Ditching the Planner: Consistently Inconsistent with Dani Donovan

Olen Shannon Maldonado, käsintehtyjä artesaanitua teitä myyvän jauji-lahjakaupan perustaja. Valit sinu Shopify, koska alustoja testa testa-tessani totesin sen ehdottomasti yhdeksi helpokäyttöisimmistä alustoista. Minulla oli tärkeää pohtia kehittymistämme tulevaisuudessa. Kaikki myyntiin tarvittavat työkaluut, kuten varaston suunnittelu ovat kätävästi dashboardissä. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu Shopify-piste komsi-vustolla. Välkeen, kun hän on hienoa hd. Minulla on hienoa hd. Tämä on podkust, kuten tehtyä, tästä kokeen ja kokeen, että hän on hd-tävästi. Hey, tämä on hienoa, että tämä on hienoa hd. Nero-divrogen artist- ja designer, kuten hd-komisit ovat kokeen, että hän on hienoa hd. Danny holds a pfa in visual communication and design and is the creator of the antiplaner. She spent years as an advocate for Norroda virgins using her background in design to simplify those complicated invisible daily struggle we all face. In our conversation today, we are diving into why traditional pioneers often feel like they never quite work how we want them to, and how we can transition into a toolbox mindset instead. We explore the concept of anti-shame tactics and how to stop using main spirited motivation. Danny also shares some of her favorite hacks for the mundane stuff like an inbox sprint, and some more unconventional strategies such as worth drafts or even magic-thegathering packs to keep herself moving. I had a lot of fun with this episode so I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. If you'd like to follow along on the Showness page you can find that at hackingradihd.com/277. All right, keep on listening to find out how to stop using your expensive planner just as a coaster. It's really cool to see the anti-planer and I've been looking through it for the last few days as much as I have to steal it back from my daughter, but it's not a planner, but as the name implies. So can you tell us a little bit about what it is? The name is confusing to a lot of people and it makes complete sense to other people because I really wanted it to be the antithesis of a planner because I was that girl who is like I will buy a $60-$70 planner. This is the year that I changed my life and this is the year that I get my shirt together and this is the year that I will be organized. I know I bought this expensive planner last year and I quit by March, but this year it will be different and then it's not different. I miss a page or I miss a couple days, I go on vacation or I forget about it or whatever it is and I lose that momentum and now there are blank pages. I just used to freeze and really get perfectionistic about it that it was just really hard to get back on the wagon. I realized that I always ended up quitting because of the same reasons. So with the antithesis I literally made a list of here all of the things. This was actually started as an ADHD planner. I really was like how do I make an ADHD planner that I will actually stick with. And while I was kind of concepting that out, I found myself using these super weird strategies to get myself to work on this. I looked over here and I was like this is what I'm actually doing. This is what's actually working for me which is coming up with all these weird games. So then I stepped back and what is it about planners that isn't working for me and it was that they are repetitive and they are cold and they don't have instruction beyond just here is one template for you to fill out day after day if that stops working for you. So there was so much weight and also that it goes bad like the daily planners I was buying there are undated planners but the planners I was buying are like after December 31st you have to spend more money to like get another one if you don't want to have to fill out all the dates yourself. And so there was like this sense of it's like a ticking time bomb almost and that if you don't if you really blow your chance or you lose it or whatever happens like it's not an evergreen kind of thing for those day planners. But I loved how I felt what I was in control enough to to be using as a strategy. But what I didn't really see is that it is just one strategy it is just one way to get things done is by using like a day planner and I realized as I was working on it that I was using all these different ways to get things done I had like a little I called it like my field notes guide and it was just black pieces of dot grid paper. And I was doing things like coming up with like theme weeks where I was like I have a bunch of stuff I need to do about finance things but they're all random I am going to make 10 check boxes and I am going to do 10 things related to finance this week even if they're tiny if I get to the end of the week and one of these has to be checked by Wells Fargo account so I can write it down and check it off and have a thing that will be fine because I will be doing 10 things and anything more than that is like bonus and so. Having that like direction was great but then the next week I might not want to be like doing that and so I'd kind of pick up another strategy and I just looked at how many strategies were sort of like in this binder and flipping through and and really saying well what if the strategy is that I've got a bunch of strategies and that the ADHD key is that you don't beat yourself up for not sticking with things you instead play on not sticking with things. And the thing that I really tried to do with the anti planner was realizing that like this is a toolbox and different tools solve different resistances so some different problems and so I kind of say this to people a lot where it's like if there is if I give you you know like a screw and a hammer and I tell you to get into the wall like you can tactically do it but you're not going to have a good time. And there's a specific tool that is built to match and fix that like solve that specific problem specific resistance and so there are so many different reasons why we have a hard time getting stuff done there are so many different reasons why we think about doing things and don't do them why that avoidance happens and if you're trying to solve all of them with a planner. You're trying to solve all of them with the to do list it's like you're trying to solve every problem every resistance with a hammer and it's not going to work and we blame ourselves and I'm like I'm sick of everybody blame themselves for this. When we're not the problem there just weren't things being developed that solved for the problem we were experiencing which is the not sticking with things part. Yeah, the consistently inconsistent. Yes, yes, that's just my people. Yeah, I remember the beginning of this year like you know I was getting just delusional with ads for different planners and stuff and I'm like that one looks good and that one looks good and that one goes good. I'm like okay, I'm going to say I'm like I don't like any of these these are all terrible