A (4:33)
I mean, what in the actual hell. I cannot believe that a pharmacist would say everyone has adhd. I'm so glad that you called to tell this story and that you like the fact that you thought of me makes my heart so happy. It makes my heart so happy. Like, are you enraged? Listener as I am, are you enraged? Because we should be. We should be bothered by this. We should be angry about this. This is not appropriate. It's actually extremely ignorant. And to have someone in a position of power, in a position where they should have knowledge about mental health in some capacity, if they're distributing medication, the fact that they would say, well, everyone has adhd, I'm just dismissing you. Essentially, the, like, parenthetical statement is like, so I don't know why you even are giving me a hard time about getting your medication on time. I don't even know why you're bothering and making this effort to get your medication because everyone has adhd, I'm gonna dismiss your diagnosis. I'm gonna dismiss. Miss the struggle that you are going through. And I'm going to imply to you that this medication is unnecessary. Like, absolutely ridiculous. Thank you for sending this in. Because I just. I want to be angry with you. I want to be angry for you. And I want us to show all of our listeners. Like, I want you guys to really understand that we need to stop. We need to stop accepting this from people. Like, how about we all decide in advance what we're going to say to someone the next time they make this comment to us? How about that? How about we just take a stop and think and we say, okay, the next time someone says to me, well, everyone has ADHD or something like that. A dismissive, an ignorant, dismissive comment like that, what do I want to say back? Because I need to have something locked and loaded. Because in the moment, I would have no idea what to say. I would be so caught off guard. I would be so, like, dumbfounded that a pharmacist would say something like that to me and I wouldn't have a response. I wouldn't know it. I would just freeze. So let's get a response. Locked and loaded. Okay, so for me, what I'm thinking through is the way that I want to respond to that is. What an interesting thing to say. What do you mean by that? I'd like to put it back onto them. What an interesting thing to say. What do you mean by that? What do you mean everyone has adhd? What exactly are you saying? Hello, I'm curious what you want your response to be, but I do think that us ADHDers, as, like, a general community need to have something locked and loaded. Ready to go. Ready to go. Oh, everyone has adhd. So you're distributing this medication to everyone? Hello? Yes. Is that what you mean by everyone has adhd? What exactly do you mean? I just. I want us all as a community to grow from this. Because if a pharmacist is gonna say that to an ADHDer's face, no one's off limits. Like, anybody can say it, right? So let's go ahead and, like, I would. If that had happened to me in the moment, I wouldn't have known what to say. But let's go ahead and prepare ourselves for that happening. Cause clearly it's going to continue to happen. Clearly, this is a stigma that has not been eradicated. Clearly that we have more work to do. And I think part of that is us owning our authority here and not allowing people to get away with saying stupid shit like, we need, like, no more. No more. So I just. Listener, I want you to have something locked and loaded. Tristan, I'm so glad that you called in. Like, girl, I am so glad, because I hope you feel validated. I hope that I can just, like, stand with you in solidarity and say, I'm so sorry that that happened to you. But also, let's all learn from this and have something locked and loaded ready. So we're not gonna be unkind. We're not gonna be disrespectful. We're not even going to be rude, but we're not going to accept that from other people anymore. We're done. We're all done with it. We're all done. This is not even the point of the episode. But I just wanna. I just wanna rant on it forever. This is so inappropriate. Anyway, call in with the crazy shit that people say to you. I wanna hear it. Like, this could be a new theme for our voicemails where you just call in and tell me the dumb things that people say, and then I get to get angry on your behalf and I get to just rage about it here on the podcast. And then we all get to learn and figure out, okay, how do we want to navigate these scenarios? Because when you are caught off guard in the moment, it's so easy to just smile and nod and like, okay, like, I don't know what to say to you, but, like, let's start prepping for these conversations in ways that allow us to show up with authority, not with disrespect. I'm not saying being rude, although that is a rude thing to say. Hello. So maybe we just match energy. Maybe we just match energy a little bit. But locked and loaded for me is. What an interesting thing to say. What do you mean by that? Putting it back on the person calling them out. Calling them out and