing a shift in your mindset and how you few yourself and the world you’re living in.

How do you make overwhelm not suck?

Overwhelm is scary because it leaves you confused and that is scary.

Being afraid fires off your fight or flight, lizard brain, which results in you switching to a screen with kittens and ‘not scary’ things.

The more often you get overwhelmed and do nothing to overcome it, the stronger the sense that you’re out of control.

Overwhelm doesn’t have to be scary though.

Try this, think about the last thing you were overwhelmed by, it was probably one of a few things:

• You had too much to do, your list seemed long and impossible, and you couldn’t figure out where to start or how you’ll finish in time.

• You were trying to learn something but didn’t know which thing to learn first. You didn’t know what you didn’t know and were uncertain what to learn first.

• You’re someplace with a lot of strangers, and you’re overstimulated without a way to escape.

• You’re teaching someone, or managing something that is new to you and you have no safety net.

There’s a pattern here.

Overwhelm is a balance of “too much” and “not enough” and an inability to navigate that safely.

Making the most of “too much”

Whether you have too much to do, too much to learn or are generally overstimulated, you can embrace a mantra:

This too shall pass.

Having a Stoic mindset, or a zen mindset, or being an anti-Gandalf doesn’t matter. The intent is more important than what you’re channeling. The first thing to learn is that your current feeling of overwhelm is temporary.

As you make peace with the impermanence of… everything, there is a need for reflection as well.

• “Have I felt this way before? What happened?”

• “What is the smallest step I can take right now?”

• “If I can make it through this, what’s on the other side?”

Hopefully your experience with overwhelm is that, regardless of how you felt, it all resolved itself in a positive result.

The whole world says to break things down into smaller steps to be productive, but this is different. Maybe it’s as simple as turning off the TV, or maybe it’s typing a sentence. Projects can be self-lubricating if you just get started.

Finally, knowing there is a compelling reason to make progress makes all the difference. It lubricates problems as well.

Overwhelm is only a problem for the fearful

Learning to get past your fear, pushing yourself to be brave, this is what starts to shift your mindset. Showing up, in this case, is acknowledging the reason for the overwhelm. Consistency is then all about taking steps when it happens, not getting stuck.

A final ADHD note, because sometimes this is ridiculously hard to overcome. If you know, you know. When I say take the smallest step, I literally mean the smallest. Do ANYTHING that is moving forward and do it again, and again. I’ve literally typed out typing exercises of nonsense just to get myself to start writing… you can always delete the crap once you’re starting to move.

My experience with overwhelm is no different from yours, we all struggle with it. I have some things that overwhelm just ruins, and it’s a struggle to overcome. Sometimes, though, some things feel overwhelming, but it’s exciting. I am often overwhelmed as I start a hyper-focus type task, but I’m so excited by it that I can push past it.

It is possible to see overwhelm as a good thing. You can learn to embrace that feeling and let it fuel your motivation. It just takes time and the willingness to shift your perception.

I tend to lump things into groups of 3, or multiples of 3.

There is something magical about 3, it feels manageable without being overwhelming.

It’s small enough I can keep 3 simple concepts in my head for a bit.

A list of 3 things is small enough to know I can get it done.

I also like 90, which is 3x3 and works well for a span.

I tend to work in 90 minute busts of deep work, or at least aim for this number and then blow past it.

I feel like I can set a goal for 90 days and accomplish that as well.

It’s how I’ve arrived at the “Primed 90” system. You can call it deep work if you want, but it’s bigger than that. A software engineer might call it ‘deep work++’

Primed 90 - Get Something Done Today

I’ve written about and experimented with how I can be effective at Deep Work many times, for many years. Some days it just flows automatically, so I thought it was easy… but then days arrive when it isn’t.

You don’t always just fall right into productive work, especially with ADHD. Even worse, some days you can’t even push yourself into productivity. It’s my life’s mission to find a way to defeat those days, with our without medication.

Setting Yourself Up for Success

There is always some setup, you need to have a vision before you can execute on it.

