Summary5 min read

Overcoming Distractions – Thriving with ADHD, ADD

Episode: ADHD Time Management is Nothing Without Energy Management

Host: David A Greenwood
Date: November 7, 2025

Episode Overview

In this solo episode, host David Greenwood dives into a crucial but often overlooked aspect of ADHD productivity: energy management. Greenwood argues that effective time management is impossible without respecting individual energy rhythms—especially for adults with ADHD whose focus and stamina can be unpredictable. He shares practical reflections and street-smart strategies for professionals, entrepreneurs, and anyone seeking to build better work routines that align with their natural energy, not just their to-do lists.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Rethinking the Time Management Conversation

Energy over time: Greenwood introduces the need to "change the discussion about time management" for ADHD adults, suggesting the traditional approach is inadequate.
- Quote (03:37): “You can't manage your time without the proper energy, if you really think about it, right?... Just because something's in your schedule or on your to do list, that's not a guarantee it's going to get done.”
Life’s evolving demands: Life changes—new responsibilities, parenting, or changing work roles—require ongoing adjustments to energy patterns.

Listening to Your Brain’s Rhythm

Unique ADHD patterns: Everyone has certain times of peak alertness, but “for those of us busy people with ADHD, those windows can be narrower, maybe more unpredictable.” (05:43)
Work with your brain, not against it: Greenwood draws a parallel to aikido: “We kind of need to go with the energy, right? ... We can't walk against the energy.” (02:43)
Noting energy fluctuations: Recognize when your brain “feels on” and capitalize on those moments for important tasks.

Busting the 9-to-5 Productivity Myth

Rejecting the standard schedule: “There's a myth of a 9 to 5 productivity... We're not having that, are we, when it comes to ADHD, right?” (09:26)
Identifying focus zones: Discover whether late nights, early mornings, or post-activity periods are your moments of clarity and fiercely protect them for meaningful work.

Energy ≠ Focus

Understanding the difference: Greenwood differentiates between physical energy and mental focus. High energy doesn't always mean high productivity if attention is scattered.
- Quote (13:02): “You might have high energy, but scattered attention in the morning, or low energy, but laser focus in the afternoon.”

Building Systems for Success

Plan activities strategically: Once you know your peak periods, “schedule or get in the habit of doing maybe the most important or demanding work during those day parts.” (10:46)
Narrow your to-do list: Avoid overwhelming yourself when energy is high—prioritize and “strategically delay the rest.” (15:19)

Protecting Your Focus Blocks

Treat peak hours as sacred: Guard your time slots as appointments with yourself—block your calendar, silence notifications, and communicate unavailability.
- Quote (20:27): “Protect those peak hours and you have to adjust for life happens, right? So once you find those most focused times, you gotta treat them like, like an appointment with yourself.”
Consistency through awareness, not rigidity: “Consistency comes from not doing it perfectly every time. But respecting how your brain actually operates.” (29:02)

The Role of Environment and Distractions

External factors impact energy: Factors such as noise, light, and caffeine influence clarity. Adjust your environment to optimize focus.
Transitions and interruptions: Unforeseen life events (e.g., home emergencies) can “completely blow up my day… like absolutely throw a hand grenade into your energy.” (18:24)
Clutter drains focus: “If your desk looks like a fire hazard, that's going to suck your energy, it's going to suck your focus out because you're just going to be staring at the shit, right?” (17:20)

Managing Fluctuations & Avoiding Burnout

Don’t force unproductive periods: On “ADHD days when your timing feels off... maybe it's not such a great idea to force it.” (23:35)
Be flexible but disciplined: Use lower focus periods for administrative or less demanding tasks.
Beware of ‘deadline heroics’: Greenwood cautions against relying on last-minute rushes, calling out the belief, “I'm super really good on deadlines so that's just the way I'm going to operate”—“I kind of call bullshit on that.” (26:31)
Prevent guilt & stress: Embracing flexibility and patience helps reduce burnout over time.

