← Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD
Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD
Start Strong, Finish Calm: Daily Routines for ADHD Professionals
00:24:03
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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. All right, gang, welcome back.
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It's Dave to Overcoming Distractions, the podcast for the busy professional with adhd. Or if you think you have adhd and like I've said, you do not need an official piece of paper to hang out with us. So if you're a CEO, you're a founder, you're a cfo, you're an entrepreneur, small business owner, anywhere in between. If you're a busy person with a demanding career and all the other things that associated with being that busy person with adhd, then you're in the right place. So real quick, if you love what we do here and you have gained some value, you can support the podcast by going to buymeacoffee.com overcomingdust. You can buy me some coffee. It takes a little coffee to get this thing off the ground. And if you are that busy professional that needs a little one on one time, needs to do some problem solving, needs to kind of smooth things out in your business and life and work, then just go to overcoming distractions.com, hit that 15 minute button and let's chat and see if we can work together. All right, that's it, that's the spiel. Let's get to what we're chatting about today. And it is routines. And yes, we're going, going to talk about this again because I believe it is a very crucial part of being a busy person with adhd. They're, they're literally, they're non negotiable as far as I'm concerned. But I think those of us who are busy, demanding careers that have adhd, I don't think we struggle so much with motivation. I think some of us struggle with starting and stopping, right? I mean, man, talk about adhd, right? We can't start, we can't stop. How did that happen? Right? But let's, you know, let's break this Down. I think when our brain is juggling a demanding career, a ton of responsibilities, numerous distractions, whether they're our own distractions or other people distracting us, that day can feel chaotic right from the moment it begins, right? And then we rinse and repeat, and it happens over and over again. We get stressed out, and that just compounds, right. Daily. So I think this is where routines come in. And let's not look at them as, like, a rigid schedule, but let's kind of look at them as a reliable anchor, let's call it. That. That, I think helps your brain transition into maybe focus, you know, at the beginning of the day, and then it helps us maybe transition out of work mode and into enjoying our personal life with our family, etc. Etc. So. So today I just want to kind of rip through some simple routines that can help us, especially in the morning, in the evening, they can help us create stability. I think they help us reduce a little bit of decision fatigue, and they just make it easier to start and finish our days with a little more intention. And if you think about it, that's really what a routine is, right? It's like kind of living and operating intentionally and with agency. So I will say, and I know I've talked about this before, so sorry, I'm gonna bore you for 30 seconds, but, you know, I have pretty much had the same morning and nighttime routine for years, and it might be a little boring, but for the most part, it does keep me on track and it keeps me out of trouble, right? And it lowers my stress when I need it the most. And I always say, as long as the coffee is in the pot by the time I put my feet on the floor in the morning, then I'm a happy guy. Everything for me, for the most part, falls into place from there. Now, of course, there's, you know, fires to put out and emergencies and everything else, but for the most part, and I'm sorry, food is negotiable for me, but gotta have the coffee. So. But I think you get the point is, if you're a busy person, demanding career, got a lot of stuff going on, and you just have that distracted brain like a lot of us who listen here, then these, I think, are mission critical. So. All right, why do routines matter? For those of us with adhd, I think that ADHD brains, I think we thrive on structure to some extent, right? But we risk, resist rigidity, right? We want the freedom to jump on something that might be interesting or worthy at the moment or something that might actually make an Impact. So I also think routines, they reduce decision fatigue at the beginning and at the end of the day. Like, for example, something as simple as, like laying out your clothes the night before. And I know that's super simple, but do you want to be late for work or late for meeting because you couldn't decide on the blue shirt or the white shirt? You know, that seems to me an easy fix. So consistent anchors also help us regulate our attention, our energy, and even our, I think, emotions to some extent. Right? So if your day starts off in dumpster fire mode, guess what's gonna happen to your energy throughout the day, right? Poof. It's gonna, it's gonna just get eaten up very quickly because you started the day in chaos without routines. I think those of us busy people with adhd, we, we experience chaotic mornings. We have work days that are just reaction mode, right. We're just responding to one thing after the next. And I think we have difficulty shutting off work at night. I can't tell you how many people I have talked to that, you know, leave the office at all hours of the night. We shouldn't have to do that. I think routines are also, they're not about perfection, and I think they're about creating predictability and maybe predictable transitions. And in the case of my coffee in the morning, it provides me a little bit of safety. I know that if I get through that first step, which also tastes good, that things start to fall in place and I just have a little more safety in my mind. So let's, let's talk about some like, street smart kind of ideas on how to maybe create a morning startup routine, if you will, and just get our days off on the right track. Because I can assure you, and I've said this a hundred times at least, that the way you start your day is probably the way your day is going to unravel. If you, you, if you're late for work, if you didn't shower, you didn't have your coffee, you didn't eat, you walked out, your laptop wasn't charged, you were late for a meeting, guess how the rest of the day is going to go, right? It's going to be a complete train wreck. So let's try to minimize that to some extent. And I think this is an important point. I think the goal of the morning routine is about momentum, not so much productivity or actually getting stuff done. I think it just kind of lays the groundwork for a more predictable and productive day. It's just about kind of getting that push into the Day and on the right track, I think you have to.
