In this episode, we're going to explore how
Speaker:adhd entrepreneurs can turn distraction into their greatest
Speaker:asset. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money
Speaker:mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast.
Speaker:The ironic thing about the topic today is that we have had to deal with
Speaker:multiple distractions before we started recording, which makes it
Speaker:so much fun to do a whole episode on on how to deal
Speaker:with distractions because my producer and I are immediately going to start
Speaker:getting self conscious. Distraction is one of those symptoms of
Speaker:ADHD entreneurship that is most perceived by the
Speaker:outside world. As people with ADHD, we don't really
Speaker:perceive when we're being distracted. Our attention
Speaker:is just kind of refocused on this thing and then refocused
Speaker:again on this other thing and then refocused again
Speaker:on another thing. It really comes
Speaker:up as a problem for us when we have a
Speaker:task that we need to do. And
Speaker:usually my clients who are starting businesses, they're
Speaker:breaking away from working a corporate job where there's a lot of
Speaker:structure. Distraction is one of those things that
Speaker:becomes a lot worse as a
Speaker:solopreneur. And it's also complicated because
Speaker:we actually love distractions. We
Speaker:love when we can find a creative way to
Speaker:avoid doing something that we think is boring or that we don't want
Speaker:to do. The only time I take joy in cleaning
Speaker:my space is when it helps me avoid doing
Speaker:something that I really, really don't want to do in my business, like taxes.
Speaker:And if you're my accountant and you're listening, I know I owe you some stuff
Speaker:and some paperwork. I apologize. The
Speaker:other thing about distractions for an ADHD entrepreneur, sometimes the
Speaker:distraction is actually a massive spark of creativity.
Speaker:It's a new idea that we have to jump into and
Speaker:play with for a little bit or else we're going to lose it. So
Speaker:as we talk through distractions, I'm not saying
Speaker:that there's a way for you to never be distracted again.
Speaker:In fact, I'm not even saying that you avoiding all distractions is good
Speaker:for you. I think being distracted is one of the major
Speaker:gifts of being an ADHD person. A
Speaker:good distraction can be the thing that recharges us enough
Speaker:that we can throw ourselves fully into whatever task we need to
Speaker:do. A good distraction can be the thing that inspires
Speaker:a brand new idea for our business, a new offer, a
Speaker:way to help our clients that we hadn't thought of before. And quite
Speaker:honestly, being distracted is actually how we are productive.
Speaker:There are all those reels and TikToks of the
Speaker:ADHD person who sees a shoe and they're like, oh, that shoe
Speaker:is out of place. Let me take it to the bedroom. They get to the
Speaker:bedroom, they're like, oh, this towel is on the floor. I should put this back
Speaker:in the bathroom. Then they get to the bathroom and the toothpaste has been left
Speaker:open and it's kind of squirted on the sink. And they're like, oh, I should
Speaker:clean that up. And then while they're at the sink, they're like, oh, my gosh,
Speaker:I forgot to take my antidepressant today. I have to take my medication. And they
Speaker:open the thing like, wow, there's a lot of old antibiotics here. I
Speaker:should be disposing of them, and so on and so
Speaker:forth. We don't do things in a linear way. We don't do things
Speaker:in a container. We do things randomly
Speaker:in a way that makes sense to us. But the point is that
Speaker:things generally do get done. The things that need to happen get done
Speaker:just kind of in a weird order. So if you're someone who really
Speaker:struggles with distraction, I'm going to give you some tactics,
Speaker:some real simple, doable tactics that you can
Speaker:use to manage distractions better.
Speaker:And I invite you to stop vilifying distractions.
Speaker:They're not evil. They're not bad. They just are. And
Speaker:when you learn to use them in a way that works for you, life gets
Speaker:a lot easier.
Speaker:I've broken down distractions into four categories. The
Speaker:first one is other people. The second one is
Speaker:dependence. The third is your space,
Speaker:and the fourth is internal you.