Memorable Advice Recap

“Protect your time, protect your high energy, protect yourself from yourself.” (29:19)
“We can't have a conversation about managing time without understanding where our energy is.” (29:45)
Emphasis on giving oneself grace—respecting natural energy and focus rhythms as legitimate, not as personal failings.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

On the futility of a strict to-do list:
“I put something on my to do list, and why didn’t it get done? … It should have worked, right? So we know that's not true if we just really think about it.” (04:15)
On the unpredictability of ADHD productivity windows:
“Everyone has, you know, certain times of the day where they feel more alert, productive. But I think for those of us busy people with ADHD, those windows can be narrower, maybe more unpredictable.” (05:43)
On environmental impacts:
“Clutter and things in your way can destroy your energy and focus. So if your desk looks like a fire hazard, that's going to suck your energy, it's going to suck your focus out because you're just going to be staring at the shit, right?” (17:20)
On self-appointments:
“Once you find those most focused times, you gotta treat them like, like an appointment with yourself. … For some reason, when we have an appointment with ourself, it doesn't seem as important, right? Okay. It should be important.” (20:34)
On deadline-driven work as a myth:
“You can't just convince yourself that, hey, I'm, I'm super really good on deadlines. So that's just the way I'm going to operate. I kind of call bullshit on that.” (26:31)

Suggested Action Steps (from Greenwood)

Identify your personal “focus zones” through thoughtful self-reflection.
Designate and protect your peak hours for critical work; treat them as non-negotiable meetings.
Adjust environments for maximum focus: declutter, manage noise, mind caffeine timing.
When energy or focus is low, lean into less demanding tasks—don't force productivity.
Build flexibility into your schedule to absorb life’s disruptions and avoid chronic burnout.
Give yourself grace and adapt, rather than chasing perfection or the 9-to-5 ideal.

Tone:
Casual, direct, and supportive—like practical advice from a fellow traveler who understands the unique challenges of adult ADHD.

For more support: Greenwood closes with an invitation to book a 15-minute consultation via OvercomingDistractions.com for personalized ADHD productivity coaching. (30:00)

