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Hi, welcome to ADHD Friendly. I am Patti, an ADHD and executive function coach, here to support you to struggle less and thrive more. If you need more support than I can possibly offer on this show and podcast, check out my website, ADHD friendly.com where there are tons of resources and information on my membership that is designed to meet you where you are and build from there so you will be thriving more. It's where eders get more things done. All right, this is episode 237. And today I have a celebration about my coat rack. I don't know if you noticed it when you came in, but you will after I celebrate this. And then I have a tip about how to look at the day in a framework of quarters as opposed to the whole day. We're going to talk about a little hack to get out of all or nothing thinking. And then I have my main topic, and that is 10 ADHD no breaks tasks. So these are things that once we start, we have a hard time stopping. So I've got some examples of what this can look like and some tips for how to tap the brakes a little bit on things that you don't want to keep going on once you start. All right, so let's start, as always, with our celebration and that is that over the weekend, the time was right. I decluttered the coat rack. It had. I should have counted at least, you know, 15 coats from the four of us. From jackets to heavy coats to hoodies were all over it. Scarves, hat, you know, hats, yeah, mittens, Everything was just piled onto it. It was, it was a dome instead of four hooks. And so I took everything off of it. I sorted everything. I hung them all up in the hall closet and only left out like spring light jackets and put all of the scarves and the hats away. I can get them out if I need them, which I did need them for a walk this week, but I put them back in the closet because I don't need them out at this point in the year. It's going to be warm enough that they can stay in the closet. And so it's a visual win that's paying dividends every time I walk into the hallway. Because it just, it was, it literally. It happens every year. It just slowly, like, you know, it just dump it on, dump it on, dump it on. And so I just love seeing the. You can see the hooks. If somebody came over, I could probably find a vacant place to hang something on, which is what I think of as a whole coat rack being for Guests, you know, we put our things in the hall closet. No, we do not open the door, get the hanger out. But that does not happen. So I'm just celebrating that it happened. And now there's just so much less stuff in the hallway. And that kind of went to well. Now let me clean up and get rid of any of the winter boots and shoes that aren't going to be worn. And so that's all tidy now. And it's very satisfying to go into the hallway and have that now. I'll love just as much in the fall getting out those bulky things again. But for right now, I like that it less is more. So I'm enjoying that. All right. What I purchased this week, I purchased a bunch of moisturizing things. So I was out of my like my body lotion, I was out of my face moisturizer and I was out of my CoverGirl foundation. Okay. So I know I use different kinds of foundation, but I found this covergirl ageless simply ageless foundation that I have been using, but I was getting a little tired of it. I don't know why. Just switching up. Yeah. And so I went and I found that CoverGirl makes a little compact that is foundation, but also has SPF. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I got that. I got my Usurin Intensive repair lotion and my AM&PM moisturizing lotions which I use the CeraVe which has like those really good reviews and the AM both of them are oil free. I have very oily skin, so I don't need the oil. But the AM has the SPF 30 so now I feel like I'm double every day because I am not a put on this and then this and layer with this. I need my facial moisturizer to have the spf. It. It's just easier one and done. Yeah. I am not going to remember at another time like, oh, I'm going outside. I better put it just needs to be in the same thing and I don't want typical moisturizers are a lot heavier. They are that have the SPF. So I just love the CeraVe. I've been using that for a while. But I also got the PM one which I didn't know they had a PM one which is also oil free. And that's more like a. It's a little creamy. It is like a little. It's not serum. It's kind of a mixture between a serum and a lotion. It has like a. A little translucent or the. The day cream is like a white Cream that goes. But they were all around 15 bucks each. And now I am loosened up, got everything I need for moisturizing. So those. They were all needs. Yes. But it felt good to have all new. It was very sparkly and really pulling me into my moisturizing routines. I'm enjoying that. I don't have an item of the week. I was thinking about the CoverGirl foundation, but I just started using it and I'm not sure yet how I'm feeling about it. As the weather's getting warmer and my face is more oily. If it's getting cakey or what, it's. So I'm just kind of right. Or melt off. Yeah. I don't know. I'm gonna watch and see if you're noticing a difference in my skin. Yeah, it's nice and glowy. Episode 2 okay, now for my tip for this week. And this came from my Life Hacks calendar. Some of their tips are so juvenile. Like, they're just so basic that I'm like. Are so, like, ridiculous. I'm like, I'm not even. That's. It's like. So I'd say maybe 1 in 10 or 12. I'm like, oh, that's pretty good. And this is one of those. So this tip is to view every day as a set of four quarters, meaning morning, midday, afternoon, and evening. So you can have a bad quarter and still and not a bad day. Exactly. Which very