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I think we have to keep it short.
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It has to be repeatable, and I think it actually has to be realistic. Coffee, shower, food, maybe your meds. And oh, don't forget your deodorant. Right. Keep it simple. To the extent that you can keep it simple. I know some of us have other responsibilities, getting the kids lunches done and getting the kids on the bus or dropping them off at school. But there's ways around that. And actually you can make the lunch at the night before or put five bucks in their pocket and have them buy lunch. Right. Okay. Some of the possible kind of routine components, if you will. Maybe you want to do a quick review of the. Your top priorities of the day. I like the number three. Many other people do. Maybe you want to just do some quick little stretching, light movement, maybe open the door, go outside, get a little bit of fresh air and a little bit of sunlight in you. The Huberman lab. He talks a lot about getting that sunlight in the morning for a couple minutes. That does all this really cool stuff to our brains. Right. So not enough time to discuss that here. Maybe part of your routine is just a few minutes of just quiet thinking. Or maybe write some things down that you know, like we have a shopping list on the counter. Maybe there's something that. That I know that needs to be on the grocery shopping list here. Things like that. Review your calendar, review your commitments. That way you're not getting those big surprises. And for those of you who fall into this camp, maybe you want to avoid looking your email or that kind of reactive work, like first thing in the morning. So I know some people also attach some type of simple routine that may be something that is already going on. Maybe it's your coffee, maybe it's your breakfast. Maybe it is that commute in. Maybe that's time to think or use voice dictation to help, maybe make some notes, that type of thing. So I think that your morning routine does something super simple. And it's the day has started or the workday has started. And that's just that little bit of momentum builder. So now when we get into the workday, that kind of routine or kind of startup ritual, if you will. I don't know if you fall into this camp, but a lot of us do is we kind of struggle with that task initiation. Right. Remember I said that some of us have trouble actually starting. So I think creating a little bit of a consistent work startup ritual, I think is super powerful. And I think over time, it not only you build a routine, but you build a habit of doing this as well. So some examples could be like, I'm going to sit down at my desk, I'm going to open up my to do list or wherever it is. Whether it's on a piece of paper or you use more of a digital application, you need to review those top priorities. What absolutely needs to get done, Maybe that's that top three. Again, you might have 10 things to do, but these three things are crucial, right? And I think setting anywhere from a 10 to 20 minute block of time just to get your day off, your work day off on the right foot is super important. Maybe you just need to clean your desk up real quick. Whatever it is, I think it's super important to just get things off on the right foot before the day kind of unravels. You know, I owned a restaurant and I would go in early and before we would open the doors, we would prep the food, you know, whatever it was, slicing meats, making different things, you know, it's hard to do when the, the doors are open and there's customers wanting things. Then you're, you're not able to actually do that to the extent that you need to do it. So if you get bombarded with people the minute you walk in the door at work, maybe you need to do this before you get in the office. Maybe it does need to be at home. If you're working remotely, maybe you need to do it before you sign on to teams or whatever application you're using in your workplace. And I think quite frankly, this just minimizes that question of where do I start every day? You have a starting point. The evening shutdown, I think is super important as well. And I can go a couple ways on this, but for many of us, I think stopping work for those of us with ADHD is harder than actually starting it. And you can kind of, you can look at that good and bad, right? Like we got on a kind of a flow or freight train and things are going, but we don't know when to stop. So. But without that kind of evening routine to shut down, your work is going to go into the evening, it's going to bleed into family time, etc. Etc. And I think just some type of very simple routine can just kind of signal us that, hey, we're wrapping up for the day, let's live to fight another day tomorrow. Some things that I think are powerful for many people are just take 10 minutes, review what you actually got done, okay? And that's not, let's, let's not totally go negative on that, right? Because I know sometimes we're like, I don't know what I got done today or I didn't get anything done because I was putting out fires all day. Right. But I think it's important to understand what we actually got done. If we didn't get certain things done, we need to capture that, right. And we need to put it back on our priority list for the following day. I also think it is super important the night before, and I think this is critical in a routine, is