10 Rules That Traumatise ADHD & Autistic Brains (& 20 That Don't!)

For a lot of ADHDers, there's this dysregulation or challenges with regards to when the energy or the momentum's going to come. I consider it more like riding the wave. You're out surfing, you can't make a wave happen. But you can jump on it if you get a wave. If people could actually have a visualization of how high someone else's hurdles are, when they're trying to do the exact same thing, I think there would be a lot more empathy in the world. Kristen Pressnott is an ADHD expert. Her viral TED Talk showed how people with ADHD can create thriving environments, drawing on decades of experience. She's distilled her knowledge into a simple and practical guide. ADHDers can often have delayed sleep phase syndrome, so they're actually a number of hours later delayed in their optimal working than other people. The earlier you have to get up, the more unfunctional they are. To the extent possible, if you can architect your day not to have to get up quite so early, that might not work for someone who has ADHD. What could you say has an alternative to just be more disciplined to someone with ADHD? I guess my invitation would be to just. Huge announcement just before we start. Tickets to the ADHD chatter podcast live theatre show are selling fast. I'll be joined on stage by three leading psychiatrists and we'll be unpacking all things ADHD, how to process a late diagnosis, or DHD, and of course the dreaded rejection sensitivity dysphoria. I really hope you can join me for a night full of validation, laughs and insights, and one that will remind you that you're not broken just different and that you have always been enough. It's on the 19th of May in London. You can find a link to the tickets in the description. I can't wait to meet you in person. Kristen, welcome back. Thank you. It's great to be here. We're going to do something a little bit different today. I don't think we've ever done before, but when I heard you were in town, I thought I've got to get you on to cover this topic. I feel like it would be like a disservice to the community if we didn't go there. Sign me up. We're going to talk about 10 bits of advice, productivity hacks, that probably all of our audience would have heard before from various sources, but none of them really work for the ADHD community, even though it sounds like they should work, they don't. We're going to go through 10 pieces of advice, we're going to look out why they don't work, and for each one we're going to explain what's a replacement piece of advice that would work. Ooh, I like it. So, to start with, if we zoom out a little bit, the person to cover this topic, I wanted it to be you. So perhaps you could explain why you are in such a unique position. Thank you. Yeah, I'm probably not your typical guest, someone who studied or ADHD or is a clinician or something like that, but I think the unique value proposition that I bring is, I, first of all, I now much better understand the ADHD brain because I learned through my family members who were late diagnosed, my husband and kids. I learned a lot about ADHD in order to understand what was troubling us until we got through the diagnoses, and then all of a sudden, once we had the diagnoses, it became clear what wasn't going to work, but it wasn't clear to me what would. And as a neurotypical myself, I like it was counterintuitive to me, because I know the typical advice. I know the standard advice that everyone gets, in fact, it was the same advice that I'd been giving my husband and kids all my life, and they would go, "That makes total sense. I'm going to do that," and then they wouldn't, or it wouldn't stick, and I couldn't understand why. And honestly, it was really frustrating, because I felt, I don't know, kind of like, "gaslit that you give this great advice, and then people don't take it." And what I didn't realize was they felt terrible because it intuitively made sense to them, and it didn't work for them. And so I really made it my mission in kind of trying to be the bridge between the neurotypical world, or people who, like me, formerly don't really understand neurodivergence and ADHD, and helping people understand what it is and isn't, and then what do you need to do differently to make sure that you're not creating unnecessary harm for people whose brains simply work differently? But optimally, what can we be doing to bring out the beauty and the gifts and the benefits of different kinds of brains? Because actually there's a ton there, but we need to adapt the conventional wisdom to help that come out. And so I'm super excited to be on the show, because I gave all the advice that I imagine that you're going to say, and where I stumbled was, "Well, what might work instead if these things don't work?" And I think this really could be a gift to your viewers. Fantastic. It's almost like an echo of what so many of the viewers and listeners have probably experienced, like they've tried to do the advice that they've been told. The kind of quote-unquote "normal advice" and it hasn't worked, it's fallen short. And when you don't do what you've been told, you can do if you follow a particular strategy or hack or productivity hack. And it still doesn't work for you. You're only going to perpetuate that in a critic and that feeling like, "Why can't I just?" So I feel like today we're going to unlearn normal. Exactly. And I think the productivity hacks, because they kind of work for everybody else, and if they don't work for you, it just feels like, "Wait a minute, this feels like something that's easy, that's super naturally hard for me, and that can't feel good." And so I think being able to make some suggestions of what actually might work for people, especially because at least for me, and at least per conventional wisdom, it's a bit counterintuitive, we can help people not feel bad if the conventional wisdom doesn't work for them, but give them a hint where to look for something that might unlock some productivity. Should we start? Let's do it. Number 10. Just use a planner. I feel like every single person with ADHD has about 50 planners, somewhere in their home. Yeah, I was going to ask you how many planners you had. Yeah, yeah. Just get a planner sounds like such good advice, doesn't it? Yeah, that looks so shiny in the shop. Yeah, it's so pretty. And so the promise of a planner, in my experience, why doesn't that work for an ADHD or it doesn't work because it requires the exact skills that are challenging for an ADHD or which is the daily habit to use it and use it in the perfect way so that everything is captured in there and everything is cleaning clear. And so I can see why it doesn't work. What do you think might work? Just