← I Have ADHD Podcast
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- [00:01]
A
Time management is one of the most critical issues facing the ADHD community and I am here to help you solve that problem for free. So listen up ADHD er. Have you ever sat down with your to do list and realized that everything on the list feels urgent? Every single task is screaming at you with the same intensity like it all has to get done right now, and no matter what you choose, you usually feel like you're doing the wrong thing. If you have adhd, your brain's executive functions work differently. ADHD brains don't naturally prioritize. Instead of stacking tasks in order, everything lands on one big flat plane shouting at you all at once. This is one of the main reasons why time management feels so impossible for us. But here's the good news. Prioritizing is a skill and like any other skill, it can be learned. That that's why I'm hosting a free live masterclass called Everything can't be number one. Time management starts with prioritization. It's happening Wednesday, September 24th at 12pm Eastern. In this class, I'll show you why prioritizing feels so hard for the ADHD brain, how to finally choose what matters most, and simple ADHD friendly strategies to stop over over committing so that you can actually follow through. This workshop will change the way that you look at your to do list and the way that you manage your time guaranteed or your money back. So if you're tired of spinning your wheels, burning out, or feeling like you're always behind, join me. Go to ihaveadhd.com Time to save your spot. That's ihaveadhd.com Time to save your spot. Because everything can't be number one. But the right things? Those can finally come first. Go to ihaveadhd.com Time I can't wait to see you there. All right, let's get on with the show. Hey what's up? This is Kristen Carter and you are listening to a bite size episode of the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated and ready to roll. This little episode is one of my favorite clips from the podcast. It's perfect. If you're not in the mood for a full hour long listen because let's be real, some of us ADHDers just don't have the patience for all of that. But if you are a die hard listener, think of this as your mid week pick me up. It's Thursday y'.
- [02:38]
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All.
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A
Friday is right around the corner. If you love this clip, check out the show notes for A link to the full episode. And remember, my friend, drink your water, take your meds, grab a snack. Now let's get rolling. All of the symptoms overlap. They're all really working against us in many ways. When someone finds out that they have adhd, or maybe they already knew, should they tell their boss? Like, what do you do with that? I get that question a lot. I would love for someone like yourself, who's actually an expert in this area, to speak on it, because I think it's a really tricky conversation to have. Like, does someone with ADHD disclose that information to their boss, to their coworkers? What's your take on that? How do you advise people?
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B
I always say it's a personal decision. Do you have the right to. Under civil rights laws within the United States? Yes. Yeah. And do you have the right to access. To access different supports and get accommodations in your workplace underneath the law? Yes. However.
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A
Big. However.
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However.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Do you feel safe? Is one question I always ask. Like, do you feel safe enough to disclose at work? And that answers to that question could be yes or no.
- [03:57]
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Can you define safe? So when some. For somebody listening who's like, I don't really know what you mean when you're asking me, do you feel safe? How would someone know if they felt safe?
- [04:10]
B
Do you have a physical response with me saying, like, you should disclose at work? Do you feel comfortable enough to disclose to your colleagues? Do you fear judgment? Do you feel like your boss will retaliate against you? Like, of course. Do you have rights that, like, they should prevent you from being.
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Right. Right.
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There's a lot of shits happening. Right. And so, because as we all know, civil rights laws, people follow them and some people don't.
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Yeah.
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But I think it's really important for you to be able to identify if you feel psychologically safe in that space. And that's going to require you to understand how it feels to either not be safe or to be safe in different environments, if that makes sense. And so do you have an environment. Do you work with a supervisor that is really supportive for you in other ways?
- [05:03]
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Right. Have you seen evidence of it happening? Yes.
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And if you haven't, then. And in some places, you don't care. Like, is safety even important to you or not? Right. Like, sometimes it's like, listen, I don't care if it's safe or not. This is the law, and this is the right that I have. And if you choose to break the law, then great, I will just file a complaint, and then we will just be in a lawsuit. And I'm okay with that too.
- [05:27]
A
Right, right.
- [05:28]
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And so trying to decide what is the most important for. For you too. But then you also have to know, like, do you know your rights? Do you know that you have the right to ask for accommodations? Yes or no? Do you have. Do you know who to go to? Right to ask for. And you add had asked whether or not you should go for your. Your supervisor or hr.
