← Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD
Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD
Follow the energy- Boosting time management with ADHD
00:19:18
When it comes to thriving with ADHD, it’s not just about time, it’s about energy. In this episode, we explore why managing your energy is essential for staying focused, productive, and fulfilled as a busy adult with ADHD. You’ll learn: How to...
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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. Hi people. Welcome home to the place for busy professionals with adhd. High achievers, high performers, demanding careers, you're in the right place. So let's get down to it because I know that there are a lot of things that those of us with ADHD have to work through, but one of the biggest ones is that time management piece, right? And so that's what we're going to talk about and we're going to slice off a very important piece of time management and that's energy. And when it comes to thriving with ADHD and being fulfilled, you can't have that discussion without understanding how energy makes that happen. And I don't know many of us with ADHD that kick ass without energy, myself included. So maybe if you're on a deadline, you can dig really deep. But for most of us, our sweet spot is when we understand how energy makes things happen. So how do we as busy adults with ADHD, use energy in our favor? Well, the 30,000 foot answer to this is to find a job and a career that you can thrive in and fulfills you. And that gives most people, ADHD or not, you know, a sense of energy. And I'm not going to tell you how to find a career that you love because there are other experts in that. But Ned Hallowell told me years ago to find the right job and marry the right person. It is some of the most basic and important ADHD advice that you will ever hear as far as I'm concerned. And finding, you know, that's a big piece. And, and if you want to learn more, you can listen to my podcast with Shel Mendelsohn back several episodes ago. She's been on the podcast a few times. Is the expert when it comes to ADHD and careers, whether it's finding a new career, changing a career, tweaking your career, those types of things she is the expert. So. But let's get down to work and life in general and how we can actually follow that energy to make sure that when we're trying to manage our time properly, that we are actually moving the needle in our direction. And as you can hear, I have a tiny bit of a raspy throat. And you know what's strange is I lose my voice like every year or two. I feel fine. I'm not sick. My voice just disappears. So. But it's coming back. But I really wanted to make sure that I got a podcast out today because I think this is an important discussion for those of us with ADHD and how we tackle the issue of time management. So. All right, cool. So, number one, you got to know your energy peaks, right? You got to figure out during the day when you feel the, you know, the most alert, creative focused, and when you feel drained. I mean, this is super important. And use this to your advantage. Block out those most, you know, demanding work. For example, for your, your peak energy time. Maybe it's deep work, it's thinking, maybe it's a super important meeting that maybe you have to, maybe you're presenting at or you got to, you know, present to a client or a slide deck or something, right? Okay. If at all possible, use those high energy peaks for those, the demanding work, right? You got to protect it too. And you can't, you have to avoid wasting that, that prime energy time on things like emails or admins or other distractions that get in our way. And you need to guard your time. And I've learned this the hard way over the years, and that's why I just continue to drill some of these things into our heads. Your head, my head, I have to keep reminding myself, right? And the other thing, this is like a massive question. It could be an entire podcast, and maybe I've done a podcast on this before. But you got to ask yourself, do you know how you work best? Right? Do you know how you work best? I can tell you how you work best. And it is revolving stuff around energy, right? Okay. No, energy, as far as I'm concerned, means very little done. So, you know, you can say to yourself, oh, cool, it's 8pm at night and I'm going to go write that super important report for my boss and my client, right? Yeah, I don't think so, because I just, I can't do that. So you got to also identify those energy boosting and activities, right? And I do believe that when your energy is down maybe a little bit that you can give yourself a little shot of energy when you really do need it. I mean, the reality is we are busy adults with ADHD and it will be difficult to create perfect flow every day, every week, every month. Right. We're going to hit some bumps in the road and sometimes we're gonna have to dig a little deep just to get something done. So what gives you life? Even if it's a quick boost? Maybe it's a walk around the block. Maybe it's connecting with an old friend, having a quick chat, putting yourself in a good mood. Maybe it's reading. Maybe it's a quick chapter on an audiobook. Maybe it's like music. Maybe you gotta crank up like that death metal. Right? Or maybe for other people, Maybe it's like a great symph. I don't know. Whatever. Okay. I'm just throwing out some ideas here. Maybe it's like cooking a really cool meal. Okay. My crazy things, and I've mentioned this before, are I throw cold water on my face when I really got to get something done and I just got to like. It wakes me up. Okay. And I do like a couple exercises with those like physical therapy bands. It just kind of. And I learned this by accident because of. Of a shoulder injury, so. But keep that short list of those kind of like recharges. And when you're kind of, you know, the gas tank is running on empty, reach for something from that list. I will confess, when I ran my PR firm, it was a drawer full of chocolate at 3pm and sorry, not sorry, that might not be the best advice, but I don't care. I love chocolate. And, and it got me through to five or six o'. Clock, so. All right, next, you also got to honor your, your, those low energy times. O. Instead of pushing through that fatigue, maybe you got to use those dips intentionally. So if you don't have like a ton of energy, use it for like mindless tasks. Maybe staring out the window. Yeah, a lot of us, especially like creatives, we're working when we're staring out the window. Okay. We're, you know, maybe people who write or maybe you're in design or branding or something. All right. Sometimes we got to think a little bit. So do you have meetings or other commitments? You know, maybe you get back to your desk at like 3 o' clock in the afternoon. Those are like super hard for us to like get restarted. Right. You know, other tasks at work that require virtually no energy, when you begin to understand your energy cycles, you can start to create somewhat of A routine of when these things actually can get done. And that when you, when we learn this, then I think we become less frustrated about how we're going to get things done. So recharging is productive. You'll come back sharper. But also utilizing. You can't just stop work, you know, in the middle of the day because you don't have energy, right? I mean, this isn't reality, so you got to be able to use it to your advantage. So. And