Speaker:I'm going to go through them. I'm going to be talking about the different things
Speaker:that can happen and what's really helpful, especially for those of you who are in
Speaker:the beginning stages of starting your business or who have
Speaker:just taken your business full time, especially when we're talking about
Speaker:your space and managing other people.
Speaker:One of the hardest things when I started my business and I went full
Speaker:time was that I didn't have anything on my
Speaker:calendar. I didn't have an office that I had to go to
from 07 00:04:46
00 a.m. To 03:00 p.m. I worked really early hours
from 07 00:04:50
when I lived in San Francisco, where my manager would notice if
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I wasn't there. I just kind of had quote unquote free time.
from 07 00:04:58
And it wasn't actually free time, it was work time. But
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because it didn't have the structure that I was used
from 07 00:05:05
to, I would get invitations from friends to go to lunch. And
from 07 00:05:09
another friend might ask, hey, I'm going to go work out. You want to come
from 07 00:05:11
work out with me? There's a yoga class we go to. Family would ask me
from 07 00:05:15
for favors knowing that I didn't have anything planned. And
from 07 00:05:19
I would say yes because I'm an extrovert and I like
from 07 00:05:22
spending time with my friends and I like doing favors for my family. And
from 07 00:05:26
what I realized I was actually doing to myself is I was causing myself
from 07 00:05:30
a great deal of anxiety because as I was out to lunch with my friend,
from 07 00:05:34
and as I was going to yoga with another friend, and as I was helping
from 07 00:05:37
my family member with something around their house, I knew in the back of my
from 07 00:05:41
mind that I wasn't doing the work. I wasn't doing the foundational work to
from 07 00:05:45
get my business up and running full time. And I found myself
from 07 00:05:48
actually resenting my loved ones because how dare they
from 07 00:05:52
ask me to do this stuff? They know that I have a job.
from 07 00:05:56
But I realized that they actually didn't know that I had a job. As far
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as they could see, I just quit my job and I was unemployed. And
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sure, they thought I was, like, starting a coaching business, but who knows what that
from 07 00:06:06
means as a new business owner, as someone who has
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to really buckle down and get those
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beginning clients. Figure out your marketing, figure out how to do
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your sales funnel. Figure out a whole bunch of other stuff. From
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the outside, it looks like you're not doing anything. It
from 07 00:06:24
looks like you're just hanging out, playing on your computer all day.
from 07 00:06:28
And so the people around you are going to see that and think, oh, cool,
from 07 00:06:32
they're free. Let's invite them to do fun stuff. And it's
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hard to say no because we all love fun stuff. I'm a
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big fan of fun stuff, personally, and I bet you are, too.
from 07 00:06:43
And it's hard to say no to something when you don't have an
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appointment scheduled, when you don't have a client call or a sales call or something
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on your calendar, but something that you're going to have to get really good
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at is saying, no, I can't do that. I'm working
from 07 00:06:58
on my business right now. No. My work day starts at 09:00 a.m.
from 07 00:07:02
And ends at 04:00 p.m. I'd love to hang out with you. Can we go
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to a yoga class this evening when your family asks you
from 07 00:07:09
for a favor? Absolutely. I'd love to help you. Can I come over this
from 07 00:07:13
weekend and help you today? I'm actually working. You have
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to be the one who trains everyone around you that you
from 07 00:07:20
are working on your business. They won't be able to see it otherwise
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because for them, you working looks like you going out of the
from 07 00:07:28
house and going to the office. It doesn't look like you sitting on your couch
from 07 00:07:31
in your pajama pants with a blouse on, with your computer in your
from 07 00:07:35
lap. Honestly, that just looks like you've kind of lost it connected to
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this. Your phone notifications. You are in charge of how
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many notifications you get. You're in charge of what text
from 07 00:07:46
messages can come through from who, when you get notified
from 07 00:07:50
of them, what social media notifications you get throughout the day.