and. Or I decide I'm going to fail before I even start I look at it and I look at the price and I remember how many times I failed and I'm like do I want to spend the money on a thing that's just going to make me feel bad about myself that failure that baggage is so real. It was funny where I was like oh what's that one planner really liked a couple years ago and I like looked at them they went out of business okay. Oh no a lot of us too it's like I don't have you ever tried bullet journaling very briefly. Yeah, I loved bullet journaling because I am a designer and I went that direction where it's like I'm going to spend way too long making this cool like a different layout every week and then I'm going to make myself use like I have the reason to use it which is that I spent so much time making it that like to not use it would be a waste and that worked for a little while but I did I think I did it for like two or three months and like two and a half months seems to really be my or like three months is like how long my hobby. New hobbies last is like always two and a half to three months but it was unsustainable it was the perfectionism like perfectionism is always what gets me so there are different sections of the book like of the anti plan that help deal with those different resistances and one of them is perfectionism and that is the section that I like live and breathe because it is what gets in the way so often. Yeah, it's so easy to fall into that like optimization trap where you're like I'm going to miss so good. Yes. Yes, I can't not use it and yes, let me over complicate things and avoid by over complication yeah and then you like it to like man I'm overwhelmed now. Yeah, I'm like I can't just do it the simple basic way that it was designed to be because then I'll have to spend that time doing stuff and I want to be doing our instead. Too easy to make our systems get in the way of what we want to be doing but yeah. Then we're like well then we'll have no system and then we're like now I'm doing nothing perfect yes I just started tracking my time again so one of the things that I I have not said this anywhere this is an exclusive an exclusive announcement or something I so I made a quiz in notion that you can take that has the different so each of the sections in the anti planer it's broken up into like stuck overwhelmed unmotivated disorganized discouraged and then each of those sections. Has little sub emotions so you have a thing that's like I need to do my 20 25 taxes and I am having really hard time OK what's making it difficult I'm overwhelmed so you flipped it over one section and then you read the back and this is how are you feeling and you know there. The first one that comes up is like intimidated I have so much to do it's going to take forever there are too many steps involved I'm afraid to even start and so there are four you know there's also over committed panic to break out but that first one I think that's a bit of a good idea to put it in the way I think it's a little bit more complicated and I think that's a good idea to do that. kask with tools tostaan svien spreadsan. Detailu on matkata. A lot of people, they, you know, it's like, okay, we'll pick one of these five tabs and they're like, why all of them? I'm like, all of them all of the time. And that's very fair. And so it can be difficult in the moment to sort of figure out necessarily like which one to do. And so I made a quiz where you can click on them and it will automatically show you in order. Here are the 16 subsections raked by what you scored in all of them. And so it is a very cool, like tool that I developed. I have not talked about or released yet to show you really what you're feeling. But in order to do this, there are two sections disorganized and discouraged the last two sections that only have two subsections each. And in order to make the quiz work, they all had to have the same number. 'Cause you pretty much rate those. Like I have so much to do and you rate it by like, oh, I feel this way all of the time or like none of the time. And there's, you know, stuff in between there. It's sort of like the anxiety and depression quiz. And so you, it's an executive disqualctu quiz is what it is. And so you get to the end and I needed two new sections for both of these. And so I ended up adding timeline and routine lists to the disorganized section. And resentful and flooded to the discourage section. Because those are reasons that after like books been out for like four years now I think. And there are holes like gaps that I did not, you know, particularly recognize. And it's so interesting 'cause I went and took my own quiz and I got timeline and routine lists as my top things because those are the problems that I did not build a toolbox to solve. And so now I'm getting into the mode that's like, all right, those are definitely things I'm struggling with. How can I invent, like what can I invent? What can I try that's already worked? What can I tweak to get on top of these so that I can develop activities for, you know, an anti-planar too or some new digital activities that are helping with these issues that I am having which lots of other people are also having them. And I started tracking my time again with like toggle and like paying a tight, like I just started timer where I'm, you know, doing my task and like stop it and start with the new task. So I have to see at the end of the day where my time is going. And I have a little timer up at the corner where I look up and if I got distracted, it's like, oh my God, I've spent four hours doing this and I have almost nothing to show for it. Like I need to get it together. I've been doing this for four hours. There was a reason why I started on this very long story. But it was, I think down to the fact that like developing those tools that actually like help us in those moments, this time tracking thing worked for me for like years. And then I just forgot about it. Like I forgot that it existed. I forgot to do it. I stopped doing it and now I'm picking it back up again. I'm like, oh right. And I think that that's what the anti-planar is. Some people are like, this has some tools in it that they've heard of before as some that I just made up. But they more than anything reminds them of things that they might already know work for them because we forget, you know? I think we all have tools, but we forget what they are. - Well, 100% like often it feels like, oh, I need to find a new tool. And it's like, no, I don't need to find a new tool. I need to find a tool that works. - Yes. Or remix. That's another thing that I've kind of got is like, how can you, I've got little like recommendations in these where it's like pairs well with and then there's other ones because a lot of these, it's like you can take three different tools and mash them together. And or if you know ones that work with you, you could take other tools and mash them together. So they still feel novel and your brain still gets that, like this is