skyevideoedit

Transcript

Sky Waterson, founder of Its Unconventional Organization, shared her journey from a burnout-prone academic career to becoming an ADHD coach. After a PhD scholarship and a year working in a bakery, she was diagnosed with ADHD. She started a postgraduate neurodiverse community, wrote weekly articles, and gained a 250,000 readership. During COVID-19, she transitioned to ADHD coaching. Skye emphasized prioritization tools like the Eisenhower matrix and the "Step into Focus" routine to manage tasks effectively. She also discussed the importance of delegation, dopamine management, and creating consistent daily routines to improve focus and reduce overwhelm.

Action Items

  • [ ] Skye will send the prioritization filter tool to the speaker via Instagram.
  • [ ] Skye will provide information on how to hire for ADHD and incorporate AI for ADHD.
  • [ ] Skye will share the "step into focus" routine with the speaker via Instagram.

Outline

Skye's Academic Journey and Burnout

  • Donae Cannon introduces Skye Waterson, founder of Its Unconventional Organization, and mentions Skye's academic background.
  • Skye shares her initial academic career path, including a PhD focus, and her experience of burnout.
  • Skye describes her cycle of burnout, from post-grad to working in a bakery, and her transition to art.
  • Skye's husband encouraged her to pursue the PhD opportunity, leading her to seek help from the Inclusive Learning Center at her university.

Discovery and Diagnosis of ADHD

  • Skye discusses her initial skepticism about ADHD being a condition for adults.
  • The Inclusive Learning Center suggested Skye get assessed for ADHD, which she did, leading to her diagnosis.
  • Skye's journey of understanding and teaching about ADHD began, driven by her academic background and teaching experience.
  • Skye started a postgraduate neurodiverse community and began writing weekly articles on ADHD, gaining significant readership.

Transition to ADHD Coaching

  • Skye explains how COVID-19 led her to seek online ways to teach about ADHD.
  • She discovered ADHD coaching, which aligned with her existing work and passion for supporting others with ADHD.
  • Skye continued her PhD while starting her coaching business, eventually having to choose between the two.
  • Her professors advised her to pursue the business, leading to her full-time focus on ADHD coaching.

Common Challenges and Tools for ADHD Management

  • Skye identifies three common spaces people with ADHD often find themselves in: overwhelmed, stuck, or inconsistent.
  • She discusses the importance of prioritization and the use of a prioritization filter to help manage tasks.
  • Skye emphasizes the need to support working memory and time blindness to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
  • She introduces the Eisenhower matrix and the importance of brain dumping tasks to manage them effectively.

Delegation and Catch and Release Technique

  • Skye explains the importance of delegation and the "catch and release" technique to manage tasks.
  • She discusses the challenges of saying no to tasks and the impact of dopamine on task perception and execution.
  • Skye provides strategies for delegating tasks, including involving family and friends or using the "catch and release" method.
  • She highlights the importance of setting serious negative external consequences for tasks to ensure they are prioritized.

Building Habits and Daily Flow

  • Skye differentiates between habits and tasks, emphasizing the need to plan habits as part of a daily flow.
  • She suggests identifying specific times for daily movement and other habits to support working memory.
  • Skye discusses the importance of flexibility within a daily routine to accommodate ADHD strengths and weaknesses.
  • She provides examples of how to create a consistent daily flow that supports long-term habits.

Step-by-Step Focus Routine

  • Skye introduces the "Step into Focus" routine to help transition from high dopamine states to focused work.
  • The routine involves rewarding oneself for starting a task, turning down dopamine levels, and supporting working memory.
  • Skye emphasizes the importance of turning off distractions and using post-it notes to outline tasks.
  • The routine aims to gradually transition into focused work without the resistance often experienced with ADHD.

Emotional Dysregulation and Task Engagement

  • Skye discusses the emotional challenges of starting tasks and the importance of tinkering around in the space.
  • She suggests opening applications and making small notes or adjustments to engage with the task.
  • The routine helps to build confidence and reduce the fear of the blank page or starting a task.
  • Skye emphasizes the importance of not white-knuckling tasks and finding ways to woo oneself into focused work.