putting it back on them to explain themselves. Because I'm not going to explain my. I'm not. I'm not. Ooh. Do you feel it? Do you feel it coming through the microphone? I'm not gonna do any explaining. I don't have anything to explain. I'm not gonna explain how everyone does not have adhd. That's not on me to explain. Explain. That's, like, scientific fact. But I will put the burden on the ignorant person to explain themselves. What do you. What do you mean by that? What are you trying to communicate to me? Okay, we're moving on. Call in with the crazy stuff people say to you. 8332-8123-4383-3281-2343 who? We're going to get to another voicemail later as we talk about this conversation on time management and capacity. Listen, time management is a whole thing for us and we're continuing our conversation today. If you didn't listen to last week's episode, it's a really, really good one. We talked about why time management is harder for people with ADHD and what we can do about it. I gave you a free resource. It's a time audit. You can find that at ihaveadh. It is still available to you. You can go download it right now. But yeah, time management is one of the biggest struggles for adults with adhd. And we all know the feeling of being buried under too many commitments, endless to do lists and a calendar that looks great on paper but doesn't translate, doesn't actually work in real life. And the time audit, that resource is going to help with this. That resource is going to help with. Wait, why does my calendar look good on paper but it doesn't actually work for me? Okay, so go to ihaveadhd.com time to grab that free resource. Most of the advice out there, it focuses on systems and apps and habits and planners. And while those things of course can be helpful and can be supportive, they don't address the deeper issues underneath, like why do we struggle and what do we need to improve upon in order to make change, positive change in this area. And one of the main things, after coaching adults with adhd, thousands of adults from around the world. I lead a global coaching community. It is incredible. And what I have noticed over and over and over is that time management issues often come down to capacity issues. Okay? We talked last week about a really important component which was emotional regulation. And I still stand on emotional regulation being a huge, huge, huge issue with time management. But if I were to pick a second thing, it would be our capacity. Because the truth is that every single one of us has limits. We have a certain capacity that we are able to work with. We have mental limits, emotional limits, physical limits. And instead of respecting those limits, we plan our lives like we should be operating as robots at full speed 24, 7 and ADHD. Or we need to see stop. Okay, we need to stop. We need to embrace our humanity. And listen, if that's something that's hard for you, I would actually encourage you to engage in either coaching or therapy. Because a lot of us are trying to not be human. A lot of us are trying to operate out of perfectionism and as a protective way, as a way to protect ourselves, as a way to shield ourselves from rejection, from getting in trouble. As if adults can get in trouble. Like, that's not a thing. But we think it's a thing. Our bodies think it's a thing. And I wonder, even if when Tristan heard the pharmacist say, well, everyone has adhd, if there wasn't also a wave of, like, am I in trouble? Because I think for those of us who grew up as ADHDers, especially if we were undiagnosed, especially if we were in families that didn't understand us, and then, especially if we were in a dysfunctional family, we have this feeling like we're constantly just, like, one bad decision away from getting in trouble, from losing everything. And so a lot of us are using the coping mechanism in order to, like, mitigate that getting in trouble thing, that rejection sensitivity thing. We're trying to operate as if our capacity is unlimited, as if we don't have limits, as if we don't have any boundaries around what we can and can't do. Okay? So I think emotional regulation is a huge piece of auditing your time and, like, living in reality. How long does something actually take? Huge piece. And I would say capacity is another missing piece in the time management conversation. It's the reason why a color coded calendar doesn't fix burnout. Okay. And why productivity hacks actually don't work if you're already running on empty. Because once you understand your capacity, how much you can really give on any given day, you can finally build a schedule that works for your brain and for your life. You can. You can finally build a schedule that works for your brain and for your life instead of against it. So many of you are trying to work against your capacity. You think, I shouldn't have to take breaks, I shouldn't have to have transitions. I shouldn't be hungover. And after, you know, working so hard for so long, I shouldn't. And when I say hungover, you know what I