a new thing. I'm not trying to like restart an old thing because restarting an old thing is not fun. - Yeah, it could be real tricky, especially if you don't know why it fell apart. - Yes. - 'Cause sometimes it's just like, oh, it's not novel anymore and that's fine. And that's not that hard pickup again. But sometimes it fell apart because, oh, this was overly complicated and it was bad. - That's just it is if you're able to troubleshoot why a strategy stopped working. If something was working and stopped and you wanna pick that back up again, that key to picking back up again is again, finding the resistance. So if it is, I forgot about it. It's like, how am I gonna solve that, if I wanna do this again, how am I gonna solve that problem? So that doesn't happen again. How, now I have to solve the problem of forgetting it and then coming up with ideas for how to do that if I wanna incorporate that again. Or if it's like, oh, I got bored, it's how can I reinvigorate it? Or if it's, oh, it got too complicated. It's like, how do I simplify it? But all of this goes down to just essentially like, turning these into like, little engineering projects and turning yourself into a science experiment, right? Of like, let me try this and see if it works. And if it doesn't, I'm not a failure. I just have more information about what doesn't work. And so that whole, you know, if that was the way it's to make a light bulb or whatever it is, like figuring out, what do I say sometimes? Like, have you played Whartle? I guess it's a, Whartle and like, Hangman are very similar. In that you're doing process of elimination work. And so I think that like, in when I play Whartle, if you type in stuff and you get letters that are wrong, you don't go, oh my God, I'm such a failure for guessing five letters that work correct right off the bat. And it's like, no, I just have information about what it is it. And so that means I'm closer to getting to what is. And it's the same thing with strategies is every time I find out that something doesn't work for me. I'm able to sort of like, so long as you're paying attention to what it is, what those failure points are, you can use that data to make things so much easier on yourself. It uses a lot of like, introspection there where you're like, I do have to understand why this stopped. Because that also is can inform if you're going to pick up a new tool. If it's just like, oh yeah, I just forgot about using this. That's probably going to stick with any of the tools. Yes. And I kind of forget that the introspection is like a skill that is developed that does not just like everybody does not instantly go, well, I quit doing this. It's like, why did you quit doing it? And they just go, I don't know. And I think that overcoming that internal, I don't know, factor and getting really curious about sitting down and like, what questions do I need to ask myself in order to figure that if I really wanted to figure this out, right? And I think that that's that is the key to so much of this is really deciding that you want to figure it out, that you want to figure yourself out, that you want to figure your productivity out, you want to sort your shit out, like you have to want it. And the hard part sometimes is wanting it. It's like, I want to want it, but I don't. I want to play video games. Like I want to go play Gobbler's Gate. I don't want to do, you know, work on this answering emails. Yeah. But I want to watch too. And I think that what the anti-planar does that I've talked to people about is it is a, like a momentum machine to where when you get it out and you open it, you are so much more likely to start on something because you have started with the decision that you want to do something. And the first step, is it the first step of whatever it is, you're doing the first step, is the baby step you got, which is opening this book on how to get stuff done. And so you already, I have goosebumps talking about my, oh, this stupid stuff, but it's like that you have already, you have already started, your journey has already begun and now you just have to lean into the momentum. And I think a lot of us with ADHD, we rely on that momentum. And as we know, it's like, if I take a break, this task is dead to me. Like getting myself to restart something is really painful. So that's why I'm like, I forget to stand up and go eat and drink water and go to the bathroom and do all this stuff because it's like, if I am in the zone, please do not break me from the zone. Who knows if I'll be able to get back here? - Oh, yeah, that is always the worst where you're like, don't, yeah, it's done, I'm done. Okay. - Take frequent breaks. I'm like, okay, no, you don't know me at all. - Okay, and then how do I come back from the break? How do I make sure the break doesn't go beyond like a five minutes? - Yes. And so that's the thing that I have. There are so many things that I didn't make it into the anti-planar. And so like, it's really hard 'cause right now, so I self-published this book. And I running a company and figuring out like the logistics of how to get this into warehouses and deal with cat. Like I've got counterfeits that we had to like figure out how to take that counterfeit listings. And like all of these business logistics and all I wanna do is like come up with strategies all day and design stuff. And I realized that some of the stuff that I was doing, like just didn't like make it into the book. And so one of the things was like setting reminders that don't suck. And one of the things was how to take breaks that don't break your focus. I really often like wish that some of these had had made it in there, but so much of it is like, okay, well, I'm just gonna walk laps around. Like I used to go to a co-working space. And I would just like walk laps around with like music. So like a walking break where I don't let myself go anywhere. Like I can't do it in the house. If I walk around the house, it's like, oh, a cat. Oh, a task to do. But if you're just walk, you have to walk in a place where there's nothing you can get distracted by, you know? And that's not always easy. But that goes back to the troubleshooting of, go for a walk is different. If you go for a walk and a walk doesn't work as a break, is it because you wait for a walk in a place with distractions? Okay, well, I got distracted. How do I solve for that problem? I need to go for a walk in a place where I won't be distracted. And so I just, it's problem solving, like real big on, my dad was an engineer, so I can't help it. (upbeat music) - Well, and another thing I really noticed in the book too is I also has like a lot of like anti-shame tactics in there. - Yes. - Yeah. I feel like that's a big part of that troubleshooting thing too, is that we're like, I can't do this. I'm a bad person. And it's like, whoa, that's slow down there. - Or we've learned to motivate ourselves by being mean to ourselves. Because other people being mean to us motivated us. Other getting in trouble motivated us or like