to grow back a little bit, I totally agree. It's almost like it requires some kind of cycle of maintenance in order to maintain a planner. Now you have to remember to pick it up, you have to remember to open it, you have to remember to add things to it. It's almost like it's built on a broken system which is almost setting yourself up to fail if you struggle with keeping patterns and keeping routines. I think it fails because it. I feel like everyone who buys a notebook, you have like this honeymoon period, you buy it, you get super excited, you fill out the first few pages, and then the dopamine drops. Or the effort to maintain it disappears and suddenly it gets abandoned. But I feel like for me, like keeping things visual, keeping things really, really visual, keeping things within my line of sight all the time, really hopes. Like I used to have so much shame and embarrassment over the visual aids that I have in my home that enable me to maintain the level of productivity that I need in order to run this podcast. I used to be so embarrassed if someone came over and saw all of the whiteboards that are on the walls in all of the rooms in my flat with like pens hanging off all of them. So I don't know what I'm going to have a good idea. I could be in the bathroom, I could be in my office, I could be in the kitchen, and an idea comes and I'd grab one of the pens and I add it to the whiteboard. And it's visual, they're all in places that I walk past every day. So it's almost like impossible to forget as well. I love that though. And like who cares, it's not embarrassing, who cares if it works for you, right? And I think that's the thing that we need 88 years to realize. Like you don't have to get a planner. If whiteboards everywhere works for you, smashing, I was talking to a friend who said, I love the idea of a planner, but you know kind of the problem with the planner too is the first day you don't fill it out, you know, when you fall off the wagon, you can just forget about it from there. Then it's useless. And the whole thing was futile. And so I think the pressure is too high also. And so lower pressure modes of helping you keep on task. I remember you talked about bracelets that had the different things to do. Brush your teeth, you know, don't forget to get your keys, grab your bag. And I mean, I love it because it's just a really easy, visual way to help people remember to do things, you know, so you can put on there, you know, don't forget to write your paper, submit your paper or whatever and whatever works who cares. Right. Absolutely. I feel like a lot of the sort of neurotypical advice, like buy a planner, just buy another notebook. Yes, it works for maybe a day or two. Then we forget about it. It goes on the pile of used notebooks and surely that's just going to perpetuate the shame spiral. Exactly. Yes, the pile of shame. Yes. The abandoned pile of, you know, good intentions. Yeah, but if you find something that works, then stick with that. The bracelets, you said, I've said it before, is massive. Like those like rubber bracelets and I write down tasks that need to be done. I try and do no more than three in a day. Otherwise, it just gets a bit overwhelming. It was like, go through them and I complete that task. The bracelet comes off. I put it in a bowl. And if I finish all three, fill up the bowl, then I like reward myself. I, I gamify it essentially. Yeah, I love that. Being able to match up a reward for getting things done. Also, there's good dopamine there. bracelets in planners out. Right. Number nine, break it into smaller tasks, which kind of makes sense because big tasks for people with ADHD can be very overwhelming. But why do you think the sort of general advice of, well, just break it into smaller tasks, perhaps doesn't work. always work. Yeah. Oh, so many times I've given that advice just it's always the sentence that begins with just dot, dot, dot, break it into smaller tasks. So at least some of my family members have explained to me there's a couple of problems with just break it into smaller tasks. One breaking it down into smaller tasks in and of itself takes a lot of executive functions being able to discern what needs to precede what you just break it into many, many, many smaller things and then it's a pile of things that you need to sort that can be overwhelming. And so what I've heard from a number of people is it isn't a just break it into smaller chunks. Sometimes other approaches are better for not creating the overwhelm or using up the potentially limited supply of executive functions or dopamine. Yeah, no, it's so useful. I think sometimes admitting to yourself that even if you break it up into like a super, super small task and I go to the example of imagine sending an email is an ice burg and then it's breaking down into ice cubes. But some days accepting and admitting to yourself that those ice cubes need to go even smaller into like, okay, just turning on my laptop is task one, opening up the web browser, task two, typing in my email domain is number three and really like building that momentum. But I feel like even that isn't sometimes helpful because it feels like with tasks sometimes it's not anything to do with the size of the tasks. It's the initiation of the task regardless of how big or tiny it is. Yeah, I think you hit on something really smart there because I found it to be a really good hack for people not to be like, you need to clean your room, but to be like spend five minutes cleaning your room. Or I know someone who when they have to study, even if they're studying at home, they put on their shoes to cue their brain. And so I think these kinds of things like you talked about task initiation, can we in my experience as a neurotypical, I get motivation and then I start taking action. And for a lot of ADHDers, there's this potential dysregulation or challenges with regards to when the energy or the momentum is going to come. And so I consider it more like riding the wave. You know, if you're out surfing, you can't make a wave happen, but you can jump on it if you get a wave. And so in my experience, a lot of ADHDers need to just start and then the motivation comes. And so I think that has the potential to be really interesting. Because to your point, I'm not going to write the whole email. What I am going to do is address it and write the subject line and write myself one or two sentences that I don't want to forget. And the next thing you know, you've probably gotten pretty close to writing your email. Yeah, so useful. If someone is trying to start the the tiniest of tasks, they've broken it down into crushed ice and they're like, okay, I know I just need to open my laptop lid. But they're still stuck in some kind of