Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

Today we're talking about something that I think probably impacts so many of us, myself including, and we are talking about digital wellness.

And I'm delighted to have an expert here, Laura Willis.

She is a digital wellness expert and a leading voice in managing and minimizing digital overload and overwhelm in today's constantly connected world.

She's trained thousands of employees across really diverse industries, working with incredible organizations such as Visa and TikTok and Warner Brothers and Ella's Kitchen, Jamie Oliver, incredible the nhs.

And she brings these amazing sort of engaging and insightful talks and workshops and webinars to help people, really to empower people and organizations with actionable solutions to enhance digital wellbeing and habits and support our mental health in this 247 constantly on world.

And, you know, I've been really looking forward to this conversation because I need it more than ever.

I'm constantly online and so I'm really looking forward to getting some great tips and ideas about how we can all enter more of a, I guess, digital wellbeing space.

So, Laura, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Kit.

It's an absolute joy to be here.

So tell me a little bit, I mean, we were just talking before is how do you become a digital wellness expert?

And where did this kind of need to want to help others?

I guess, you know, empower other people to reduce this overwhelm and this overload that so many of us are feeling and I genuinely believe is often contributing to these cycles of burnout that we're experiencing.

Well, interesting you use the word burnout.

Sadly, it was my own demise that resulted in me doing this work.

I used to be a PR marketing consultant and I'd worked for myself for about 10 years and I was really successful.

And then I had my first child and went back to work quite quickly and became incredibly overwhelmed.

Panic disorder, insomnia.

I was in a really bad place.

And I wanted.

I'd actually studied behavioral psychology at uni and I was quite interested in just the way the world was going.

You know, on the train, everybody was on their phone.

We weren't talking to each other as much.

This is going back, like, 13 years ago now, and I'd been reading quite a lot about celebrities coming off social media, et cetera.

And I then started to practice mindfulness quite regularly, and that gave me a bit of headspace.

And then I realized it's my relationship with my phone primarily, and mostly the email on my phone that's causing all my overwhelm.

So I started to make some adjustments to the relationship I had with my tech and I did lots of little things and things improved.

And then I started to talk to people in my life.

So I met a friend one weekend for coffee and she was crying.

She said, I can't get away from work at the weekend.

It's a nightmare.

My husband and I went out for dinner at a friend's house and the husband kept getting up from the table and turned out he was checking his work email.

And then I secured a contract.

I was living in Twickenham in London at the time, and I secured a contract in King's Cross, and I had to commute in and out to work every day for a few months.

And I'd taken this opportunity to not be on my phone to look out the window or maybe do a short meditation or whatever.

And I had a light bulb moment.

I was watching a woman sitting beside me and she was flitting between her photos to her WhatsApp to her calendar to her, and she was making me feel overwhelmed.

And then on the way home that afternoon after work, I sat beside a guy who was in a business suit and he was playing solitaire on his phone whilst watching something on his iPad on BBC iplayer at the same time.

And I just had this moment of real clarity and was like, God, people are really struggling.

And I think maybe the stuff that I've learned and the stuff I'm doing for myself could help others.

With my ADHD hat on, I chucked in my PR career that I'd been building up for 25 years, and I launched.

I had no idea what I was doing.

I came from a psychology background, but I never trained anybody.

I never really worked in the corporate sector.

And 10 years later, I'm still going strong and it's an absolute pleasure to do the work that I do.

It's amazing.

Oh, and you know what?

Interesting that you know from 13 years ago ago, we were noticing this, this has been building and building and I totally agree with you.

I've been on many trains recently and I just see every single person.

There's laptops, headphones, myself included.

I've got my phone there, Laptop.

You're flicking, you're backwards.

I notice it so much in my body.

I notice the palpitations, my anxiety.

I've got slack on my phone.

WhatsApp, I've got, people might know this app called Spond.

So if you've got kids that are in sports, it's kind of like a messaging app and that's constantly going with, you know, parent stuff and stuff going on.

You know, for the kids, sports activities, you literally can't switch off for a second because somebody wants you somewhere.

And I notice that if I have a couple of hours off my phone, I feel so much calmer.

I always put it down to being away from my phone, but I noticed on the flip side, when I'm in this state with so many things going on, it's really anxiety inducing.

But if we don't have that self awareness, we just live in this perpetual state, don't we?

Absolutely.

And that's what I wanted to say.

You know, for me, I was on the hamster wheel and I was really busy and I was in react and respond mode and I was constantly on and I was never having any downtime.

I was experiencing something that most people experience these days, which is continuous partial attention.

A little part of our brain is always on our technology because it's all around us.

It's set to notify us, it's going to go off any minute.

We don't know what it's going to be.

Good, bad, ugly, interesting, boring.