mean, right? Like, I meant mentally and emotionally hungover, not like drunk hungover. Like, I traveled this weekend for a podcast interview. It was so great. And I was planning to write my book the day after. Like, I try to write on the weekends, and I was planning to do some writing this weekend, and then my flight got delayed and it got delayed, and it got delayed and it Got delayed and I ended up getting home at 3am 3am and I knew that, like, there was not gonna be any writing happening this weekend. There's just not. I don't have the capacity because I just spent all of my mental, physical, emotional energy on this trip. And so much was stolen from me because the stinking flight delays and finally getting into my house at 3:3am I knew I would have nothing left. I didn't even try. I didn't even tell myself I should write. I was like, it's not happening because I know myself and I know my capacity. So in this episode, I'm going to share what I think is a unique perspective on capacity. And I think it's going to change, or I hope, I hope it changes the way that you approach time management. And as you can see, I brought props because we're going to be talking about it, okay? We're going to talk about what capacity is, how ADHD brains misjudge it, and why. Learning to, like, leave margin in your schedule is one of the most compassionate and powerful things that you can do. And it actually helps you to sustain your productivity over time. Okay? It helps you to sustain your productivity over time. Your capacity is the maximum amount that you can produce in any given day or hour or week or month. So if you just take any block of time, your capacity is the maximum amount that you can produce. The problem. And I'm using hand gestures here to show you this clear jar. It's a vase. I usually cut hydrangeas and put it in that, but I washed it out and brought it today so that I could use it. This is like, I would call it a medium sized vase. And it is full to the brim, almost overflowing of bowtie pasta, my very favorite type of pasta. Okay, this is my family's go to. Is the bowtie pasta full to the brim? Okay, this is like on the best day, this is what I can give, all right? On my best day, when I have the most capacity and I can fill it to the top, this is the best I can give. All right? The problem is that we treat our lives like we're always going to operate with this much capacity. We treat our schedules like we're always going to have this much to give. Like, we can always produce exactly this much day to day to day to day. So I plan my week. Well, I don't anymore, but perhaps you do plan your week or your month. Thinking, okay, I work eight hours a day and you know, last week I was able to get this much done. So next week I'll be able to get the exact same amount done or more. But the problem is that is not realistic. That's not realistic. When we are filling up our schedule to max capacity. That means if anything changes, if, if anything happens, if anything even bumps the schedule in any way, it's overflowing and all of a sudden we're behind. And remember last week we talked about self reflection and how we continually make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Part of that is we are just not willing to live in the reality that life happens. Kids, illness, unexpected projects, broken cars, a really bad mental health day, a delayed flight. Reality hits. And I think one of our flaws, and I'm speaking very generally, so please give me grace here. I'm speaking generally and just talking about us ADHDers, like as a whole, one of our flaws is not wanting to actually accept the reality that that life happens. So we want to plan our schedule as if I have this much margin, this much capacity, this much ability to produce all day, every day, no matter what, no matter what the weather, no matter what my brain is doing, no matter what my mental health is, no matter what the family drama is, no matter what my kids need, no matter what how my body feels, I will be able to produce this much at all times. And if I don't, then I shame myself, blame myself, judge myself, and spiral. And now I have all this added drama like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do it? I'm behind. It's really. It's really sad. I hate to see us do it. I hate to see us do it. Really. The thing that's wrong, quote unquote, wrong with us is that we're trying to schedule at max capacity every day. And we need to stop. We need to allow margin for interruptions. For those of you in the listening audience, I'm taking out some of the pasta and I'm allowing for some margin, okay? So that there is some space so that interruptions can happen or a child can call and say, hey, I need this thing, or I can get stuff sick or I can feel depressed and I don't fall behind. Okay? Okay. Are you with me on this? Everyone with ADHD knows what to do to improve their lives. You go to bed at a reasonable time, you wake up early, you make a list, you cross things off the list in order, blah, blah, blah, like, yeah, we know