Balancing Work and Breaks

  • Skye advises taking regular breaks to maintain focus and avoid burnout.
  • She recommends scheduling breaks and treating them as important parts of the workday.
  • The balanced approach helps to maintain productivity and reduce the likelihood of overwhelm.
  • Skye highlights the benefits of being able to count on oneself and increase confidence through effective ADHD management.

Resources and Support

  • Skye provides information on where to find her resources, including her Instagram and website.
  • She offers to share her strategies and workbooks with interested individuals.
  • Skye emphasizes the importance of community and support for people with ADHD.
  • She encourages reaching out for help and resources to improve ADHD management and achieve personal and professional goals.

skyevideoedit

Transcript

Sky Waterson, founder of Its Unconventional Organization, shared her journey from a burnout-prone academic career to becoming an ADHD coach. After a PhD scholarship and a year working in a bakery, she was diagnosed with ADHD. She started a postgraduate neurodiverse community, wrote weekly articles, and gained a 250,000 readership. During COVID-19, she transitioned to ADHD coaching. Skye emphasized prioritization tools like the Eisenhower matrix and the "Step into Focus" routine to manage tasks effectively. She also discussed the importance of delegation, dopamine management, and creating consistent daily routines to improve focus and reduce overwhelm.

"Feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or inconsistent with your ADHD? Check out these helpful tips from ADHD coach Skye Waterson:
  • Use a prioritization filter to identify the most important tasks that need to be done today vs. this week
  • Delegate tasks when possible and use the "catch and release" technique to avoid overcommitting 
  • Build habits and routines into your daily flow to support your working memory
  • Try Skye's "Step into Focus" routine to transition from high to low dopamine states and get started on tasks
  • Don't be afraid to reach out for support - Skye offers great resources and strategies for managing ADHD
Reach out to Skye on Instagram @unconventionalorganization to get her prioritization filter and other tools. Balancing ADHD is possible with the right approach!" How's this? I tried to summarize the key points from the conversation in an engaging social media post. Let me know if you would like me to modify or expand on anything.



Donae  0:00  
Welcome to ADHD Crash Course. Today, we have a special guest, Sky Waterson, founder of Unconventional Organization. She arrived there, like a lot of us , a little bit later, maybe not, your first choice in careers?

Skye  0:20  
I started with a PhD focus, yeah, yeah. 

Donae
What happened?

Skye
 So, basically, what happened was I had an academic career. That was what I was going to do. It was, you know, lifetime. I had a master's and post grad and all that kind of stuff. But I was also in a burnout cycle. I burned out. I went from, you know, doing a post grad to burning out and then doing taking a year off and burning out and doing something else and burning out, and it all kind of culminated in my masters, when I finished my masters, and I got the information that I got in the grades to receive a guaranteed PhD Scholarship, which was amazing, was it was something I've been working towards, and I just, I can't even remember getting that information.

 I was just so burned out. I actually spent a year working in a bakery. Oh, hey, you're like, we're gonna pivot. We were like, pivoting hard, yeah. I was like, I'm gonna do art. You know, I'm gonna make art, because I'm very creative. So I love that stuff as well. So I spent a year making art, working in a bakery. And then my, you know, boyfriend at the time, now husband, really encouraged me to try and, you know, to say, like, hey, you've got this opportunity. You should go for it. And, and I said, okay, but I'm going to, I'm going to go for I'm going to, I need to go to the Inclusive Learning Center at my university and just say, um, could you guys give me a hand? Like, what is happening? Like,

am I okay? Do you know PhD at that point? Okay, I had no idea. I just thought that in my life, I hadn't found the perfect career yet. That was kind of my thing. I hadn't run the perfect career, so that's why I kept switching sociology, psychology, statistics. It's all great now, but I went there. I said, maybe it's dyslexia, I don't know. Like, you know, and they tested me, they did all these different tests, and they said, Okay, well, we think you should get assessed for ADHD, because we're pretty confident it's going to be ADHD. And I was like, adults can get ADHD. What