So a little part of our brain, no matter what we're doing, whether we're focusing on a piece of work, whether we're bathing our kids, whether we're in the gym, having dinner, in a meeting, whatever.

A little part of our brain is on this technology.

And for me, that lack of full presence was causing so much overwhelm that what I found that whenever I started to take real control and put some barriers and boundaries in place for myself, my whole wellbeing improved.

The business that I launched just over 10 years ago was called Shine Offline.

And I kind of think I was of the opinion that in order to really thrive in life these days, you need to be offline.

But I slowly started to realize that that's completely unrealistic because we're not going to go and Live in the forest.

You know, everybody's online, farmers are online.

We've got to turn towards this technology and reframe our relationship with it.

So I relaunched a year and a half ago and what I'm trying to get people to do now is live and work in harmony with their technology.

The idea being using these tools to enrich our lives but not overwhelm us or limit our human potential.

And it's just about understanding the technology, understanding the psychology behind it, and understanding our own habits and the changes that we can make and the conversations that we can start to have to take back that sense of control that just most people don't have.

Yeah, that's exactly it, isn't it?

The sense of control.

We are consumed by it.

And when you say harmony and balance, like, you're right.

Unfortunately, this is not going anywhere.

We've seen the rise of AI just kind of exploding.

I mean, I must get an email every day from someone saying to me, I've got a new AI tool for adhd, really try it, really talk about it.

And I go back to them and say, I'm trying so hard to get off my phone.

And I appreciate AI is very, very helpful for lots of people and I use it myself, but I'm trying to find ways that I can just use my phone and use all the tech for what I really, really need and try and limit anything new that's coming in.

I guess what I would love to know is a little bit about yourself.

I know you're not on social media, you're not on LinkedIn, so you've got a website, a fantastic website, and you're a PR expert.

So I come from a PR background as well, and there is this fear that, oh, we're missing out, we've got to be on TikTok, we've got to be on Instagram.

How do we promote our business?

I'm, you know, I've run my own business and I've got to be able to, you know, talk about it and market it.

How is that possible if we're not on social media?

And is it possible?

I came off social media, like personal social media, about 12 years ago and I've not been on it since LinkedIn.

I was on with Shine offline, we were on LinkedIn and we would have spent quite a lot of time trying to come up with content.

And what I realized whenever I went out on my own, my LinkedIn account actually got hacked and it ended up being like half a Chinese person and half me.

And I tried to contact the help desk to find out if I could, you know, reinstate it.

And nobody came back to me.

And then I thought, maybe somebody's looking down on me from above.

Because what LinkedIn gave me was massive FOMO, massive imposter syndrome.

Used to use it as the procrastination tool.

I wasn't on Facebook or Instagram or anything else, but if I really couldn't get my head into the right space, I would go into LinkedIn and convince myself that it was a good use of my time.

I never got a piece of work.

LinkedIn's really good if you're looking for a job, but I think as a business for me it's all been word of mouth, it's all been about putting myself out there.

I speak at a lot of conferences.

I haven't done a podcast in ages to be fair, but I get a lot of word of mouth because, you know, HR, L&D wellbeing people are generally my contacts and there's circles of people.

My Google listings really good.

My website's got a very up to date blog.

My mental health is too important to me.

I was in such a bad state.

Like I work with people every week running workshops and training and when I think about how people exist and then I think about myself, I just don't know how people do it.

Like things like having my work email on my phone.

If somebody told me to put my work email back on my phone, I would run away because I just.

The inability to put boundaries in place, the impulsivity that I feel around that, I've got to put those barriers in place for myself.

And I am proof that you can.

I've never been busier.

I think a lot of people on the personal side, social media is there and you know, we live in an attention economy.

Whole economies are built on getting your attention and converting it into cash.

And most people know about this these days.

Back when I first launched, nobody had a clue what I was talking about.

Every time you go on to your social media, your dopamine is released.

And we all know dopamine is the body's reward substance.

And we all know that if we have adhd, we've got issues around our dopamine because it doesn't work as effectively as somebody who doesn't have adhd.

So especially for somebody with adhd, there's a real pull to get that dopamine hit from.

Whenever we scroll through our devices, it's effectively like playing a slot machine.

The design that Silicon Valley have used is the Same.

It's that pulling down and the uncertainty.

It's the intermittent reward.

You don't know what's coming in.

You don't know what it's going to be.

And that's what drives this very habitual, which can become addictive behavior.

When I took the time to step away and really analyze my habits and work out if this technology was serving me or not, I realized it's not.

I would rather go out for a walk for half an hour, leave my phone behind and risk a phone call coming in that needed me urgently.

Like someone dies, you know, people go, what if somebody dies?

I would rather go out for a half an hour walk to give myself that headspace that I desperately need in my life than live the way I was living.

I don't think I would be here, Kate.