what to do. But ADHD is not a disorder of not knowing what to do. It's a Disorder of knowing exactly what to do but not being able to get yourself to do it. That's why I created Focused. It's an ADHD coaching membership for adults with ADHD. I'm a life coach with multiple certifications and since 2019, I've coached over 4,000 adults with ADHD from all over the world. I know what it takes to help an adult with ADHD go from hot mess express to grounded and thriving. I'll teach you how to understand your ADHD brain, regulate your emotions and your behavior and accept yourself, flaws and all. And with this foundation, we'll build the skills to improve your life with adhd. And not only do you get skills and tools and focus, but you're surrounded by a huge community of adults with ADHD who are also doing the work of self development right alongside of you. Dr. Ned Hallowell says healing happens in community. And I have absolutely found this to be true. So if you're an adult with ADHD who wants to figure out how to be motivated from the inside out and make real lasting changes in your life, join hundreds of others from around the world in focused, go to ihaveadhd.com focused to learn more. That's ihaveadhd.com focused to check it out. Just because I have 24 hours in a day. Just because on my very, very, very best days, I can get a certain amount of things done. We call those unicorn days, by the way. We call those unicorn days, okay? Those are the days where you're like, I cannot believe how much I've got done. That's a unicorn day, okay? That's, that is not every day. The problem is we look at those unicorn days and we say, oh, that's the standard. I should be able to get all of this done every, every time I show up to work. But no, that is not accurate. That's a unicorn day. That's not a normal day. A normal day, you feel like crap. A normal day, you're distracted. A normal day, you don't wanna work, okay? Just because you have this capacity doesn't mean that you should stuff it and fill it to the brim every single day, okay? Because some days you show up with this much capacity and for the listening audience, I'm holding up like a small clear glass. Someday you show up with a tiny bit of capacity. Some days, like the night before you didn't sleep or you got into a huge fight with your teenager, or you're worried about your parents health or something is going on with your husband's job. And it's. It's really distracting to you. Some days you're showing up with a limited amount of capacity, and then you're trying. And I just really wanna make a mess here and try to spill all of this into this cup. But how about we just imagine it instead of me making a mess? Okay. We're trying to take this schedule, which is just so full, and fit it into a much smaller capacity. Because some days you show up with a lot of capacity, but that's pretty rare. Other days you're gonna show up with a limited amount, and some days it's gonna be a medium amount. Right. And the thing is, we don't really get to predict that. I don't know tomorrow what my capacity will be, but I need to make a really smart schedule for myself so that I know that I'm getting the important things done. And here's where priorities tie into this. Because even with a limited capacity, and if you really understand that, you're like, okay, I know that my capacity is limited. I can only get, like, I need to leave room for error. I need to leave some margin. If you don't know what's essential, if you don't have your priorities locked in, then you're just gonna fill this stuff up with things that don't matter. All right? And that is a major challenge for those of us with adhd because we struggle to prioritize. Everything feels urgent. All tasks are blaring at us at the same volume, saying, do me, do me, do me. We have this thing. I don't know if you have this thing, but I have this thing. And I've really worked to overcome it. But I used to just, no matter what I was doing, I would feel like I was doing the wrong thing. It was like, no matter what I was working on, my brain would tell me, that's not right. You should do something else. That's not right. You should do something else. And I would just hop from task to task to test to test, because my brain was like, this isn't the right thing. You're doing the wrong thing. And it wasn't until I got really clear on my priorities. What matters? What is actually essential to my job? What am I going to regret not doing when the day's over? Like, what is the one thing that I'm going to be like, I really wish I did that, or I'm really going to get in trouble for not doing that, or. Or this is really gonna have a negative impact on my job or my home. What Is the one thing that you're gonna regret not doing? That's the priority. Or what is the one thing that your boss says you have to get this done? There is a deadline. That is the priority. Okay? So the I can do it all fantasy and the planning for unicorn days that this. It's breaking our schedules. It's breaking our time management, and it's making