You Still Have To Do The Work

The thing AI can't do for you.

I’m a huge nerd for AI. I’m not as efficient at it as I’d like to be, but man it has some great potential. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with the various platforms. I’m by no means an expert, but it can be a great back and forth thought partner, for sure.

For an adult with ADHD struggling to manage their lives, AI can be such a game changer. It can help break projects down into smaller steps, for example. It can help me look at an email I’m about to send and offer me insights into whether I’m overreacting. Anybody else guilty of firing off an email before thinking about it?

It can help meal plan for the week.

It can also be your ADHD coach! How cool is that?! All the information about ADHD is out there. It can act as a therapist! That’s super cool.

If you are curious if I’m scared about AI taking away my ADHD coaching job, I’m not. It only means it will take a couple more steps before a person reaches out to me for help. Here’s why:

Normally, when a person is diagnosed with ADHD, the idea is to see if the medicine fixes everything. It sure helps, but it doesn’t manage our lives. The cliche is “pills don’t teach skills” and that’s quite true. And if you are like me, the medicine gives you craptastic side effects. That’s why I bailed on medicine. But damn it sure worked well for focus.

That leaves us trying to figure this out on our own. Makes sense to make a go of the free attempt first, or the very minimal cost.

We watch youtube videos. We relate, it feels awesome, we have tons of strategies that we forget to try.

We consume podcasts like “ADHD Big Brother” that offer a challenge at the end of most episodes (when I remember!) But how quickly we forget the thing we were going to try. For a rare few, the work is done, but for the majority it is a place to feel less alone and to relate…the laundry has yet to get done.

We read books and we go after them with a highlighter and great intentions. But how many of us actually do the work? I know I never did, and I’m an ADHD coach! Truth sandwich! I say “did,” because I do the work now, using a little thing called accountability, which I’ll expand on shortly.

And now we’ve added another one: we work with AI. It is a glorious rabbit hole that will provide us with wonderful outputs; detailed lists. AI will provide us a clear roadmap, it will tell us everything we think we need to know. I absolutely love what it can do! I’m not shit talking AI…it is cool!

But while AI can talk to us and make us feel like we are talking to an expert, at the end of the day many will still not do the work. Because at it’s core, it is still us only being accountable to ourselves. And that is the main struggle!

‘Other people’ is the answer for ADHD. We definitely fight against it, though, don’t we? Because we are adults! Right?! We should be able to do simple shit like the laundry! We should be able to suck it up and do things! Wouldn’t it be great to be such a badass that we are able to do all things on our own and not need accountability help. I know I would. That would be awesome.

I’m an ADHD coach, I know exactly how to be productive when it comes to ADHD. I’ll caveat that and say I know exactly how I can be productive. We are all different. And I can say with absolute certainty that the fastest way to get shit done when you have ADHD is to leverage ‘other people’.

I use the community (ADHDBB) I created.

ADHDBB isn’t me standing on a podium telling everyone what they already know. If you are looking to learn: google your symptoms. Talk to your AI. Read your books and watch your YouTube videos. Scroll those reels and relate to your hearts content. It’s all free. And then, when you are ready to make change and be productive, jump into our sandbox (or any sandbox) and we’ll help you do the work.

I’ll share my own testimonial for it, because I’m not just the owner, I’m a member who is active in there every single day: The only reason I’m currently working out at a regular cadence is because I make promises in one of our current community challenges at ADHDBB. If I don’t get my workouts in, everybody has to repeat the week’s challenges. It’s a challenge one member started called “We Win Together”.

The only reason I’m doing the exercises/thought work in the book “Changing to Thrive” is because we have a book club going for it at ADHDBB. Otherwise, I’d just read the book and nod and go "that’s such a cool idea I should….” and then I forget because I kept reading.

The only reason I got my newsletter out today is because I put it in my daily accountability post in ADHDBB and put my day streak on the line.

Bottom line, AI won’t do your laundry. Yet? While you are doing all the mirror work and mindset shifting and journaling and AI conversations to find the inner motivation to “do things”, get an accountability parter/people and try action first.

But how can you do this work for free without joining ADHDBB?

Easy. Get a shame-free, judgment-free friend or group who has a similar ADHD struggle as you. Give each other challenges, and a regular meeting cadence for check ins. Declare your commitments to each other, and hold each other accountable. Hold the light for your friend and they’ll hold the light for you. When you succeed, celebrate with each other. When you fail, talk about the hurdles and make a plan to overcome them, together. This slog is so much more doable when you do it with your fellow ADHDer.

What’s your favorite AI tool?

I use Google Gemini. But I know you guys probably have some genius tool that you are using. Share in the comments what you are using and how it helps!