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William Curb (0:06)

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William Curb (0:20)

So same time next week?

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And your friends learn more@joinmochi.com Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary. It's about time you have an easier, more efficient way to get caught up on the news. The Newsworthy breaks down the day's top stories in less than 15 minutes and gives you some lighter conversation starters along the way. Search the Newsworthy wherever you're listening now and follow or subscribe to the Newsworthy today.

William Curb (0:50)

Welcome to Hacking youg adhd. I'm your host William Curb and I have adhd. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. While ADHD is described as life on Hard Mode, that phrasing got me thinking about what life would look like on easy mode and more importantly, how can we make our lives feel more like that? In this episode, we're going to explore what life on Easy Mode might look like and discuss actionable strategies to shift that dynamic of living with ADHD so that it doesn't always have to feel like an uphill battle. How we can take steps to shift our ADHD from making life a struggle something a little bit more manageable. From simplifying routines to harnessing the power of small changes, there are a lot of ways that we can work on dialing down that difficulty level. If you'd like to follow along on the Show Notes page, you can find that@hackingyouradhd.com 191 alright, keep on listening to find out how life easy can be when you've got adhd. Our first step here is defining what Easy Mode would look like and I feel like this is going to be a bit different for everyone. But let's play along for a minute. We'll start with how we wake up in the morning. It feels effortless to get out of bed. In fact, we've got that spring in our step and not only are we excited to wake up, we've got that energy to get going. When we sit down to do our work, there is no lingering procrastination and our thoughts are clear. We can get right into what we want to be working on and our productivity comes effortlessly. It's hyperfocus without that feeling like we're drawing from our future selves. Taking care of our health doesn't feel like a chore. We know the right foods to eat and man, they taste delicious. We naturally make the healthy choice, eating well and exercising regularly. When it comes time for bed, we're ready to fall asleep right away because we feel like we've had an amazing day already. We don't spend too much time working, just enough to feel like what we're doing matters. We have time for hobbies, family and relaxation. Our relationships are smooth and fulfilling. And when a misunderstanding comes up, we can communicate clearly and easily resolve any conflict. Decisions are easy to make because we have a clear sense of direction and purpose. Stress is minimal because we face any challenge with confidence and calm. And finally, there's this pervasive sense of joy and contentment. We find satisfaction in small moments and we have the freedom to pursue our passions and interests without obstacles holding us back. Of course, no one lives a life like this, and if I'm honest, I feel like it might get a little boring. But I mean, that's ADHD for you, right? Getting bored when things are perfect. Now, as we switch gears here, I think it's worth asking ourselves if we've ever experienced any of that easy mode. And maybe not to those extremes, but when have we felt like things are clicking and falling into place? Certainly I've had time when hyperfocus has made productivity feel effortless, although that is a double edged sword, to be sure. While living with ADHD can often feel like it's set to heart mode, it isn't always like that. Yes, the challenges we face are real and can make even the simplest tasks feel overwhelming. We have distractions everywhere and it's easy to lose focus. Procrastination can take over, making it difficult to start or complete tasks. And our emotional regulation can make many things a struggle, leading to frustration and anxiety. That's the reality of living with adhd. Life can feel so much harder than it feels like it needs to be now. Sometimes that's because our ADHD is making things harder, and sometimes it's because things are actually just hard. And sometimes it's because we're choosing to do things in the hardest way possible, you know, because that's the right way to do things. The hard way. The good news is we don't have to stay in hard mode forever. There are strategies we can use to shift that dynamic and start living a life that feels more like easy mode, or at least slide down that difficulty slider to something a little bit more manageable. I think this might be a good place to mention the idea of the One Thing, which is a book by Gary Keller. Yeah, the real estate guy. In the book, Keller and his co author, Jay Papasan advocate focusing on the single most important task in any area of your life to achieve extraordinary success. The core idea is that by identifying and concentrating on the one thing that matters most, you can simplify your workload and focus your energy on what truly drives progress and results. But more relevant for our conversation here is what they call the focusing question, which is, what's the one thing I can do? Such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary. Now, I realize upon first hearing that question, it can be a bit unclear about what exactly it's talking about, because the way it's worded does take a bit to think through. So here it is again. What's the one thing I can do? Such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary. The most important thing to start with here is that this question does not ask about the most important action you need to take. It's about what one action you can take that would make everything else easier. Of course, this can lead you to work on that important task, but first we want to look at what's going to make everything else easier. To get there, the next important concept to consider is the domino effect, which occurs when one action or event sets up a chain reaction leading to a series of related events or consequences. The term comes from the physical act of setting up dominoes in a line and then knocking them over the first one, which causes the subsequent dominoes to fall in turn. In terms of the focus in question, the idea is that by identifying and completing the most crucial task, you create momentum that makes other tasks easier or unnecessary. Just like how tipping the first domino causes all the others to fall. This is a powerful concept because it encourages you to think strategically about your actions. If we can identify the most important task, the one that will have the greatest positive impact on our lives and work, and do that thing, it will make everything else easier. And that's what we want to focus on here. As we move forward, what can we do that is going to make everything else we do easier and possibly even unnecessary? With adhd, we often want to do all the things, and prioritization can be a huge issue. So it's important that we find those key dominoes that can help us knock down the next thing to come. In