• Define a goal, a project or task that you can work on for 90 minutes. (I recommend creating these 90 minute objects as you define them, not as you need to get them done.)

• Find a time when you can devote 90+ minutes to work on the task.

• Write down your task, or list of tasks and have that easily visible in front of you.

• Have a timer of some sort… on your watch, phone or what works best for you.

So far, so good. This is kind of a project management 101, you should have a thing to do, a reason to do it, and an idea of what tasks you’ll do to accomplish it. It sounds easier than it is.

With your intention before you, let it sit there, then find something that will ‘prime your brain’ for that task. You want to absorb this content for about 15 minutes, so don’t pick a 2 hour TED talk.

Example priming content:

• Watch: YouTube videos

• Listen: Podcasts, ‘Blinks’ (from Blinkist)

• Read: Books, Blogs, Social Media

The key is, 15 minutes (3 x 5 minutes!) and something that is clearly applicable to your task. Maybe it’s a podcast with a writer, maybe it’s social media or posts by people you admire or want to emulate. Just have some bite sized chunk of priming content.

Dig In and Do the Work

Now you’re set to start. The flow looks like this:

• Set a timer for 15 minutes - start priming.

• Timer goes off, set a new timer for 90 minutes.

• Start working on your thing.

• Timer goes off, ignore it and keep working, or stop and take some notes on what you’ve got done… maybe define your next ‘90 minute object’ for future work times.

The “Hemingway Bridge” is my secret to future success. I either leave something specifically unfinished, or I write out clear next steps when I’m done so that when I’m ready to start again, I’m already primed to get primed! (Sometimes you don’t even need the priming mentioned above.)

This method works great for me, proven regularly over and over. The whole setup is shortened and streamlined for this post. Why? Because different days and different brains have different needs.

There is a ton of nuance, I’m actively writing about it and will continue to do so. If you have thoughts, especially examples of why this won’t work for you… leave a comment!

Two weeks ago, I was struggling to start writing. If you go back and read that ‘mindfullish’ post, it’s obvious.

The metaphorical ‘one foot in front of the other’ solution was for me to just write words, string sentences of any type together. It worked like a lubricant, slowly releasing words from my head to my fingers.

This past weekend, I had another unmotivated start to the day, but I have a similar commitment to myself and exercise. It was Sunday, which is usually when I get outside and see the neighborhood.

The only thing that had me out the door was that ‘I exercise every morning’ rule in my head. I didn’t have to listen to podcasts, I didn’t have to be productive in any capacity, I just needed to move.

Literally… one foot in front of the other.

The only way either of these happened was something different from force of will. I hate when my ADHD fueled apathy is met with the simple answer of ‘just try harder.’

That’s not motivational to an ADHD brain. That’s not how it works.

It isn’t always like this, it wasn’t always like this…

“Try Harder” are just words…

… and words are wind.

I love a good slogan, a simple solution, or some tweetable wisdom. The truth is, it’s never more than words on a page, they have yet to pull me off the couch and do something with my life.

Inspirational tweets create the illusion of motivation.

The only times I have accomplished anything, has been through my own self-directed motivation. That’s how it is for a lot of, maybe most, people, so this might seem obvious.

My motivation last week was not me trying harder, it was me just doing anything. I wasn’t trying to make a specific thing happen, I was trying to make ANYTHING happen.

When I started walking on Sunday, it wasn’t anything more than me honoring a commitment to move. I didn’t ‘try’, I just ‘did’ and accepted whatever results arrived.

The first 15 minutes of my walk was me saying, “I’ll turn up here and head back to the house,” but I kept pointing myself away from home. I walked back into the house 60 minutes later, feeling more motivated and better for having done some low level exercise.

I didn’t pat myself on the back after writing or walking. It wasn’t a cause for celebration, I didn’t accomplish some monumental task.

Trying harder suggests intentional result. All I did was stop doing nothing.

Create a Pillar Habit

I’ve written every day for the past 5 months. I’ve exercised every day for the past 24+ months. Both were started with some effort, and I kept at them because I liked the results. I liked how it made me feel. Today, they’re two defining aspects of my day and my life.