I was so overwhelmed.

I couldn't see.

I was so overwhelmed.

And it's only now that I think that my adhd, I was only diagnosed six months ago.

It obviously contributed to that.

But I've worked with tens of thousands of people over the past 10 years, as you said, in all sorts of organizations.

And they're not all neurodivergent, but most people struggle so we can.

And it's about awareness and small adjustments and conversation, getting this conversation on the agenda with the people in our lives, in our families and the people that we work with and if we're client facing with our clients as well.

Because most of my work is global law firms.

Global law firms love me.

And that's because lawyers in global law firms don't know how to switch off and they're paid a lot of money and they're under a lot of pressure and they're client facing.

Law firms get me in all the time and I know through the work that I do with them that you can make changes.

Let's just start talking about this.

It's not going anywhere.

And as you said, AI is here.

And that's just going to make it even more ingrained into everything that we're doing.

Yeah, I think that's it.

It's not going anywhere.

And I'm so glad to hear that you, I mean, you're busy because that means that people are starting to take notice.

The big corpor taking notice.

They're taking responsibility for their employees because burnt out employees, you know, is not helpful for any, for anyone.

It doesn't make a, you know, productive team.

But just, you know, I'm thinking about kids because I want to see this conversation going into schools, you know, from the age of six.

We don't want to wait until we're burnt out 40, 50 year olds.

We want the kids to be understanding this.

And I see this, you know, with my kids and they are, as my daughter would say, chronically online.

The, the TikTok algorithms just reward the, the constant scrolling, the likes, the pushing, the content, constantly uploading.

It's, it's this thing that you cannot, it's a beast that will never be satiated.

And when we know that we can make that decision, can't.

We can make that decision to stop and pause and put it away.

But kids are, they are pack animals.

They don't want to stick out.

And if they didn't have a phone or they weren't allowed TIKT or Snapchat or whatever it is, they kind of feel like, oh, you know, that's embarrassing or I've got an embarrassing parent.

And it's almost like changing the narratives from, in school so kids don't feel ostracized by being the only one that's not allowed a phone or not allowed an iPad.

And I feel so strongly that if it comes really straight in from four or five year old kids, we can change this trajectory.

So, I mean, what would you say about speaking to kids?

Are schools open to your presentations and your conversations?

When I first started, you know, this did come from me being the, the mum to a young child.

My daughter was sitting up and I was on my phone and scrolling through it when she was having her lunch or when I was pushing her on the swing and she wanted the phone and I felt really bad about that.

And then I had, you know, started having these light bulb moments, et cetera.

And I did have a bit of an interest initially in trying to get like a corporate SP sponsor to maybe help me develop an education program and roll it out through schools.

But then as I started going out into businesses and working with adults and talking to parents, the thing that really struck me was that schools have a part to play.

But it's like dietary advice starts at the home, Schools are on board.

You know, my daughter's secondary school, she's now in year eight.

The deputy head runs quite a lot of information sessions on this sort of stuff for the kids and for parents as well.

There's movements like the smartphone free childhood which launched a couple of years ago and there are schools packs that schools are taking on board and they're signing the pact to say we won't allow smartphones in our primary schools and we're maybe going to start to do it.

In secondary schools as well.

And I think that's all really helpful.

And there is stuff available on the curriculum.

But for me, we have got to lead by example as parents.

You know, I work with these people who.

What about my kids?

What about my kids?

Well, turn towards yourself and look in the mirror.

What's your own behavior like?

What are you modeling?

Are you eating a McDonald's and telling your kids they can't have one?

Because if you're sitting scrolling through your work email whilst telling your kids to get off their iPad, it's not going to work.

We've got to look to our own behavior.

I, when I relaunched, I spend most of my time talking to people about workplace.

You know, how you're doing your working day.

Is your personal technology distracting and interrupting you?

Is your workplace technology?

Right?

What can we do to make these adjustments individually and collectively as a team?

But most of it is about leading by example.

And I do have an acronym that I've come up with that's a harmony acronym and I'll share it really quickly for you.

And this is for parents, but it's also relevant for everybody.

The H is for have conversations, start to talk about this stuff, Talk about your limitations, talk about your digital overwhelm.

Talk about what you want to do and how you want to be more present with each other and how can we make this work together?

When the kids come in from school, you know, we're told, don't ask your neurodivergent children how their day was straight away.

But when you get to that point, rather than just saying, how was your day and what did you have for lunch?

How was your digital day?

Did you see anything weird?

Did you see anything that upset you?

Is there any cyberbullying going on at school?

And, you know, not bombarding them?

You know, one minute a day for 100 days is better than 100 minutes in one day.

But have these conversations.

A is for the amount of time we're spending.

How much time am I spending on this technology and is it getting in the way of the other things that I need to do in my life?