neurologically paralysis and they can't do the tiniest of tasks. How do you get over that task initiation? Even if the task is super, super small. Yeah. So here I would say, I think it's important for ADHDers to understand that writing of the wave. And there's just going to be some days we are not going to feel it. And if you can get away with just calling it and saying, this is a day I'm not feeling it. Tomorrow's another day because I think I always use the analogy, you know, you could use all your energy to push a big rock uphill. Or tomorrow, you can flick it and it rolls down the hill. And so I don't think there's a lot of value in pushing against that type of barrier. I think that there would be a lot more benefit in just saying, today's not the day. We'll take another run at it tomorrow. But I do say, like the moment you feel like the energy's there that you could open the laptop or you could start the email, do not delay. Get on it and do it. Jump on that energy. Don't wait for more to go. Just take what you got. Incredibly fine. If we get a little bit of dopamine, we got to act on it basically. Exactly. Use it wisely. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think like if you are struggling and you are stuck in paralysis to even do the tiniest of tasks to get the momentum going? Like to get over that really early phase to start the momentum building. Can we lean on body doubling to take that very first step? I've heard really good things about body doubling because it almost kind of creates this, I don't know, peer pressure, mild, non, shame, generating peer pressure, where there's just someone else there and you're doing your things together. And so I've heard good things about that as a potential solution. I feel like people sometimes misunderstand body doubling and I feel like you have to be physically in the proximity of someone else. Monday mornings, most mornings, I have to go through my emails and some days I have my partner on my screen with me, kind of like a Zoom call. So we don't always talk, but just knowing that there is some kind of presence with you and it enables us both to kind of get through those admin tasks that if we were left to our own accountability, would just not happen. It's so crazy because I think this is exactly what we're trying to hit on. It doesn't compute to me that that would help, right? Having someone there that you're not talking to even virtually, but it does help. And so I think this is the kinds of things we're trying to unearth. Don't feel bad if the conventional wisdom doesn't work for you, but here's a myriad of things you can try and if you can click on something that works for you, do it and you cares. And so I haven't personally tried body doubling, but the way you describe it, it sounds like it's pretty easy and adds a lot of value. Yeah. Nobody really knows how it works, but it does. No, no, no, it works. It works. Who cares? Number eight, Kristen, and I feel like everyone with ADHD would have been on the recipient of this horrible comment before just be more disciplined. Where does that come from, do you think? Why is that so painful for people with ADHD? I think I've said that to my family members. I'm sure I've said that you know, just do the thing. Just have a place for your keys. Just have more discipline. I think at its root cause is that generally as a society, the things that we can observe that are the challenges associated with ADHD are broad brush to be seen as character flaws and not being disciplined is considered a character flaw. Not getting it together is considered a character flaw. And what was the big observation for me and why I did the TEDx talk that brought us together was all of a sudden I realized there is a wholly different explanation for the things that I was seeing than character flaws. And I literally didn't know that there could be something biological that could be happening that could make it super naturally harder for someone else than for me to do things that I think are pretty easy. And just be disciplined would be one of them because for me it's like if I set my mind to it, then I can do the thing in a disciplined way. And what I learned in going through the process of understanding ADHD better is and I like to use the analogy of just hurdles that you jump over. My hurdles are way lower than the hurdles of my family members who have ADHD for certain tasks, the mundane, adulting tasks, etc. And so it's not a matter of just being more disciplined. And I think if ADHD wasn't something that was invisible, if people could actually have a visualization of how high someone else's hurdles are, how much wind they have in their face, when they're trying to do the exact same thing, I think there would be a lot more empathy in the world. And so just be more disciplined assumes for all of us things are equally hard and they're not. I feel like most kids with ADHD would have been told like just be more disciplined and it's almost like a trauma. You know, we know kids with ADHD are exposed to all of those horrible nasty extra criticisms. And I think you mentioned a visualization behind you on the shelf. There's that heart with barbed wire around it. And I feel like that's the heart of someone with ADHD. Sometimes the barbed wire isn't tightened, but when someone says when they're an adult like, oh, you should just be more disciplined, the barbed wire tightens. And it's this instant emotional pain that fills them with shame. And I feel like any shame just instantly shuts down activation. So telling somebody with ADHD like to just be more disciplined is going to shut them down and have the counter effect. Yeah. I yeah, the conventional wisdom is that ADHD is most likely have heard 20,000 more negative messages by the time they hit age 1012, then their counterpart peers. And I mean, if you think about that, that's multiple messages per day of just be more disciplined. Why isn't your room cleaned? You said you were going to et cetera. And now that we just talked about that it's way harder for some people than others, it feels kind of cruel to talk like that, right? And my general rule of thumb, ever since I have a better understanding of ADHD, and a desire not to contribute to all of the hurt that it can cause, this misunderstanding, that others have about why people behave in a certain way, but also how it feels as an individual to behave in a certain way or not be able to behave in a certain way. I generally try to steer clear of start sentences that start with just because it implies that's easy. And I think now that we understand that everything isn't equally easy for everyone, then you can have an idea of, well, no sentence should start with just. Yeah. Yeah, just be normal, just try