I would often take really short kind of bulleted highlight notes and then when there was something important like a topic that they were talking about, I would start to draw or doodle something that was related to that or if it was like a quote, I would start to just draw, I would draw that sentence bigger and then maybe doodle around it until I hear them say something else that's important. Hello and welcome to ADHD Essentials. Part of the ADHD-rewired podcast network. I'm your host, Brendan Mahan. I'm a former teacher and mental health clinician, turned ADHD coach, trainer and consultant. I can be reached at
[email protected]. Here at ADHD Essentials, we help families develop the skills and knowledge needed to better manage attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder. Visit ADHDessentials.com for more details. What's up team? T-Fos, the executive function online summit is going on now. It's put together by my friend Seth Perler. T-Fos is a free online summit designed for compassionate and proactive parents, so I know it's a perfect fit for the audience of this show. This kicked off yesterday with me and a number of other experts, sharing our thoughts about ADHD, executive function and even giftedness and how to best manage those challenges. Today, Dr. Ross Green and still more experts continue bringing their ideas and wisdom to you. And tomorrow, you'll hear from Jessica McCabe as well as again, many, many more experts. This is an unbeatable resource that will help you kick the new school year off as effectively as possible. Now, it is free, but if you feel like you missed something because you're getting in late or if you want to have access to these recordings for literally the rest of your life, you can purchase the summit for download. That option, as well as how to register for the free aspect of it, will be linked in the show notes. And speaking of registering for things, registration for the ADHD essentials online parent coaching groups fall 2020 session is now open. I will be emailing people beginning tomorrow to help you register for a free information call. In these highly effective groups, you'll work directly with me. We'll discuss everything from developing parental leadership and strengthening those family connections and communication to overcoming your walls of awful, managing anxiety and practicing familial self care. Given that the effects of COVID aren't going away anytime soon, we'll also address how to maintain friendships and family relationships while self quarantining, navigating the uncertain school year that we're all facing, managing our own and our children's mental health, and fostering resiliency. But perhaps the most powerful part of these groups are the connections you'll make with other parents facing similar struggles. That connection, learning that you're not alone in this, is incredibly powerful for every member that's come through these groups. The ADHD essentials online parent coaching groups will run for eight weeks on Mondays and Wednesdays at 5 p.m. beginning on Monday, September 21st and ending on Wednesday, November 11th. Go to ADHDessentials.com/parentgroups or email me at
[email protected] to register for that free information call. And those links, of course, will be in the show notes. And don't forget to check out our partner podcasts, ADHD rewired and hacking your ADHD. ADHD rewired finds errativers sharing amazing interviews with ADHD experts and adults affected by the disorder. And hacking your ADHD features Will Curb, sharing practical and actionable tips to help you manage your ADHD more effectively so that you can do more of the things that you want to do. And finally, a big thank you to Jeffrey Gordon of Ideal Video Strategies. I greatly appreciate his help in getting this podcast out to all of you. Welcome to the show. Today, we're talking to returning guest, Danny Dunnevin. Danny is an artist who creates cathartic illustrations and a community of validation and solidarity for adults with ADHD. In today's episode, Danny and I discuss how we can harness the power of doodling to help ourselves and our children more effectively attend and learn during virtual meetings, either for the job or at school. But first, Danny tells us what it's like to quit your job and go solo just before a global pandemic. Alright, let's get rolling. Hey there, I am Danny Dunnevin. I am an ADHD content creator who makes say ADHD comics and illustrations as well as TikTok videos, Twitter threads, ADHD, you know, Jill of all trades. And recently became like a full time ADHD content creator because like all good ADHD people, you decided to leave your job during a pandemic. I did not was not aware that it was about to happen. I put in my two weeks in like mid February and left the last day of February. And then we started kind of getting stay at home stuff in the middle of March. So the timing wasn't awesome, but in some ways I am grateful because I feel like since it was such a stable job that it would have been really easy for me to get, you know, anxious and fearful and then not want to make that leap. And so in some ways I think that that was, you know, a good thing, but it's interesting to me. And this has happened at more than one job. I didn't really fully plan on quitting like until that day. I was a Tuesday morning and I'd had some, I don't know if I should say this part of the story or not, but I had not been picking up my ADHD meds. So I was using my like back up like tens instead of my 20s. And so I had been doing that for like a week and all of a sudden I was like getting in trouble at work. And I had been like crushing it for a year and I had been so proud that I was never getting in trouble because I used to get in trouble at old jobs started getting in trouble again. And so I was dumb stuff, actually dumb stuff, not like, oh, that was a really horrible