sparkler for ADHD brains. Because we tend to be so all or nothing that if we wake up and we don't feel on great, whatever, it's gonna be a bad day. And then that mentality, it's literally lining you up to, like, gather proof. Like, see, I knew it. I knew it was gonna be a good day. I knew it. And it can just drain the entire day. We're just gonna be like, okay, morning wasn't the best. What can I do now to pick back up quarter to mid midday? What am I going to do now? Or, you know, you don't have a good lunch, you don't have a good afternoon. It doesn't have to derail the rest. So I like the idea of seeing it as quarters. What I would say to make it ADHD friendly might be, how do you see your day? Because that can even help you to see patterns. So maybe you have, you know, your day on your calendar broken up into quadrants where it's 1, 2, 3, 4, and you just color in like, you know, green was good or check it off if it was good. Whatever. Keep it simple. But seeing like, oh, you know what I noticed I'm having like midday challenges, like, you know, a number of days this week that was like a time that I really noticed didn't go as well. Yeah. So what would I do to support it? So I just like thought breaking out of the all or nothing, but also how to see that evidence of, you know what? It wasn't a great evening, but I got up and I had, you know, I had three good quarters today and. Or I had half a day, it was just spent. And then I decided, no, I'm not going to give up this whole day. I'm going to take it back, turn it around, see the evidence that you can push back when your brain wants to do the all or nothing, it's like, no, I can still salvage this. So, yeah, maybe even, you know, thinking about what does help you to salvage. Or turn a quarter around if you have one that isn't the best, what do you do? What are the patterns that led you to shift from it? So I thought that was a good one to share. So if you find a way to use it, something that you notice helps you to do that. Please post episode237 we all learn from each other. All right, now for our main topic today, and that is 10 ADHD no breaks, traps. So how to stop before it's too late. So if you've ever told yourself, like, I'll just have one Oreo, right? Or just one Chip, or I'll just watch one more episode of this TV show and then before you realized it, you are like deep in. Or you like, like the. You finished this season or, you know, whatever. That's a great example of no breaks. So sometimes we have a hard time getting started, and once we start, we can keep going. And that's a way to use our brain to strengthen it. We just look for those ways to get started. But other times, once we start, we can't stop. And that's a red flag. That's a. Hmm. What are the things that my breaks don't work for? Right? So it's like, oh, my gosh, like, I'm going downhill and nothing is slowing me down. So it might even be like, I'm just gonna throw the laundry in. And now I'm deep cleaning and I'm late for work, right? So it's like, it's like, okay, well, now that the laundry's. And I see there's all these, like little piles of dog hair along, let me just sweep up the floor. Well, now That I swept it. It's before the dog's hair. Let me just go ahead and mop it, you know, and we're deep into what we're doing and it's like, oh, that's not my challenge. But that could be. Yes. It's just an example. So remember, it's not just about starting, because we've talked a lot about how to get started. Yes. It's also about stopping. So this is what we're going to talk about is where do you notice your brain's brakes aren't working the way you need them to? So remember, our brains struggle to pause when we're interested in something, to shift from one thing to another once our brain is engaged. Right. This is our superpower. We can keep going, but if we need to shift, that's where the brakes need to come in. So interrupting that behavior is how we need our brakes to work. And if it's not, that's where we just keep going. So just like brakes in your car. Our brain can feel like our brakes are broken. So ADHD brain wiring is often described as a Ferrari car with, like, bicycle breaks. Because we have a really hard time slowing down. Yeah. So they're not very efficient sometimes when we need them to be. Why is that so understanding? Our brains are wired for interest. So if you are doing something that's interesting to your brain, it is just seeking to continue getting that fired up dopamine from your interspace nervous system. So interest stimulates your brain, which leads to the increased dopamine. Stopping is going to decrease the dopamine. Brains don't want that. Right. We are striving to keep that dopamine coming. So we're going to resist breaking. So once we're engaged in a task, we could lose all awareness of time. Right. Which is why, you know, we suddenly will realize, I am so late. How did that happen? And switching becomes really hard. It can feel like we're stretching time in that moment. Like, I'm just going to finish this, or I've just got one more episode. It'll be fine. And. And now we're, like, exhausted for the next day. Telling ourselves that we're going to stop also doesn't work. So it might be like, I'm just going to sit down and watch one episode, or I'm going to eat just one bag out of this one chip out of this bag. We have great intentions. We struggle to implement and follow through with our intention. So this could look in real life like, I'm just going to look at Social media for a minute and now we're just scrolling and an hour has gone by or more. I'm just going to online shop. Yeah. For how long? Right. We don't put structure around it. It's. I'm just going to tweak one more thing. This is me in the slide deck. I'm just going to tweak one