← Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD
Overcoming Distractions-Thriving with ADHD, ADD
The Power of the Not-To-Do List for the Busy Adult with ADHD
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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.
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Hey guys. Hey gang. What's up?
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It's Dave.
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And you are back on Overcoming Distractions. This is the podcast that focuses solely on the busy professional, the entrepreneur, the business owner with the demanding career, busy home life, and maybe you're just a little distracted and you have ADHD like many of us. Now let's a lot of you listen to this podcast who don't have an official diagnosis of adhd, and that's cool too. All right, you're all welcome. So, but if you're distracted, you need some tips, you need some advice, you need someplace to hang out with like minded people, then you're in the right place. So, hey, we are going to get in and out today and we're going to talk about things that maybe we should not be doing. And I think that's almost as important as understanding what we should be doing. Because as you know, if you are that busy professional with adhd, you got a hundred things that are floating around in your head. Maybe a lot of them are important, right? Maybe a lot of them are cool, maybe a lot of them interest you, but maybe we just can't get them all done. And maybe it's not a great idea for us to be getting them all done. And I think when we get really good at saying no and understanding our mission, so to speak, then we're able to move ahead in a more productive and satisfying and fulfilling manner with a little less stress as a bonus. Right? So, so I worked for a non profit organization years ago and I remember that we were outgrowing the, the office, the building that, that we were using for many years. And, and it came to a point where we had to decide, you know, the, the organization was growing and we had to actually make a decision on how to, how to, quite frankly, keep all the staff at their desks, so to speak. So, so like many nonprofit organizations. We decided to build a new facility. We went on what we call a capital campaign. And in the process of doing that, and if you're in the nonprofit world, you're probably familiar with what I'm talking about. We hired fundraising consultants because there was an aspect of fundraising, like asking for big money that we didn't really know anyways. We had an executive director that loved to do everything around the office. And, you know, it was good because it showed teamwork, it showed that, you know, everybody could pitch in. And oftentimes in the non profit world that you have to do that. But I remember one day the fundraising consultants were in the office and my boss was doing the dishes in this little kitchenette. And the fundraising consultant stopped and he said, why are you doing the dishes? And he says, well, I need to be done. And he said, well, that's gonna stop because you need to be out raising money. That's your job. Other people can do the dishes. It was noble and it was great that he showed that he was one of us. But the more important thing that he needed to do and to spend more time on was to actually go out and be networking and raising some big money for the organization. So, and I think we need to think about that is again, there were some things that I know need to be done in our businesses and in our life and in home, etc. But sometimes it's what we say no to that can make some of the more important impact in having us fulfill, the less stressed out. So, by the way, if you are looking to get the year off on the right track, and you feel like that you want to work with somebody that gets you, that understands you, that understands your brain, has been in business, has been an executive, and you just feel like maybe you can't go it alone, go ahead and just hit that button on my website. Just book a 15 minute chat with me, see if we're a good fit. And I'd love to be able to spend some time with you and work together and help you kind of navigate your way out of maybe a challenging situation or time in your life. So. So I like to just throw that in and let's get back to it. So I think one of the things that we have to do when we're deciding what we shouldn't be doing is to actually understand our core priorities. Right? And I think before deciding what not to do, we need to clarify what matters the most. We need clarity. You know, I love that word. If you've been listening to me for any length of time. You understand that those of us with ADHD or those that we think have adhd, we need clarity. And I think this can be a challenge for many of us with adhd. There are things that, you know, either interest us or maybe we're spreading ourselves too thin in our work because maybe we do have a lot of interest. And that's the beauty of the ADHD brain sometimes, right? But I think sometimes it can get us in trouble. So there's a book that I've been listening to on Audible, and the book is called the Science of Scaling. And he, the author talks about how his, his process and his philosophy about how to, how to, you know, skyrocket a business's growth, organization's growth. But it's interesting. He talks about why getting rid of things in our business helps us scale one or two things far more effectively. And what I found interesting about the book is he spends an incredible amount of time on what not to do. A ridiculous amount of time. He doesn't spend a