from 07 00:07:54
As someone who's easily distracted, you have to
from 07 00:07:58
set the boundaries with your technology. If
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you don't, then you're just going to have this constant like
from 07 00:08:05
ping. Someone posted a new Instagram ping, someone
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did a new TikTok. Someone texted you, oh, it's your mom. Oh, she
from 07 00:08:13
wants to ask if you want to help her with something. It's never
from 07 00:08:16
ending. There are so many settings on
from 07 00:08:20
different phone types for you to manage this. I'm not even going to walk you
from 07 00:08:23
through it. You can figure this out, and I've already kind of touched upon this.
from 07 00:08:26
But you do need to schedule time with your loved ones.
from 07 00:08:30
If they think that you have all this free time all of a sudden and
from 07 00:08:33
you're not wanting to spend time with them during that time, they're going to start
from 07 00:08:37
feeling really rejected. And especially if you have
from 07 00:08:41
ADHD, you probably have a lot of friends with ADHD and you probably have family
from 07 00:08:45
members with ADHD, which means you have a whole group of people that
from 07 00:08:48
have rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria. So you saying no, that you would
from 07 00:08:52
rather sit under your computer doing what they perceive as nothing
from 07 00:08:56
rather than hang out with them is going to be really bruising to their
from 07 00:09:00
ego and their feelings. So you do need to
from 07 00:09:03
prioritize scheduling time to spend with them.
from 07 00:09:08
This will also help you decompress on a regular
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basis because as a new business owner, you're going to feel this
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immense pressure to spend every waking moment
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working on your business. Until you're making enough money that you have your normal
from 07 00:09:22
salary back, you cannot spend every waking moment doing that.
from 07 00:09:26
You're going to burn yourself out. So schedule off time with your loved
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ones. If you live with your partner and you both work
from 07 00:09:33
from home or you both have a reason to be home, maybe your partner is
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a full time parent. You need to design with them that sometimes
from 07 00:09:41
during your workday you're going to be on YouTube watching
from 07 00:09:45
puppies. Learn how to do the stairs for the first time. You're going to be
from 07 00:09:48
on Facebook, scrolling, kind know, stalking friends from high school.
from 07 00:09:52
You're going to be doing things on your computer that looks like
from 07 00:09:56
you are slacking off. But you and I both know in those
from 07 00:10:00
moments, you're not slacking off. What you're doing is you're actually giving
from 07 00:10:03
yourself a little dopamine boost so that you'll have enough dopamine to
from 07 00:10:07
get to the next task. And we need to find ways to communicate
from 07 00:10:11
to our partners that if they come up behind us and make a
from 07 00:10:15
comment, that can come across as a judgment like, oh, I thought you were
from 07 00:10:18
working today. Looks like you're having fun. It can completely take the wind out of
from 07 00:10:22
your sails. And you get to explain to them that things
from 07 00:10:26
like that are actually productivity boosters for us. So that
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is how we are dealing with other adults in the world. Now,
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technically, adults and dependents are other people, but like,
from 07 00:10:37
dependents have different requirements because
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you can't have the same expectations for a four year old to
from 07 00:10:45
respect your time and your boundaries as you can your partner. And
from 07 00:10:49
if you have a four year old who knows how to respect boundaries, then good
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on you. I'm not speaking to you.
from 07 00:10:59
So when I talk about dependence, I'm talking about children and pets,
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any kind of living being that depends on you, that's going to
from 07 00:11:07
need care throughout the day.
from 07 00:11:11
Now, the key here is you have to set them up for
from 07 00:11:14
success first. All right. I don't have children, so I'm going to use my
from 07 00:11:18
dog as an example here. If I'm expecting to get
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a good 4 hours of work done in a morning or in an
from 07 00:11:25
afternoon, I need to make sure that she's set up for success, which
from 07 00:11:29
means I have to get her outside and exercised. I have to go
from 07 00:11:33
and run her. I have to take her on a long walk because if
from 07 00:11:36
I don't, she's going to have this neurotic energy that just comes up and
from 07 00:11:40
she's going to constantly want to play with me while I'm trying to get work
from 07 00:11:44
done. And I love my dog. She is the cutest thing in the world and
from 07 00:11:47
I love playing with her, but I have to
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pay the bills. I have to be able to afford all the fancy treats that
from 07 00:11:54
I buy her. I have to keep her in a very good lifestyle. I
from 07 00:11:58
can't do that if she is distracting me from my,
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you know, I told you I'm not a know. Your
from 07 00:12:06
kids may need similar care to Luna. They may just need exercise.