harder, just stop being so lazy. We've all heard it together. Yeah. So in terms of the replacement, what could you say as an alternative to just be more disciplined to someone with ADHD? Yeah. I think we talked before and I think here's some, some potential hacks, because I think just be more. discipline just like the planner is going to create, it's going to set up an ADHD or TIFAL because the moment you fall off the wagon of discipline, you know, let's say, I'm going to be disciplined and I'm going to go for a run every day. And the first day you don't go for a run, the whole thing's been abandoned, right? And so I don't recommend just being more disciplined. I recommend do the thing you can do today. So you know, if today I can just put on my shoes and go for a walk, I'll put on my shoes and go for a walk. And if I can turn that into a run great and I'm just going to lay out my running shoes or whatever. And so I think the just would be just do what you can. And oftentimes for what we talked about earlier, if you started, the dopamine comes and you can finish it. Brilliant advice. Moving on to number seven, Kristen. And I feel like vision boards everywhere are going to be very unhappy with this one. Focus on your long term goals. Yes. I mean, is it hard for someone with ADHD? It surely is to focus on something that is in the future when we're talking about a community who potentially have time blindness. Yeah, exactly. One of the things that was really helpful for me to understand from my family, the way I perceive time is things from the past that are helpful to inform what I might want to do in the present or future, what's happening right now and the future that I would like to prepare for as well as possible and architect for the most positive outcomes. And what I realized with my family is I have this view of time and my family members have this view of time. Their time perception is much more in the now and this is hazy. So the learnings from the past that you can apply to now are the future. It's not as strong as I have it. The being able to transport yourself into the future and backcast from there what I would want to be doing now, it's hazier. And so that isn't inherently problematic because there's pros to being right here in the now. But to give the advice of think long term, it's hazier out there. So it's really hard to do that. And there's also not a ton of dopamine in future dopamine. It's got to be a much tighter connection to action and dopamine. And so that's low dopamine stuff. So what often drives motivation is having sight of the reward. Like okay, if I do the work, I'm going to get the shiny thing. But if the shiny thing is in the future and you have time blind, you can't see it and therefore it's impossible to get motivated because it's almost like an illusion. It's not real. I was thinking I like to believe that I'm someone who gets on the treadmill frequently. And if I set a long term goal for myself, I'm going to be super fit. That is really hard, I think, for an ADHD or to get motivation against. Like some people will say, like, hang up a picture of how you want to look or whatever. It's too far away. But what I do is I attach something that I want to do. So something positive with something that's hard. And so I'm only allowed to watch ADHD chatter. Because I like to do that. I'm only allowed to do that on the treadmill. So it kind of makes me look forward to getting on the treadmill and makes it less painful. And so I think this idea of kind of marrying up things that something that's hard or painful or requires more dopamine with something that gives dopamine is a really good tack for people than this longer term. Thinking. Yes. About sort of creating many rewards on a much more smaller timescale. Yeah. Bring them as close to your now as possible. So they're tangible, they're visible and therefore they have that knock on effect of creating motivation right now. Exactly. Fascinating. Right. Christian number six. Oh God, I think we've all been told this. This is giving me shudders. Wake up earlier. Oh. The 5am club have entered the chat. Horrible. Wake up earlier. Why does that not work for people with ADHD? Yeah, I mean, so everyone's a bit different. Are they a morning person? Are they an evening person? But a lot of the research shows that ADHDers can often have delayed sleep phase syndrome. So they're actually a number of hours later delayed in their optimal working than other people. And so that's where you get the night owl syndrome. And so, you know, I know for my family members and colleagues that I know who have ADHD, the earlier you have to get up, the more unfunctional they are. And so to the extent possible, if you can architect your day, not to have to get up quite so early, you know, because I think what's the wisdom, the early bird gets the worm, that might not work for someone who has ADHD. So you have to really be looking at when over the course of the 24 hours am I at my best? And then you've got to do the most important things in that window, even if it seems counter into it. I don't think I've ever done anything productive in between like 8am and noon. We're not sitting here at 8am, I guess. 6pm here, if anyone's wondering. So, what's the replacement? What do we do? Because, you know, life happens. Many things do happen early in the morning, work typically starts at 9am. What's the replacement? What do we do to solve this problem? Yeah, I mean, if you have to get up and go to work or school or whatever, I mean, if you have any say over your agenda, I would say try to plan your agenda so you're not doing things that require a lot of brain power or a self-motivation first thing in the morning. So try to architect your day in a way that enables you to have your most important tasks during your best optimal hours. I think that that requires a lot of self-awareness. And so, if you struggle with that, if you're not really clear, I don't know when I'm at my best, you know, maybe paying attention or writing down over the course of a day or ask a loved one or a colleague. Because again, there's tons of benefits. And we're talking about how to mitigate some of the deficits or the negatives, but there's a ton of benefits. And I think that if we could just kind of broaden our perception of what good and normal looks like, we could get the benefits of everyone. But it might mean, for instance, as a leader, if I had someone with ADHD on my team and they were like, I'm best at 2pm, then maybe I would decide to not have my meetings at 8am, I would have my meetings at 2pm if it worked for everybody else. And one of my observations as a HR executive is that the vast majority of accommodations that people ask for for ADHD at work are not that expensive