My exercise, my chores, my relationships?

If I'm a kid, am I getting my homework done?

Am I moving my body, am I still building on those friendships, on those relationships in the home, etc.

Using timers.

Really great.

And you can use a timer if you're an adult or if you're a child.

You know, in our house, Alexa gets set for 30 minutes, and after that 30 minutes, the beeper goes off and that's your five minute warning and then you have to turn off.

And now my kids, I've got a 13 year old and a 9 year old and they self manage because they've been taught to do that from a really young age.

R is for relationships.

How are my relationships?

Am I talking to people?

Am I over really overly reliant on leaving voice notes which isn't a conversation.

What's happening around WhatsApp?

What about at home?

Or is this technology getting in the way of us as a family?

Is it in the way of our meal times, of our bath times, of our bedtimes, of our screen time together, like watching telly or whatever?

M is for mindful use and I've got loads of tips and I'll maybe talk you through those in a minute, but basically start to really try and use this technology with intent.

I talk about the phrase digital minimalism.

There's a brilliant book by Cal Newport and it's basically the principle of cleaning everything up, using technology all the time, as I do, but using it with real intent.

I'm not going to use anything, I'm not going to have anything on my phone or laptop that makes me feel rubbish.

I'm not going to have any junk food apps, things I can't resist that make me feel a bit dirty.

No, they're gone because they don't serve me.

And encouraging the kids to understand the negative impact that these apps can have on their mental health and their mood, etc.

O is for out in the open.

And I'm sure a lot of people saw adolescents and I am Ruth, which was the one with Kate Winslet and her daughter.

You know, when we were young, when you came home, you were safe.

When they come home, if they're online and they're in the privacy of their bedrooms, they're not safe because they're not on their own.

It's a big world out there and most people are lovely and kind, but there are people who aren't.

And I would encourage everybody to use technology in public spaces, in the home.

Discourage kids from taking their iPads up to their bedroom for half an hour before bed because once they hit the age where they're on social media, that has become normalized, that behavior and then you're going to have a fight on your hands to get them to come downstairs and only be on the devices in the dining room, in the living room or whatever.

So be out in the open.

And as parents, you know, I've got all these props that I use when I Speak at conferences and stuff.

And one of them used to be a toilet roll, but we got rid of it.

The reason being don't take your phone into the toilet.

And I used to say that because, you know, that's maybe the one place where you can get a break from your phone.

But also, let's not hide this behavior.

Let's be open about it.

Let's not shame ourselves or shame our kids.

We're living in a digitized world and we need to be connected.

But if we go off and try and secretly, you know, check our Instagram or whatever, that's just giving off this vibe that there's something wrong, there's something dirty, there's something bad.

No, let's be open, guys.

I'm just having a quick check of my social media.

I haven't been on it all day.

I'm gonna have 10 minutes.

N is for nighttime.

80% of people use their phone as their alarm clock, which means we're all not lasting at night.

And now we're lying beside Donald Trump or somebody who really annoys us on social media.

One in three of us are on it in the middle of the night, according to Deloitte, and a lot of people are on it first thing in the morning before you've even put your toe on the floor.

Get technology out of your bedrooms.

Protect the sanctuary of sleep.

As an ADHDer, I do suffer from poor sleep sometimes, and I haven't had my phone in my bedroom for about 11 years.

And I never would because I know that if I start to stimulate my mind in the middle of the night, it's not going to help me.

So I get up.

I actually went through CBT for insomnia whenever I went through my really low patch.

So I get out of bed.

I don't lie for longer than 20 minutes.

And I get out of bed and I watch something restful on the TV or I wash the dishes, I do something and then I go back up.

Leave your phones out of your bedrooms.

And the last one is why, which is for your behavior.

We have got to model.

We can't rely on schools to do it all.

We've got to lead by example.

We've got to understand our own behavior.

That pull that we feel to our own technology, personal and workplace.

Understand that.

So that we can really support our children wherever they are in their journey with this stuff and not make it something that we can't talk about.

Because most people are feeling a struggle to some degree.

And it's only by talking through this stuff.

That we're gonna be able to bring that compassion into the space, you know, give each other a break and just normalize the conversations.

Yeah, thank you for that.

It's really fascinating.

I mean, I just listening and then thinking about all the different ways that shows up in, in our family and in our life as well.

And I said the other day that it feels like being a parent right now.

We're under so much pressure because we're trying to maybe only speak from like a female perspective, but we are trying to work, build our careers, make sure our kids are, you know, eating well, their mental health is okay.

But when my kids are at home right now, it's half term.

There's an extra pressure that when I'm working, I need to be like, oh my God, they've been on their phone for the past hour.

Or my daughter's been on her iPad.

And then I have to be the one to take the tech away.

Be like, right, what we doing?

