367 BITESIZE | The Exact Executive Functions Behind ADHD Time Blindness

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You can multitask and go pre-order it right this second. Go get your copy today. I can't wait for you to read it." This episode is sponsored by Quince. You know what I'd love about Giving Gifts? Finding something someone will actually use, not something that sits in the closet, but something that becomes a favorite. And that is why I love Quince. They make beautiful everyday essentials from premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. They're 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $50. And they have gorgeous cashmere scarves, gloves, and 14-karat gold jewelry. I love the idea of giving someone something that feels luxurious, but is also genuinely practical. I went to dinner the other night with a friend, and we both showed up wearing Quince purses. They were so cute. She had a black big bag, and I had a small white purse, and they're so cute. 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Friday is right around the corner. If you love this clip, check out the show notes for a link to the full episode. And remember my friend, drink your water, take your meds, grab a snack. Now let's get rolling. Okay. Let's talk about time management. Let's talk about the executive functions that impact your ability or inability to manage time. Now, we already talked about working memory when I was responding to Alex's voicemail. But I'll go into it here, okay? So working memory is extremely important when it comes to time management. So verbal working memory is the mind's voice, which keeps you on track and focused. It's your inner monologue. A lot of us ADHDers are on either one end of an extreme or another. Either we have a really loud, chattery inner monologue that won't shut up. And so it's really disorienting because it's just like yapping at us all day long. Or we don't hear anything. We've got nothing. And I'm curious. Like take a moment to reflect, is your inner monologue yapping at you all day long? Or do you literally not have anything in your mind? Like that, that mind's voice. For me, I don't have the mind's voice. I've tried to develop it over time. But most of the time when I need to keep myself on track, I'm talking to myself out loud because I don't have the inner monologue. So I just talked to myself out loud, okay, Kristen, we're doing good. Keep going. This is what we're doing. Don't forget. This is important. Keep going. Okay. Then there's nonverbal working memory, which is the mind's eye. This is different from a photographic memory. It allows you to imagine the finished product. So it's not necessarily a memory of something that you've read or seen, which is the photographic memory that Alex was talking about, right? But this is allowing yourself to imagine the steps that you need to take to get the job done, imagining the finished product, and visualizing the road map in your head to get there. Okay, so that's where a lot of us are weak. And this is where we struggle to conceptualize time. This is what I mean when I said earlier, we don't even realize or conceptualize the passage of time. Okay. And so this is why it's hard to understand how like five minutes can feel like 17 hours and 17 hours sometimes can feel like five minutes. It's like, it makes no sense. Okay, and it also makes it really hard for us to predict how long something's going to take. Oh, that'll just take five minutes, seven hours later. We're like, I'm past the deadline, and now I'm in trouble. Okay, so that is working memory. There's a skill set of organization, planning, and prioritization. And that cluster of skills is an executive function that it's so frustrating that this is one of the main things that we struggle with because this allows us to prioritize and sync sequence and plan out. Okay, here's what I need to do next. Here's what needs to happen first. When you think about time management so much of our executive function impacting time management is this cluster set of skills. I mean, it's kind of like a cluster fuck, like not an actual great cluster, do you know what I'm saying? Organization, prioritization, planning. Like so much of time management is wrapped up in that. And since it's deficient, it makes it so difficult. Where do I start? What, like, I have a hundred things to do today. Where do I even start? And so our brains will often just resist the mountain of things that we need to do because it just feels way too overwhelming to organize, prioritize, and plan. Okay, whoo, that's a big one. Inhibition, this is where impulsivity comes in. When you think about time management and inhibition, inhibition is the skill that allows you to delay short-term pleasure in exchange for long-term reward. I'm going to say it again. It's a really boring way to say it, but I believe it's the way that Dr. Barkley put it in. And he's the goat, so we're just going to use his words. It's the skill that allows you to delay short-term pleasure. What's going to feel good right now in exchange for long-term reward. And it allows you to stay on task and resist the impulse to do something else. Resist the impulse to pick up your phone. Resist the impulse to go get a snack. Resist the impulse to divert your attention to something that feels better. To something that is more fun, okay? When it comes to time management, again, this is one of the main reasons why we're hopping from task to task because we maybe jump into a task and then it's not fun. And we're like, screw this. This is not fun. I don't want to do this. I'm moving on. I'm going to go do something that feels better in my body and your ability or inability to inhibit that impulse is going to determine how successful you are at time management. Self-motivation is a big. You know what I'm saying? This is so much