again, I'll just mention, most of us trying to crank out a piece of work at 9 o' clock at night is usually not going to work out so well. So next, choose that ease over like forcing it, right? Ask yourself, what's the path of least resistance right now that's still like going to get me forward. And if you know anything about the martial art aikido, the sole philosophy is to actually use energy. And in your favor. The other part of it is like using, you know, your opponent's energy against themselves. But we won't get into that. But sometimes we just need to do what's easy and quick and what gets things done. Right. And sometimes that means maybe just making the phone call instead of writing out like a long email. Maybe it's delegating if you have the option of doing that, or as I just mentioned, knowing when to just call it a day, right? Check in with yourself. And you got to do this often. I've talked about this ton of times, but it is just one of the most important pieces I think of thriving with adhd, getting things done is hitting that pause button. And you got to make it a habit. You got to just stop yourself and sit there and say, you know what? Where's my energy right now? What's my energy level right now? Is there one thing that I can do that actually manages how I'm feeling? And I think this kind of just quick self check can kind of help you stay aligned. It helps you kind of train yourself to be doing things when you actually don't have a ton of energy. And I think those of us with ADHD just need to ingrain the pause button in our DNA, even if it's for a couple minutes, just like assess where you are and it's okay to pivot a little bit. You know, sometimes, you know, I'm a big fan of having like a, you know, a game plan for the day, right. But some time you just, you know, maybe you had a rough night, maybe you had a busy day the day before. Maybe your energy is just isn't kind of, you're just not feeling it. Maybe you just need to stop, reassess and pivot. All right? And you can't do that without, without just pausing for a few minutes. So the other thing on a, on a longer term and a deeper scale is like, you know, energy based planning instead of just basing your planning off of time. And we can't discuss time management without discussing energy. And I'm a massive fan of blocking out big chunks of time. But it doesn't work if you don't match the energy to the task. So for example, if you're gonna, you're planning your weeks, your days, your month, however you kind of get into that cycle, can you plan certain things around creative work, focused work, maybe research based work? You know, are you writing reports? Are you doing research? Are you creating slide decks for clients? Are you making calls? You know, what have you plan your energy around that, Plan your energy around your routines, okay? But think about the energy when you're trying to maybe dissect and rework how you work during the week. And again, just match the kind of energy you typically have at different times of the day or the week. So I meet with people Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, most of the time. I really try to preserve Mondays and Fridays because of my energy level and other circumstances. So. And, and I kind of learned that also because running my PR firm, typically when I had a bunch of clients, nobody bugged me on Mondays or Fridays. And it was a good day to actually get stuff done without being interrupted. So. And I've tried to keep to that. So you also got to cycle in that recovery. Okay, you're not a robot. ADHD is. Aren't robots. We can't operate like robots, so we got to kind of just add in those little recovery moments. I don't like, put these in my calendar per se, because it does make my calendar look cluttered. It's just something I've kind of trained myself to automatically do maybe between meetings or, or, you know, between tasks or projects, etc, etc, and some of these things you can do super quick, like just five or ten minutes of silence, sitting at your desk, if you can get away with that. Or maybe you need to go to a conference room if you're, you know, working in a building, Just a little bit of stretching, making sure you got your water refilled, stepping outside, what have you. Maybe just listening to something real quick, inspiring or motivating or whatever. Maybe you got a favorite song that is just going to help you recover. Also, on a larger Scale. If you have like, bigger commitments in your life, maybe you're a caregiver, maybe you're taking care of a aging parent or somebody else in the family and you've got these days or big chunks of time that I guess I'd have to say that just drain. You take a lot of energy. You need to take this into consideration about how your week flows. So, for example, if you're taking care of an aging parent on a certain day of the week and then you try and get up at 5am the next day and try and kick some ass and work, sometimes that doesn't go so well. So you've got to kind of figure out if you can manage the way your week flows according to things that drain you. Okay, again, short quick little bursts that maybe just can reset yourself. 90 seconds of just like breathing, quick little walk, maybe go outside, open the door, get some fresh air, those types of things. So, but we got to hit the reset button. We just can't go 8, 10, 12 hours a day without doing that. So. And you got to say no to others, to yourself, without guilt. I've talked about saying no a million times. But if something is going to drain you or just thinking about it and it's not urgent, it is okay to put that down or to delegate it or just say no. Saying no is a big factor in preserving your energy because the more you say yes to, the more your energy is going to get drained. So, you know, you can ask yourself, is this like mine right now? Is this mine to carry? Is this my obligation now? If it's not, then maybe you gotta say no. And if you're, you're kind of running lean on energy, right? You can also say not right now to others. You can say that to yourself. So when you find yourself getting distracted or something shiny, maybe you need to pull yourself back, okay? Preserve that energy. Energy and be able to get the thing that you're actually trying to get done, done. Right. Oh, and go to the gym, please. I don't care what you do. I don't care if you walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes. Maybe you want to do weights or machines. But the energy you get from having some consistent exercise is mission critical for us. So if you're struggling with time management, rewind this, find some other episodes that we've done. But you have to think about how your energy is going to affect your time management, how your days flow, how your weeks flow, how you block out time. Energy to those of us with ADHD is absolutely mission critical for us to pay attention to. All right, that's it. Have an energetic day. Have an energetic week. Thanks for stopping by. If you want to explore a deeper problem solving, maybe you need some help kind of navigating the workplace, your balance between home, work, etc. Maybe the podcasts are giving you fuel to say, yeah, I need a deeper conversation. Just hit my website, Overcoming Distractions.com right on the homepage. Click that button that says book a 15 minute chat with Dave. Me. That's me, Dave. And let's figure out if we're a good fit and figure out if I can help you. Hi gang. See you next time.