Let's get organized a play date, let's go out, let's do something.

But for us, we need our kids kind of occupied so we can work.

And there's that extra pressure of guilt and shame that we should.

Our kids shouldn't be on phones.

So it's such a complex, multi layered thing.

And I agree with you on all of that.

And I try really hard to model, but because I work for myself, I've got my own business.

Sometimes I sit at the kitchen table and.

And I've not been able to check my emails for a couple of hours because I've been doing the podcast or with a client and I'll sit at the kitchen table and I'll just be checking my emails and da, da, da.

And I'll go with my ADHD brain into my own little world and I can hear the word mum, mum, mum.

And I go, what?

And I'm so in my phone checking and in my little hyperv focus and I think, what am I modeling?

I'm.

And it just feel hard.

It feels really hard at the moment.

And I wish that we could find a new way of being with, I guess, exactly what you're saying.

This digital harmony, this digital balance.

I wonder, do you think, have we reached a peak?

Do you think it's going to get worse before it gets better?

AI is slowly seeping into everything because you know it's there.

I don't want AI, particularly on my Microsoft Suite, but it keeps giving me AI options.

I think it's conscious use again is critical.

And when you say, I Wish there was another way.

There is another way, and it's what I've been talking to people about over the past 10 years.

You know, simple things.

Rather than our phone, for example, being ever present.

A lot of people walk around with their phone in their hand.

It's there all the time.

And the notifications are set to go off.

Turn off your notifications, take back control as to whatever you're going to check.

And my phone, well, I've got two phones, a work phone and a personal phone.

My work phone lives in the attic and my personal phone lives in the tea and coffee cupboard, as does my husband's, as does my daughter's.

It stays there on flight mode and it comes out at intervals throughout the day.

So I basically schedule when I go onto my device, as does my husband, as does my daughter.

It's just how we've done it now because it's what worked for me, and then it's what I started training people in doing, and then it became normalized in our house.

It's out of sight, it's out of mind.

It's not in my hand all of the time.

You know, you can buy boxes that you put by the front door, so when you come in from work, the work phone goes in the box.

I was doing some training the other week, and ordinarily I'll run like a kickoff session for an hour and then I'll bring people back about six weeks later and they'll reflect on what they've done.

And this woman said, well, since you're training, I now leave my phone in the car after work.

And I was like, oh, your work phone?

And she went, no, no, my personal phone.

I was like, oh.

She went, yep.

I leave it in the car for two hours and I come in and my life is completely different because I am fully present.

I used to find myself just scrolling or playing this silly game.

My kids are around me, I'm making dinner.

But she says, no, it's just in the car.

And I thought, what a brilliant boundary.

That barrier is massive, because for me, it's in the tea and coffee cupboard, hers is left in the car.

So can we start to create those boundaries for ourselves?

Can we think about times in our lives where we're going to commit to putting those phones in that cupboard and being present and you might be on your own having lunch?

You know, I've had a really busy day.

For example, I'm not going to be sitting, scrolling through my phone, eating my lunch.

I'm going to be having my lunch for 20 minutes and then I'm going to go outside into my garden, which is just a paved garden.

It's not very glamorous, but I'm going to walk around it for five or 10 minutes because I need to do that just to unwind and give myself a transition.

I'll probably then have a quick check, but I don't have social media, so it might be WhatsApp messages coming in or whatever, maybe a bit of personal email on the phone.

And then the phone will go back in the cupboard and I'll go upstairs and do a bit more work.

And after an hour I'll come down and I'll have a 5 minute screen free break.

I won't be at my laptop.

Let's think about the times, you know, dinner time, TV time, homework time.

What about areas in the home, like I've talked about the bedroom.

Where are those spaces that we can commit to not having our devices around us?

What are those rules that we can start to create?

Because you know yourself that when you pick up your phone to check if you've had a notification come in or you hear the ping and you check it, that rabbit hole that we can get lost in, you know, 20 minutes have passed and God knows what you're up to.

So again, it's about being conscious and aware.

And I get a lot of people say to me, I don't want to forget to do anything.

I need my phone around me all the time because it's like my little notepad and I'm like, well, you know, I'm menopausal, I've got adhd, I get the memory thing.

We don't want to forget to do anything.

This is very controversial, Kate.

A pad of paper and a pen, you can carry it around with you, you can stick it in your pocket, leave your phone behind, get it out of the way.

You're having half an hour at dinner, you're watching some telly, you're doing some yoga, whatever the situation is, get that phone out of the way and have that pad of paper beside you.

And rather than jumping on your phone to action, that thing that pops in your head, just start making a list and then go on to your phone and do all those little actions in a batch.

Batch working is an old time management thing that makes you really time efficient.

When you start doing it again, it's such a simple thing to do.