if I can convince myself I'm in trouble, or if I can convince myself that I'm, I don't even convince myself that I'm mad at me. I am mad at me. I think that people without ADHD don't necessarily realize how much time it's like, "You think you're frustrated with me? I'm frustrated with myself 24/7. I'm trapped in here. I don't get to leave." I'm in this situation where I want to be doing things and I'm not doing them or I don't want to be doing things and I am doing them. That's where dysfunction is. That's what the last D in there is is a disorder because I want to get myself to do stuff that I'm not doing. I want to get myself to stop doing something that I can't stop doing and that lack of what feels like agency, that lack of control almost. I'm not in the driver's seat. It feels like I've got eight-year-olds driving this car and I'm watching the eight-year-old drive my car into a ditch almost and being able to watch it happen in slow motion and feel powerless almost. Then to have a bunch of feelings about my feelings of powerlessness where it's like, "I'm not powerless. I know I'm not, but I don't want it bad enough to get it." We keep convincing ourselves that motivation is the problem and sometimes motivation is the problem. A lot of the times it is that shame factor that's holding us back because we're not doing things because we love ourselves and think that we deserve good things. We're doing stuff because we, I'm saying we very liberally, this is obviously not every person with ADHD's experience. I think that there are lots of people who have had plenty of therapy and are aware of their own stuff. For many of us, prior to getting help to take ourselves out of that mindset of, "I am broken, I am wrong, I am not doing things right, I am not doing enough, I am not enough," and it takes a lot of work to step back and look at it and say, "There's a reason I'm struggling. If I could figure out the reason that I could solve for it." The reason is it just me. I think that's the self-blame part of it. I am the problem. It's like, "No, this is the problem. This right here is the problem. You are not the problem." Yeah, because often it's just like, "Oh, there's some disconnect in one of the steps." If I just fix that one little issue, and my wife was having a ton of trouble cleaning this one room, and I'm like, "Oh, I just need to get this one thing." She's like, "Oh, let me pick this up thing." Then three hours later, she's like, "I need you to help me stop cleaning this room." I feel that of my bones. It's like, "Oh, no, I've started. I can't stop." But then, you do the thing where it's like, "I started cleaning and I'm really excited because I'm deep cleaning and I've been meaning to deep clean." But I took all the stuff down in order to do it. Now, I've run out of steam and I look around and it's messier than it was when I started because I started reorganizing. Now, it's like, "Oh, I've destroyed it and now I need to go to bed and I get up tomorrow." Now, there's even bigger mess. Yeah, I'll be like, "Man, I made a huge mistake here." Yeah, I made a huge mistake. Did you take this through? Well, and it's one because you want to know, I have a theory about why we leave spaces kind of messier and messier until it reaches like an. All of us have different anxiety thresholds of what point is my brain go enough and like has to do something about it or panic cleaning because people are coming over or something like that, which is again, shame motivation. But there's a certain level where I'm like, "Okay, I got to do something about this." It's often because I can't focus. It is so messy in here that I can't focus and I need to focus. Also, what a convenient excuse for me to not focus on the thing because I have a new thing to focus on. It's like I want to clean as procrastination or procrastic cleaning or now it's gotten bad enough that it feels like a project and I will get brain chemicals from the before and after because I get to look at it and go, "Oh, I'm so proud of myself because I don't get proud of myself for like tidying up for like. I didn't used to. I'm proud of myself for like tidying up for three minutes. That does not feel like an achievement, but going from messy to clean feels like an achievement and therefore is much more interesting to my brain." Yeah, I've ever seen the celebrating small wins in the discouraged category. Yes. And it's like finally hung up that poster and not just like had a bunch of posters just like rolled up in the corner like, "I'll get a frame for that eventually. I'm the biggest lie I tell myself. I'll go buy frames." And then it's like, even if I get the frame, it's like, "Bying a frame for something, putting it up instead of leaning it against the wall." There's all these like little teeny steps. And so I had a thing for like, this thing I was working on called Struggle Busters that had how to blink when you don't feel like it and one of the things was like, "Hang shit up." Because it's secretly like, "I don't want to do this wrong. I have to pick the right place. I have to make sure it's straight or you know, I don't have the tools to do it. Like there's all of these little tiny little obstacles that get in the way." And so being able to learn how to spot those obstacles and this goes back to the like introspection thing of, "This is practice. Like it takes practice over and over again to get really curious when something quote unquote like fails because you are able to stop and like when you troubleshoot over and over again, you're making like an operating manual for your brain." And I'm like, "When this happens, we do this. When I can't remember to do something, I put a sticky note on my phone and I don't let myself take it off my phone until I've done that thing, even if it's annoying." Right? Like it is the sticky note lives on my phone until this thing is done. And as soon as I break that rule, this won't work anymore. So the rule is like, "I know once I let myself off the hook once, this will be poof. This strategy will no longer work." And so in order to do that, it means I can't use it often because if I use that strategy super often, the higher the likelihood that I'm going to cave and not do that. And so there are certain things where I'm realized because I know from prior experience, if I do something too many times, my likelihood to cut myself slack and break the rules is higher. And so it's similar to the treat yourself kind of like actively in the unmotivated section where I will bribe myself with like magic packs, booster packs and put a little post note on it that's like after I do this thing, I get this pack, I bribe myself again, like I'm a kid and it totally works. And people go, "Well, how do you just not open the packs?" And I go, "Because I know when I do that once, this will be dead to me and I can't use this anymore." And I like using it, but it's no thyself. Yeah. Very much like, "Yeah, if, like, how do you do it?" It's like, "Well, if I didn't, it would be worthless and I don't, and I