from 07 00:12:09
They may need to get some energy out so that they can focus on other
from 07 00:12:13
things while you're getting work done. Depending on their age,
from 07 00:12:16
you may also need to outsource the childcare. I
from 07 00:12:20
know this can be expensive. Often for my clients who are
from 07 00:12:24
parents, there's a stage in their business where the amount of money that they're
from 07 00:12:27
bringing in is only covering their childcare costs. That's a
from 07 00:12:31
really difficult thing to deal with emotionally. As someone who is
from 07 00:12:35
ambitious and also cares about your kids but wants to find that
from 07 00:12:38
balance, one of the reasons why it helps to work with a strategist who can
from 07 00:12:42
help you figure out how you can make the most amount of money in the
from 07 00:12:45
least amount of time. And this is often what I do with my clients who
from 07 00:12:48
are stay at home moms or parents who share the responsibility of
from 07 00:12:52
taking care of the kids. If you have the right strategy,
from 07 00:12:55
sure, you're going to go through a phase where your money, all the money you're
from 07 00:12:59
making from your business is going to childcare, but it won't last.
from 07 00:13:03
You'll start making more money if you stick to the
from 07 00:13:06
strategy, if you keep up the action plan. So
from 07 00:13:10
setting your dependence up for success is
from 07 00:13:14
the only way to set yourself up for success. The other
from 07 00:13:17
element here is you have to set realistic expectations for
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yourself. If you have an eight month old and
from 07 00:13:24
they've been consistently napping for an hour and a half every single day,
from 07 00:13:28
guess what? That's not going to happen forever. You have to set
from 07 00:13:32
realistic expectations. You're probably not going to want to schedule calls in
from 07 00:13:36
that time because there's going to be a day where that eight month old is
from 07 00:13:40
like, I don't want to take a nap or where they're going to nap for
from 07 00:13:42
ten minutes and then wake up and be really upset. In setting realistic
from 07 00:13:46
expectations for myself, I know I can't sit down and do 8 hours
from 07 00:13:49
of work because I'm going to have to take my dog outside to pee at
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some point. I'm going to have to feed her. I'm going to have to play
from 07 00:13:55
with her. I'm her one roommate. I have to keep it interesting for
from 07 00:13:59
her. When you set realistic expectations for yourself, you prevent yourself
from 07 00:14:02
from going crazy. And you also help everyone who has to
from 07 00:14:06
work with you because you're not constantly having to change the
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game.
from 07 00:14:13
The third category of distractions is your
from 07 00:14:17
space. And this is something that is massively different
from 07 00:14:21
for everyone. Some people, to keep
from 07 00:14:24
themselves from being distracted, need absolute silence.
from 07 00:14:28
They cannot have a single sound in their space. For
from 07 00:14:32
others, absolute silence is deafening.
from 07 00:14:36
You need ambient sound. You might
from 07 00:14:39
need music going on in the background. You might need to go and rent
from 07 00:14:43
a space in a co working office so you can have background chatter. Hell,
from 07 00:14:47
you might need to go into like a busy cafe and do work
from 07 00:14:50
there. You have to figure out what kind of space is
from 07 00:14:54
most conducive to you getting work done and what kind of work
from 07 00:14:58
you get done in that space. For me, I don't even drink, but I
from 07 00:15:02
find it's really helpful when I have to put together a PowerPoint
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presentation. Or hell, if I'm plotting out a podcast
from 07 00:15:09
episode to go to my local pub and grab
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dinner and have my laptop open and just start working.