I think YOU should write and exercise every day, but that doesn’t mean anything. You likely have your own needs. It’s up to you to define your own habits.

What’s notable about both of these habits is that I was very forgiving. “Exercise” could be yoga, or a walk, or weight lifting. Writing could be a journal entry, a tweet, a newsletter or a blog post. They were completely open to interpretation on each day.

At the time that I started either of these habits, they were things I wanted to do, but as I continued to do them, my mindset shifted, and they became part of my identity.

Those two habits are statements about me:

• I’m a writer.

• I’m healthy.

A Pillar Habit is something that defines you. It’s something you would mention on a regular basis when people ask what you do, or enjoy.

A Pillar Habit is built into your identity.

To identify the pillars you want to create, look at who you are today, who you want to be and what that person does. Find a habit that you would expect to be doing in a year or 5 years.

Start simple, start vague, but start.

“I give up”

It was a realization that sounded like failure, but oddly felt like success.

Historically, for me, that statement would be accompanied by shame and embarrassment.

So why was it different this time?

A bit of wisdom, a need to move and a healthy dose of shifting perspective.

The Difference Between Successful and Status Quo

Everyone I know has a slightly different idea of what “success” looks like. Sometimes it’s the easy answer of “A loving family and a quiet life” but the reality is, most people have more conditions than that.

Similarly, the number of people who have “found success” have different perspectives. It used to confound me. There are people that just know what they want to do, I wasn’t that person growing up, and I thought they were weird. That was me making excuses for my own lack of ‘success’ while comparing my results to theirs.

While there is some truth to weirdness, we are all weird in our own ways, the real answer was in their mindset and how they approached success.

Part of my problem, maybe part of yours, lies in the ADHD induced difficulty in staying interested in the same thing for a prolonged period of time. Part of it was the need to have multiple active ‘projects.’ Frankly, the unspoken, but largest part, was the limiting belief that they and I were just wired differently and there was nothing I could do about that.

We all make excuses, what makes some of us different is our willingness to let them be the reason to stop.

“ADHD is a curse.”

“I can’t follow a schedule. I can’t follow through.”

Every excuse you have is just a fancy way of manifesting a limiting belief that keeps you in the same place.

Changing Your Mindset Isn’t Easy

Mindset is a popular topic these days, with the emphasis being on a Growth Mindset. You should raise your kids to have one, you should have one, everyone should have one. I’m not saying that advice wrong, what I’m saying is talk is cheap.

I used to say I had a Growth Mindset.

I used to say I was Motivated to Learn.

Before that, I actually DID have that mindset and that motivation.

When I was younger, when I had fewer obligations, I was able to jump from interest to interest without a care. But when I started being responsible for other people’s health, I moved from having that mindset to just saying it. It felt good to say it.

Every day, every week or every year that you spend living a certain way is just reinforcement of your beliefs, limiting or not. That accumulation of belief bias is what creates your mindset. Children have a growth mindset inherently, it has to be trained out of you.

To change your Mindset, you have to stop finding the negative in others and in yourself. To develop a growth mindset, your perspective has to be intentionally improving yourself and seeing the good in others.

Look At Your Thoughts, Just Look at Them

If you’re failing, or afraid of failing, it’s time to look your relationship with failure. Journaling is a great way to do this. Spend time writing about something you tried, what the results were, what was successful or not, and what you’ve learned.

If you’re not succeeding in your life the way that you want, it’s time to look at your perspective on what success is. Spend time writing about what your life would look like with that success. What would your day look like, what habits would you have, how would you spend your mornings, days, nights and free time? If you’re not living that way now, why not.

We spend so much time wanting to “be rich” or “be fit” or “be loved” but those 2 word goals, especially if they don’t have any plans in place, are just wishes.

Being rich while working 3 jobs that pay minimum wage is not possible, (unless you were rich when you started.)

Being fit while eating sugary or processed foods and while not exercising consistently is impossible as well.