want it to have worth." Yeah. And I don't have discipline. Like I just say, I keep air quoting, but I feel like I don't have discipline. But stuff like that does require a certain level of like making an agreement with yourself. Because I think the reason why so much of this is hard is we don't trust ourselves because we make promises to ourselves and then we break those promises or we make promises to other people and then we break those promises. And so we don't think of ourselves as reliable and other people or we fear that other people think that we're unreliable because we don't often do the things we say we're going to do or we don't do the things we tell ourselves we're going to do. So it's like, "Why should you have to build that self-trust back?" And part of that is by not asking too much of yourself and not like to be like, "Lower your expectations." But when you lower the bar, like significantly lower the bar for what you are expecting yourself to do, A, you are going to reach what that thing is and so you don't feel like you failed. But everything beyond that is like, "I'm a rock star who did way more than I had to." And that makes me feel good versus if my bar for what I expected was like way, way higher up, anything less than that. Like I could do the same amount of work and I wouldn't feel excited about it. Now that might not work for everybody because some people think, "Well, if I lower my bar that I'm going to be okay with accepting less." And it's like, "Well, is having that super high bar working for you right now?" Or is it just making you feel bad about yourself? Because if it's just making you feel bad about yourself, then maybe try something else. If it is working, like by all means, continue, you know, continue on. I can't. I'm happy for you, man. Yeah, that is really an often a funny thing where you're like, "Well, I don't want to do that because that wouldn't work." It's like, "Well, it's what you're doing working." Yes. And too often people are like, "Well, no, but if I just did X, it's like, well, you're not though. We have to live in reality." The biggest lie that I tell myself is that spending money on things will make me do stuff because sometimes it works right away and then sometimes it doesn't. But I feel like I have the same problem as when I go to Barnes and Noble and I'm like, "I am going to buy eight books and read none of them versus if you go and you buy one book." And you decide on one thing. And I think that that biting off more than I can chew because I'm over ambitious is again, a trend that I've got in my life because if one thing is good, eight things is eight times good. What could go wrong? The little doba means like, "Oh, I'm going to get this one and I feel so good at the time." Yes. I have a new strategy. You can't take me to a Barnes and Noble. It is a running joke in my family that you can't lie to Danny into a Barnes and Noble or take away my phone, take away everything. I can't help it. I found out this strategy that I made it for myself where I take pictures because I'll See ya. And I'm like, I want this. This looks so good. And I'll just grab it and carry it around. And then by the end of it, it's like, I'm carrying around all these books. So I'm going to buy them because I'm not going to go put them all back. And what I've started doing is I will take a picture of the front cover of the book on my phone. And then I will walk to the next thing and I'll take a picture. And then at the end, when it's like time to go or time to check out, I go, are there books in my head that I am like thinking to myself, I want to make sure I go grab that. And then I will go back and get that book. And then the other books that I know, I have a little album on my phone called Books to Read. And I add those so that I can remember to either look them up later, to get them from the library. Or if I want to go back to a bar and I will want to check it out later, you can. But I feel like that I'm going to forget that this book exists is one of the reasons why I want to buy it. So I found now that if you document it, it also feels good to my bright. Not it, you know, and I technically have just as much value as like buying it and not reading it. Yeah, because it's often so much this like, pho-mov, like I'm going to miss out if I don't. Yeah. It's like, well, I'm going to also miss out if I buy and never look at it again. Yes. And I'm like an audio book's person. So like getting the physical copy is like having like a trophy, you know, it's like the phone. But I use them as like decoration. So I do, I do justify it to myself that like, well, at least it'll look really good on my shelves. But like how to read, how to do stuff when you don't feel like it, a lot of people think that that only means tasks that are like unpleasant or that they have to do. And it's like, no, I can't get myself to do hobbies. I can't get myself to read. Like I can't get myself to do things that like, I do want to do. And because my attention span is shot. So it's like, well, I could be doing this or I could be watching TikTok. And I feel like we've gotten so easily, you know, and I feel a certain way when people, you know, are always talking about like how short are everybody's attention span I've gotten. But it is true because I just don't get the same level of brain chemis from reading a book or like reading a story as I do watching watching a story sometimes, you know. And so I have to like, how do I get myself to do this thing? I know I like doing. That's one of the things that the interplanetary can also do is to people don't think about using it to do hobbies. But like things that bring you joy are also important. It's not just about here's how to force yourself to do stuff that you hate. Yeah, I remember doing a like online co-working session and the person's like, I'm going to be crocheting and watching a TV show during my session because I don't do that enough. And I'm like, fan, cast a use of that. I love that. That's amazing. What are there things that you particularly are like repetitively struggle with as far as for me, like communication is really difficult. I suck at replying to texts. It is a known thing. Like I have, I think the highest, I think the highest I got up to was like almost like 700 on red text. Once you get to those numbers, it's so like intimidating and everything feels like a tiny little obligation. And are there things like that that you would just find yourself? Replying to emails is definitely one of them. Like I have, I do do some like email debt forgiveness where I'm just like, oh, bankruptcy. I can't, I'm not going to respond to anything after this date because yeah, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I mean, it feels so bad when I'm just like, man, it's not even hard to reply to some of them. Like, oh, this took like two seconds. And I'm like, but it's just for whatever reason my brain's like, no, 1000%. I don't, I hate emails also because a little and some of it was like, I want to make sure