and pretty possible to do. So it's not like people are saying, I'd like to work from Fiji. It's, I could use noise-cancelling headphones so I can concentrate or is it possible not to have meetings be back-to-back-to-back? And I think these kinds of things, as leaders and as humans, we should have an openness to be willing to accommodate them. Absolutely. Advocating for yourself is so important. And I think to schedule the hard things in your life when your brain says, yes, rather than the world says, this is when you should do something. And also just generally, like zooming out from that, like how you turn up as a person. I think so many people have this kind of preconception of how you should look, or how you should speak, or how you should hold yourself. And that's deeply uncomfortable for many people. Like masking, right? It's a huge conversation. You put so much effort into putting out the version of yourself that you think the world expects, when really we should just learn to put our most comfortable self forward. But having that awareness to schedule the hard things that require more dopamine, like when your brain has the dopamine and not when the world says you should be doing that task. Yeah, exactly. But it requires a lot of self-awareness and self-advocacy. I know a lot of people aren't in a position to be able to bring that self-advocacy. Or to have that be well received, to be perfectly honest. And so I do think, in my experience, people with ADHD have a lot of gifts and benefits. And it's really important to find employment or a place to contribute that really plays to your strengths. So it's worth to get underneath what are my strengths, when am I best, what aren't my strengths, when am I not the best, and do everything you can to kind of stack the deck for your gifts being able to shine and be appreciated. A quick word from our sponsor. You've all had that nightmare. You're on that final warning from that friend. If you miss their birthday again, your friendship is over. Fennito. And you do miss it. Even worse, you miss their wedding. And you are giving the speech. The speech you forgot to write. I can change. You plead with them. And they say, "No, you can't. Well, actually, you can." How? Timo app. That's how Timo app has organized me in a way that's made me unrecognizable to my nearest and dearest. What ADHD? Timo is designed by neurodivergent brains for neurodivergent brains. And you can tell, it's built to adapt to your neurodivergent way of thinking and be flexible to your way of planning. And now it's even more simple with the AI planning assistant. A simple voice prompt when you have to plan something and the new AI planning assistant smoothly transcribes it into an easily digestible list of instructions to guide you. Give it a go. And use the link in my bio for 30% off. And note there, this code is only applicable on the web browser, not on the smartphone. Back to the show. Number five, Kristen. Now the H word, I think everyone's going to hate this. Build consistent habits. Oh, habits, yes. I was wondering what H word you were talking about. It's not a bit of atomic habit fans. They're going to need a moment. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So why do you think people with ADHD struggle to build consistent habits? Maybe habits isn't the word we hate. Maybe it's consistency. What do you think? I guess they go kind of hand in hand because if it's a habit, it's almost like the implication as you do it without thinking. And I think that's the hard part. Anything that's super boring, there's no dopamine is not going to be easily done without thinking for an ADHD or. And so I think that's the way I'm going to do it. I think the notion of build habits make it so it's something that you do without thinking it's this impossible hurdle to get over. I don't think that that's going to happen, but I think instead you can say, "Well, what is the outcome that I would wish for from the habit?" And maybe there's another way to enable that outcome that isn't so much of a dopamine suck. Build consistent habits almost implies that you're going to be the same person with the same mood and the same energy levels every day for you to stick at that habit. And we know that people with ADHD are very, it's a same person, but we can have different brains on different days. So to maintain something that relies on that consistent state of mind almost seems like it's doomed to fail. And what we talked about before, which is like, and the moment it goes off track, it's a failure. So it doesn't have any grace in it to just be like, "Okay, today's a day where I'm not doing the habit. Like a habit is something you don't not do." And so I think to build into your system like, "This is something I do when I can do it, and it's okay if I can't do it on certain days, but over time there's still positive momentum." So for this one, what do you think the replacement is? Is it a case of rather than congratulating yourself in doing something consistently? Instead of that, is it just congratulating yourself for getting something done? I rather than I'm going to clean my flat every week, which will be tricky to maintain that consistency. Like if you clean your flat, then congratulate yourself for doing it. Exactly. And I think instead of setting it like, "I've built a habit of cleaning my flat weekly, and I've missed a week, so therefore I failed." It's when I clean my flat, which is something I like to have a clean flat. When I clean my flat, I have associated that with a reward that I really like to reward myself for doing that, to give myself an incentive. And I think that's a great way. You don't make it all hang on always doing it. You make it hang on a reward for having done it. Number four, I feel like this one really destroys people. And it's heartbreaking. When people say, "Just push through." Oh, yes. Why do you think people with ADHD? Why is that so painful for someone with ADHD? Just push through. First of all, it starts with the J word. Just. Just again. Exactly. But I would say, we talked about this riding the wave. And you said, "The ADHD brain is different any given day or any given moment." And so just push through implies it's a matter of willpower. It's in it's the same amount of energy for everyone. And I think this is the thing that, again, it's invisible. If it wasn't invisible, you would see the hurdles are this high today. And so just pushing through would be so heroic and so cost so much energy and maybe not be worth it. Yes. I feel like what neurotypical people don't understand when they give this advice. When they say to someone with ADHD who's clearly struggling, like just try harder, just push through is they don't get that the overload, it looks