Write about your definition of success, and the kind of person you’d have to be to achieve it. Write about what you’d be doing to get those results. Most importantly, write about what that version of you thinks about, or how they view the world. How much time do they complain, and how much time do they spend in action?

Your Next Steps

Changing your life is as “simple” as changing your mindset, or your perspective.

Your next steps are to spend the next 3 days, or 3 hours, getting clear on what you don’t like right now, what you wish your life was like, and what you can do to change that.

Next, create a plan that you will follow for the next 90 days. Don’t marry it, don’t think it’s the only path, but commit to doing it. After 90 days, look at the results. At that point, do this same exercise again and identify what you’re happy with, what you’re not happy with and what you can do to change it.

The purpose is to create a plan, test and adjust it as needed to get your desired results. If 90 days is too long, or if you see a need to adjust sooner, do so.

I’ll give some better things to explore in the Journaling Prompts on Friday, but for now, finding a way to ‘give up’ what doesn’t work and allow yourself to start anew in making it happen.

I would love to help plan that out, leave a comment on this post if you want help, or send a chat. We can figure this out!

Every person with ADHD that I’ve met has had problems with procrastination or ‘getting started’ with projects. Heck, a lot of undiagnosed people I’ve met have this problem.

Maybe you’re not procrastinating because you’re distracted, maybe you’re afraid of failure.

Maybe the extent of the “overwhelm” feeling is so bad that it has locked your brain, leaving you unable to process the next steps you need to take.

It’s possible you have some form of emotional dysregulation that locks your brain down when you are trying to finish a project.

ADHD has an emotional problem.

A common trait for folks with ADHD is emotional dysregulation. Sometimes this is a fear of being rejected by others, sometimes it’s unexpected outbursts of anger or sadness.

There is a part of the faulty working memory for people with ADHD that can lead to time blindness, or an inability to see things long term. These bits of ‘faulty wiring’ manifest in different ways, but how you process emotions is a big one.

While being in the middle of an emotional lock-down doesn’t have a lot of ‘quick fixes’, knowing they exist, what they are and where they’re going can often help shorten and soften their effects.

There are 3 factors that are essential to becoming an emotional master, or at least something greater than an emotional wreck.

How to Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

As is the case with so much of ADHD, learning about yourself is the answer. Mastery of ADHD means becoming a master of self-awareness. Your method may be different from mine, but we both have to address these three things.

• Understand your emotions.— Recognize that we have some emotional wiring that needs special attention. Once you learn that sometimes your emotions will be stronger or weaker than other times. Today I’m a robot, tomorrow I’m a sobbing mess.

• Learn your triggers.— Sometimes the simplest things can set us off, maybe it’s the sound of someone chewing, possibly it’s the sensation of satiny materials. It could just be hunger or tiredness. Keep a list of the things that irritate you or make you sad. Anything that evokes an emotion at some point, write it down.

• Practice relief.— Putting on headphones to block out a sound. Going to a neutral place (the Goldilocks zone) to get away from sensory input that affects you. Eating a Snickers bar. Any of these could be simple quick fixes. The better you know your triggers, the better you can ‘treat’ them.

I like to journal, thought it’s mostly the act of writing things down that plants then in my mind. I write to understand. I think everyone should, but you’re you. If you need to record it into an audio format, then do that. The important is that you make a note and use it to learn.

Message Jody Gates

Emotions aren’t a problem, they’re part of living.

Last night I was on a drive with my daughter, she’s living some peak neurodivergence and as she started crying as I argued that “They/Them” has been in use much longer than the current pronoun reality, we realized something was going on.

After she tearfully confessed she just wanted a “My Bad, I’ll be better” from me, I realized it wasn’t the topic, it was the ADHD emotion game. Dr. Brown labeled it “flooding” because these emotions come in, all at once, and you just drown in it.

After we talked, after we each had some space to let our emotions normalize, everything was fine.

It was a great indicator of how emotions can feel completely random in an ADHD brain. She confessed she didn’t care that much about the topic and had no idea why she reacted the way she did.