that I reply in like the perfect way so that I don't accidentally come off the wrong way. And then for a while there was like, but that I was replying everything with exclamation points and that's apparently bad, you know, to the exclamation point. Yeah, that's what I do. And then I got, I got this thing in my head about why I shouldn't be doing that, which is so dumb. Like I should not be, I'm like self judging myself based off of other people's judgments when like, I don't care. And I love when people give me exclamation points and emojis because I'm like, oh my god, you're not mad at me. And so, you know, but it, there's a lot of like self judgment or the perfectionism that comes with that. But I find that which is interestingly enough, I don't know if you've gotten to it yet. So in the perfectionism section, there is an activity called inbox Sprit and it is about answering emails as fast as you can. And so it's got like the like a 10 by 10 grid. And I, you know, I say like use a pencil or a raceable pen so you can like reuse it. But it's got numbers one through a hundred. And it's like, if you've got, if you're like, I want to try and answer 40 emails, you know, you put a little thing by the 40. And you set a timer and you see how fast you can reply, how fast you can reply to 40 emails. And you check off each little, each little inbox, like each little email that you answer or archive or delete is a little box. And so you get the brain, I keep saying brain chemicals, but like you, you get the satisfaction of of crossing something off like that little micro hit of achievement. And so then you get to the end. And the challenge makes it interesting and awful. But the time crunch makes it so I don't spend 40 minutes writing an email. I cannot tell you how many times I'm like, I will make this the most beautiful, like best formatted email anybody has ever seen. And it does it matter. But my brain convinces me like it matters so much that this is the like easiest to understand that anybody has ever seen. Yeah, you spend like 40 minutes and then you'll get reply. Sounds good. Yes. Oh my god. Mm, that's what I wanted, but also I hate it. Yeah. And I'm at the point now, where it's like, I've got like a hundred like over a hundred thousand people on my mailing list, which is ridiculous, but like I don't send emails. I simply pay a ridiculous like a ridiculous amount of money to hold this many emails and to be able to send out an email every six months telling people something, but like writing emails to reply to people and writing emails to like a bunch of people like the I and I like writing. So and I love talking to people. It's like the asynchronous thing versus being in person where it's like, cool, I'm in the moment, like on a podcast interview, on a FaceTime call, on a phone call, I'm in the moment, I'm here, I'm doing it, I'm communicating, this is great. And then I've done and then you walk away and you can move on to the next task. It's absolutely follows you around all day, like an email for it or a, you know, text message. Writing's another one of those things where it's like I need to do it regularly because I'm I used to do a lot of monologue episodes for the podcast. And then I kind of like shifted to doing more interviews, but I'm like, I want to do more monologues again. And then I'm like, I like started writing earlier this year. I'm like, I really like this. I need to do this more. Like I need this. I have such a hard time. Like monologuing is fun. I would do that occasionally where it's like, oh, I wanted to do like get ready with me things like I tried to do like a TikTok live one time, I think. And, you know, they do their makeup and talk. I cannot multitask like that. I will simply start talking and just not do makeup. Like I can only do one or the other. I have no idea how these people do both. But then I'll like record this big long thing and then I don't do anything with it. And I realize that what would be awesome would be to just like take that monologue and get a transcript from it and then turn that into something versus like sitting down and trying to think like, what do I want to write today? And you get these. Show me a place where yeah, that's the like the stock. And I'm like, oh, the way I get unstuck for writing is I pretend I'm not writing and I'm writing about writing. And I just like do like a little free right thing. I'm like, what am I going to write about? And I'm like, I'm gonna write about these things and these are the ideas I want to do. And then like that just like warms me up and gets me into it. Yeah, because you're right. You're going in with the like lowest. So there's there's a thing in the book in the stuck section called like task adjacency, which is like if you can't get yourself to do your dishes, stand in front of your sink and turn on the safe like in front of your dishes and turn on the sink and you're like, I'm gonna stand here for a minute and just let the water go. I don't have to do the dishes, but I'm gonna stand here with and you'll get so bored that you will like start doing the dishes, right? Or like, I don't have to go to the, I want to go to the gym or like I used to go swimming right much more frequently than I do now. And it was winning looks like putting on my swimsuit underneath my clothes and getting in the car with like with my stuff like I technically, technically don't have to go to the gym. I what my bar is, you know what I was talking about like putting the bar on the ground. The bar is having my swimsuit underneath my clothes and getting in my car. And there are had there were like two there have been like two times where I've done that and gone, you know what? Like no, like not not right now. I did my thing and I'm not. But the majority of the time, once you put yourself in the environment with everything you need and it's like the hard parts over, you've ripped off the band aid. Yeah, you just need to build that little bit of momentum. And yeah, I do think that is very important though that you have that flick. Yeah, you know what? That momentum didn't happen. I'm gonna go back. Yeah. And I still won because the the thing that I made what the winning like make your wincon easier. Make the the thing that winning looks like easier. And it's something that takes again a lot of practice. And I think that the self forgiveness on top of like the anti-shame that like so much of the book is like, Hey, even here's how to speed clean your place, you know, go around with the trash bag and just throw away all of the trash in all of the areas of your home. Go around and grab all of the dishes from all of the areas and put them in your you know thing. and they go out and grab all of the clothes and put all of the clothes anywhere in your hamper. And then there's like some other stuff. It's like if that's all you get done, that is such a win. Or even if you just do one of those things, like that is such a win, because the alternative was like not doing anything and anything is better than