you Sure? Sure? I'm pretty sure I taught developmental psychology and we did ADHD, but it was for kids, right? And so that was kind of where I was. And so that threw me for a loop, and it just sent me on a whole journey of developing and understanding, and then obviously, because I was an academic and I'd been teaching for so many years, I wanted to teach this like this was the thing I'd been looking for, right? Okay, so you got the diagnosis, and how did you go about figuring out what was next for you, or even how to support yourself with ADHD, because that's a puzzle. Yeah, it was a puzzle. And and I had, I had strategies, but I think I was carrying everything in the kitchen sink, which is why I was burning out. I had strategies on strategies on strategies, and a couple of things that I just thrown in there because it looked good that one time. You know, I was like that person. And so for me, you know, I approached it like I approached all my research. I was like, Okay, I have access to this amazing library of academic journals and articles. And I started reading, I started writing. I started a post graduate neurodiverse community because I wanted to learn and connect with other people, just like I would have if I was studying anything. And I actually started out the very, very beginning thing I did was I committed to writing an article on a blog weekly and having references at the end of it, because I couldn't help myself exactly and and reading and writing about all of these topics and and that really took off. I actually got a lot of traction. I posted in Facebook groups. People really loved it ended up like 250,000

readership. And that really is where I thought, you know, around that time I was also supporting, you know, I'd sort of been told, oh, you should teach about this in school. So I was teaching people how to support their students. I was sort of learning and teaching and teaching and learning and and then when COVID hit, I was obviously couldn't do that anymore, and so I was looking for a way to do that online. And that's when I found that ADHD coaching and that really just tied all the pieces together for me. Okay, so you were already doing a chunk of that coaching work, or at least the consulting piece of it, right, yeah, and then you went full time with coaching is, yeah, well, not initially, so I.

I went, I did coaching, and I was continuing to do my pursue my PhD. For those of you who've done PhD before, I got to the all but dissertation part of it. So I had to do the big chunk of writing and and I got to the point where the business, which I had never anticipated, had grown so much that I really did have to make a choice. I wasn't going to be able to do both. I knew that. And so I spoke to my professors, and I it was, it was the hardest decision, honestly, I've ever made, because I was so fucked. I never thought I would do, you know, I never thought I would go in this direction, but I was so focused. And they said, Hey, you can always, you can always do another PhD, but you can't grow you know, this is, this is sort of taken off, and you have to pursue it. And so now I've been doing it for four years, and I love it. That sounds awesome. What have you found is a big piece for your people when they're feeling like they're short and they're not having that balance, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a really good question. So often, what's happening is people are in one of three spaces, or sort of all three. People tend to say, Come to me, because they're feeling super overwhelmed. They're like, it's happening again. I know this is going to end in burnout, or I'm going to quit my job, or something's going to happen. And they're in that overwhelm space. Sometimes they're stuck, you know, they know what they need to do. They're looking at that big piece of writing, or whatever it is, that certification, and they they're just stuck. They're not doing it. And sometimes they are doing it, but they're getting that feedback, you know, they can't go to the next level. They're getting told they're inconsistent, you know, oh, good days and bad days. Oh, yep, Jerry's good. But sometimes Jerry's not so good. You know, that kind of conversation is coming back and forth to them and they they want to be able to say, No, I am confident, I am consistent. I can do this, right? Yeah. So those are that's often where people are and what kind of tools are, yeah, are you working on? I'm glad you asked,

because I love tools. People often say, you know, one of the things people often say is kind of like, Oh, do you have the perfect app? Do you have this? Like, give me the, you know, the perfect system, and for me, it's more of a process. So if you're going from overwhelmed to focused, the first thing I always recommend people start with, in fact, that's why I have it for free on my website, is a prioritization filter. So you guys, if you want to, you can just go to my Instagram, it's unconventional organization, and DM me prioritize, and I'll send it to you, but that, for me is kind of the very first thing is, okay, how do we go from the space of I'm feeling super overwhelmed, everything's coming at me, and now I need to prioritize quite fast.

And so the tools for that are really supporting your working memory and your time blindness, because those are the things that are often creating that kind of cloudy, vague thing feeling when you it's super vague and you're like, I'm just going to check my email again.