We’re fine now. We were fine 10 minutes after the outburst. We both see it for what it was, a sometimes thing.

The Important Bit

Emotions are good, you need to feel them. You need to express them. You need to process them.

Repressing these emotions will hurt you. Feeling shame for them will break you.

Have your emotions, unapologetically.

How often do you unintentionally ‘tab away’ from what you’re doing? Maybe you’re reading or working on something on your computer, and you literally switch to another tab. Maybe you’re in a conversation, and you pull out your phone while they’re talking.

At my worst, every time I try to re-engage with the first tab, I just keep opening new tabs. I have literally had a browser with alternating Reddit, Instagram, Imgur, Facebook, Instagram, Imgur, Imgur tabs all in a row, all still at the top of the scroll.

While these are bad habits, non-productive or downright rude, they’re the canary in the coal mine. Your ‘change the topic’ behavior is an obvious indicator of your engagement in the task you had intended to do.

The trick is noticing the behavior, followed by the trick of how to actually engage in the original task successfully.

Why do we “change the subject?”

Last weekend, I was visiting the in-laws to celebrate a birthday. As they were setting up the table, my in-laws were bickering about setting up the umbrella for the table. It was very low-key and passive-aggressive. Somehow I hit my limit, I wandered into the yard away from everyone and just scrolled on my phone. I couldn’t engage, so I disengaged.

There are several reasons you might be changing it up, but fundamentally it’s your brain looking for an easy hit of dopamine. You’re likely either bored or overwhelmed by the original task. You’re not getting any dopamine, so it loses you.

Doing things we’re told to do is devoid of intrinsic motivation, so you have no interest.

Responsibilities you’ve done before aren’t novel, leaving you disengaged.

Interacting with people that bore you, or talking about a topic that makes you feel uncomfortable, actually drains you.

Having a literal shortage of dopamine in your brain kills your ability to concentrate, so you have to find an alternative source of stimulation.

What can we do about it?

Obviously, you know one thing, change the channel. That isn’t really the right answer though, if we just keep disengaging then we’ll never do the task, we’ll annoy our friends and end up alone.

Your mission is to find stimulation sources that you can bring into the task. It’s why ADHD brains are leg bouncing, headphone wearing, fidget spinning maniacs.

As I write this post, one leg is bouncing, the other crossed in my lap. I have Google Music cranking ‘motivational music’ through noise-canceling headphones, along with a brown noise generator and a binaural beat generator. My wife would throw my headphones across the room if she put them on.

When you’re going to be in a social situation, bring something physical that you can fidget with. My favorites are either small cube fidget spinners or a brass ‘stoic’ coin, it’s got something to read, it has tons of texture, and it has a nice heft to it. I can keep my hands busy without it being too distracting.

When you’re trying to be doing things on the computer, crank music. Look into using a service like mynoise.net, brown noise fills in the blanks around my music and helps my tinnitus be less annoying.

Additionally, if you’re like me, it’s nice to have air movement, so I have a small USB powered fan that is blowing air ‘near’ me.

The key is to have things happening around you that aren’t distracting, just enough to let your brain get some sort of dopamine without you having to switch.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Sometimes we just shouldn’t be working on that thing. Be honest with yourself and ask, is doing this thing right now the best use of my time? Is my brain in a good place to do this?

Sometimes it’s just part of our natural ‘rhythm.’ Track when your energy level changes, or times when you just can’t stay focused. If you can figure out your patterns then you can adapt your schedule.

Think of it as a problem to solve, ADHD brains love that stuff. Figuring out what stimulation works for you for the different situations is all part of your journey.

Remember that having ADHD means learning about forgiveness, of yourself and others. It’s ok if sometimes you just can’t work on something.

Years ago I was a huge Richard Bach fan, a quote from one of his books stuck with me for almost 30 years now.

Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours.”―Richard Bach, Illusions

I don’t always remember it at the right time, though.