nothing. - Yeah, and I think that's so important for people to internalize is like anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. You don't need to do it amazing. - Yeah, I mean, I say that and it's like anything I don't care about is worth doing poorly. Anything I, as soon as I tried to do something, I do care about poorly. My brain's like, ah! - You definitely wear them. - You're killing with fire. - Yeah, if I tried to put like my pre-rights out, it's like, well, I did that poorly and yeah, we'll just all just record that. And I'm like, no, never. That would, people don't need to see that part of my brain. - Yeah, I think that there's so much for the like, the thing that I picked up from Kate, who was a consultant that I was working with, I really loved working with, was the concept of first draft, worst draft. And so instead of just calling something first draft, you know, where some people say like shitty first draft or whatever, just if you label your first version of something with the word like worst draft and it gives me like permission to let it be bad because I literally titled it at the top first draft, worst draft. And so it takes that intimidation factor away. And I think so much of what helps me because intimidation is like my biggest thing, even being intimidated by things that are not that big of a deal. Because it feels like this big fire breathing dragon and it's gonna be so hard and then once you're in it and you're able to be like, I just have to make a bad version of this and I will tweak that bad version 'cause then I won't have the empty page problem. And so there's sometimes that I've got people who are like, hey, do you want me to write like a really bad version of this and then you could go in and change everything about it? And so if you have it, if you have like an important thing to do and you've got a friend that's like, I will spend 15 minutes writing a bad version of this for you. Like I do like task swapping also, which is where you like do something that is for someone else which is infinitely easier than doing something for yourself. And so it's like, can we trade, trade tasks and so writing bad first draft is something for someone just so you can hand it back and you go, oh, I didn't know what I want. I know I don't want this, but this may be realized what I do want. And then you, then it's easier 'cause you're like, well, I'm not sending that, but I will send this. - Yeah, absolutely 'cause it is like that. Like, oh, I didn't know what I want. But yeah, it is really not this. This is so bad. - I feel like a bad client when I was like a designer and they, you like ask what they want and they don't know what they want until they see something and they're like, not that. And they'll know it when I see it, which is difficult. - Yeah, that's very difficult to design for. - Yes, but that's the same thing with like the perfection is what makes it hard to stop. So like, there is a thing that like clicks into place when I get something and I like crushed it, don't need to work on it anymore. That's what I wanted. Like I feel good about it. I can walk away and like, and it's done. Until I get that click feeling and I'm familiar with what that click feeling feels like. If I'm not having the click feeling, it's not done. And especially if I care about it, it's not done until I can look at it and don't have any criticisms left for it. And that's how my brain is. It's like, I will sit there and critique my own stuff and critique my own stuff and critique my own stuff because then no one else, and I realize this is a coping mechanism so that no one else can criticize me because good luck being harder on me than I am myself. - Yeah. - No one does point something out. You're like, no. - Yeah. - That doesn't happen to me. That was the thing. (laughs) Being able to kind of like get to a point where I'm, the perfectionism thing is fear. It is like fear and a little tuxedo and fear of failure but fear of judgment, fear of judgment for myself or judgment for other people and not doing my best feels like a crime. Like I am the like, do your, you know, just do your best. I'm like, I will do my best and I have been told, I was a hashtag gifted kid and I will meet my potential and everyone expects a lot for me because in the past I have done awesome stuff and that means that everything I make has to be awesome because otherwise they'll know that I'm not trying. - Yeah, like my best means I'm gonna work until I am. - The wheels fall off. - Yeah. - There's nothing left and it's like, oh, I just meant just do a good job. And it's like, that's not what you said. You said do your best, which is, very clearly a different thing. - Yes. And I think that the biggest, back to the like, picking my battles thing is that picking my battles as to what I will let myself be perfectionistic about because I care about it that much or the stakes are that high. So like writing an email to, you know, a list of 100,000 people is a lot of pressure and being perfectionistic about like delivering bad news like that anti-platam was like running behind because I just, because I was being perfectionistic about it and I had a paid, I had a spread, like a truth or dare spread that I was like, this is one of the last ones I have to do and I couldn't get myself, it's this, it's this page. And I couldn't, I couldn't get the lettering right and then I stumbled into a lettering style and I was like, oh my God, I love this. I love this and then I looked at the rest of the book and I go, but now this is better than the other stuff. So now I need to redo the other stuff to match because at this point I'd had like 10,000 pre-orders, like 15,000 pre-orders. So I knew it was gonna get big and I'm like, if everyone's gonna see this, I need to make it as good as I can and so then I went through and I used this coloring style for like the whole book and I made so much more work for myself and I'm happy I did, the book turned out way better because of it, but I had to send out an email telling people that it was gonna be later than I expected and I never really did pre-orders. I had never done Kickstarter before. You know, and I didn't do it through Kickstarter so I was just very unfamiliar with the fact that like, a lot of pre-orders run behind, like most pre-orders are from people who didn't know how long it was gonna take and so I didn't know that was normal but I spent so, I spent like eight hours writing this one email but the stakes were very high and so that was one of the things that's like the, because how I deliver this news will impact if people are like, screw you, I want my money back or oh my god, like, you're totally fine and I spent a lot of time making sure that I explained to people that like exactly what happened, that this is the conundrum I find myself in and that I feel like scared and anxious in the shape like just being really upfront about it but that is not the same, because I've done that because I got hundreds of replies with people like this is the