mistake I made. It was, it was dumb. But people I think were kind of looking for this opportunity to like criticize me. And so it happened twice in one week. And my emotions were just really high. And I was like, you know what? No, you know, I don't, I was looking for a reason to leave. I think unfortunately this is probably the closest I'm going to get because I liked my job. So that morning I mentioned it to my husband and he was like, do it. And I had a meeting with my therapist 11 and she was like, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but like you know what you want to do. And so then I just like went in and put in my two weeks on a on a Tuesday. And I felt a little bad because, you know, it was something that to me and to others maybe looked like it was really impulsive. Because of the circumstances, but it's something I've been thinking about for months. And I knew was probably going to happen eventually. So it worked out okay. And how did that go? You sort of quit your job. And then there's a pandemic. So is it or things going smoothly? Is it wild and woolly? What does all that stuff kind of look like? And then we'll talk about the doodling to focus that we're planning to talk about. But I wanted to start here because it's kind of amazing. Yeah, I, so the first two weeks I was so excited because I actually looked up and found this co working space that I could work at because I am an extrovert. I got a lot of my social time at work. And so the one of the things that was keeping me there was that I didn't want to lose my friends. And I didn't want to lose the fun of getting to talk to people all the time because it's lonely working by yourself. So I really just wanted to put myself in this place where I'd see people and get to be creative and get out of the house, have my own kind of space like this is where I work. Right. And it was brilliant for like two and a half weeks. It was I was crushing it. I was getting so much stuff done. And then I started to be like, oh, I shouldn't be going into a co working space where a bunch of people are. And then I didn't know wasn't going in for months and my you know steps on came to town. So now I've got my ADHD steps on my ADHD husband and me in a townhouse that I think is like 750 square feet. It's a lot. It was it was difficult to focus on things not just because you know everyone's having that issue right now with different demands for your attention, but having ADHD and overwhelm and being like I can hear everything that everyone is doing all of the time. And I can't go anywhere. And so that made it difficult. And then there was the added guilt of like,
Well, I left my job to make comics and I'm not making that many more comics. There's kind of this transition into really needing to cut myself slack, which I am notoriously bad at doing. I think a lot of us are and be like, "I need to lower my expectations of what my productivity needs to look like because this community is so supportive." And I've literally never gotten a message, angry message from someone who's like, "Why aren't you posting more?" You know, I made that narrative up in my head that people are mad at me. And I just had to kind of rain it in and be like, "That's not true. I like to think a lot of us are super understanding because we appreciate it when people are understanding for us." And so I think that I'm not the only person in a situation where they feel guilty about not getting a lot of stuff done during the day. So I'm really trying to add structure where I can, but still obviously trying to be flexible with it because notoriously bad at sticking to sketch walls. Yeah, no, I get you. I'm not doing enough either. There's people listening to the podcast right now who are like, "That guy owes me an email." And I'm like, "I do. I'm sorry. It'll happen eventually. I don't have a good answer. Well, I do. It's, I have ADHD." Yep. Can I reframe a small piece of that? Yes. You said you have to cut yourself some slack. What if you just gave yourself forgiveness? And the distinction there is at least for me, slack brings with it like slacker and not doing a good job and being lazy and that kind of stuff. Forgiveness is like giving yourself grace, accepting what happened and being okay with it. There's no secret hidden guilt trip in that frame. Does that make sense? Is that even helpful at all? Yeah, it is. I think that it's, I was like a combination of the two because for me, I have gotten a lot better especially with having an ADHD coach at forgiving myself because my expectations are so incredibly high and that I'm, I was like, constantly going to set myself up for disappointment and I was like, "In failure." But like constantly setting myself up for disappointment, recognizing what I'm doing that, forgiving myself for, you know, maybe not living up to my own expectations. And then as far as the slack thing, I think to me, that's more of like a future sort of thing where I was like, "I'm giving myself a longer leash, you know, gives me that flexibility of like, I can't let myself off a leash entirely. Everything will fall apart if I don't even like try to find some sort of system. But what I've found over time and I've come to accept about myself is that I am constantly chasing down some kind of new productivity system, right? I'm constantly trying to find a new app or a fully journal or a different technique that I'm going to use to trick my brain into doing things, right? And after a while, that Peter's off and I don't use it anymore. And then I used to feel really guilty thinking, "Oh, I can't stick to anything. This fellow part, I always follow the part. Why do I even try?" You know, that's how I kind of used to think. And now I think, what if, you know, my inconsistency is the consistency in my life. That's what consistency looks like for me. I should expect that I'm going to change