more thing and I like, will continue tweaking diving. Yeah. Up until like the minute I'm like, oh, I have to go start the presentation. We'll over clean or organize one out, one area. Remember my mother who totally had adhd, not diagnosed. Just my own personal, like observation now with what I know. Came to visit when my kids were little and she was like, oh my gosh, Patty, your, your sink is a mess. I'm going to just clean this. I'm like, okay. It was like my kitchen. Stainless steel double sink. Stainless steel sink. Like double sink. Not kidding you when I tell you she spent about three hours on the scene. Like, I remember like, like literally thinking this will never. Like, it looked brand new. Like I couldn't believe it. But I was like, no wonder I never clean this thing. Like, I would never do that ever, ever, ever. And she just like looks so sad. She was just in there, like, like every little nook and cranny. Like, unbelievable. Nope. But again, she was really into it. Like it was very satisfying for some reason to her brain. We might overdo exercising once we start, I don't think. I hope. But if you haven't done anything for a while, you might do too much and just be sore. Oh yeah. I remember my dad did that when he got an exercise like rowing machine and he, he literally had to go to PT because he, he like, he overdid it because he hadn't been doing anything and he, and he kind of went on it with the mindset of what he used to be able to do and totally did not go well. We'll go into research rabbit holes. So, and let me just look this up. Let me see what's the best dishwasher, what's the best, you know, whatever. And now like we've got spreadsheets and data and, you know, we know everything in the world there is to know about every brand. The reliability, the cost, the whatever. Maybe we start a conversation and then we can't stop where, you know, somebody else is. Even like you can see them. They're looking for a way out and we're just like, yeah, let's go talk. Tell you we might read something. Well, into the night because we can't stop. We can't put it down. When I work with clients on how to support transitioning to sleep, you know how to get your brain to be willing to go into your room and go to sleep, because that's often boring. And remember, our brains are wired for interest. One of the things I'll ask them is, what. What's something that you could read without your brain getting so into it that you're going to be like, wide awake in three more hours, still reading. Yeah, I didn't think about that. If your book's too interesting. Yeah, it's finding that, right? Like, it can't be so boring that you don't care and you don't want to go read it. It has to be something you're like, okay, yeah, I want to go read that. But so it might be rereading something that you already know how it ends. So your brain's like, just like the comfort cozy, like, oh, I enjoy this, but it's not like, did it. How you know are they gonna live? Right? This can also apply to things like gambling, you know, like, oh, I'm just going to play one hand and. Or drinking. I'm going to have just one drink. Overeating, you know, a lot of the different things that can get in the way. Keeping that in mind, whether even, like, coffee, like, I'm going to have one cup, and now we've had five, and we're like, so just thinking about, you know, what is it for you that your breaks aren't working the way that you need them to keep in mind? It's not a lack of discipline. It is a lack of breaks. Okay, so it's not that. Well, you know what, I'm just not strong. It's like, no, it's recognizing once I start this thing, I know I don't have good breaks for it. So what do we do about it? So let's talk about some breaking strategies. The first is, this is hard, but I'm telling you, it's a game changer before you start the thing. So we're growing our awareness, right. Of. Of the things that we're not very good with our breaks. Before you start the thing that you know you will struggle to use breaks with, ask yourself, what's the limit? Like pre decide. So if it's. I'm going to watch one episode. Yeah. Set the sleep timer. You know, set up something that an alarm in a different room that forces you to get up and move away. Write it down. If it's Something like that. You're like, okay, this is my plan. I'm going to check it off. I move on. That isn't strong enough for me. I need to set an alarm or a timer. Just writing down my intention for me isn't often enough strong enough. But if that's enough for you, notice where would you write it? Where would you put it? How would it work? It utilizes your planning brain. Before, you're totally engaged in the thing and now you're like, I don't know why I thought I would only watch one. This is so good. I, I can't stop there. That's unreasonable. I'm going to keep going. All right, Number two, create physical or environmental interruptions. So things like timers, app blockers. So setting something for like an hour so that if you're scrolling on social media or playing a game, it will cut you off after a set amount of time. Or leave space and it leave your snack somewhere else. So if you. I always tell my kids, if you're getting the pretzels or two chips, don't eat from the bag. We have no awareness of how much we're eating. Put it in a designated snack bowl so that you have your limit, like, and then put the snack away so that it's requiring you. It's. You have to make a decision. Do I want to go and fill it up again? So it's giving you that, that little pause that's hitting the brakes for you. Number three, create fiction for high risk activities. So high risk is what high risk is for you. For me, it's like, don't keep Oreos in the house. I don't keep social media apps on my phone because I don't