But when you start doing stuff like that, you start to free up your mind, you start to free up your time and the sky, honest to God, the sky is the limit, the overwhelm.

We are not designed as a species to be processing the amount of information that we are.

And if we step away from work, for example, at half 10 to have a tea break, and we spend the tea break scrolling through social media and news, that's not a break because you're not going into default mode, which is when your mind wanders.

95% of your brain's receptors are still active in default mode because your internal filing systems at work, you're consolidating information.

You're having light bulbs going off.

If you're scrolling through, that's never happening.

And that's when overwhelm can start to really kick in.

And over a period of time, that's when we can start to feel burnt out.

So it's about just bringing some consciousness to that and thinking about times in the day when you can start to put those boundaries and barriers up for yourself and for your family and bringing this stuff into work.

You know, as I said, I spend most of my time talking to people about team behavior.

How are we existing as a collective of colleagues?

Because, you know, some of us are neurodivergent.

Some of us finish at 3 o' clock to pick up our kids, some of us have global clients, some of us don't.

How can we start to bring a bit of compassion and consciousness to this as a group of colleagues and again through small adjustments.

And I can talk to you a bit about that if you're interested in it Teams.

Oh, my God.

The success moving forward.

Because people aren't overwhelmed.

They don't feel that Digital presenteeism, which 94% of people experience digital presenteeism at work.

I can't close my inbox.

I can't.

You.

I couldn't close teams.

I've got to be available all of the time.

Yeah.

Because, you know, if I'm not available, they'll think I'm slacking off.

That's exactly.

I was sorry to interrupt.

It was just because I was with my niece yesterday and she's in her mid-20s and she was working out of the office and she said.

I said, are you working?

She's like, well, as long as I'm online, they can see that I'm online.

Then.

Yeah, I'm sort of like working.

But, you know, and that is exactly it, is that making sure that they can see you on teams.

And it's encouraging that.

One of the things that has really upset me over the past few years is I would get on a plane and I would feel this feeling of like, oh, I can breathe, I can turn my phone off and I'm going to have however many hours.

And now they started introducing wifi and long and long haul flights and I'm like, no, that's the whole beauty of a long haul flight.

And it's just, it's seeping into every area of our life.

But, yeah, but, but Kate, but see, in that situation, we've got a choice.

That's where we've got to take personal responsibility for our own behavior.

You know, I am with you 100 but not for me.

It's not that I get on a plane and I'm sad for me because I can't control it because I can control it now.

This is so deeply ingrained in me and how I exist now.

But I look around me at all these people who need a break from their devices and they're not getting the chance.

It's through small, tiny kind adjustments that you can, you know, I'm on this plane now and that the temptation to check my email is so strong.

But I'm going to sit with that feeling for 10 minutes and I'm going to have a cup of tea and a biscuit and I'm going to breathe.

And in 10 minutes if I still feel that real urge, maybe I'll check.

But starting to really think about that for yourself.

You know, there is no way the world is going to start to improve for us because it's an attention economy.

There's money being made from our attention.

The more time we spend on it, the more money is being made by the people who are creating this stuff, the advertisers, etc.

We've got to do it for ourselves.

And that's why when I speak to businesses and I'll get, you know, leaders going, but it's too hard.

It's everywhere and hard because you're going to start small.

You're going to encourage your team to have a screen free break twice a day and you're going to do it yourself as their manager and you're going to send them a calendar invite for a screen free break twice a day.

And the next time you have your team meeting, you're going to ask everybody what they've been doing on their screen free breaks.

You know, let's start to do this.

Talk about this email is my bugbear because my pull to my inbox has always been really, really strong and it still is.

And there's one functionality that I tell people about that I've been talking about this for like 11, 10, 11 years.

And it's to me, it's so archaic, but when I go into a room to train like people in room, and I'll say, who here knows how to work offline on Outlook?

And it's just a sea of blank faces and I'm like, why do people not know about this stuff?

Basically, if you're in Google, in Gmail or in Outlook, you can pause your inbox.

So for periods in the day you can still have your email open.

You can access your folders and documents, your calendar, you can even write a message, but you can't send or receive anything for the period of time that you've paused it.

And on Outlook it's called work offline.

And when people start to do this, things just transform for them.

And a lot of people are like, well, my email makes my day move forward.

Well, email was kind of meant to replace the fax machine.

It wasn't meant to replace conversation, which it's done.

And it wasn't meant to replace our to do lists.

A lot of us allow our inboxes to dictate how we spend our days.

And a lot of us, you know, email is not my job.

Email is a mechanism I use to move forward in my work.

But I've got a job to do that requires real focused concentration and thought and I can't do that with emails coming in.

So I suggest to people the first 15 minutes of the hour, from the hour to the quarter past, work offline, focus your mind, get that thing done.

And from the quarter past, the following hour back in and react and respond mode, build on it.