from app to, you know, system and accept that and look at that as an exciting, you know, opportunity and to appreciate my own strategy, creativity and like drive to continue to get back up, you know, and that I can like appreciate that about myself and forgive myself for something not being used as much anymore. I'm like, "Well, that wasn't stimulating anymore." And I can't make it stimulating again. That's not how this works. So, yeah, kind of adjusting that mindset is really useful. That's a great mindset. That's a great perspective. None of which is why I brought you on the show today. And that's okay. Sometimes you have an on-sequiter before you have the sequiter. Because we were going to talk about doodling and how do you use doodling to sort of increase our attention, increase our ability to attend to the task at hand? Yes. And, oh, mighty audience, my perspective on this is sort of twofold. One is it's useful for adults who are now many of us stuck at home and going to Zoom meetings all day long and kind of don't care and kind of aren't tuned in. Maybe doodling is helpful in that way. And also for kids who school camp might also be doing some zooming and need the doodling. Once school starts again, lots and lots of states are saying kids are going to go to school. So doodling in the classroom might also be helpful, assuming we can get that on the IEP or 504 and have it not be something that a teacher freaks out about. Just have the teacher call me and I'll help them understand why your kids should be allowed to doodle. But I wanted to play with this as an idea because I keep hearing about it. People keep talking about how do I pay attention and attend better in a Zoom meeting. And you were the first person I thought of. It just took a little while to get to me. Probably because I'm ADHD and bad at responding to emails. I have found different ways that I can incorporate something I love doodling into creating these different systems for myself. So there are people who do bullet journals and they do it the very minimalist way that it was kind of designed to be made. And then there are people who go say me when I got really over ambitious at the beginning it go like completely to this, like every spread needs to be beautiful kind of frame and perfectionism. But there's this awesome middle ground where I was able to incorporate doodles into the pages or leave room for doodles or have a different kind of like theme for each page where I was like this one's going to be frogs and I'm going to doodle everything on this is going to be frogs. And the next week I get it you know make it something different versus this other thing where I did this I was a procrastination hit list where I used to pick my like top nine tasks that I'd been putting off for forever. You know one of them was like moldy coffee cups. And I would doodle these like angry coffee cups who looked like really mad and like had sharp teeth and stuff. And I kind of make them on this little like wanted poster. And then when I did it I got to see like how many I could do in a day when I did it I just like shoved a pen through it. And so it was like this funny thing because they were like these little I'll say villains or whatever where they were notorious and they'd been on the loose and they'd been you know wanted criminals pretty much that kept getting away. And so I just I think it's really useful to be able to incorporate a passion like I have for doodling into these different kind of customized productivity systems. It makes me more likely to do it because it feels like something at least partially includes something I enjoy. And it makes brings a sense of novelty. And like every single time that I do this little say productivity villains you know hit list whatever it is that I get there's different characters every time it brings out this creativity that I won't get in a regular to do list. So it's different and gratifying. I love that as a way to get some motivation going right as a way to get some engagement. Yeah if I was a better artist I might be inclined to be like oh totally let me doodle like Mr. email the trash that I need to take out and that kind of stuff. But it would take me so long to doodle the thing that it would lose a lot of times I think people think that oh I'm not an artist so therefore I shouldn't try oh I'm not an artist and they're you know and I can appreciate other people's but mine won't look that good. And there's this one of my favorite quotes by is it Ira Glass, Ira Glass? I don't know how to pronounce. It's Ira. Ira that's what I thought I'm I second guess myself all the time. One of my favorite Ira Glass quotes about how people don't always tell beginners this is relevant to doodling too that. This has come up on this podcast like five times do you want me to read it because I have it. Yeah it's a good quote you should read it again. It's the best quote in the whole wide world. This is the Ira Glass quote that Danny is talking about. Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone told me all of us who do creative work we get into it because we have good taste but there's this gap for the first couple of years that you make stuff. It's just not that good. It's trying to be good. It has potential but it's not. But your taste the thing that got you into the game is still killer and your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting creative work went through years of this. We know that our work doesn't have this special thing that we wanted to have. We all go through this. And if you're just starting out or you're still going through this phase you got to know it's normal and the most important thing you can do is a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you have to finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap and your work will will be as good as your ambitions. I have good.