it so that we are just not functioning at. We're just not functioning great. Okay? A lot of us are just not functioning well. What I would love to see for you is to figure out what are my priorities and can my priorities actually fit into this small capacity? Okay, so we're gonna fill this guy up. Like, here's what actually. This is gonna be loud and messy. Here's what actually has to get done. All right? I'm gonna fill it up over here. All right, so I'm holding up a small cup of pasta. Here's what actually has to get done. These are the essential items. These are the things that I know I have to do. It's this much. Now. Some days I have capacity for more, and every once in a while, I get so much done, I surprise myself and everyone else. Right? And those are the big jar days. But if I can boil down my priorities to fit into a reasonable capacity, then I can still do the essential things on the days where I feel like crap. All right? And I have had those days. I went through a pretty long season where I was in deep grief. I went through a pretty long season where I was in deep grief, and it was not fun. And I. I had such limited capacity to the point where I lowered my business goals. I really wasn't doing any selling. I. I was just really focusing on two things. I was making sure that a weekly podcast was published. This was before the YouTubes. Okay. This was before you and me on YouTube were connected. I was making sure that there was a weekly podcast published, and I was showing up to support my clients in focused. So that meant a couple live calls every week and showing up in Slack to support the community. Those are the only two. Just two things that I was really committed to, and that was essential, and it allowed me to keep going and keep moving my business forward and take care of the clients that I had. And we have a great retention rate and focus, because once people get in, they absolutely love it. And I'm so, so, so happy about that. But a big part of my job is selling. A big part of my job is selling, and I did not do hardly any of that. During this year long period, what I did was I went on rage hikes and I took a lot of naps. Like, Those were the two big things. I was probably working three to four hours a day because I had 100 pound weight of grief that I was carrying around with me. And I did not have the capacity to do anything other than what was actually extremely essential in my business. So emails, launches, courses. I wasn't on TikTok. I was barely doing anything on Instagram. This was back when I had like probably 20,000 Instagram followers. And people would say, oh, you should be doing more. And I would just be like, I don't, I can't, I can't. And I won't. Because my capacity is so small right now. And it went on for an extended period of time. It was at least a year. My capacity is so small right now that all I can focus on is what's essential. And I want to ask you, my dear listener, do you know what is essential? A great book that I've recommended on here a million times is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. Fantastic book, fantastic. And he talks about choose three things. That's it, three things. And I didn't even have the capacity for that. I had to choose two. I did not even have the capacity for three things when it came to work. I only had capacity for two things. Weekly podcast and show up and focused. That was it. All right, so the book Essentialism, again, I'm gonna say it. Essentialism by Greg McKeown. Fantastic. And then he wrote a second book called Effortless. Both of them so ADHD friendly, even though he, to my knowledge, doesn't have adhd. If you can figure out for your job, like in the context of your job, what are the most essential tasks? What are the tasks that I must get done no matter what. The ones that drive the bottom line, the ones that my boss cares about most. The ones that are the most important in my job description, which ones are the most important? So that on my low capacity days where I only have this much to give, I'm still getting done what matters most. And I'm gonna stop scheduling my life as if I'm always gonna have tons of capacity, tons of margin. Because when I do that, I inevitably will get behind, right? Because. And pause as I fill this up. If I am just filling my highest capacity days to the absolute top, and I'm saying, this is how it should be. This is how I should be able to live. I should be able to do all this all the time. And then something bad happens. All of a sudden, I'm trying to add in more, or my kid calls me and says, mom, I need you to pick me up from school. I'm sick, and I'm adding in more. And it's just going to get messy. It's just going to get too messy. And then, sure, I might have a great day where this works, but it is not sustainable. It's not sustainable. I promise you, it is not sustainable. So. And you already know that. Like, can we pause here? You already know it doesn't work because your schedule isn't working, because you're falling behind, because you