from 07 00:15:16
The key for me is it needs to be loud enough that I can't discern
from 07 00:15:20
any particular conversation around me. If I can hear what the people next to me
from 07 00:15:24
are talking about, then I'm going to get completely sucked into eavesdropping on
from 07 00:15:28
them. I'm very nosy. I'm going to want to know all the details. I'm
from 07 00:15:31
not going to get any work done, but obviously, if I'm on a call, if
from 07 00:15:35
I'm on Zoom, I need to have a very specific space set up for myself
from 07 00:15:38
so that I can do that successfully. And there's no right answer
from 07 00:15:42
here. It's whatever works best for you, whatever works best for your
from 07 00:15:46
business. So, for instance, if you're a copywriter and the
from 07 00:15:50
work that you do that's paid doesn't require you to be on a
from 07 00:15:53
Zoom call or on a phone call with someone, you get to work wherever you
from 07 00:15:57
want. Whatever makes you most able to
from 07 00:16:00
concentrate is going to be the best place. Other things that
from 07 00:16:04
as ADHD ers, we have to kind of deconstruct for
from 07 00:16:07
ourselves is this idea of professionalism
from 07 00:16:11
in a workspace. A couple of years ago, I went through this
from 07 00:16:15
certification called trauma of money. And one of the things that they
from 07 00:16:18
trained us on very early on is that wherever
from 07 00:16:22
you feel comfortable and safe is going to be the best place
from 07 00:16:26
for you to take the class. It's going to be the best place for you
from 07 00:16:29
to do work. Sometimes that means from bed, sometimes that
from 07 00:16:33
means in your living room. Sometimes working on the floor feels the
from 07 00:16:36
best. I give you permission to work wherever
from 07 00:16:40
the feels best for you. I had a friend
from 07 00:16:44
in San Francisco, and to prove the point that it really doesn't matter, I
from 07 00:16:47
had this friend in San Francisco. He was the chief people officer at a tech
from 07 00:16:51
startup. Okay? The CEO at this company
from 07 00:16:54
was real difficult to manage.
from 07 00:16:58
They had brought in so many different executive coaches to try to
from 07 00:17:02
work with this guy, and he was pretty uncoachable. And finally,
from 07 00:17:05
as a last resort, they actually hired a woman who works with
from 07 00:17:09
movie stars out of LA. She was exorbitantly
from 07 00:17:13
expensive, but she had this kind of smack you in the
from 07 00:17:17
face approach that was no bullshit. And he
from 07 00:17:20
was laughing because she charges so much money to work
from 07 00:17:24
with her. And the very first call that he had with her, with the
from 07 00:17:28
group explaining who she was going to be working with, she was sitting
from 07 00:17:31
on her bed in Malibu. She was sitting on her bed cross
from 07 00:17:35
legged, and she's laughing and she's talking and she's
from 07 00:17:38
swearing and she's talking about what she's going to do with the CEO. And
from 07 00:17:42
she was massively effective. And the key here
from 07 00:17:46
is that she normalized it. She chose that.
from 07 00:17:50
That is the best place for her to take a work call and went
from 07 00:17:54
with it. You are the boss of your own business, wherever
from 07 00:17:57
you want to work, your clients are just going to have to get
from 07 00:18:01
used to that. And any client who's not willing to work with you because you're
from 07 00:18:05
working someplace that's comfortable for you, they're not the right client for you. So
from 07 00:18:09
comfort rather than professional, we get to redefine
from 07 00:18:12
what our standard for professionalism is. For me, it's that
from 07 00:18:16
you're good at what you do and you deliver it. It's
from 07 00:18:20
pretty basic. I always laugh when someone books a generate
from 07 00:18:24
income strategy call with me and they get on and we're talking about their business
from 07 00:18:27
and they say something like, shit. They're like, oh my God, I swore. And it's
from 07 00:18:30
like, have you listened to anything that I talk about?
from 07 00:18:35
So yes, if you ever book a call with me, you are allowed to swear.
from 07 00:18:38
I invite it. The last little bit about your space is
from 07 00:18:42
mess. Different folks have different
from 07 00:18:46
resilience to levels of mess. I'm pretty resilient.