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Right.
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You can go to either. But recognizing that once you disclose your supervisor, your supervisor needs to understand that you're just. You're disclosing to the agency, and then they need to do something. Okay. In response. A lot of the times as people tell their supervisor and the supervisor's like, okay.
- [06:07]
A
They don't actually do anything about it.
- [06:09]
B
No. Yeah. And so they're not asking whether or not you're looking for accommodations. Like, they may not connect you with HR so that you can better understand the process. Because sometimes managers don't know. Or sometimes the manager's like, oh, I have ADHD too. Okay, great.
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A
But that doesn't help me.
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That does not help me. And then you're looking at them like, great, you know that you can ask for accommodations, too. And actually, if you got accommodations and maybe our meetings wouldn't be as long as they were, and we would be able to stay focused on the task. Because your inability to stay focused on the task is now negatively impacting me as a direct report with adhd. And now none of us are getting help, and none of us are accessing our rights underneath the law and working.
- [06:49]
A
Oh, my goodness. I'm on a health kick right now, and my kids are so annoyed at me. I've changed the type of rice and pot pasta and bread that we eat at home. I've even eliminated all breakfast cereals from the house. No more Captain Crunch or Cinnamon Toast Crunch to be found in the Carter home. It's a true ADHD hyper focus for me right now. But one thing that I've stuck with, and I don't think I'll ever stop taking is AG1. I, Kristin Carter, an adult with ADHD, have been able to be consistent with taking AG1 every single, single day for a long time. It's the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, before coffee, before anything. It literally takes me about 60 to 90 seconds to just scoop it into some cold water, shake it up, and drink it. It really is so easy. And I'm traveling with my family to Indiana for the holidays. We'll be staying in A hotel, eating out for a lot of our meals, and generally partaking in lots of non healthy activities, which is fine, fine because balance, you know what I'm saying? And I know that I can stay consistent with AG1 thanks to their travel packs. I'm just gonna pop six travel packs into my shaker, slip that baby into my travel bag and done. It's so simple, I don't even have to think about it. So I encourage you this new year, if you want to do one thing to improve your health as an adult with ADHD, try, try AG1 for yourself. It's the perfect time to start a new healthy habit. And that's why I've been partnering with AG1 for so long. And listen to this. AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2 and five free travel packs, just like I'm going to be using over the holidays. You'll get all of that in your first box. So make sure to check out drink ag1.com I have ADHD to get this offer. That's drink ag1.com I have adhd to start your new year on a healthier note. Tell me the perfect scenario. How should it go? Like, if everything is like working properly, how should it go? When someone discloses their ADHD diagnosis at.
- [09:06]
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Work, you, you put it in writing for sure. Sending an email. Send an email that's asking your HR department about the reasonable accommodations process and letting them know that you would like to access accommodations at work for a disability that you're experiencing within the workplace. And then allow the HR department to provide you with the documentation that you are required to fill out in some cases so that you can get, they can get a clear understanding of how the disability is impacting your work. And then from there it's supposed to be an interactive process and it's ongoing. And so even if this, you go back and forth about what accomodations could work for you, then you try them out. You try them out. It's almost like taking ADHD medication for the first time, right? It's like I'm trying this out for a little bit and seeing how the dosage works. The same thing like you're accessing accommodations. You're like, actually, you know what, this was working for about a week and it's not working anymore. Let's kind of go back to the drawing board. Or like now that I've tried this out a little bit, I wanna do Something else or I found out that there's other things that I can do that I wanna now ask for. And it's a interactive process, but also recognizing that underneath the law is a reasonable accommodation. And reasonable is defined by the organization, not by the person like using the accommodation.
- [10:32]
A
Can you speak to that a little bit? So reasonable accommodation, that's a very interesting qualifier. Not just any accommodation, a reasonable accommodation. So speak to that a little bit.
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B
Yeah. And a reasonable accommodation, I mean, and that's one that doesn't negatively impact the organization. So whether or not that's financial, whether or not that's like let's say the organization at the time is really short staffed and you're working remote or. Yeah, you're working remote, but they have a lot of in person work that needs to get done, then it may not be a reasonable accommodation anymore from the consideration of the employee's perspective. That from you from working from home.
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Yeah.
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And so like is it going to be a financial burden for the organization? Like let's say it's. Well, ADA is covered employers for 15 or more employees.
