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Hi, friend! I'll keep this short and sweet, because ADHD!
Whether you're newly diagnosed or have known for a century, Outsmart ADHD is the podcast for you. Join me and my guests as we explore the latest research, share personal stories, and provide actionable advice to help you live your best life with ADHD.
Welcome to the Outsmart, A DHD podcast. I'm your host, Jamie Catino, board certified occupational therapist. Two-time Ted Speaker, A DHD coach, A DHD, advocate and Reality Show, contestant. Now let's talk about A DH. D.
Hello, beautiful humans. Today's episode is brought to you by Spilt Coffee because apparently I set my mug down really hard on my desk and there was just a pile of coffee over here on the side, and I didn't notice it until 30 seconds later, and it was all over my desk and some on my pants, and it's fine.
My pants are slightly damp right now, and that's irritating me a little bit, but they're already drying. Everything is fine and nobody freak out. You're like, why would I freak out? Jamie, it's not my coffee. I hope that your day is starting out. Amazing. I appreciate you being here. And before we get into today's episode, which is my five favorite A DHD hacks and tools, I wanna remind you that the.
Link in the show notes, there is a link where you can get a free on demand webinar called Before You Rage Quit your Job. Try this. It is for burnt out A DHD. Humans ready to walk out of their job with their middle fingers in the air. Before you do that. Watch the free on-demand webinar. It's about 20 minutes.
If you watch it two time, the speed, it's about 10. And also there is a link to schedule a free consult with me regarding one-on-one A DHD coaching. If you've ever been curious of what it would be like to work with me, go to the show notes, schedule a time where we can chat for 30 minutes and I will honestly let you know if I can help you with your exact goals.
And if not, I'll refer you to someone else who can help you if I know who's best for you. Also, a new fun thing, listen up. There's going to be a link in the show notes where you can submit a question for me to talk about on the next podcast episode or a future podcast episode. So if you've got questions about just general A DHD stuff, a DHD in relationships, how you can manage a career with A DHD or am I the asshole, A DHD addition.
Now is your time to go in the show notes and click the link where you can upload a small voice memo saying what your question is, and you might be featured on a future podcast. Okay, now let's talk about today's podcast, which is five. Five of my favorite, A DHD hacks and tools. If you've been a long time listener, it's pretty.
It is a pretty sure bet that you've probably heard these sprinkled into my episodes before, but guess what? We have a DHD, and even with my one-on-one clients that I've had for a hot minute, sometimes they need a reminder of these exact things. So I am so excited to get you a condensed version of my favorite Tricks and tips for a h ADHDers, especially busy a HD.
Hack number one, it's simple before you roll your LI or before you roll your eyes, because the word list is in this hack. It is to have a master list of all the things you need to do, but to only work off of a daily to do list. Now, this is really helpful because as a ADHDers, our brain likes to hold onto everything, right?
Because. Our brain knows, Hey, you've got a crap working memory, which means it's gonna be hard to remember what you need to do. What you wake up thinking about at 6:00 AM is definitely not what you're remembering at 2:00 PM so therefore, the same things circle around and around and around in your brain, and it goes from things like the taxes that you haven't done yet, maybe your admin tasks, maybe that appointment that you need to set.
To having to order the dog's heartworm on Chewy, or 17,000 other things. So what happens? It rolls around in your brain. You keep thinking about it. Since you're thinking about it, you think, I'm not gonna forget this. What happens when you go to do one of the things? Is it completely poofs from your brain?
Now, if you had just a master list of all the things that you needed to do, it would be helpful because. Instead of those things circling around in your brain, you would have it written down on a simple notebook. You don't need a bullet journal. You don't need anything fancy. I get like a $2 small notebook from Amazon, only because Amazon will get me a notebook in two days and I don't have to leave my house, but.
That in itself is gonna help you from having to keep reminding yourself of what you need to do, which will ease some anxiety in and of itself. Now, the problem with just having a master list is when you sit down to do those things, what's gonna happen is you're gonna feel overwhelmed, and then you're gonna go from feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna do all these things.
Because of course you've thought about all the things you need to do, and it's on your master list. You're gonna go from that to feeling fuck. Maybe instead of doing these things as on my list, I'm gonna go do the dishes instead. Or you'll find something else that feels more doable than anything on your list of things that you actually really need to get done and need to prioritize.
So that is where the daily to-do list comes in. And this is where I suggest that you don't put more than two things on that list as you're listening to this. You're probably thinking, but I've got a fuck ton more things that I need to do today than two things. I know that's why your list has gotten very long because life is busy.