from 07 00:18:49
I'm a very messy person. I'm a clean person, but I'm a messy
from 07 00:18:53
person. I just do not notice the piles of paper
from 07 00:18:57
that are gathering around my desk. I don't notice the random
from 07 00:19:00
doom piles of stuff until all of a sudden it becomes too
from 07 00:19:04
much. If you're someone who gets distracted
from 07 00:19:08
by mess when you start working and you're not
from 07 00:19:12
taking care of that first, what you're actually doing is making everything that you're doing
from 07 00:19:15
a layered task. Because for you to get to work, you have to
from 07 00:19:19
clean your desk. For you to clean your desk, you might have to do something
from 07 00:19:22
else, you might have to vacuum, you might have to do this, you might have
from 07 00:19:25
to do that. If mess is one of the things that distracts you
from 07 00:19:28
the most. And it's always something that gets added into your
from 07 00:19:32
day because you have to deal with it before you can get to work. Start
from 07 00:19:36
prioritizing that first. Make it a must do in your business
from 07 00:19:40
dealing with a mess, because it's going to have to get dealt with either way.
from 07 00:19:43
If you're going to get into whatever task you've assigned yourself for the day,
from 07 00:19:47
it's better to plan around it and build a buffer of time
from 07 00:19:50
than to let it kind of derail your whole day.
from 07 00:19:58
And lastly, my favorite category for
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distractions is you. In
from 07 00:20:05
my intake form for my generate income strategy calls, I have this question
from 07 00:20:09
and it's like, what are the top three things that typically get in the way
from 07 00:20:12
of you reaching your goals? The number one answer to this
from 07 00:20:16
question is me, myself and I. I cackle every time I
from 07 00:20:20
see this because it's so true. We are
from 07 00:20:24
our biggest obstacle. It's our mindset. It's our
from 07 00:20:27
shiny object syndrome. It's our ability to shift gears so
from 07 00:20:31
fast and completely lose the plot. So when we talk about the
from 07 00:20:35
distractions that come from us, our internal selves, there
from 07 00:20:38
are a few different things that happen. So there is what goes on in our
from 07 00:20:41
mind and what goes on in our body. One of the best things about being
from 07 00:20:44
an ADHD entrepreneur is how creative we are. And also it's one
from 07 00:20:48
of the most distracting things because ideas strike us at
from 07 00:20:52
any moment, in any place. Along with all the ideas
from 07 00:20:55
that we have as ADHD entrepreneurs, we also have this
from 07 00:20:59
underlying fear that this is the last idea we're ever going
from 07 00:21:03
to have. This weird belief, like there's no proof that it's true
from 07 00:21:06
because we're coming up with ideas constantly, but we tend to
from 07 00:21:10
have an idea and think, oh my God, I need to grab onto it right
from 07 00:21:14
now and run with it because if I don't, then I'm going to lose it.
from 07 00:21:16
I invite you to look around your house right now as you're listening to this.
from 07 00:21:20
If you're home and look at all the piles of paper that you don't want
from 07 00:21:24
to throw away because there's good ideas in it, there's good information that might
from 07 00:21:27
have a good idea in it. We are
from 07 00:21:31
idea hoarders. And sure,
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sometimes we'll write an idea down and go back to it,
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but oftentimes we don't. But I want to just call attention to the fact
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that you have never run out of ideas. You are an
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idea generator. There's a reason why there are so
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many people with ADHD who do things that are so innovative,
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because we are far more creative than neurotypicals,
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but you have to learn how to manage it so that you can get done
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in your business. And this is why one of the things that I recommend to
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all of my clients who have this issue of oh my God, I got this
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great idea, I'm going to run with that instead of all the things that I
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said I was going to do today, is to create some kind of idea
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bank. I also like to call this a back burner book.
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So if you're cooking multiple things, you can't actively cook all of them.
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You can focus on one or two things at the most at a time.
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So sometimes you just have to put stuff on the back burner to keep it
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warm before you get to it. Now, a back burner book or
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an idea bank can look a lot of different ways. It can be a journal.