Donae Cannon  8:11  
Or, you know what I have people say to me often when they talk about prioritizing, I know the stuff that's on fire, right? Like, I know, yeah, but then, like the other 70% of the list, how to do 100%

Skye  8:26  
Exactly? And also I will say, because I've done this enough times, is it on fire because you set it on fire, or is it on fire because someone else said it on fire? Is it really on fire because we do do that? Okay, that's a good point, like our perception of the emergency, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I've worked with, like, people who work in schools, for example, and everybody brings them, everything on fire all of the time. So, yeah. I mean, if you want to, I can go into some of those steps, if you'd like, for sure, yeah. I think that's a really helpful thing. Yeah, yeah. So, so basically, you know, the first thing I want people to get is that the Eisenhower matrix can be helpful if you guys know it's that important, urgent, urgent, important sort of system. But looking at it all at once with ADHD, it can be hard to hold that all in your working memory, and so that can be a particular struggle. So one of the things I recommend is you just first thing you do is you brain dump everything. You imagine that your brain is like full of boxes. They're just cluttering your room. And you want to take all of those boxes that are tasks. You want to write them down on a big document, or a journal, or whatever it is, and do it until you've, you know, looked under the covers, looked under the floorboards, like looked everywhere. You found all of them. And don't be surprised if you think of three tasks that were in your head that you didn't realize were there the whole time. That happens all the time. And then once you've gotten into that place where you can actually use your working memory to do some of these things, because you've gotten rid of all the tasks that were in there, you want to go through and you want to go, Okay, is there anything?

I can discard, straight off the bat. Sometimes there's things in there. They're not relevant anymore. That event actually happened three weeks ago, and you never did it. So just take it off the list.

I'm not going to learn how to cook Thai food. It's not it's not happening. I already went to Thailand at one time. That's just, I don't know why it's still there, exactly. And so the other thing is, what can you delegate? And this is where people often say, Well, I don't have an assistant. I completely get that. If you do want to know how to deal with an assistant, you can always message me on Instagram. I do have strategies, but you know, it's going to be okay. How do I go ahead and maybe give it to family, give it to friends, or do what I often call the catch and release, which is ADHD. We have, you know, we're so excited about the new thing, and we're in the workplace, and someone says we should do this project. And we go, yeah, we should. Oh my gosh, I'll do it. I'll do it right now. And so, and then we leave. The dopamine is gone. Why did I say that terrible idea,

exactly. And so what we do then is we're able to catch and release. So come back to the person and say, Hey, this is a great idea. Why don't you go and do some research into it, and, like, book us a meeting, and then I'll come to the meeting. You're kind of giving it back to the person a little bit. Okay. Does that make sense? Really good advice, because I think a lot of us end up we've said it, we feel like we can't take it back. No, we don't need to add that 100%

and the problem is, there's a couple of things in terms of dopamine going on there, you know, in our brain. One, meetings are super boring. Anything to spice up a meeting is exciting. Sometimes we'll just throw ourselves into the project, just so we don't lose focus in the meeting. That can happen. But also, you know, when you're in an environment, you're talking about somebody with something, you're talking about something with someone, you're sharing these ideas, what can happen is your dopamine level can be a little bit higher for that task than it would usually be, and so we think it's going to be that way for the whole task. But when we leave and we have to do it by ourselves, and we have to break it down, you know, all the executive functioning struggles kind of come back into play. We don't have that companionship, that body doubling dopamine, and so we just, we don't have the tools that we need to do that task effectively. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, the delegation part, which I know is really often hard for me, hard for other people working with like just deciding what I can offload or how offload it, right? Exactly, exactly it is really hard and and I, and that's one of the reasons why I say start with catch and release, because that gives you that takes off a lot of things without having to, you know, to go through the whole system. But like I said, I do learn. I do teach C suite execs, business owners. I teach about their you know, how to how to hire for ADHD, how to incorporate AI for ADHD. Those are all things that are available to you if you have ADHD, but this is kind of the very first step and then so at this point, you've taken a few tasks off. Probably not that many. A lot of people won't have taken more than a couple, but it's always good to just remove a task if you can. And so these are the you're left with the tasks you have to do. And so the first thing I want you to do is I want you to look at everything that's on that list, and I want you to put a T next to the tasks you have to do today, or they will be a serious negative external consequence. That's what we want. There needs to be a serious, negative external consequence.