ton of time telling you what to do, what do to like, like a blueprint of abcd. Here's how you scale your business. He spends a ton of time talking about what not to do and like, examples of like, like really big companies where they would go to drastic measures of actually, like selling off divisions so they could focus entirely on maybe one or two product lines or offerings or what have you. And I thought that was just kind of an interesting observation. So. But I think the bottom line is if, you know, if everything gets 10% of your energy, guess what's going to happen? You know, nothing's really going to grow. So that's called the Science of Scaling. If you want to just grab a few lessons out of that book, I find it interesting. And I think, as I've said with a lot of books that I read, sometimes I get halfway through it and I got the gist of it. So. But anyway, so ask yourself this. What are my top three priorities right now? Could be top two, could be top four. But I think, you know, the smaller number, the better. Is that in work? Is that in life? Is that in your business? What goals or responsibilities deserve my highest quality, quality energy right now? Right. I, as a PR and marketing guy, I had to decide a time ago that I could not focus on all the things that interested me in business. I think I had some good ideas, but I had to laser focus on a few that made the most sense. You know, we love shiny things, right? I mean, that's the beauty of the ADHD brain is when we, we see something new, we see the possibilities. But I think sometimes that can also throw us off track pretty quickly. And it was a difficult process for me to go through years because the public relations and marketing world is, continues to change. We're seeing that again. If you're in that world, you'll, you'll relate in terms of AI and AI is changing a lot of things, but especially, you know, marketing and public relations and what have you. So. But if you work for yourself or you're an entrepreneur and you're doing a hundred things to make money, you know, is it time to say no to some of these? And I think a good healthy analysis of this is, is worth your time and energy. But I think if you come down to it, something that, you know, doesn't support what could grow or what's going to move your career forward, etc. Is a pretty good candidate for your not to do list. So I think that the next thing is we got to kind of create some of those categories, right? And I think one of the first for those of us with ADHD or those who think you have ADHD are those energy drainers, right? Tasks, habits, things, whatever you want to call them, that, that quite frankly might leave you tired or exhausted or drained and then you realize they didn't really add a lot of value, right, to you or your business or your career. Some of the little things that come to mind that I think can really pile up and suck the life out of us is checking that email first thing in the morning, responding to emails or texts work wise 24, 7, saying yes out of guilt or obligation. And I think we've talked about this, saying no might be uncomfortable at first, but it does prove to be worth it over time. Working through lunch without a break. You know, I know a lot of us, we need, we need that break, we need that reset. So doing the stop, drop and roll for everybody, right? These are the things, the habits that should be on your not to do list. These aren't even like physical things. These are just, you know, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to respond to my boss at 9 o' clock at night. I'm not going to just drop everything in the middle of me actually getting stuff for somebody else at the moment. And I think we can replace these with those intentional breaks, those structured response times, etc. Etc. Now I will tell you that I actually do in present day, I do check my email early on in the morning. That's Me, but there was a time where I didn't because it just kind of made me angry. But I'm a little more comfortable with that now. But all these things are personal preferences. These are just ideas and thoughts to get us thinking. So what are your distractions? What are your time wasters? These are the things that, that, you know, shred your focus, right? They create fake productivity again, constantly checking those messages or notifications, attending meetings without a clear purpose, which drives me out of my mind. I can't tell you how many meetings I've sat in over the years where there's times where there wasn't a clear agenda and then there's like just silence where people are thinking about what to talk about next. Right? I mean, get me out of here. So get the meeting done, get to the point and get me out of there. But if you can avoid meetings like this, put that on your not to do list. Some of us are over researching or maybe over perfecting before we actually take something on or send something out the door. How much time and energy have you wasted trying to get something perfect right now? I'll preface this by saying if you're an accountant or a bookkeeper, you know, those things need to be perfect. Those are numbers and those affect more than you know, than we know. So but within reason, sometimes we can get things out the door without just, you know, squeezing every last piece of perfection out of it. Right. So I think putting things on your not to do list also involves things you can delegate or things you can automate. Tasks that someone or something else can handle. Right. You know, is there still data that needs to be crunched in your business, in your job? Some other ideas. Do you have