miss them once they're gone. But if they're there, it's too easy for me to just. Yep. To just find myself scrolling. So create friction. It doesn't mean I can't get the snacks. I can go to the store and get Oreos if I want them, but I'd have to get. I'd have to go to the store. Right. What I want is accessible, but it's going to take some effort for me to get to it. Make continuing harder. So if you have like, okay, I'm going to have Oreos, I'm going to have three. Maybe you put them, you give them to somebody else. Like, don't let me have any more. Or those little, like, you know, the time safes where you're like, this won't open again for five hours. You can set it. They're they're all over Amazon. I've talked about them on previous episodes, but they can be game changers where you keep them in there and it won't open again until a set time. Or just. We used to have to lock, literally padlock our snack cabinet. Yeah. Because our kids would just. I'm like, wait, they're just gone. So recognizing. You know how to make getting more harder. Yeah. Number four, create exit ramps. So by that I mean at the end of this page, I'm going to stop reading. So maybe I like to flag things like, this is where I'm going to end and I'll flip ahead because if the end of the chapter is in 20 pages, that might be too much. Like, I don't have time to sit and read 20 pages, but I'll look for a break. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to flag right there. It's not the end of the chapter, but it is apparently the end of that little section before it starts a new one. So I'm going to stop there and I flag it to remind me it's going to reduce the resistance to stopping. It's reminding you, oh, that flags there. That's right. This is where I plan to stop. It just makes it easier. It's like that little breaking. You're slowing down and give yourself a chance to exit from that activity. The next one is to increase your awareness. So to do any of these, we're going to need to increase our awareness of where are the brakes not working for you and where do you need stronger breaks? So I recommend pick one area that you know your brakes aren't working and pick one thing to tap the brakes a little bit or slow you down to support yourself to notice how it works for you. The things that will work for you are not the same things that will work for me or work Rebecca or will work for your partner, your siblings, whoever else is doing whatever works for them. It's finding what works for you and then asking yourself what it would look like if you were going to try implementing it. If it's too resistant, you might really push back. So find the thing that you're willing to experiment with and just notice how it works. If your brain struggles to stop once you get started, look for ways to use those breaks a little bit earlier so that you don't have to try when your brain's fully engaged to talk yourself out of continuing. That's almost never going to work. We want to access our brakes before we're going kind of out of control downhill. I always think of those. Those ramps where they're like, out of control. Whatever. It always does. The, the semi truck off ramp where it's just like a dirt, grassy hill. And every picture like, oh, my gosh, like, what if they just, like, go over and there they are going up the hill? I've never seen them have to use it, but I like the image of what is your off ramp. How are you going to slow down when you know your brain isn't going to support you with the breaks? All right, that's it. Now our book of the week. All right, so if you are a fan of Chris Farley's work, this is a really interesting read about the man and his work and his comic genius. It's called the Chris Farley Show. It was written by his brother, Tom Farley Jr. And Tanner Colby. I'm going to read you a. A little summary. In this officially authorized oral history, Farley's friends and family remember his work and his life. Along the way, they tell a remarkable story of boundless energy, determination, and laughter that could only keep the demons at bay for so long. Oh, I know he. His brother is going to be a speaker at my library this month. So when I read the description, I was like, well, I've never heard of that book. And, and I always think of him on Saturday Night Live with the whole van down by the river thing and the. The stripper with Patrick Swayze, like, just so stinking funny. And so I gave this a four out of five. It was. It was a sweet story told in. I think it's a. It says, yeah, biography and three acts told in three different parts. And mostly, like, it'll tell like a story. And then it has quotes from a lot of family members, friends, and celebrities that work with him. It really gave insight into addictive behavior in a. In a way that I thought was really profound because you got to hear it from his co workers, from family members when people were just done, even though they recognized that he was sick, it still required some boundaries to be put in place. And they were really hard because he ended up dying. And for friends that set those boundaries, I think they really struggled with what if I adjust when the reality is they, you know, could only do so much. Right. So, yeah, that was really good. So I have a quote of the week from Chris Farley, and his quote is, I am a human being like everyone else. I'm not exempt. So, yeah, I don't know when he said that, like, where that was taken from, but I just thought it was a profound thing to end with and think about. You know what? We're not exempt. We all have our challenges and our strengths, and it really is about learning how to work with our unique brains so that we are struggling less and thriving more. That's it for this episode. Until next time. Tally ho.