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It could be the notes app on your phone. Hell, you could have an
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email chain to yourself from yourself where you're just sending
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back and forth different ideas. And if
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you're more advanced than I am, and you've figured out how to use project
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management tools like notion or ClickUp, you can absolutely create a
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board in there to manage all of your ideas. I always tell myself I'm
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going to learn those things, but every time I try, it's just so confusing.
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I know what I want it to do, but I don't speak the language to
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figure out how to make it do what I want it to do. And then
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I try, and then I get frustrated, and then I get mad, and then I
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get discouraged, and then I have to go for a walk and recover. It's
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a really ugly process. I just get bored and I
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tune out. So they explain it to me and it's like it goes in one
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ear and out the other. So I apologize to those of you who've tried in
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the past. I just don't think I'm destined for project
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management tools anyway. So on the one side, we have ideas that are
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distracting to us. On the other side, we have complete
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and utter boredom. Sometimes the boredom sets
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in for a task and you just can't continue with
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it. There are two ways to really deal with boredom.
from 07 00:23:58
Can be that you need more stimulation. It could be that you need
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to go and give yourself like a quick hit of dopamine. So maybe
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you need to go and do a really simple task like go and comment on
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five posts on LinkedIn to get your engagement up. It could also mean
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respond to an easy email, or go take your dog for a ten minute
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walk it could be something that you can put on your to do list and
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very easily just cross off and get that satisfaction.
from 07 00:24:22
Boredom can also mean that you are
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overstimulated, meaning that you're trying to
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do too much in too little time. You've taken
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in too much information, and you actually need to go sit
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in silence without your phone, without a book, without a
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journal, and just kind of stare off into space and disassociate for a
from 07 00:24:43
while. I've learned this about myself, and I have to tell you,
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I'm not perfect at figuring out which one I need most.
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Oftentimes when I am feeling the boredom, that means I'm
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overstimulated. I get kicked into executive dysfunction.
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So it's hard for me to even get that get up and go to go
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and do other things. I start doing them, and I'm like, I just don't have
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the juice for it. And so I kind of back off. That's when I realize
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I have to just kind of put a chair in the center of the room
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away from everything and just sit there for a bit until I feel
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rested. With the understimulated boredom, it's
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usually that I'm just really antsy to get to the next thing, and it's easy
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for me to get to the next thing. I just kind of, like, bounce off
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the boring task into the exciting task and do that for you. This is
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going to be different. The signs are going to be different. So pay attention
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to when you're feeling bored. Are you getting kicked into
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executive dysfunction and you have a hard time getting into another task, or are
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you feeling like a ton of pent up energy that you need to get out
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in some way and deal with it appropriately? The other
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mental thing that can get in the way, that can distract us from the work
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that we need to do is stress about other stuff. This is one of the
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reasons why in the Monday sprint that I do three Mondays a month for all
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of my clients, I have them do a complete brain
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dump of everything that they're tracking in their minds
from 07 00:26:03
that they have to get to that week. Anything that's stressing them out goes on
from 07 00:26:07
that list. You want to fix world hunger? Great, it goes on the list.
from 07 00:26:10
Anything that you feel like you need to be stressed out about that could
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be turned into a to do list item. Put it on the list even if
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you never get to it. Something that we don't talk about
from 07 00:26:20
enough is the mental load that we carry. When you're
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an employee, you go to work, you have a certain set
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of responsibilities. You do those things and then you go home. You're not having
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to figure out what the responsibilities are and what the
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responsibilities of the other departments are and what the actions are of those other
from 07 00:26:39
departments. And then you're not responsible to do the actions
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of the responsibilities of the other departments as well. As a business
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owner, you have to be all the people, you have to be
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all the strategists, and you have to be the
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prioritizer. Okay? That's fucking
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exhausting. It's a lot more
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mental work than you are used to. But because we've been trained on
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a 40 hours week, we expect ourselves to do 40 hours of
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action every damn week. It's impossible because you're having
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to do about 20 hours of mental work. Now.