I have people coming back to me six weeks later and saying, I've managed to completely change my mindset around my inbox.

Think about the way we're using it and think about how we could use it in a way that's going to allow us to not be constantly interrupted, because that's what's happening.

Multitasking is a myth.

You cannot do two cognitively demanding things at once.

You can drink a cup of tea and respond to an email, but you can't respond to an email whilst immersed in a teams chat.

So we've got to just bring real consciousness and intent.

I could put on one hand the people I've met over the years who aren't in some way digitally overwhelmed or distracted.

I mean, what you're saying, if you can help corporate lawyers, doctors, people who are working really, really fast paced industries with this digital harmony and wellbeing, we're all able to do this.

And I just love what you're saying is that it is our choice.

You know, we can drive for the next 10 miles and see all these, drive through McDonald's, Burger King, whatever it might be fast food nonstop, everywhere we go.

Every time we go to a supermarket and we're making those choices.

But it seems like with social media or technology where we're beholden by that and we need to start reclaiming our, our empowerment, our independence, because it is the same.

It's junk food.

It's just a different type of junk food.

And it's, it's really impacting our brains.

And I don't think social media causes ADHD or excess technology does, but it was 100, exacerbating, maybe not even dormant ADHD, but maybe ADHD that was sort of manageable and was quite helpful in a creative way.

And maybe we're just a little bit sort of disorganized with it.

Maybe there was anxiety.

What we're knowing, what we're seeing is that it is bringing our ADHD traits on neurodivergent traits to the forefront and making them much harder to manage.

And a lot of the work that I've been doing recently is learning and understanding about how ADHD people are more adrenaline dominant.

So we're more likely to feel an excess of adrenaline, cortisol, stress, anxiety.

It shows up in.

There's higher rates of cardiovascular issues, gut issues, sleep issues.

So it's impacting all our systems, our nervous system, you know, everything.

So if we have got something that we can actively change, like we are intentionally in charge, then we should.

Because sometimes a lot of our ADHD treats are out of our, you know, control until we were aware of it.

We can get some help coaching, therapy, medication, whatever that might be.

But I do think I notice myself, you know, if I go for a walk without my phone, it's an intentional choice.

Do I feel a bit panicked?

I do.

Do I do.

Maybe for the first five or ten minutes, you know, what happens if something happens with my kids?

What happens if, you know, there's a problem at school and then I just breathe?

I become more present, more mindful, and that walk has almost been like activated supercharged than if I took my phone.

So I come back from the hours walk without my phone feeling like a much calmer, more present version of myself because I know myself.

When I have my phone, every 10, 15 minutes, I pull it out, have a little check, make sure that I've not missed anything.

So it's almost like taking away all the positive aspects of having a walk in nature.

And I think, you know, it's only 20 years, you know, maximum, well, 10 years really, that we've really been in this and then the rest of our lives.

We've never felt that, you know, people would walk through the door, you know, before emails, and that would be the end of their day and they would be able to focus on their family, they'd be able to be more present.

Yes, the TV would be on, there'd be faxes coming through, but it's nowhere near.

And we are in control of this as people.

I think we have to make those choices.

Absolutely.

And I suppose the difference is that, you know, a lot of it is designed to hook us in and the attention economy, you know, they want us on there all the time.

You know, Netflix's CEO said his biggest competitor is sleep and Netflix is winning.

He said, you know, the algorithms, the analytics that are used make it irresistible.

But if people understand that, then you can start to notice, notice it and go, okay, I am looking for a new sofa, but stop giving me bloody sofa adverts all the time.

You can start to notice it and see it, but the reality is that it's behavior that's creating this always on culture.

57% of people that I've worked with send non urgent emails out of ours.

They're getting their kids to bed and then they're settling down at 8 o' clock and they're doing loads of email work and they're firing it off, but it's not actually essential.

We're all, but it's going out and loads of people are getting cc'd in it, on it.

And then the people who are receiving these emails know their email is going to be coming in.

They know they're going to get cc'd in.

They don't want to be the only person who doesn't respond.

And it's adding to this always on culture.

And this is where I'm telling people, why are you sending non urgent.

And if you feel that you want to work in the evening draft and schedule your emails to go out tomorrow so that they're not hitting people's input boxes at 9 o' clock at night?

Because it might suit you and your schedule and your life, but does it suit John, who's 24 and has just met his friend who he hasn't seen for six months in the pub, but he knows his phone's gonna be going off every 10 minutes with emails coming in.

Can I ask?

Because I was speaking to someone at the weekend who is newly started as an investment banker.

He's a young, young guy, high pay, but he's so overwhelmed and burnt out and he's just thinking, this is not for me because he doesn't finish work till 2 o' clock in the morning.