Loading summary

Transcript1 lines

[00:08]
A
I'm Dave Greenwood, and this is Overcoming Distractions. If you are an adult with adhd, a busy professional, an entrepreneur, a high achiever, or just need some strategies to navigate your adult adhd, you're in the right place. Who am I? I'm an entrepreneur with ADHD and the author of two books, Overcoming Distract and Overcoming Burnout. I coach and mentor people just like you, and together we navigate the ups and downs of adult adhd, from getting out of our own way to helping people just like you thrive in the workplace. That's what I do. Want more info on working with me? Hit overcoming distractions.com ready? Let's get to today's podcast. Hey, gang. Welcome back to Overcoming Distractions. And as that awesome announcer just said, if you are a busy professional with adhd, maybe you're a high achiever, you're in the C suite, you're a solopreneur, anywhere in between. If you have that demanding career and you just feel like things could be a little better or maybe a little more smooth or what have you, then you're in the right place. So, hey, as you know, if you have been hanging out here for a little bit, we, we do get down to business. And we, not only we, like, there's no fluff here. Right. I think you'll agree we want to address issues and things that we're thinking about that maybe we're challenged about, and we want to kind of work through them. So. And today is no different. So you're hanging out with me today and we're going to talk about how we kind of maximize our energy. But did you know even your ADHD brain has a little bit of a rhythm? I know some of us don't think that's the case. Right. And we need to learn to work with it, not against it. We've talked about that before. Many of us try to kind of force things in our lives and in our business and those types of situations. And, you know, this is like, you know, the, the martial art aikido, where we kind of need to go with the energy, right? So that's what we're going to talk about today. We can't. We can't walk against the energy. We can't work against the energy. So we need to work with it. So. So I want to talk today for a few minutes about trying to get the most out of the energy you have on a daily and weekly basis. And I have to tell you, this is something I constantly work on to this day because guess what? Life changes. So Say, for example, you're. You're an entrepreneur, right? And you really worked really well, and then you had a kid or two and life changed, right? And then the seasons of the children change and the, the demands and the schedules, right? So these are the things we need to constantly work on. This is what I have kind of found out over the years. And the reason I'm talking about energy is we really need to kind of change the discussion about time management because you can't manage your time without the proper energy, if you really think about it, right? And just because something's in your schedule or on your to do list, that's not a guarantee it's going to get done. So let's just kind of wipe away that notion right now. So, I mean, hey, I put something on my to do list, and why didn't it get done? And that's funny. It should have worked, right? So we know that's not true if we just really think about it. So there's a little bit of strategy involved here and a little bit of looking inward. So. And as I think, you know, from listening to me, I'm not a doctor, not a neuroscientist, not a therapist. I don't have any fancy letters after my name other than welding school flunk out. I'm an entrepreneur for decades with adhd, and I've been working like this for decades. And I. I know what I know, so. But everyone has, you know, certain times of the day where they feel more alert, productive. But I think for those of us busy people with adhd, those windows can be narrower, maybe more unpredictable. And I think a lot of times, you know, we do get a shot of energy when we didn't expect it, right? And we can talk about that in a couple minutes. But, you know, we got to recognize when our brain feels on. That can make the difference between spinning your wheels, you know, watching, you know, 100 videos on YouTube when you should be actually working and actually making real progress. And I suspect you know this about yourself, but it's good idea to just think about it, really understand it, build your systems around it. I don't care if this is laundry or you're running a business, right? We all know we never have the energy to do our laundry, right? So. Or dishes, you know, these are the common things that come up. So. And I've seen the gurus. I'm putting my, like, quotes up in the air, right? They say track your focus for a week, you know, I mean, really, are you gonna do that? I mean, I'm not gonna do that, so. But I do believe if you sat at your desk or a quiet room and thought about it, patterns would definitely start to emerge. And that's why I say I often just sit down and see how I can move things around. And I've discussed that a lot of times, but I just want to reinforce that. So there's a myth, right, of a 9 to 5 productivity when it comes to, you know, regular folks. But, you know, that's. Right, we're not having that, are we, when it comes to ADHD, right? So we're not having that 9 to 5 thing where I just, you know, sit down in my office like, you know, like a movie about an office, right. So I don't think our ADHD brains align with those traditional work schedules. And maybe they do over time, but you may be sharper late at night, early in the morning after a workout. That's cool. But once you identify those kind of focus zones, we need to protect them. We need to protect them at all cost. And you need to schedule or get in the habit of doing maybe the most important or demanding work during those day parts or those hours. So I know myself, and I'm like a 6am to 3pm Type of person, and I have to protect that as best I can. Not all of us work 9 to 5 or 7 to 4 or what have you. Some of us actually work nights and. Or have different schedules and. But, you know, energy makes a big difference. But want to be clear about one thing, I'm not suggesting, you know, if you're a knowledge worker, because I think a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are, you know, in a business type of setting. I'm not advocating for working late at night, and I know there's a better way if we just, you know, we just got to kind of put a little strategy involved and thinking and awareness and, you know, so here's the other thing. Energy and focus, they're not the same, right? I mean, you might have high energy, but scattered attention in the morning, or low energy, but laser focus in the afternoon. I mean, understanding the distinction, I think helps you kind of choose or build a routine around the right type of work for those parts of the day, whether it's creative or admin work or strategic versus kind of routine things like invoicing or, you know, those types of things. Or maybe it's writing reports or emails or whatever the thing, you know, that being said, I do believe through the right systems, when we put those in place, we. We can make the most out of certain scenarios. So for example, if you have a ton of energy in the morning, but you decide to try and do 