like laziness. That can be the optics of what that can look like for someone who doesn't understand. And what they don't see is what's happening inside. And that is sometimes complete shutdown in those moments, like physical paralysis sometimes. Yeah. Exactly. I remember one of my children seemed to have plenty of energy to go out on the weekends, but when school would roll around on Monday, wouldn't feel well. And I remember thinking, you know, just gather yourself up and go. And, you know, all of us maybe don't feel it on Monday, but you need to go. And once I became more aware of this, that I have to trust her read on what she can and can't handle and what her energy does or doesn't allow, I became much more open to it. And it was interesting because recently there was someone that she really wanted to go to see. And she said, I actually, I don't have the energy to go see them today. And that was when it hit me. This doesn't only happen when it's Monday morning. I don't want to go to school. It happens when she really, really, really wants to do something, but doesn't she can't power through, right? And so we're learning to be able to understand how to better sense and understand her own energy and not push through when it's not the appropriate thing to do because the cost would be too high. So is it a case of like framing it as rather than rewarding outcomes, rewarding time given to doing something? Oh, it's a good question because I think a lot of the just push through is around someone saying, I don't have it in me. And the conventional wisdom is, well, power through anyway because I can power through anyway. And, but I think that there's a difference in how high the hurdle is or how much energetic cost there is to power through. I can power through. I might not be feeling it, but I could do it. And so I expect someone else to do it, but I don't see just how high their hurdles are and how hard it is. And so what's the solution is a different question, but I think we all need to understand not to fall in the trap of just and assuming everyone, everyone has the same amount of experience in doing one of these things. Gosh, I'm never going to wear Nike clothing again. Just do it. Just constantly triggered on the little tick. Exactly. So is it like rather than saying just push through it, just go outside today and do 10,000 steps. Is it why can you perhaps go outside for 30 seconds? Yeah. I love that. I love that. You know, it's like, what's the smallest thing you talked about ice cubes and ice chips, right? And what's the smallest thing that you could do that's in the right direction? So, you know, maybe instead of just power through and go to school that day, maybe it's, you know, read the class homework or dial in to class or get the notes from a friend or whatever. Again, it requires that self-awareness for what can I handle? Sometimes, you know, I'm like, oh, you're not feeling it today. Well, why don't you get ready for school and see how it feels? Yeah. How damaging can that be? Because if you're in a relationship with somebody or in a family dynamic that doesn't understand ADHD and you're just getting a constant like bombardment of just, just, just stopping lazy, just push through, just get on with it. But you're physically paralyzed. The overwhelm is too much and you just get called lazy all the time. If there isn't this understanding, how much damage can that cause? Yeah. I mean, this is, this is where the conversation gets dark, right? Because it can cause a lot of damage. The research shows that ADHDers have a three to five times that death by suicide rate are highly likely like 80 plus percent likely to have other comorbidities like depression, anxiety, disordered eating, substance abuse disorders. These things are deadly. And that ADHD can lower lifespan by about a decade. So it's not squirrel ha ha funny like a lot of people think it is. And it's not the ADHD that's causing that. It's this cumulative effect of just do this or the assumption that the hurdle is the same height for everyone to do these mundane boring things. And it's not just my perception as an outsider looking in. It's the perception that the individual themselves has. If they're looking around and for everyone else doing laundry is pretty easy, then you feel really bad about yourself if doing laundry for you is pretty hard. And I think we just need to broaden our perception of what normal and okay and in range is because for some people doing laundry is hard or for some people finding their keys is hard or for some people, whatever, but that comes with equal and opposite gifts on the other side. And for me, it's kind of like the perfect match. If it's easy for me to do laundry, then I do the laundry and I'll save original thinking creativity, connecting dots for my family members who are way better at that. And then together we have all of the things. But what the replacement be for this particular point? Is it a case of rather than approaching your partner or your family member that has ADHD with judgment rather than saying like just push through? Is it a case of approaching it with curiosity and saying why are you struggling today? I think that's a really great point. One thing we try to do in our house is nothing's with judgment. And so I always say, I'm not judging. I'm just curious and I want to understand. And because I think sometimes they also don't understand for themselves what's going on. So I just ask a number of non-judgmental questions, how are you feeling? Why do you think it might be? So on the just to the thing, just power through, what I get back is kind of like I can't today. I'm not feeling it today. It feels impossible today. And if we unpack it a little bit, it becomes clear. I'm out of energy. I didn't sleep well, whatever. And once we've diagnosed what is, there's no judgment. It just is. And then we can take the right action for what the current state of is is. I can feel the shame dissipating from the listeners. As I can see, that advice being played out incredibly helpful. Yeah, it's easy to say and hard to do though, because I think there's the shame that other people put on ADHDers by saying just do these things. But there's also, in my experience, the shame that ADHDers put on themselves because they feel like it should be easier. And so I think if we're going to ban the word just, we should also ban the word should. What's a replacement then that someone with ADHD could tell themselves, how can you correct that internal critic, that horrible monologue that so many of us have? I guess my invitation would be to just be a curious observer of what is. It isn't good and it isn't bad. It isn't right. It isn't wrong. It just is. And I also find in a lot of the folks that