But he thinks because he's on a high wage, his well being, that's the, that's basically, you know, he's had to do a way up and he's thinking, oh, if I just do this for a few years and then, you know, I'll just get it in.

But are you noticing that the people who are in these sort of like high paying jobs are having to almost offset their well being because they've got to be on the whole time, they've got to be answerable.

He said I can't turn my phone off ever.

I've got not to be on the weekends.

And it's this toxic environment that would probably laugh at us talking about digital well being because they're like, well that's not the industry that we work in.

We're working here with China and we're working with New York and you've got to be up at every time just in case that something comes in.

And I was looking at him and he's just so broken and exhausted.

And I was thinking this just quit, quit.

And yeah, it's sad.

It is sad.

It's very like the global law firms and there's a big movement of firms that have signed something called the Mindful Business Charter and I'm an associate of theirs and that's all about bringing sort of mindful consciousness to your habits at work.

And most of the signatories of that are global law firms because suicide rates in law firms, which is very similar, you know, professional services, it's similar to investment banks, not exactly the same, but similar suicide rates, burnout rates, people going off on long term stress.

I've had meetings with HR people and recruitment people in law saying we just don't get the people coming through anymore because they know they're going to get burned out coming here.

I've not done a lot with investment banks but I did work with, they were like a risk analyst investment company a couple of years ago and they invited me to go in room a very young workforce of about 40 people and the senior manager was really concerned about a lot of their mental health.

Two of them actually sat in the workshop on their laptops and somebody spoke before me and I noticed these two people were just on their laptops not, not like making notes, just like doing work.

And I said to the guy, do you mind if I say something about the fact that people are working during the training?

And he went, no, no, I'll say that.

And he got up and he said, laura's about to get up and help us with our digital habits.

And if anybody's under pressure and you've got clients who you're actually communicating with at the moment, can you step out of the room please?

And these two people, people close their laptops and put them under their chairs.

And I then did a one hour, 75 minute training session with this group.

And it would have broken your heart.

A lot of these people were kids in their, like mid-20s who were completely burnt out.

But the things that I was talking to them about doing, A, they didn't know about these functionalities within their technology and B, they hadn't taken any time to consider because people senior to them weren't modeling this behavior.

And once I actually started to talk about what's possible and the fact that just because we can be on all the time doesn't mean we should.

And you're paid a lot of money because you're a very, very intelligent person with a certain type of brain who's going to make a lot of money for this organization, but not at the cost of your own life.

Just getting people to think about things like handing over, you know, going on holiday.

If you're on holiday and you're working, you're not on holiday, you're working on the beach and getting these conversations on the agenda.

And again, I've worked with senior leaders who like, there was one man in particular who I think I transformed his life and he became my number one fan.

And then he was talking to everybody about what I could do for the firm.

And this is a huge global law firm.

And this guy was in his 60s, senior partner and had a light bulb moment during a piece of training that I was running where he realized that he was killing himself and he was killing his team in the process.

And he transformed his life and he still works at the firm and he's doing really good stuff.

So I think organizations need to wake up because this technology is not going anywhere.

And this has been a problem for a long time now.

The smartphone was launched in 2007.

The productivity in the UK has.

The correlation between smartphone sales and productivity is hilarious.

Productivity down, Smartphone sales up.

If you want your people to bring their best selves to work, you need to protect them, to know how to manage their attention and their time and their energy by not being constantly connected through their technology.

Oh, it's, you know, it's really fascinating and eye opening.

You know, I'm think sitting here thinking about so many different things.

I'm going to put you in touch with my husband's business because I'm thinking that they would love it.

But I'm just thinking so much about what you're saying that actually is those intentional moments that I will be taking from this conversation.

And I think a lot of people will probably want to get in touch with you and hear more about how perhaps you can help them or their businesses.

And I. Yeah, how?

I mean, I'm not going to direct you to social media, but what is your website so people can find you?

So It's Laura hyphen willis.com and on there you'll get a feel for who I am and what I do and why I'm doing it.

It.

And there's a blog.

I try and write a blog every month or two.

I'm very much about realistic, practical changes and realistic conversations.

So there's loads of blog posts on there for people to get a feel and you can just share, even sharing those blog posts with your manager secretly, that could really help.

So that's why working with leaders, if we want to make cultural change at organizational level, we got to work with leaders.

Absolutely, 100%.

It needs to come from, you know, the values of the business and values of the bosses and that's where you see the big change.

But thank you so much, Laura.

It's been brilliant.

Thank you, Kate, for your time.

Good luck everybody.

Take care.

If this episode has been helpful for you and you're looking for more tools and more guidance, my brand new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit is out now.

You can find it wherever you buy your books from.

You can also check out the audiobook if you do prefer to listen to me.

I have narrated it all myself.

Thank you so much for being here and I will see you for the next episode.