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Part of the mental load is keeping track of what all the work
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is, getting it down on paper, even if
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it doesn't make the cut for your priorities, this week is going to
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be a way for you to offload it, to free up some ram in
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your brain, for lack of a better term. Because we all know as
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ADHD ers how our computers tend to like to
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crash when they have too many tabs open. The same happens in
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your brain. The last little bits about
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distractions that come from you are how you nourish your body and
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how you dress your body. If you're not feeding yourself
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properly, like this is going to go wrong,
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you're going to have a sugar crash, your stomach is going to hurt, you're going
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to be so hungry that you're going to start getting hangry and clients are
from 07 00:28:01
going to start firing you because they can't handle it. If you're not drinking water,
from 07 00:28:05
you're going to start getting really murky in your mind. You're going to start
from 07 00:28:09
getting dark and depressed, and things are going to start looking
from 07 00:28:13
real bad, real fast. If you're wearing clothes that are distracting.
from 07 00:28:17
If you're wearing wool and it's itchy, why are you wearing wool?
from 07 00:28:20
Stop it. If you need to go through all your clothes and cut out all
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of the tags, go and do it. We talked previously about
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you getting to define your version of professionalism that
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includes your wardrobe. I don't care what you had to wear to the office
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when you worked in corporate. I care about what you want to wear now.
from 07 00:28:39
I care about how that facilitates you being able to be in your business
from 07 00:28:43
100%. Sometimes it's going to look a little cozy, sometimes it's not
from 07 00:28:46
going to look flashy and professional, and that's okay.
from 07 00:28:50
So long as you're showing up and doing the work and providing the
from 07 00:28:54
services to your clients who paid you for them, your
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distractions are never going to go away. New distractions are going to happen
from 07 00:29:02
all the time. New world events are going to start distracting
from 07 00:29:05
you. New ideas for your business are going to distract you.
from 07 00:29:09
The occasional client who needs a little more attention is going to start distracting
from 07 00:29:13
you. As a person who's running a business who also has
from 07 00:29:16
ADHD, the key here is to not punish
from 07 00:29:20
yourself when distractions happen. When
from 07 00:29:23
you get pulled off course, to do something
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else when you meant to get X, Y and Z done, that's okay.
from 07 00:29:30
That's the nature of things. What doesn't help the whole distraction
from 07 00:29:34
cycle is when you get distracted and then you start punishing yourself for the
from 07 00:29:38
distraction and then you feel bad like you failed in everything and then
from 07 00:29:42
you can't go back to the original task because it's now associated with
from 07 00:29:45
failure. It's exhausting, but it happens to us all the time. I know I've
from 07 00:29:49
talked about this in relation to New Year's resolutions with going to the gym. If
from 07 00:29:52
you say that you're going to go to the gym every single day and then
from 07 00:29:55
you miss on day four, day five, you're not going back. You already
from 07 00:29:59
failed. Like you're going to go to the gym and that everyone at the gym
from 07 00:30:02
is going to boo you because you failed. You didn't show up for day four.
from 07 00:30:05
How dare you. This doesn't count. It doesn't matter if you work out
from 07 00:30:09
twice as hard on day five. Still doesn't count because you missed day four
from 07 00:30:13
failure. I know I say that and it sounds
from 07 00:30:17
ludicrous, but we know how it feels. The most powerful thing that you
from 07 00:30:21
can do for yourself, for your productivity, for
from 07 00:30:24
your business, is to have forgiveness for all the times you
from 07 00:30:28
got distracted and gently, kindly with
from 07 00:30:32
acceptance. Just bring yourself back so that you can do whatever you need to do.
from 07 00:30:36
Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. If you're ready to stop being a weenie
from 07 00:30:39
and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book a
from 07 00:30:43
generate income strategy call with me by going to
from 07 00:30:47
weeniecast.com strategycall.
from 07 00:30:50
On this call we will talk about your goals, your dreams,
from 07 00:30:54
and your frustrations in getting there. And if it's a fit
from 07 00:30:58
for both of us, then we can talk about different ways to work together.