I've been around who have ADHD, there's a lot of dismissing or minimizing extreme gifts and talents because they feel easy. And so being able to accurately assess what's hard for you and what doesn't work, but also accurately assess what are you gifted at or good at or better at than the average person. And I think really then being able to architect the circumstances that enable you to be more in the zone where you're not pushing a rock uphill and less in the zone where things Thanks for watching. naturally hard. Kristen, I mean, that's phenomenal. Incredible. Thank you so much. I want to move on to number three. And I feel like this one is almost quite traumatic and it's going to be really relatable to anyone who's run, run for a train, Mr. Train, looked at their phone and had a text message saying, "Where are you?" And it is, why can't you manage your time better? Oh, yes. That one's a hard one. We talked a little bit about time blindness or having a different sense of time. But it's also for me, it's not even just past, present, future. It's also how long things are going to take. And I think, you know, all of us have noticed this before where it's like spending time with your loved one, the time flies by, you know, spending time, you know, in line at the market, the time drags like, or, you know, behind a red light, it drags forever. So we also do have different perceptions of time, all of us. And I think my experience of ADHDers is that the, the, perception of time can be very fleeting and shifting. And that's what makes it really hard to just do that. Yes, I feel like people with ADHD are almost very optimistic with their perception of time and have like the over optimistic. So if, for example, if you're sad on the sofa and you're pajamas and you've got to leave the house and your partner says, right, we're going in five minutes in your head, you're like, five minutes, that's enough time for me to stand up. We're go upstairs, have a shower, find what I want to wear, get ready, get back downstairs, find the car keys and leave. But it's never enough. Like you're so optimistic with what you can do in five minutes. Yeah. I feel like for me, like the replacement is, okay, let's acknowledge that we don't really have an understanding of what five minutes is. No shame there whatsoever. But rather than say five minutes, say 300 seconds. Because as soon as you say 300 seconds, you sort of see the 300 starting counting down by 300, 29, 29, 29, and suddenly it's not long at all. I like that. And that is you're bringing back in also the make it visual technique that we talked about. So I like the idea of instead of, you know, looking at the clock and having it inform or not inform something, having a timer with sand in it or something. So you can see the time going can be a real motivator. But I've also found with some people, it's because I think the things that generally get ADHDers going are some things that are interesting or novel or fun, but also do or die urgent. And that has a place for motivation and it also can have a cost for motivation. But oftentimes, at least in my house, it's the five minute warning that creates the urgency to jump and get in the shower. Moving on, Kristen, to the penultimate piece of bad advice that doesn't work for people with ADHD. And that is when someone says, just prioritize, just do the important thing first. Yes. So I've got this, this huge hurdle that that literally the actor prioritizing is hard. And you're telling me to just do it. Just do the thing. Just do the super hard thing. I think what makes that so hard is like I said that if there were, if we could visualize how much harder it is, you know, ADHD is a dysregulation of the neurotransmitters in the brain that enable you to get going and do those kinds of tasks. And so if you say, well, just do the thing, but there isn't the neurotransmitter to enable you to do the thing. How awful is that feedback? It is so hard. It's not to like prioritize tasks when you don't have a perception of time. Cause I feel like in order to prioritize tasks, you have to have some kind of ability to visualize different futures. If that makes sense, until almost like recognize the consequences of if you don't get a particular task done or if you don't get another task done, like if I don't iron my shirt, I am going to go to that dinner and I'm going to be worried about what people think because I've got a creased shirt. I think it's very hard for me to like acknowledge the feeling associated with the shame that is going to happen at the dinner table with a creased shirt. It was asking the future. And therefore it doesn't exist. Therefore, the need and the importance to iron my shirt now isn't there. Yeah. Yeah. Plus prioritizing is you have to attribute what has to precede what. So I have to iron my shirt before I can wear my shirt before I can like nice. And it also requires that you're kind of not only doing what needs to precede what, but in what order things have to happen. So it takes a lot of executive functions to prioritize tasks. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like you should never have more than three things on your to do list. Exactly. I'm like you're bracelets. You know, no more than three bracelets. And if they're all off, you get a reward. The newer typical advice is like put you're all of the stuff on a to do list. I feel like people with ADHD, it's helpful. And this is the replacement to have two different lists. One is like your backlog, which is everything that you need to do. That can have like 20, 30 different things on it. Then every day you move no more than three things from your backlog onto your to do lists. And you don't do more than three in a day. Yeah. I like that notion of kind of triaging and prioritizing and and boxing in instead of having an infinity list of things. I'm imagining one of those trello boards where you're moving things forward physically. So in your house, you talked about the whiteboards and maybe you've got posted notes of things on the backlog and then things to get promoted onto Alex's to do list. Yeah. God. All right. Kristen, I feel like we need some kind of drum roll for the final one. And this is the universal piece of terrible advice for people with ADHD. And that is try harder. I mean, it is heartbreaking. Yeah. We've all been told that we should just try harder. Why I've got my feelings. Why do you think that's heartbreaking for someone with ADHD to hear? First of all, because it implies you're not trying really hard. And I think that's what makes it so hard that this is invisible and so widely misunderstood and why I feel like it's important to get the word out that people better understand it because in my experience, they're