I guess you could call it sick if you needed or needed a thing to do it with, but

Donae Cannon  13:48  
I think I will call it sick,

Skye  13:53  
but it's, it's, it's something that has to be done, or there will be a bill to pay tomorrow. It has to be done, or you will find yourself in a position where you're just not prepared for a meeting that is happening tomorrow. Those are the tasks you put it to you next to, okay, okay, like,

Speaker 1  14:13  
yeah, it's kind of like the fire, sorry. Oh, no. What's next? I'm like, okay. You're like, come

Skye  14:21  
on, I need to get through this. Come on. Come Yeah, tell me the things. Okay, so the next thing you do is you look at the rest of the things on your list, and you put a seven next to all the tasks that need to be done in the next seven days, or they will be a serious, negative external consequence. Okay, so we do the same thing. So it's like the things we have to be doing today, things we have to do in six, seven days. I've done this enough times that I can tell you if you're doing this at home, if you have more than five tasks that are teas and more than 10 tasks that are sevens, you have too many and you need to go back and figure out why you're not prioritizing correctly. I've done this with a lot of people, and this.

You're in the middle of, like, finishing your doctorate. Like, there shouldn't be more than those things, right? There's some things we like that are that are unbalanced, right? And we are they can be unbalanced seasons, but know that you're in one if that's the case. And maybe you should take anything that's like, but usually what happens at this point is people are saying, Yeah, I know this guy wants me to do this, but like,

I told them that I would do it on Friday, and they said they didn't mind when it got done, but I said it would be Friday. That doesn't count. It has to be actual external consequence, not something that you said you would do and you feel bad about it. Okay? The reason is because we're going to come to those next and I've had some people fight me on this, and then once they do it, they're like, Oh, this is so much better. And it's because you can tell yourself that there's a deadline, a serious negative external consequence on something, but your brain knows you're lying. Your brain knows you're not telling the truth yourself, right? Exactly? Your brain knows that this isn't happening. So, so don't you know if it hasn't worked for months and months and months to let that strategy go? Okay, there's you're not getting the dopamine from that. So,

so what we are left with now is we have the tasks that are not they don't have to be done in the next seven days, like all the remaining tasks don't have to be done in the next seven days. So what we want to do is we want to look at those tasks, and when we want to pick one to maximum three things that are really important to us, if they got done in the next seven days, it would be a game changer. And this is where people often start to have these real insights. They sort of everything's been cleared out. There's no more fires in their brain, and they're able to look at it and be like, you know, what? If I got that document in, if I finished my taxes this week? Finally, that would be amazing. That would be such a game changer. And so what we want to do is we want to take those one to three things that you've now identified, that aren't on fire, but are really important. You want to bring them back into your week. You want to block them out, like you'd block out a doctor's appointment into your calendar or whatever you use. And you want to give them your very, very best time. Because at this point, we don't have as much as we used to on our plates, because we've cleared out everything that's not super urgent, not super important. And so we can say, oh, you know, actually, look, I've got a bit of time on Wednesday. Let's go to a coffee shop. Grab a big coffee, get the chocolate biscuit, because if I finish my taxes today, it's going to be amazing. That's going to be so helpful for me. Okay, awesome. Okay, so that. And so you think plugging it into specific time. Yeah, okay. Because the thing is, and like I said, we have a whole series of this is, this is one tool out of six tools that I teach to get you to a focused balance day. So there's a whole bunch in there, but this is the first one. And so what this allows you to do then is it allows you to go. This isn't urgent, but it is important to me. I'm putting it somewhere I'm going to remember working memory. I'm putting it in a time where I'm going to give myself a big reward for starting. Because we need the dopamine to start. We don't need it as a reward. That's not how our brains work. We've seen that in the research, and so we're able to say, Okay, I know I'm not getting the dopamine for this, but I'm going to give myself the dopamine for this. Okay, I like that. Okay. So that is, I think, a deeper dive on how to use that matrix, because I think it's exactly right. It's hard to figure out, especially these things, they're important to you, but they're not so urgent. Like, the gym is never gonna be something that, yeah, yeah, at a certain time, yeah, it can help. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Although I will say the gym is a habit, not a task. And if you don't go to the gym, then planning how to get into the habit of going to the gym is the task. That's the distinction. I like it. So how do you decide which things to make habits?

So habits are usually something. What I recommend is you you think of a day flow. So you go in and you go, okay, usually with ADHD again, we want to, we want to accept where we're at. We have strengths and we have weaknesses, and so with ADHD, we want to go in and say, Okay, I'm not necessarily going to remember that on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I go to the gym and I do it on different times of the day, like unless I have a real locked in system where I just follow my calendar and I always update my calendar, I'm not going to really remember that, because that's not how it works with ADHD. And I'm gonna, I'm not gonna remember. I don't know what day it is today. You know, how am I gonna remember that? So what we want to do instead is we want to think of our daily flow. So every day, do we want to do some movement? Yes, okay. Do we want to do it before breakfast or after breakfast or in the.