You are a busy individual. You likely have a career, you might have a family, whether that be human kids or a partner or fur babies. You're a busy person. That's why you listen to this podcast and you get a lot out of it. But putting just two things on your to-do list is one gonna take out a lot of the executive dysfunction of where do I even start?
And two, once you get those two things done, there is a really good chance that you are going to feel good about it and building momentum, and you might get some more things on the list. The thing with this though, is to count it as a win when you get just the two of those things done. If you're not feeling like you have the energy to do anymore, to allow yourself to stop, what this will do is you're going to build a relationship with yourself and that you can trust that you're able to get things done and you can trust that you're able to take a break.
Have you ever had it to where you felt like you had to keep pushing yourself? Because when you're in burnout, you feel like you can't do anything. So when you finally get to where you're doing something, you feel like you need to do everything. This is what we are trying to avoid right here. Just by doing a couple things and stopping, you are able to trust yourself.
Hey, I can get things done. I don't need to be mean to myself. And that master list will be there for you the next day to get another couple things off of the list. And when you think of more things that need to get done, you can add to that master list. But again, only work off of the daily list. And if you need to read, write that master list 17 times, that's also okay.
All right. Tip number two is to schedule your hard tasks when you naturally have the most focused energy, when you feel naturally the most focused and energized. If you have, or if you take a DHD medication, this might be about an hour after you take that A DHD medication. It seems to be about the window where the medicine is peaking.
Okay.
If you don't take a DHD medication, or even if you do. Take inventory of when you feel like you have the most energy. Are you a morning person? I know a lot of us don't wake up feeling like we are super energized and ready for the day. Some of us have energy closer to the evening time. I've met people, a DH ADHDers, that they get their.
Burst of energy in the evening. I've met some who are more of a late morning, early afternoon person, which is what I am, and it's all over the place, but it's very personal. It's very different depending on each person.
Society tells you that you need to be productive from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM but when you have a DHD, that's just not realistic. We are really good at getting things done when we get into hyper focus mode where we can tune everything out, but it's a lot harder to get things done when you naturally just don't have the energy or the focus.
So take inventory of when you have the most focused energy. And schedule your hard tasks to do During that time. For myself, I am scheduling client calls and doing admin work and recording this podcast sometime between about 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM because that is when my brain is the most on and the most alert.
Later on in the day, that might be when I'm doing the dishes and listening to a podcast, because I know that I don't need focus energy to do a repetitive task like a cleaning task. So tip number two is to schedule your hard tasks when you naturally have the most focused energy. Tip number three, noise, cancelling, earbuds, or headphones.
I love noise canceling headphones for the reason that you can be in just about any situation and immediately make your environment more conducive to being able to focus. When you have a DHD, not only are there sensory needs that need to be met, but there are sensory needs that need to be met on account of the environment allowing you to be able to focus.
Do you remember being in grade school and taking a test and maybe everything was quiet and that in itself felt under stimulating and it was hard to focus, but also were you the kid that could not focus if there was somebody who was walking by your classroom? I know I was. When you have noise canceling headphones at earbuds, it immediately will mute or buffer that sound to the point where you are able to better focus.
It's amazing if you're working in an office or just around noisy people. I know when I worked in the traditional occupational therapy setting and I was in a nursing home, it could get loud in there sometimes, so I would have noise canceling headphones with me while I was doing my paperwork.
And there's lots of different options of price ranges. You don't need to get an expensive pair like I did. Although I will say that when I invested in my noise canceling headphones, I definitely didn't have any money. And I was in my graduate school and it was the best investment that I ever made.
But there's lots of different kinds and there's lots of different price ranges. If you ever wanna check it out, if you don't like noise canceling earbuds, try the headphones. I know that earbuds are more discreet. If you can try headphones, if earbuds don't feel comfortable for you. For me, they just don't.
Probably part partly because of my piercings as well. Okay. Tip number four, before your eyes glaze over, because I am talking about alarms, just like the to-do list that I broke down in an A DHD friendly way, I'm gonna be breaking that down with the alarms as well. When you're setting alarms for something.
Start. Start by setting multiple alarms. Now, an example of this, let's say that you need to be out the door by 2:00 PM because you have an appointment at two 30, and let's consider that you're already dressed, you've brushed your teeth, you're ready to go, other than it's not time yet, set an alarm for one o'clock.