trying so hard. They're running twice as hard to get half as far. And so if you were running twice as hard to get half as far and someone says try harder, how would that feel to you? Yeah. I mean, it's, it is that invisible workload. I think you said like people with ADHD, I think just try harder than neurotypical people full stop, but it's like that invisible workload. And it's so clear that effort isn't the missing variable. But we put so much effort in. That's why we're exhausted all the time. We go through this cycle of burnout, this feeling of just, oh, I'm so useless. And that's the horrible internal feedback that many of us have. Neurotypical people have like this traffic light system, imagine there are these traffic lights outside of your head and a task will come in and it will like get stopped at the traffic light. It will go, the light will go green. One task will go in your head at any given time. You'd action the task, you complete it, and then it leaves. And then the traffic light goes really, one more task comes in. So you do one task at a time. People with ADHD, we don't have that traffic lights. We've got bombarded with like 50, 60 different thoughts, 50, 60 different tasks at the same time. And it is incredibly effort, a huge effort to try and manage those that overwhelm. And often it just leads to paralysis. Yeah, I wish there was a way to visualize what it actually feels like inside y'all's head, right? Because I think there would be a lot more empathy and appreciation. This is what's so tricky about it being invisible is that we can't tell how hard things are for each other. But try harder implies that the person isn't trying very hard. And in my experience, I often remember observing what feels like someone laying around scrolling on their phone or, you know, killing time or even they would say, I'm procrastinating. And it wasn't until the ADHD diagnosis came and we better understood the ADHD brain and what will work and what won't work. That we realized like we don't use the word I'm procrastinating. I'm lazy because that's not what the root cause is. The root cause is differences in neurotransmitters and a prefrontal cortex that have great benefits for the world. And but it's a brain that works differently. And I think us having a better understanding in the world that there are brains that work differently and not assuming that what I see equals what it would mean for me. If I sat on my phone all day scrolling when I should be doing something else, I might be being lazy. But if someone else is that doesn't mean they're being lazy. Yes, if someone's with ADHD and they're listening and they are in a relationship or they're in a family dynamic or in a workplace and they are the recipient of that comment. Just try harder. What advice would you have for someone in that situation? Is it a case of just signposting your colleague, your partner, your family members in the direction of like education so they can understand what's going on? Yeah, that's a hard one. I think first of all, I think it's got to start within the ADHD or to not be judging themselves or feel shame. So to recognize that there is a difference in the brain and that difference has very positive sides to it. It's not all negatives. But the conditions in which an ADHD brain will be lit up and will be able to shine are just different than average. And that's exactly why we're doing this podcast because we're talking about what's the conventional wisdom, why that doesn't maybe work for you and what might and it might be counterintuitive. Some of the stuff we said today might be counterintuitive, but the point is it doesn't have to be intuitive. It has to work for you. And so instead of just try harder if the person could understand in what circumstances do I thrive? What time of day or do I need to see the visual timer or do I need to body double? Like figuring out how to concoct as much circumstances in which you can shine as possible. Then the just try harder goes down because people see that you're able to be successful and you're trying plenty hard. Yes, absolutely. ADHD definitely isn't a lack of effort. It's effort towards the wrong systems, like systems that are designed for a non-ADHD brain. Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, I've looked in my own family because there was a point in time where everyone was just basically holding on to survive. And it was because we were trying to throw all the conventional wisdom at them and they were using all of their effort to try to make the conventional wisdom work for them. And when we pivoted to, "Aha, that doesn't work for you." And so what might, and we started to find what might work, it blew my mind the thriving that came. And for me, it isn't, it was a big fundamental difference in our mindset and our approach, but it didn't cost a million dollars. It really was a matter of understanding, "Aha, these things don't work for you. No judgment, no shame. That is what will work for you. Let's try a few things and figure that out. And now let's set the conditions where you get as much of that as possible." And like the blossoming in the thriving that happened blew my mind. And that's partly why I wanted to give the TEDx talk to help everyone else understand that because the world needs that potential. The world needs those gifts. And I would argue in a post-AI world more than ever, the gifts that are associated with ADHD are differentiated and can't be done by AI. And so I think that the time and the moment has come, but we need to all have a better understanding of how to enable that thriving. I'm so pleased, Kristen, that we managed to sit down and have this conversation today. I know it's going to be incredibly helpful and to have a conversation with you when you're in town is a true honor. And I don't remember if we did the letter when you were last here to your younger self. We did do that. We did. We're going to do it again. Okay, cool. Let's do it. Every guest writes a letter to their younger self and I'm going to deliver to you the last letter, who's written by the previous guest. I'm going to deliver it to you. Awesome. There we go, Kristen. Thank you. When you're struggling with juggling the complexities of life, when you think you're a failure because you believe you're letting down everyone dependent on you, when you think you should have never taken that new opportunity, just remember that your strengths took you here. Incredible. What a what a finish. And I think on behalf of everyone listening and watching who is struggling and grappling to understand what advice they should pay attention to, what advice perhaps isn't right for their ADHD brains. It's huge, huge. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you.