to identify the next day's top priorities, right? Because I also think that minimizes that kind of wake up at 2am and go, holy crap, shit, I forgot to do this or I got to prepare for this meeting, right? It actually lowers your stress when you actually know what you need to do the next day. And then I know a lot of you have a hundred tabs open on your computer, but if you can close the work apps and physically leave that workspace, if you work remote work, walk away from where you are again, wrapping up the day is going to reduce that mental clutter, that stress, and it's actually going to help you sleep a little better. And I know this from personal experience. So let's talk about the weekly routine real quick. I. It is so important to just hit that weekly reset button. It's super important. And I don't care when you do this, but set aside 20 minutes or so once a week. I like to do it on Sunday afternoons. That way I get my entire week work week off, hopefully on the right track. Some of the things you want to do, review your commitments, review meetings that you might have coming up during the week, check on deadlines and check on those priorities, right? Because if something jumped from one day to the next because things happen, then you've got to adjust your priorities and you don't want those surprises, right? I think this can help you adjust your workload and adjust your schedule before the week gets busy to the extent that you can do it. This reduces our overwhelm, it prevents those surprises and it creates clarity for the week ahead. You know what the week ahead is going to look like. You don't want to just sit down at your desk Monday morning and go, holy Crap, I have 15 meetings. Right? You want to know that ahead of time. So how are we going to make these stick? I know it's an age old thing with some of us with ADHD where we kind of try something or implement something and maybe Maybe we don't stick with it. Right. So that's, that's what we need to try to focus on. And I think one of the ways we can do that is to start small and I think focus on that consistency rather than creating some complex routine. Right. You know, starting small and trying to be consistent. That if you just, if you just sit down one week and I go, I'm going to completely change the way I work. And Monday morning I'm going to completely work differently. Guess how that's going to go? I can tell you right now, but if you just move the needle just a little bit, day by day, week by week, that's going to stick over time. And that's the way we can make the needed change or tweaks or adjustments. Right. We can stack routines into those existing habits. And it's not for everybody. And I just mentioned this a couple minutes ago, and I'll plead guilty, but I actually do check my email, probably about halfway through my coffee in the morning because I, I don't like surprises. And quite frankly, somebody may cancel a meeting the night before, maybe after I went to bed or after I put my phone on sleep mode. And I don't like surprises. So I will plead guilty. I will check my email very quickly just to, I won't respond to it. Let's, let's, let's differentiate that for a second. I will just, I just want to get an idea of if something changed overnight. So how are we going to make routine stick? Remind yourself what happens if you don't follow your routine. Right. Go ahead. I'm a, I'm a big fan of reminding ourselves of what went wrong. Okay. Maybe I, I'm not the ADHD person that many others would say, well, focus on the positive. I want to remind myself what happened. I didn't have my coffee, I didn't eat breakfast. My kids were late to school. I was late to the meeting. I wasn't prepared. Right. Okay. I think we have to remind ourselves of that, of what could go wrong. Okay, I'm totally cool with that. Go ahead and at me and disagree with me. But I think to the extent that that works, I think it can be effective. Routines need to be simple. They need to be repeatable. And I think over time they'll outperform one that is actually perfect. Okay, let's not be perfect about it. Coffee, food, shower. They're not restrictions either. They're support systems. They're guardrails. They're protecting yourself from yourself. Right. I protect myself from myself in certain areas of my ADHD world because I know what can happen if I don't protect myself from myself. And I think that the the a nice, simple morning evening anchor brings you clarity. It's going to reduce your stress and it's going to help you stay focused on what matters. Rinse, repeat, adjust where necessary. Build upon that from there. All right, gang, I hope that helps. I know we've talked about routines before, but I continue to talk about this because it's just simple. The way you start your day is probably how it's going to unravel. Hey, if you need to work with somebody individually, you need to do some problem solving. You need to work on the mechanics of your busy ADHD world. And maybe the podcast just isn't enough for you. Just go to overcoming distractions.com click that 15 minute button right there at the top of the page. Book a chat with me. I meet with people just like you, from CEOs all the way to entrepreneurs, solopreneurs everywhere in between. And we work together individually. And I meet everybody where they are. So if that sounds like something that might help you, just hit overcoming distractions.com all right. Hey, we will catch you next time.