I was watching Dr. Russell Barkley’s YouTube channel over the weekend, he had a recent video about Owning Your ADHD. When I started the video, I remembered that ‘young’ Dr. Barkley had always trended towards abrasive. He embodied the academic psychiatrist more than the caregiver. It was kind of rough to listen to.

The topic of “owning” yourself is not unique to ADHD, everyone needs to learn to recognize that they’re not perfect, that they have something they struggle with.

ADHD Brains are Wired Different

The problem with having different ‘wiring’ is that it’s easy to use it as an excuse for bad behavior or shortcomings.

If you have short term memory issues, you form the habit of making lists. It becomes normal for you to be carrying around some means of recording a list and regularly check it. (Does Santa Claus have ADHD? Maybe.)

The tendency to procrastinate or struggle when starting a task is not an excuse to do nothing, you have to habituate routines that get you moving or define tasks in a manner that they’re compelling to do.

For a person with ADHD, just about everything is a solvable problem.

Everyone has Differences

This isn’t unique to ADHD people, or even exclusive to those categorized as “neurodivergent.”

You have to learn to work with your gifts and limitations if you deal with:

• depression or anxiety

• A physical or mental handicap

• not having a driver’s license

• being colorblind, or dyslexic

We can build a list as long as there are people to illustrate that different conditions require adaptation. The good news? The greatest human asset is the ability to adapt.

Tough Love Sucks

I’m not writing to tell you to stop complaining, I’m trying to illustrate that something that sucks today or that sucks for one person has already been solved for another.

It was interesting to hear Dr. Barkley get ‘riled up’ as he would speak of his brother, who would never take responsibility for conditions in his life. His impassioned speech was a perfect illustration of how frustrating it can be to watch someone we love be unwilling to acknowledge their struggles or to actively try to grow past them.

You, regardless of your limiting condition, have the power to overcome the limiting belief that came with the condition.

Where To Go From Here?

I don’t tend to dig into journaling prompts until Friday, but there are some things you can consider right now. Maybe it’s priming for journaling this weekend, or maybe it’s just a chance to explore now. Take a moment now, before you click Share or Subscribe, and answer the following:

1. What is something you wish you could or would do, but feel that you can’t because of ____?

2. Why does your limiting condition prevent you from doing it?

3. Who is somebody doing this thing you wish you could do? Bonus points if you can identify someone that has your same limiting condition.

   1. If you went with bonus points, why can they do this thing that you can’t do?

4. Is there a technology (medication, device, whatever) that would allow you to do that thing?

I’m sorry to say that 4 questions won’t fix the problem, but hopefully you can see there is a benefit in exploring either why you think you can’t or why you think others can.

It Gets Better

Very little in life does not improve with time and maybe some applied effort. Your interest in “doing the impossible” is the perfect starting point, it shows your willingness to improve, and that makes you amazing.

There is plenty of chatter about how you can use boredom to your advantage these days. Suggestions that you can use it as a tool to fuel creativity. I like this perspective.

That being said, I feel like there is a secondary boredom, at least for an ADHD brain, that is a bit of a different beast. (Spoiler, I’m experiencing it right now.)

The ADHD Perspective

The reason that many of the popular productivity systems, or knowledge systems, or habit trackers fail for people with ADHD is because after a while it isn’t new, and it isn’t compelling enough to keep going. If you’re lucky enough to have turned something into a habit, you reach a point where that habit is boring and unfulfilling and without realizing why, you end up in a “funk.”

The ADHD brain needs new and novel to keep the brain engaged, and once something has lost that luster, it’s hard to get it back. The answer is to find a new system to replace the new, boring one.

The Good Kind of Boredom - for Everyone!

As I said at the start, boredom is having its day here lately. The boredom in question there is when you’re sitting on the couch and don’t feel like watching TV, don’t feel like playing games, don’t feel like going out. This boredom, something that can happen when have been denied an activity and have no other activity to put in its place.

Why is that boredom good? Because it pushes you to get creative. Bored people make art out of ketchup packets. Bored people learn to play a song using a kazoo. There can be a childlike level of curiosity that comes with boredom, and it can be good for your mental health.