Evening. When do we want to do it? Okay? We want to do it after breakfast. Maybe we have a little bit of time. That's the ideal, right?

And it's, we know it's great. It supports your working memory, so it's helpful for work. If you want to get into that, then we're going to take that time and say, Okay, this is my movement time on some days, this is the gym on some days. This is me doing a downward dog next to my TV. But I'm always going to move in this time period the flow of my day is going to be the same. I might just squish down the routine or the habit or stretch it out, depending on what my day looks like. Does that make sense? It makes total sense, and it I like the flexibility within that. I think we can struggle with all or nothing, like I'm a person who works out exactly what are you talking about. So having this little version kind of keeps habit going. Yeah, it keeps the habit going. It's that perfect combination of flexibility and consistency to support your working memory, right? Yeah, I like, that's a great approach. So, okay, so those are kind of some of the things that you might turn into habits and not necessarily be working on this, this grid, yeah, Eisenhower grid, or whatever you're using, yes, yeah, yeah. What are some? What's another big one that you think you've seen people benefit from, to get balanced, to get focused, either one, yeah, yeah. Well, that's a really good question. So the other, I think the other biggest one that people come to first, because people tend to come they have one struggle that's really getting them down, is the stuck. So I know, you know, they might say, Yeah, I don't need to prioritize, because I know I need to do this, but I just, I just can't, right? And so that's where we've, or I've developed the step into focus routine. And this is probably the oldest routine I've developed this over many, many years now. And basically what you're doing is going from that high dopamine space, you're on the couch, you're on your phone, you don't want to do it, you don't want to do it, you know, that kind of thing, to that lower dopamine state where you're focused and you're actually doing it without the resistance, without that, that negative feeling. And essentially, you know, when I'm sort of pointing, sort of, you're in this high dopamine space, then you're going down into this lower dopamine space, and there's this big gap there between those two points. And so when we're thinking about that big gap, you know, it feels really bad. Well, how does it feel to you? I always like to ask people when I'm stuck, yeah, how does that miserable, right? Like, not like you're it's not restful, like you might be juicing. It's high dopamine. Speaking, right? I'm like, You're enjoying it. You're doing that, yeah? Background of, like, I mean, it should stop doing this Exactly, exactly, and, you know, I mean, I've described it before as like an internal itchy feeling. Somebody wants described it to me as something is eating my soul, which I love such a good right? But we all have that feeling with ADHD, and really, what that feeling is is we know we're about to lose some dopamine, and our brain is like, no, don't do it like I am designed to stop you from doing this.

Good. That is the bad. Yeah, that is the bad thing. Do not go there. And so we're trying to fight that. And so what I recommend, is, what I do is I add steps into the process. So instead of thinking about being in that space and going straight down there, we're adding some steps to get down, and each step is affecting a specific struggle with executive functioning. And then the last ones about emotions, because we have emotional dysregulation as well.

Yeah, so that's like, what I would do. So the very first step just give because there's like five steps, and we might not have time to go through them today, but I'm really interested now, take me the steps. Yeah, well, you can just, yeah, DM me focused on Instagram, and I'll give you that one as well. But yeah, giving away all my secrets today.

I don't mind. I don't mind. And so the first one is about dopamine. We don't want to do this thing, so one of the things we want to do is we want to reward ourselves for starting. And I referenced this a little bit in the prioritization, but you know, there's still a lot of neuroscience around what's going on with the dopamine, but there does appear to be this space where at the beginning of a task, neurotypicals are people with who don't have ADHD, are starting a task, and they are getting a spike of dopamine connected to the fact that they're going to give themselves a reward afterwards. And their brain knows that, so their brain is kind of going, brilliant, good job. You're doing the thing, and they get this little spike. Our brain just looks at us and goes, What the heck are you doing? So true, and there's.