fact, sometimes that's our first one thing, identifying the priority so that we can actually do that thing first. Or maybe even our first one thing is just the need for us to be slowing down so that we can get those things figured out. Too often my mindset is one of go, go, go. And what really needs to happen is slowing down, figuring out what needs to happen, and then executing on that plan. Alright, let's dive into some of these strategies that can help us make that shift. The first place we can look is at our habits and routines. One of the most effective ways we can work on making our life easier is through consistent routines. Of course, I know with adhd, consistency isn't always on the menu. In fact, more often than not, the only thing we really find in our consistency is how inconsistent we are. But that's also kind of the point here. What are the things we can do that will make a consistent routine easier? What comes to mind for me is that I know that while on good days I can muddle my way through fairly well, but on days where I'm less than 80% or maybe lower, I can really struggle with executing on the basics. And even more to the point, when I'm struggling, I know I'm far more likely to skip steps. Not intentionally, but rather because I just didn't even think about them. And while our neurotypical counterparts may say, well, we'll be able to remember the important stuff, I've had plenty of days where I've realized halfway through that I've forgotten my meds or coffee that morning. And those are definitely things that make the rest of the day easier. So they are kind of important things that I forgot. So what would make it easier or unnecessary for me to remember my morning routine? First thing that comes to mind here is a checklist, because that makes it sound like the whole thing of remembering might become unnecessary. And to make things even easier for those hard mornings, I could have a simplified version of the checklist, the bare bones of what needs to happen. I'm medicated and caffeinated when I make it out the door, and that I'm not forgetting anything else that's really important for that day. This idea also nicely transitions into our next big idea, which is about setting up our environment. One of the big obstacles we can face when trying to follow through with our habits and routines is how our space is set up. If I want to sit down to do some work, and my workspace is filled with distractions and unnecessary clutter, it can make it a lot harder to get into my work mode. This is where the idea of the three parts of the task come in, which are the setup, the doing, and the cleanup. If we think about what would make getting into work mode easier, having a clean workspace is definitely up there. One of the best ways to ensure that we have a clean workspace is to build in time to clean up when we're done with the last thing that we're doing. And let's think about the focusing question here one more time. What's the one thing I can do? Such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary. We can start with a more general idea here. Hey, if I clean up my workspace, that will make getting work done way easier. But we don't have to stop there. And in fact we should once again apply our focusing. What's the one thing I can do that would make cleaning up our workspace easier? Right now my workspace is my laptop at the dining room table. Makes it a lot easier to get the table set after I'm done making dinner if I also don't have to move all my work clutter off the table at the same time. This means that I need to assign a cleanup time after I'm done with work for the day. And really, that only takes a couple of minutes, but it saves a lot of stress later. Asking this question on repeat is a fantastic way to build yourself a pathway to making everything in your life easier. Don't stop asking until you have concrete actions that you can take, and then make a plan on how and when you are going to take those actions. And remember that we can also leverage technology to help with managing our adhd. Tools like task managers, calendars and habit trackers can keep you organized and remind you of important tasks and deadlines. We we can automate repetitive tasks like bill payments or routine emails, which can also reduce our cognitive load and free up mental space for more important things. We're just looking for ways that we can make it so that we're not spending all our cognitive resources before we get to the hard things. Because despite how we're talking about trying to move towards easy mode, we also are still going to have hard things that we have to do. We want to be able to focus on progress, not perfection. We're aiming for small, consistent improvement rather than drastic changes over time. These small adjustments can lead to significant, positive changes in how we manage our adhd. And don't forget to celebrate your achievements, no matter how small. They're all steps towards making your life feel a little more like it's on Easy Mode. Often with our adhd, it can feel like we're getting into analysis paralysis. But what I see most often in myself is that I only do that first part of the planning, the part where I'm coming up with the ideas, but then I fail to get myself into the mode of figuring out how to make those ideas into a reality. The focus in question is there to get you over that hurdle and figure out what you actually need to do to follow through with all that planning. So even with all this, are we ever going to get to that idealized version of what Easy Mode could look like? Probably not. The reality of living with ADHD is that life can often feel so much harder than it needs to be, but we can still work on making things easier, and especially not doing things in the hardest way possible. Thanks for sticking with me all the way to the end. Before you go though, let's do a quick rundown of Today's top tips. 1. We can use the focusing question from the book the one what's the one thing I can do? Such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary to help us identify not only what would be most impactful for us to do, but what we should be prioritizing. 2. With the focus in question, we can also leverage the domino effect. We often don't need to focus on the big things that we need to do, but rather on the small and significant tasks that can set off chain reactions of success, making other tasks easier or, hopefully, unnecessary. 3. Focus on progress and not perfection. Aim for small, consistent improvement rather than drastic changes, and celebrate every small win along the way. That's it. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. Feel free to connect with me over@hackingyouradhd.com contact if you'd like links or to read this episode's transcript, you can go to the Show Notes page at hackingyouradhd. I also wanted to let you know about the Hacking youg ADHD newsletter. Any and all distractions. And that's what this newsletter is all about. In it, I bring you the top things of the week that have caught my attention from the world of ADHD and beyond. If that sounds like something you'd like in your inbox, just head over to hackingyouradhd.com newsletter and sign up. And now for your Moment of Dad the problem with dad jokes is you can pun, but you can't hide foreign.