If you find yourself getting bored, that’s the fix, lean into it. Don’t find a way to silence it, embrace the boredom and see where it takes you.

Handling the Icky ADHD Style of Boredom - for Everyone as Well!

If you find that you’re not really excited by the habit you created, or that you’re no longer “Getting Things Done!” (tm) then you are ripe for an opportunity to change.

This kind of boredom is more deep-seated and can be frustrating until you figure out what’s happening. The first obstacle is recognizing it for what it is. While you might make a ketchup packet tower in this case, it’s more likely that you’re just frustrated and feel impotent.

Figuring Out that You’re Bored

Mindfulness or self-awareness is here to save the day! If you have a practice of journaling, write about your feelings, you're frustrated. Look at it from 10,000 feet and recall when you didn’t feel like this, look at what’s changed. Additionally, look at the things you find yourself avoiding. If you have a task list with a task that keeps bumping, dig into that.

While it might be that you’re just stuck and don’t know how to proceed, there is a pretty good chance that you just need to change your approach.

Rebuild the System

Have you ever rearranged your living room so that it’d feel new or different? You can do that with your behaviors and your thoughts too!

For an ADHD brain, you might need to gamify your flow. If you were working with a task list before, putting those tasks into a system with a scoreboard can give them some meaning. Shoot for a high score each day, or set a score goal for the week. It’s a bit of extra work on the front end, but pays off on the back end (until you’re bored again). This system might look like this:

• 1-5 minute task = 1 pt

• 30 minute task = 2 pts

• 60-90 minute task = 3 pts

• project completion = 10 points

Again, for the ADHD brain, you might need to put a 1 pt just for starting rule in there as well.

If you already had a scoring system? Well, cool, neat that you do! Or when you get tired of this system, you might have a pomodoro timer you set up, and then you get a point for using that, or you can use it to try to stretch your tasks out and maybe expand your creative output.

Maybe your system adds a creative task every day, so after you’ve done 30 minutes of tasks, build a ketchup tower, or for a 90-minute deep work session you can spend some time on your game console of choice.

Use your bored brain to come up with a way to tweak your current system.

Boredom is a Catalyst for Change

In either of the scenarios, once you’re bored, your brain is going to look for ways to change what you’re doing. The ADHD boredom can be difficult since it isn’t obvious, but you’ll probably notice that you’re not getting as much done, so learning to spot it will be vital if you want to get back into a ‘productive’ mindset and workflow.

If you have ADHD, you’re already aware that ‘deficit’ is the wrong word for the classification. The problem is Too Much Attention, we have a hard time filtering down to the right things to focus on.

When it comes to managing my day and feeling like I’ve done something, I thrive when it feels like there is more work to do than I have time, or more ideas than I can handle… to a point.

The problem is, it’s a moving target!

Whether you’re confirmed to have ADHD or just thrive with some amount of chaos, it’s a solvable problem

Start With a List

You need to start your day with some form of list, your things to do for that day. Keep it simple, whether it’s a piece of paper with items, or digital, don’t over-complicate things.

An ideal list will have maybe 3 key details per item:

• What do you need to do? - Simpler is better, each thing should feel like you can do it in less than an hour.

• How long should it take to do it? - can you do it in 5 minutes, or will it take an hour?

  • If it takes more than an hour, can you break it down to something shorter? Create a series of tasks.

• What is the priority? - If you do this thing today, will it ‘move the needle?’

If you feel capable, consider how much mental energy it’ll take to do the thing.

This list can be as large or small as you choose, feel free to put too many things on it, because the next thing to do is test it against your headspace.

Know Your Limits

Self-Awareness and Time Management come in to play here. Look at your calendar, see if you have meetings or appointments or anything time critical, then build your day around that.

Consider your mental energy and mental health next. Does that list look easy or overwhelming? Try re-ordering the list, put the easy things up front, or things that you know you can do quickly.

Some days you can crush anything, other days can be hard. Learn to spot those days early and plan accordingly.

Plan Your Day

Knowing your list, having your priorities and recognizing where your head is at is how you should always start your day. It allows you to set a more realistic schedule.