Research, right? That the Yeah, yeah, they've looked into it. Consequences, rewards do not work exactly, exactly so, and this is for a lot of people, even though I feel like I'm so in the research, we know this stuff, but for a lot of people, they don't know this, and so they still try and give themselves a reward at the end. And so with ADHD, we need a reward for starting. And so this is where those five senses come in. We want to say, Okay, I want to go to my desk, because usually that's where the work needs to be done, but it could be somewhere else. I need to go to that place, and I need to give myself a reward for starting. So for me, it might be I sit down at my desk with a coffee decaf these days, but it still works, you know, and maybe some pistachios, maybe some chocolate. And I'm going to sit down, the first thing I'm actually going to do is I'm going to watch a YouTube video, and I'm going to read an article, you know, something like that, something that it has to be, something you can stop. So I can stop YouTube videos. I know other people can't. I don't have Tiktok because I can't stop Tiktok. So, you know, figuring out what it what it would be for you, but something that you can kind of do for, you know, 510 minutes or so, and when the coffee's done, you know, okay, now we're going into the next step. Now, crucially, the next step is not starting the task, because that is too far. That's too much already, too many jumps. Yeah, exactly. You're just like, Oh, no. So what we want to do at that point is we want to just turn down the dial on our dopamine so I've done a lot of research. People started talking recently about the idea of a dopamine detox, and it's sort of an ADHD, friendlier version of that, where we're saying we're not detoxing, because that's just not a thing for us. It's more like we're taking the Okay, I'm watching a YouTube video. I'm gonna turn that dopamine dial down a bit. Maybe I'm gonna listen to a podcast. Maybe I'll turn on a podcast, I'll switch off the video, so now I can kind of listen, and I can do a little bit of the next step while I listen. So we're turning the dial down. We're switching to a podcast or music or whatever it is for you, and we're taking at that moment, we're going, you know what? I could probably turn off those notifications. I could probably push my phone away. I could probably do whatever. And I say, push away. Do not get up and put your phone somewhere in another room, because you all get lost. We all stay in the stay in the scene.

And so, you know, we want to, we want to be able to, like, turn off the distractions. At this point, you know what the distractions are? Yes, email is a distraction. Yes, those super important team notifications is a distraction. Turn those off. And at that point, you're kind of, you're just listening to music and listening to a podcast, you're turning off those distractions. And then the next step is a real crucial one. People who don't find this works for them, I often say, oh, did you do step three? And they go, Oh, I didn't do step three, because step three is supporting your working memory. And so that step is going, okay, am I going to you know, if we want to support our working memory, one of the reasons that we struggle to do something, there's three. Actually, it's too boring, too emotionally salient, too confusing. And so the best thing to do, if it's too confusing, is grab a post it note, and I have some right here, and write onto that post it note exactly what you're planning to do during this work period, like you're writing a recipe. And you might think, Oh, but I already have the task. I have to write the report or finish the document, like I know, but really write it down, like open the document, review this section, rewrite this section, find this bit. As if, if somebody, if you left, and somebody else came back and they read your list, they'd be able to kind of follow it. They'd be able to try and have a go, right? Okay, so I love this, and I love that. That's the step. Can you explain why it works for our brain? Yeah, I love that big thing to know, yeah, so it's because we struggle with working memory, aka, the person who is going to forget and come back is a you, you might be doing this for but really what's going to happen is you're going to be working and you're going to be in it, and then somebody might come to the door and that might distract you, or you'll look out the window, and that will distract you. Something will happen during this period, it will distract you, and you'll lose the thread of what you're doing. So you need to be able to come back and say, Okay, I did point A, I did point B, I'm up to point C. Okay, let's keep going. Because otherwise, with working memory, it's really hard for us to hold all of the pieces together. And also, if you do manage to get into sort of a hyper focus flow position where you are holding all the pieces together, you won't want to stop working, because you'll have finally gotten your brain on board. And so now this is going to go for five hours. If you've got the little piece of paper, you don't need to do that either, right? That's a good point. You can stop.

Speaker 2  30:00  
Know where to stop. And I do think the working memory piece is big part of the overwhelm, because it is hard to break all that down and hold on your Yeah. So this, that card's a great idea, yeah, yeah. And I say a post it note, because I'm like, if it's bigger than a post it should you really be doing it in this period of work time, really spending an hour writing out my list of how, yeah, exactly, not the whole list, just what can fit on a post it and and to be fair, I have gone to the side of the post it or the back of the post it before,