12 things at once, I don't know if that sounds familiar to some of you. It might, I believe you can easily narrow that down to the most important things and strategically delay the rest. And, you know, all these things begin to work together if you haven't figured that out. So cool. I got my energy, I got to my desk at 8am, I'm feeling good, and then all of a sudden you look at 12 things on your to do list and you just hit a brick wall. Right? So we need to, we need to, you know, identify what we're going to work on when we have that energy and we need to have a clear plan if we're going to actually sit down at a desk, sit down with a client, etc. Etc. So I think the next thing we should understand when it comes to energy is environment and transitions and things of that nature I think are a big deal for us. Those external factors like noise, light, maybe the time you have your caffeine for some people can kind of influence when you feel the most clear headed. You've listened to me maybe a bunch of times and you realize that I don't even speak to anybody in the morning without my caffeine. That's my drill, that's my routine. Okay, maybe you're, maybe you do it differently. So, but those things matter. And I think if you notice focus fading at maybe predictable times, um, we can experiment with all that stuff like, you know, getting up, taking a quick walk, going out, getting some fresh air, quick breaks, those types of things. Maybe giving ourselves a break, a five minute break just to kind of release the valve, so to speak. I also think clutter and things in your way can destroy your energy and focus. So if your desk looks like a fire hazard, that's going to suck your energy, it's going to suck your focus out because you're just going to be staring at the shit, right? So. And having your water heater go first thing in the morning can throw your day into a turmoil. And yes, this just happened to me and I really noticed the effect. Okay, maybe that's not environment or transitions, but it just completely blew up my day because now you're trying to find a plumber or you're trying to figure out what you actually need to do with the water heater or maybe you need to clean up the water that came flying out of the thing. You know, all these things that just kind of like, like absolutely throw a hand grenade into your energy. So next important, important I talk about this, we're talking about it again. You got to protect those peak hours and you have to adjust for life happens, right? So once you find those most focused times, you got to treat them like, like an appointment with yourself, right? You have to do it. You know, if you have a meeting with your boss or a client or somebody, you're going to show up, right? I mean, most of us are going to show up, okay? I don't know about all of us, but most of us are going to show up. We're going to treat that as something important. But for some reason, when we have an appointment with ourself, it doesn't seem as important, right? Okay. It should be important. That should be your time. Okay? And I've talked about this literally a dozen times over the years, but I just perform surgery on my calendar every so often. I look and see where I can move things. But some of the things you're going to need to do to just protect your peak hours, or as I like to say, protect yourself from yourself, block the calendar, silence those notifications to the best of your ability. Let your team or your clients know that you're unavailable. And I know a lot of people have some kind of difficulty with this. And it's also, it depends on your office setting, right? And if people have just like physical access to you, then you got to find another way. But you got to use those peak hours for that high impact work. The things, the tasks, the projects that move your business or your career forward, they add value. The things that require a lot of thinking, no distractions. And again, I'll say it again, resist the urge to put anything else in that time slot. Just because your calendar may be open does not mean you fill it with something that's just gonna throw you off, okay? Just because that time slot isn't with somebody else doesn't mean you can just go, oh, I got some time here. Protect it, please. We got to also accept that focus is going to fluctuate on ADHD days. Quotes up again in the air when your timing feels off. Maybe it's not such a great idea to force it. Okay? You know, our, our distractions, our energy, our, you know, our brains just not being in the building some days, that's a tremendous force that does take a fair amount of discipline and determination sometimes to get through. So I'd use those hours for kind of low kind of stakes type of things, so to speak, or Maybe there's a, maybe you got this project, but you're going to do a little research and maybe you can use your, your rabbit hole, down the rabbit hole skills to get online. Right. And use that for good. Okay? But again, use that now. If we're not going to force something, that can also be determined by what you may have procrastinated on. Right. And what you actually got done, which is an entirely another conversation, which I know we've had. But if you have procrastinated, goofed off, let's just call it what it is. Okay? Didn't get what you need to get done, then sometimes we may actually be in a situation where we're going to have to force it. We're going to have to grunt something out in some way. And that is not the way to work and live. I know everybody says, oh, I did it in college. I can't tell you how many I've grown tired of, how many people have told me that I did it. Okay, we all have done it. But you can't live like that long term. You can't just convince yourself that, hey, I'm, I'm super really good on deadlines. So that's just the way I'm going to operate. I kind of call bullshit on that. So you got to build the flexibility in your schedule. And I think that also is going to help you prevent a little bit of guilt. Right. Stress. And over time, doing this over and over again is going to make you feel burned out. So. And I think consistency comes from not doing it perfectly every time. Right. But respecting how your brain actually operates. Follow the energy, give yourself some grace, protect your time, protect your high energy, protect yourself from your self. Okay? We can't have a conversation about managing time without understanding where our energy is. So. All right, gang, that's it. We are in and out today. I wanted to get that. As I said to you and as I think many of you have figured out, we get in, we dig into a topic. I hope you walk away and take something away. If you are in a position where you need maybe a little more assistance or guidance or need somebody that gets you, and you're that busy professional with ADHD and you need to start to kind of work with somebody that can kind of problem solve with you, figure things out, maybe just need somebody that gets you. I'm right here. It's Overcoming Distractions.com right on the homepage, click that little button that says book a 15 minute call conversation with Dave. We will chat, we'll see if it's a good fit. And hopefully I can help you tackle some of these things. So overcoming distractions.com and I'll catch you next time.