of ADHD is connected to self-motivation and that it's really a dopamine issue. So the dopamine that a neurotypical will experience doing like the most mundane tasks is not something that we get to enjoy. All right, because our reward system is broken, we have fewer dopamine receptors in our brain. This is a big reason why people take medication. It's because medication impacts your receptor's ability to grab onto that dopamine, okay? And so this is something that is often remedied with medication for most people. So the dopamine that allows you to get started on something that is a non-preferred task, something that you think is stupid, something that you know is going to be hard work, something that feels just like this is so dumb. I always bring up like expense reports. And listen, I'm not even someone that's ever had to do an expense report. But I've coached people who have. Okay, so that's something. And I just know that those of you incorporate, you have these tasks that are just like, they seem so pointless to you. And so you just put it off and put it off and put it off and put it off. And then all of the sudden it's the end of the month or the end of the year. And you've got to do all of it at one time. This used to be me with my taxes before I had the wherewithal to hire someone else to do my bookkeeping in taxes. Hire Lori, by the way, because Lori is going to do your bookkeeping for you apparently, right? But before I had the money, Or the ability to hire someone to do that for me. That was on me. So as an entrepreneur every like What was it April? I would just be scrambling to do my finances my bookkeeping my records my taxes for the whole year Because it was just like a A stupid task that I felt was pointless that I didn't want to do throughout the year Very, very little return on investment when you're doing your bookkeeping, you know in January, you're just like, I don't really care. That's not great financial advice. Don't listen to me It was the wrong way to think about it, but you understand what I'm saying the example of like denying myself That the short-term pleasure of doing a task that feels good that would have been real helpful Okay, that would have been real helpful. So self-motivation and dopamine are a whole thing the next um We're going to talk about two more executive functions. The next one we're going to talk about is emotional regulation and I think That most of the time Emotional regulation is actually the most crucial skill that affects our time management Because our emotions fuel our actions and if we can't regulate our emotions We can't regulate our actions and our actions are what lead us to either Manage our time well or not manage our time well Right, and so if we can get a handle on emotional regulation This is why I have an entire course in my coaching program on emotional regulation because it is one of the most important skills for Humans for humans and especially for those of us with edhd so Most of the time we don't have necessarily a time management issue. We have an emotional management issue I'm just going to go ahead and say that so much of our time Choices our calendar choices are Are due to our emotions and if we can get a handle on our emotions Then we can make better executive decisions around our time for example When you are afraid to let someone down So you say yes to something that you truly do not have time for and you screw over your entire Day Because you're too scared to say no to someone That's not a time management issue. That's an emotional regulation issue That's that's an issue of like I need to just be able to feel this fear and tell them know anyway I need to be able to look someone in the face and say no, I'm sorry I'm not able to do that for you so that I can stay on top of my plan that I already made for my day So a lot of our time time management and putting that in air codes a lot of our time management struggles are actually Disguised as their They are actually emotional regulation struggles. So let me say this way a lot of our emotional regulation struggles are disguised as time management issues So we blame it on time management when really the root issue is I'm not able to manage my emotions I'm not able to do this scared. I'm not able to say no to someone because I feel guilty. I'm not able to Make myself do this task that doesn't feel good I'm not able to handle the boredom that comes with following through on what I said I was going to do so much of our time management Uh problems are actually emotional regulation problems this podcast is brought to you by my coaching program focused I love that you listen to this podcast truly, but I need to tell you something important listening to the podcast is not enough to change your life You can learn everything there is to know about ADHD You can have all of the insight you can save every episode take notes not along and think yeah, this is me But insight is not the same thing as change real progress happens when you take what you're learning and practice it in your actual Life with support accountability coaching and people who understand what it's like to have an ADHD brain That's what we do inside focused focused is where you stop just Consuming information about ADHD and start getting coached on your life your relationships your work your emotions You are follow through and your goals this podcast can help you to understand yourself But focused is where you learn how to trust yourself support yourself and actually start doing things differently If you're ready to move from I know to I'm changing calm join us go to I have ADHD calm slash focused to learn more that's I have ADHD calm slash focused I would love to coach you this episode is sponsored by a G1 You know what happens this time of year everything starts piling up the holidays are coming schedules are packed