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Okay.
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And so like let's say it's a really small organization, they have 15 employees and now they have to provide all.
- [11:26]
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These things, but it's like just 15. It's a small little company. Yeah.
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They don't have a lot of money. And so maybe you're asking for them to, to pay for a conference.
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Sure.
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Coaching or something like that. And it's too expensive.
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Yeah.
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Then. Or if it's going to be a financial burden, then they may say, they may say no. They may determine that it's not a reasonable thing for them to do.
- [11:47]
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Interesting.
- [11:48]
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But again, reasonable is defined by the organization and sometimes the court will decide.
- [11:53]
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And so, and what you mean by that is you do have the right to be accommodated? Is that what you're saying?
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Yeah, you do have the right to be accommodated. If you have a qualifying disability, you have the right to be accommodated. And then if they, you know, if the organization chooses to not follow the process and you want to complain, you have the right to complain. You can complain the EEOC if you would like to.
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A
Okay. So the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
- [12:26]
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Yes. And you can file a complaint there and they will follow up with you about it. Okay. You can also, I mean, you know, if you're having trouble with your manager, you can also communicate to your own HR department too. Like, hey, I'm having, I'm having some, some challenges working with my manager around these accommodations. Can you help me with that? And that's the same thing. You know, sometimes I also work with professors. Right. And so what happens in the educational institution and what happens within a 9 to 5 office job can feel very different. And so if you're a professor, recognizing that you're working for a company and you know, whether or not their reporting structure is really different, and so whether or not you're having a hard time getting your accommodations put into place, it made you talk to the. You have to talk to the HR department or like the dis. Some people, some offices or organizations have a disabilities office, and so that helps support employees too. So it kind of just depends on where you're working. But you need to know where to go.
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That seems like the main point that you're trying to communicate is like, figure out in your organization what the chain of command is with accommodating for disabilities. Correct.
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Yes.
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And is there a way to do that without actually disclosing? So, like, if I were just interested, but kind of trying to figure out, like, I don't even know if I want to disclose, like, how do I ask for that information without spilling the beans and like telling everything about my life.
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Yeah. I mean, you can ask, I mean, you can ask general questions in terms of just fully understanding what services your HR department offers.
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Okay.
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Just to. Especially if you're a new employee and you're trying to, like, you can always lean on the fact, like, I've been here for five minutes and so I'm trying to get a better understanding of what my options are underneath your organization's culture. Reading their. Most of the stuff is also in any operations manual.
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So if your organization, which we for sure haven't read.
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Right.
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Okay.
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And so if you haven't read it, just open the PDF and just do control F. And then just type in disability and then. Or accommodations. And then it will probably just take you to that section. Because most of them should also have a section within their operations manual has that information.
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A
Even if you've been at the company 10 years, would it still be reasonable to ask these questions and say something like, hey, I, you know, I've had some recent diagnoses. I'm interested in just learning more about X, Y, Z. Can you help me to understand the process if I, if I were to want accommodations? So we, we haven't disclosed anything, but if I, if I were to want accommodations, what would be the process of that and then letting them kind of.
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Give you the right and recognize too, like, accommodations isn't just for adhd. It's literally for anything. So, like, let's say you're working in a company. When you broke your wrist, you can ask for accommodations, temporary accommodations. If you broke your wrist and you need some additional. You need a different keyboard. If you didn't need a different chair. Like it could. It covers a wide range of experiences and disabilities that people are experiencing within the workplace. And so it could. It doesn't. If you're not comfortable disclosing your adhd, maybe you're comfortable with disclosing something else. And what's helpful is actually if you go to the Job Accommodations Network, Jan, and they actually organized. They really have a lot of information about disability and disability rights, but they also organize all the different types of disabilities that you could experience and then give you some sample accommodations that you could use in order to give that information to your supervisor. Because the other thing that you need to be clear about too, is that if you are asking for accommodations, you need to know what accommodations you need.
- [16:20]
A
Thanks for listening to this bite size episode of the I have ADHD podcast. If you enjoyed this clip, you'll find a link to the full episode in the show notes. And don't forget to visit the ihaveadhd.com for tons of adult ADHD support. All right, my friends, I had a great time with you today and I cannot wait to talk to you again next week. Bye. Bye.