Time Blocking - If you have a bunch of short tasks, you can set a timer and just say I’m going to churn through as many as possible in this time.

Deep Work - For creative work, find space in your calendar when you can block off a larger chunk of time for creative work, set a timer and remove distractions and create. Plan this for a time when you know you have more mental energy, for me that’s mid-morning.

Different strategies work for different brains, so you may need to search to figure out your best method.

The most important thing you can do is keep your list nearby so you can keep going back to it. If you have less energy, keep part of the list hidden so you’re only seeing a handful of things at a time. Or just plan to only get that much done, then re-evaluate midday.

The Right Amount of ”Too Much To Do”

Again, ‘Too Much’ is different for different people and on different days. The goal is to learn to recognize your limits early and then plan for them accordingly.

While everyone deals with what ‘too much’ looks like, an ADHD brain can have a hard time doing that dynamically. The better you know yourself, your limits and your energy, the easier it’ll be to find success.

Let’s wrap up the 4 questions for finding your Ikigai this week.

Last week we covered what the world needs, and it ran way too long, destroying the purpose of the series. Let’s get back on track.

Our final question to ask is, “What Can I Get Paid For?”

Initial Thoughts

You should now have a list of what you love to do, what you’re good at, and what the world needs. This will help narrow down the options dramatically.

Some additional considerations are: where you’re at in your career, what your living situation is, and how much of a change you’re willing to make.

You may be able to give up money to feel purpose, if that’s the case, this gets a lot easier.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Without much preamble, pull out your journal and start answering questions!

Your Current Status

• How am I paid today?

  • Is this enough money?

  • Can I get by with less?

• What am I doing for money for today?

  • Does it meet any or all of the criteria from the previous assessments?

• Considering the previous questions, can I find my Ikigai at my current employer?

  • Does my employer offer any support to help me move towards my Ikigai?

Willingness to Change

• Am I willing to look for other work?

  • What are some organizations I’d like to work with?

• Am I willing to create my own business?

  • Am I financially able to make that change?

  • Do I have the flexibility and time to make that change?

• Do I know anyone doing what I would like to do?

  • Is there anyone doing it that I don’t know yet?

    • Can I reach out to them to learn more about what they’re doing?

    • Can I work for them or with them?

Combining Previous Questions

• Knowing what I’m good at and what I love to do, what is a list of jobs I could do?

  • Can I improve skills to be more qualified for those roles?

• Knowing what the world needs, do any of my skills align?

  • Am I willing to learn new skills to transition to any of those roles?

• If I could create my own job, what would the title and responsibilities be?

  • Does that job exist?

  • What companies have jobs like that or hire someone for that role?

Acceptable Sacrifices

• Would I be willing to make less money?

• Could I survive if I made less money?

• Could I something I don’t love if it met the other 3 criteria?

• What would give me the greatest purpose in life, keeping me excited or motivated every day and for years to come?

• Am I willing to forsake a ‘fancy’ title or set of responsibilities to feel a sense of purpose?

Job Considerations

Your willingness to make sacrifices or ability to find comfort in a less prestigious job can go a long way in defining the job you could take. There are plenty of things that the world needs that are viewed in a poor light.

• Being a trash collector lets you be outside, it lets you see the city you’re in, it helps people live in a clean environment.

• Being a teacher (at least in the United States) is a chance to help people learn, but it’s not paid as well and in some places, is a dangerous job.

• Working in any ‘trade’ has stigma (again, in the United States) where you’re encouraged to become a Doctor, a Lawyer, an Engineer or work in Finance.

Final Thoughts

The goal of defining your ikigai is to give your life meaning or to leave you with a sense of fulfillment or purpose in your day.

This doesn’t have to be your life’s work, or even a job at all. The addition of ‘can you get paid’ is a western addition to the concept with the intent of letting you find a job.

If you enjoy your job but feel unfulfilled, use the first 3 questions we asked to find a sense of purpose outside of work, and then prioritize finding a way to contribute in that manner.