And suddenly taking care of yourself feels like one more freaking thing on the already impossible to do list This is why I love keeping things simple and AG one is a part of my morning routine ish routine ish like it's not a great routine But I do use AG one every single morning AG one next gen combined 75 plus ingredients including vitamins minerals pre and probiotics and super foods all in one scoop And it's backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials with improvements in key nutrient levels within three months of consistent use They've also introduced AG one pro which adds creatine and other ingredients designed to support performance and recovery for me It's about making nutrition easier, especially when life gets busy with an ADHD brain I use AG one every single day and you should too for a limited time visit drink AG one calm slash I have ADHD And get a free immune support bundle including omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D3 K2 with your first subscription of AG one next gen or AG one pro That's a drink AG one calm slash I have ADHD Well, that was a word that was a word. I think that was that was important. Okay, the last one we're going to talk about It's self-reflection and this is this is why you continually make the same mistakes over and over I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry get in here. Let me give you a hug Let me take you by the hand and look you in the eyes and say I'm so Sorry because I know that you're making the same mistakes over and over and you're You're pissed about it. You're annoyed You're mad. You're like why do I keep doing the same thing over and over It's because of a lack of self-reflection. It's not because you're a bad person. It's not because there's something Morally wrong with you. It's not because you like have a flawed character. It's because your Executive functions are deficient and one of those executive functions is your ability to self-reflect to look at what you've done And say okay, this worked well, but this didn't work. I need to make an adjustment Okay, it's really hard for us at each deers to see when we're living in fantasy Yeah, I've plenty of time to get that done. That's no problem. Yes, I would love to do that for you. I've plenty of time We don't see these fantasies. It's hard to correct our mistakes So we make the same mistakes over and over. It's really hard for us to evaluate Self-reflects and adjust our behavior accordingly All right, so this is not nothing self-reflection emotional regulation self-motivation inhibition or like impulsivity organization prioritization and planning that cluster of of Skills and then also working memory all of those executive functions to varying degree for different people like all of us are going to experience these To varying degrees of severity There they are deficient and so that means it directly impacts Our ability to manage our time and so yes, it is harder for you than it is for neurotypicals I want to just can we pause here together It is harder for you It's harder for you and I want that to not make you feel badly about yourself. I actually want that to um Like spur you to feeling compassion for yourself Oh, this is hard for me. It actually should be hard for me if time management wasn't hard for me I probably wouldn't have ADHD probably like That's a key component right of the ADHD struggle now Not to say that if you've worked at it and you've done a lot of healing work and you're supporting your ADHD and your medicated caffeinated regulated that you can't manage your time So maybe some of you have made extreme progress in this area. I know that I have I've made a ton of progress in this area But I still Can't predict how long something's going to take. I still have to lean on my neurotypical team Or my neurotypical spouse or my neurotypical BFF to say like Do I actually have time for this? Is this going to be too much for me? Do even just like I told you we were at a water polo tournament In Texas and I traveled with a mom friend and it was like so Fun we had the best time but I leaned on her to tell me what time to show up. I just I never I was like What time should we leave? For the airport, my brain doesn't do time math. It just doesn't. What time, okay, they have to be at the pool at nine tomorrow. What time do we need to leave? She was the one that I leaned on for all of that time math because my brain does not do it well. So it is harder for me and that's okay. It's not a moral failing. It's just a fact. Okay, how you doing, you okay? You okay? I'm gonna take a deep breath. Like how does it feel for you? For me to say, this is actually harder for you. It should be hard. And like we need to accept that it's hard. 'Cause accepting that it's hard and maybe even accepting like this is harder for me than it is for everyone else is actually the pathway to making amazing change. Because if I just tell myself, why is this so hard for me? This shouldn't be so hard. Everybody else can do it. Why can't I? That's not going to lead me to make a change. What that's gonna lead me to is to think, I just need the right planner. I just need the right system. I just need the right app. Then I'll be able to do it like everyone else. Instead of saying, it's not about the planner, it's not about the system, it's not about the app. It's actually about my brain and how my brain is functioning. And so I need to make some big changes here in order to just support myself and in order to do this well. Thanks for listening to this bite size episode of the I Have ADHD podcast. If you enjoyed this clip, you'll find a link to the full episode in the show notes. And don't forget to visit iHavADHD.com for tons of adult ADHD support. All right, my friends, I had a great time with you today and I cannot wait to talk to you again next week. Bye bye. (upbeat music)