The 4 Leaks Draining Your Executive Function Juice
Trying harder doesn't work, so what does?
You know what sucks? Walking by a cluttered room with a silent “ugh” that grows every time I walk by it. Multiply that “ugh” by every room, and every aspect of life that isn’t ideal. So many “ughs”. Not to mention all the “ugh”s that come from getting shitty news, like a letter about a past due bill…great! Another $30 late fee…what a crock of shit! And I would not only hate myself more, but I would blame THEM for the late fee, even though they have all these terms and conditions.
That really sucked.
You know what doesn’t suck? Now that I manage my ADHD, I walk by a cluttered room and I don’t give a shit because I’m only a 20 minute timer away from putting it back, and if it’s worth my time, I’ll put it in my bullet journal so I can forget it for now and move on with my life. I have multiple methods for ‘getting back to it’ and getting it done.
To be productive with ADHD, which translates to “Doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it, and having a process to determine what those things are.”
This is what I do, and this is what I recommend to you, if you are a late in life diagnosed adult with ADHD who struggles to get started, follow through, manage the insanity of your to do list.
I am 5000000000x less overwhelmed in my life because I am confidently consistent with what I give my time to. Not perfect. Not flawless. But man, when I’m self aware and catch myself struggling, I have ways of handling that so I can get back to not struggling as fast as possible.
When it comes to productivity and ineffectively managed ADHD, there’s usually going to be a leak in one of the following buckets.
One Place To Rule Them All
You have to have one place where you capture ideas. Whether it’s on your smart phone or in a notebook. One place. Not the notebook for hobbies, the post its for phone numbers, the notebook for work stuff, the iphone app for thoughts, the other iphone app for dreams…one place.
A Decision Engine
You have to determine what you are going to do. You have to make those choices. How do you do that? Every single thing you do in your life is a choice you are making. You must have a methodology in place that allows you to easily determine from the long list of to dos what will get your time. Many people I work with have such overwhelming lists that they have completely depleted their executive function juice by just looking at or making their list. They have nothing left in the tank to actually ‘do the things’.
A True Calendar
If you are an adult with ADHD, you must have a calendar. And you must learn how to use it for more than your appointments. You must master the art of using the calendar for those things that you would otherwise not do. I have community members that calendars their exercise, I calendar my daily meditation.
When we say “I’ll do this at some point today” just means we will keep punting it forward until the day is over and we have no juice left to activate.
Get that calendar and make it true, meaning it is an accurate reflection of what you have going on in that timeframe. Sometimes we get all creative and put “call the bank” in the 6:00am slot just as a reminder to call the bank later in the day. We put a random to do on the calendar at a random time slot. Make that calendar true.
Skill-Based Activation
It truly doesn’t matter how amazing you are at scheduling, planning, or calendaring. The moment will come to do a crappy task, and everything inside you will say “NOT NOW!” The brain will take away ALL your motivation to do that thing. Or the brain will give you all kinds of motivation to do some other task, and will convince you that it’s just as, if not more, important. It will give you the loophole to get out of that crappy task.
You must be practiced at using skills for managing that crappy moment.
If you master those 4 things I mentioned you will be kicking ass and you’ll surprise people in your world at how reliable you are and your spouse will wonder why you are suddenly so productive, and you will start to feel confidently consistent. Here they are again:
One place to capture all your ideas
A process of deciding what things you will do and when
A calendar that is true, and that you use daily
Skills for getting started…even though [insert whatever your ‘not now’ reaction is]
I will scream this from the rooftops: nobody simply learns their way into managing their ADHD. It’s a disability that requires skills mastery. You must put what you learn into practice. Every. Day.
The daily practice is why I built the ADHD Big Brother Community .
I needed a place where I could do this work alongside other folks with my kind of brain and my kind of struggles. Because the fastest way to getting this shit managed is through the accountability of others.
If you have a solid accountability partner, start practicing these 4 things with them today. If you don’t have one, come join us. We do this work every day, together.