One 30 and one 50 an hour, 30 minutes and 10 minutes out from when you need to be out the door. The reason for this is because with a DHD and executive dysfunction, it makes it harder to switch tasks. It's gonna be harder for you to go from being maybe focused to. Getting out the door. Another thing that this does is it allows you to not be in that waiting mode of when you have a midday appointment or something you need to do midday.
We've all been there where we felt like we couldn't do anything because we didn't wanna miss that appointment or that meeting. Because of the shame that you felt in either your childhood or in even in adulthood where you missed it, you didn't mean to. You felt like shit about it. So therefore, you overcompensate by doing nothing the entire day except watching the clock, and then sometimes it's still hard to get there on time.
I know we've all been there too. The multiple alarms allows your brain, the time that it needs to switch from focus tasks to getting out the door. And this is something I wanna highlight 17 times when that alarm goes off, that you have 10 minutes until you need to be out the door or in your office. And transition to either going out the door or at your desk or wherever you need to be for that time.
Okay. This is not the time to do one more thing. I know that you think that you've got a little bit more time to do it, but just stop. Because there is nothing that you can do in 10 minutes that is worth not being on time for and how it's gonna feel after when you are inevitably late because time blindness told you had time when you really didn't.
Okay? So set an alarm for an hour, 30 minutes, and 10 minutes out from the thing that you need to transition to, whether that be at a meeting, an appointment, or just a task that you have set for yourself on the calendar now. Hack number five is an app blocker. Yes, an app blocker. Do not expect yourself to not doom scroll social media or to not go on YouTube or wherever your brain goes to when you are wanting to dissociate from the world or when you need time to decompress.
What I have found for myself in having an app blocker is that it actually feels like freedom. I have it set to where I am not able to go on social media until 11:00 AM even though that is where I do all of my marketing outside of the podcast and email. Because if I start my day with scrolling social media, even if it's TikTok where everything's pretty positive and I've generated, or I've curated a feed that is pretty lighthearted and funny that.
Stimulation that I'm getting early in the day sets a tone for the rest of my day where I'm constantly looking for that much stimulation, even if it's all pretty happy content. After three hours of scrolling, I'm feeling very agitated and I realize it's because my brain is looking for that dopamine in other places in the, in my daily life, and there's just nothing that can give you stimulation like scrolling, TikTok or.
Insta Instagram reels or whatnot. So an app blocker is something that is incredibly helpful for being able to stick to a very simple morning routine. Just making sure that you are not doing social media early in the day, or being able to get your focus tasks done during that focus time. It feels like a relief.
I can promise you it does not feel like a constraint. Leaving it up to willpower. When you have a brain that is quite literally wired to be dopamine deficient and seeking out these things is horrible and it's gonna cause a lot of shame that you don't need to be feeling because you're born with a brain that you had no control over of.
So get yourself an app blocker. I highly recommend, and I am not sponsored, and I'm not affiliated, I do not know these people from Adam, but I have an app blocker that is simply called App block, A-P-P-B-L-O-C-K. It's all one word. I really liked it because you are able to do a free trial, at least when I did it.
So at the time of this recording I, you're able to do a free trial. And it doesn't automatically upgrade you to the paid tier. I actually liked it so much that I went back and I am now in the paid tier. I can't remember how much it is, but it's worth every penny because of all the time that I've gotten back.
You can set it to where it only allows you to open an app or website so many times a day or during certain times, or for a total time period. It's very customizable for your needs for. Being able to focus when you need to focus and just staying off of it when you know it's not gonna be best for your brain.
So that is my fifth tip, is to get an app blocker, and I highly recommend doing the paid tier if you can at all, because the time you will get back and the sanity you get back will be huge. All right, that's today's episode. As a reminder, in the link in the show notes, there is a free webinar for the.
Or free on-demand webinar called Before You Raise, quit Your Job. Try this for burnt out A DHD humans in nine to five jobs or an established. Okay businesses as well as a link to schedule a free consultation with me regarding 80 one-on-one A DHD coaching and also there is a link so that you can submit a question to be featured on an upcoming podcast.
And lastly, if you can do me a giant favor and leave a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. I would really appreciate it. It's a kind thing to do for me, but it's also a kind thing to do for other people because your rate and review will push out that episode to other people or push the podcast out to other people who may not otherwise be able to access this free information.
Alright, my friends, until next time. Bye now.
Are you a high achieving woman with a DHD looking for a coach or maybe an event coordinator looking for a wildly captivating speaker? Perfect. Go to outsmart adhd.co. That's out. Smart adh adhd.co to get in touch. And before I forget, would you mind taking a minute to share this podcast with someone you love?
It would mean the world to me. Thanks, my friend. Until next time.