a calendar, appointment setting, you know, calendly, for example, is one where you can have a link. So you don't just go back and forth endlessly with people to, to schedule something and all of a sudden you get 20 emails to schedule one meeting, right? Can you schedule or put in some type of routine, some administrative tasks that you need to do in your business or your job, Repetitive follow ups with people that goes back to the calendar and other things, or better systems for tasks that have kind of the same theme, right? Invoicing with reminders. So if you're an entrepreneur, you're a small business owner, you're, you're running your own show, are you sending out invoices? And can you set up a system where there's an automatic reminder so you don't have to sit there and go, oh, two days late I have to, you know, sit down and send these clients a reminder. So find out what you can replace with delegation automation or even what we call batching, where you're just putting similar tasks together. Okay, next, Boundaries, right? I'm going to find another word for boundaries, but these are the things that kind of violate whether it's your personal, personal or professional limits, right? Taking client calls after hours, if you can avoid it. Letting urgent requests. I'm putting my, I'm putting my quotes up here, right? Urgent, because it's probably not urgent. These are the things that are going to interrupt your, your, your flow, your deep work time. Letting other people's priorities become your emergencies. There's a phrase about that we've all heard, right? Because I've always said that these large chunks of uninterrupted time are ADHD's best friend, right? When we can kind of get into the zone and get into the flow, that's when we get our best work done. I don't care where it is. I don't care if it's a silent place, a silent office, a conference room, or it's in a coffee shop. I don't care where it is. But when we let people interrupt those, then that just blows things up, okay? So communicate these clearly. Set the boundaries with yourself, okay? That's a muscle to work as well. So if you find yourself almost people pleasing, like dropping everything for people, then you've got to protect your time. Next, we have to say no to mental clutter, thought patterns, or these commitments that don't serve you. And, and I know I'm gonna. I know, I know. Mental clutter, not as easy as it sounds, right? And I know as we dig into some of these that they start to get a little more challenging, right? And I think some of these are muscles that we need to work, okay? Ruminating on mistakes or unknowns. I know we're all good at that. I know I'm good at that. Rehearsing potential situations in our head for things that may never happen, right? We rehearse every possible outcome of something because we're gonna meet with a client or somebody that we think might be mad at us. Comparing ourselves to others, okay? Trying to please everybody. This is this whole people pleasing thing that somehow has found a place in the ADHD brain, right? And if we did mess something up, how do we correct course and move on? How do we just. We fix it? We own it. Because I think those of us, we do occasionally drop the ball. We might get mad at the moment, but when we clear ahead and say, you know what, maybe I did mess that up, mess this thing up. So how do I, how do I correct it and move on and not let this bog me down? A little self compassion, a little maybe progressive, focused thinking can go a long way. The next thing, I really think that reviewing your week weekly, you can check in with yourself. A coach, a mentor, I think goes a long way in just kind of figuring out, okay, what went well, what didn't go well. And I think each week, you know, ask things like what drained me that was unnecessary this week, what did I say yes to that? I really wish I hadn't. Right? I mean, did my yes get the best of me? What could I stop doing? What could I have delegated? How can I create a week with a little more ease and peace of mind? And if the week got off track, what happened and how do we make it a little bit better next time, right? Next week. I have said a million times, you learn from good weeks, you learn from bad weeks and maybe from there. We need to add new items to our not to do list as you kind of recognize these things. So. And I think the last thing for many of us, out of sight, out of mind is a real thing. So maybe we need to keep these reminders visible, right? I don't care if you use a post it on your computer monitor to help you avoid committing to certain things, whatever it might be. If you find yourself over and over again, for example, letting people interrupt you, maybe you need to just stick something in your face and say, don't let people interrupt me. Right? Maybe it's, it's a post it. Maybe it's a piece of paper in front of you, maybe it's a clipboard. I don't care. Make sure you continue to reinforce the things that you're not going to do because science and research has proved that when we can kind of define our lanes, so to speak, and understand what deserves our attention, what is going to move us forward, what's going to help us meet our goals and objectives has a lot to do with what we're going to say no to. All right, gang, I hope that help if you want to chat with me and you need somebody to work with and maybe somebody to check in with to work these things out, figure out how to define a better year ahead, just hit the website Overcoming Distractions.com, book a 15 minute with chat with me and I look forward to meeting you. All right. Hey, we will catch you next time.