best email I've ever read and I got, cool, no pressure for me for future emails and so it's like, if I crushed it out of the park, it feels like everything I do from that point forward like I don't want to a peeked and saving with the anti-plotor it's like everyone, like, every, but most people that I talk to it's got like four point nine stars on TikTok shop it's got a lot of people who love it and I'm like, did I peek? Everything that I released from now on it's like, I'm going to be measured against this I'm going to measure against this and so if it's not great, I don't want to like follow it up with something like, it feels like the sequel like the sequel is always not as good as the original and so I'm like, what if I just never made a sequel and just worked on a bunch of different sequels and then never release them and just wasted a bunch of time making stuff and not releasing it, you know? - I've seen 10 people that are better so. - That's true, Shrek 2 is a delight. No, the first one's still classic but anyway, I feel that the perfect, I talked about perfectionism so much but I do know that a lot of people don't realize that so many people with ADHD have it because again, that fear of criticism and that fear of making mistakes is just like, I will make this so good and also I need praised in order for my self-worth to like live is how it was for a lot of time where I'm like, I need external validation in order to feel good about myself and that can be such a challenge because when you don't get that, that's when you end up in the discouraged section of I'm feeling insecure because I'm not getting that validation so like learning to give yourself the validation is definitely a challenge. - Yeah and yeah, there is just so much stuff in here that is really good and as we talk about, beginning it's, you know, all the, every day is gonna be different challenge for us often or maybe not every day but at least every week. - Yeah and it's, sometimes it's the same day, sometimes it's different. - So I was wondering if you had any final thoughts that you wanted to leave the audience with? - The main thing that I try to get across to people on the time is that like you are not lazy. Like I hate the word lazy, I hate it so much and it's very easy to stop that label on other people who are not meeting expectations. It's so easy to stop out yourself when you feel like you're not living up to your own expectations or other people's expectations. Taking the eye of a personal defect, I have a character flaw. Same thing goes with ADHD as with, you know, struggling with productivity is just, if you are able to kind of become much more objective and zoom out, what's the thing that they say with like head space? The app Andy, you know, it says like, it's the difference between like being out in a thunderstorm and feeling all of the wind and all of the rain and being inside behind a window watching you. a thunderstorm. And if you are able to sort of find some of that objectivity, it is what causes that self-compassion because you can see, like, I'm not just be like, I'm a person struggling. It's like, I see a person struggling. And if this was my friend, what would I say to them? Because there's no way I'm going to be as mean to my friend as I am to myself. So be nice to yourself. And that's easier said than done, but it goes a long way. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. There's so much in here. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be like, I think I need this book. Oh, yeah, you can get it. Antideplanar.com. Awesome. Thanks again to Danny for coming on the show and thank you for sticking with us all the way to the end. If it sounds like something you're interested in, be sure to go check out the anti-planar, which you can find at anti-planar.com. Before you go, though, let's do a quick rundown of today's top tips. We often beat ourselves up for failing to use a planar reliably after three months, but the reality is that our brain stops responding to the same stimuli once the novelty wears off. Instead of trying to find one system that you'll just use forever, you can instead try to build a toolbox of multiple strategies for the right situations. 2. Executive dysfunction isn't a monolith. It's a collection of specific emotional roadblocks such as being intimidated, over committed, or paralyzed by perfectionism. Approaching every task with a standard to-do list is like trying to use a hammer on a screw. It's the wrong tool for the specific resistance you're facing. By identifying the specific flavor of your resistance first, you can choose a tool design, dismantle that exact barrier you're facing. 3. Many of us have spent a lifetime using mean self-talk as a primary motivator because getting in trouble was the only thing that worked in the past. However, shame is a paralyzing emotion that can actually increase avoidance. Shifting to an objective, engineering mindset allows you to view a failure not as a character flaw, but as a data point. Asking why did this fail instead of why am I like this allows you to troubleshoot the system rather than blaming yourself? Alright, that's it. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. Feel free to connect with me over at hackingyouradhd.com/contact. If you'd like links or to read this episode's transcript, you can find the show notes page at hackingyouradhd.com/277. And if you'd like even more hacking your ADHD, be sure to sign up for my newsletter, any at all distractions which comes out every other week. In it, I give out my best distractions of the week, be they what I'm reading, what I'm playing, what I'm watching, or anything in between. I also try to give out a few bits of actionable advice on each newsletter, although your mileage is going to vary there. That sounds like something you're interested in, head on over to hackingyouradhd.com/newsletter to sign up. Also, be sure to check out the Hacking your ADHD Patreon. It's a pay what you want model, meaning all levels of the Patreon get the same thing, and you'll be getting early access to all the episodes and behind the scenes exclusive videos. That sounds like something you're interested in, head on over to hackingyouradhd.com/patriand to sign up. And you can check out our Discord at hackingyouradhd.com/discord. And finally, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, which you can find at youtube.com/attackingradhd. And finally, if there's another way you'd like to support the show, the best way to do so is to tell someone to let a show, especially if you think a particular episode would resonate with them. Just click the share button on your podcast player. And now, for your moment of dad. Yesterday, I saw an ad that said, "Radio for sale, $1. Volume, stuck on full." And I thought, "Man, I can't turn that down." And now, the podcast is a podcast ad. And now, I'm going to start with a podcast ad. And I'm going to start with a podcast ad. I'm going to start with a podcast ad. And now, I'm going to start with a podcast