feel like, I have too much to do. I have too much to do. Do you know what? I don't feel. I don't feel like I have too much to do. I don't. I don't ever feel like that anymore. I don't ever feel like, gosh, there's just not enough time in the day. I don't. I used to, for decades, feel that way. But then I. I figured out what was essential. I figured out what actually is important. I figured out what needs to be done. I figured out the priorities. That was not easy. That took some therapy and some coaching. All right? So I'm not saying, like, oh, this should be easy for you. It's not. It's not easy. But work with someone who knows how to help you with this. Okay? Figure out what is essential. Have a meeting with your boss, look them in the face and say, tell me the top three priorities that you have for me. Like, what are the things that. Like, if I weren't to do them, it would be a real problem. Or tell me the things that move your bottom line the most. Or tell me the things that I'm most helpful with. What do you want me to make sure that I am doing? What are the priorities here? And if they just say, oh, I don't. I don't know, pin them. Like, you gotta pin them down, like, really, really, really get clear. Because everything can't be important. And I need you to hear me say that everything can't be important. This right here, this big jar overflowing with pasta, this is how we schedule when we believe that everything is important, and then we show up the next day with less capacity. And then we try to fit all of this, all of these tasks, all of these appointments, all of these commitments, all of these times that you've said yes, we try to fit it into a smaller capacity day, and we get behind. It doesn't work. Our Brain doesn't cooperate. We need time to stare at the wall, and we haven't built in time to stare at the wall, right? And so we're just like, I don't know what to do. And now I'm behind. And now I'm like, oh, there should be. I wish there were more hours in the day. We need to stop. Okay? Now, there are different types of capacity. Mental capacity, emotional capacity, physical capacity. And we're all dealing with different things being thrown at us. Maybe you're struggling with your mental health right now. That's taking more of your capacity. Maybe you are like, I was in deep grief, and that's taking more. More of your emotional capacity. Maybe you have chronic pain and your physical capacity is really depleting you. Okay? There are so many things that can go into these three different types of capacity that can really limit our ability to be consistently productive. This is why we need to plan for limited capacity. This is why, if we can think through our week. What are my hardest days? What are my easiest days? Where can I build in recovery? Where can I build in, like, literally hours to stare at the wall? When I recorded the podcast in my office back in the day, before this gorgeous studio was at my disposal, I would go into my office and I would plan for the whole day being taken up by the podcast. Now, it was. It took me so much effort to write the podcast, to record the podcast, and I knew I also needed to stare at the wall. I knew that I would just need time to scroll on Instagram to stare at the wall, to go for a walk, to do absolutely nothing. And so my. My entire workday was write the podcast, record it, which only takes 45 minutes to an hour. Like, think about it. Think about all of the shoulds. Like, you should be able to do this faster. It shouldn't take so long. This is only an hour. What the big deal? It would literally take me the whole day, and then I would be hungover the next day, emotionally, mentally, even physically tired from the effort that it took. So I needed to plan for my next day to be a little bit lighter so that I could only do what was essential. See? Only do what was essential, but still keep things moving forward. The problem, when we work at max capacity over and over, and we focus, force ourselves to pretend that we're robots and we bedazzle our planners, and we just, like, hot glue gems onto the planners and just, like, make this beautiful fantasy plan. The problem with that is that eventually it's not sustainable, and then we have to Cancel everything. I know that you have done this. We have to cancel everything and we have to recover and we have to. Then we're now actually getting behind because we're spending hours or days recovering from going at max capacity. And if we can just really know what's essential and when we have extra time, add some in, but still leave margin for error, still leave margin for rest. Still end the day at a reasonable time. Hello? No matter what is happening, we're going to end the day at a reasonable time so that we can rest and recover. We're going to listen to a voicemail now because this relates to so much to what I'm saying. We're going to listen to a voicemail about saving your capacity. Why would I save my capacity for tomorrow if I'm into it today? Okay, let's hear from this very kind listener.