spumps and I've heard this quote like 10 billion times. It's so it's it resonates because it's so true and I hear from a lot of people when they see you know my artwork or but people don't necessarily realize this because a lot of my comics are really simplistic but I have a you know fine arts degree and so people see artistic work and they say oh I wish I wish I could draw like that I can only draw I can barely draw stick person and everyone uses this kind of I can only draw a stick person I say reasoning and that you know oh I wish I was that good and and I think that about a lot of things like I wish I was this good at guitar or whatever it is I know that's gonna take so much work and I wish that I could just push a button and like be good at guitar but I don't want to do guitar you know because the trying and failing trying and not being good is such an uncomfortable process especially for perfectionists which I think a lot of us with ADHD are that as soon as I try something and I'm not immediately good at it it can be so easy to get discouraged and quit the great thing about doodling is some of the best doodles are like bad because they're so simple and basic and it's something I've noticed when I play dictionary with my friends is that my friend Brittany Brittany and I went to college together we'll have bachelor's of fine arts with people don't guess our stuff as quickly as they guess non-artists because non-artists just can really simplify it down to like the basics and they're not going to be perfect about it and we're over here taking more time trying to get pretty than like getting to the point of what it actually is and so in reality I think with doodling it is less the art and more about the capturing you know a moment or a feeling or an idea and less about the like finished product because most doodles are not finished products that's why they're doodles that's awesome take all the pressure of like I would love to do that but I don't think I can because I'm not you know artistically inclined like if everybody thought that then the only people who would doodle would be artists that's true when it comes to doodling how do we want to use it to help our ability to attend be present in pay more I was I pay more attention when you don't want to pay attention the thing that's always worked for me and I didn't even realize how often I did it in school because I had the sketchbook I mean I had a bunch of sketchbooks but I would carry around sketchbook with me to all of my classes and the first pages of my sketchbook were all finished artwork finished drawings and I would use the back of my sketchbook or the back of my notebooks and that's where all my doodles were that's where there was just this like free flowing either abstract patterns or just doodling different shapes or a lot of times you know random stuff then the actual like notebooks that I used for school I would often take really short kind of bulleted highlight notes and then when there was something important like a topic that they were talking about I would start to draw or doodle something that was related to that or if it was like a quote I would start to just draw I would draw that sentence bigger and then maybe doodle around it until I hear them say something else that's important and then I have to tell my brain hey time to stop this move on to this next part or you're gonna spend your whole time hyper focusing on getting this one quote perfect and you're not gonna move on and your brain won't keep up with what you're listening to and so that's why I think doodling versus that again finished artwork mentality is that doodling's not supposed to be perfect and if you want to come back to it later and like finalize it make it beautiful that's great but the wonderful thing in that moment is that it gives me something to do like with my hands and gives me something to do that's still looking at the content and isn't staring up the window and so it are they supposed to be present and I'm constantly actually listening actively listening for things that are seem important that then I can jot down or turn to a doodle and also based on how you've described it the doodling is gonna help you access your notes later because those doodles and larger sentences and prettier words and all that kind of stuff is gonna help you find the ideas that captured you earlier it's gonna help you find when a new idea or a new concept is being brought up or an important concept and that's useful later on when you look at those notes again it's the same as like if if a you're watching a presentation or listening to a classroom setting and they show graphics on screen it's helpful to draw those things down and not just what they're talking about right the visuals help you understand and they matter and I actually especially notebooks where I did puns and tons and tons of doodle notes I still have them I love their I was a funny to me and in this way where people are like oh I can only draw stick people you know stick people I was in multiple art history classes where the teacher moved through different pieces of art so quickly and he'd show us the piece tell us who made it tell us what it was you know about and then move on to the next piece and I only had time to draw stick people and I would draw this little doodle of the general gist of what he's showing and so we were learning about you know back in the day all of these paintings were just like Mary and Mary and baby Jesus and this angel you know telling Mary like your pregnant and but some of them Mary was like ah like she looks freaked out right in this one particular painting so in my little doodle it's like girl you preggers or whatever like something silly and then when we go to the test I can visualize that little stupid doodle that I made with that little stupid caption because my brain thought it was funny and then I can like see it on the page and I can connect it to that information and so depending on the context making little silly figures that have you know a speech bubble saying something are really powerful tools for remembering things and a critical component here is that your doodles are related to the thing that you're learning about or the thing that's being discussed in the meeting or whatever it's not like you're randomly drawing a dog eating a grilled cheese sandwich while you're talking about Renaissance art yes I have done that before and I while it's fun and sometimes I do that especially if I already know what's being talked about and it's I'm like I don't need to pay close attention because I already know this for the most part and I could kind of shift back into taking notes if I notice like oh I don't I don't know where we're at but there were times where I would just doodle random stuff or I'd have a piece that I was trying to work on and I was hyper focused I didn't want to stop just because I had to go to class and I wouldn't absorb that information because I was especially when I'm hyper focused and so yeah it's more of a risky a risky move for me to be wrong stuff that doesn't have a lot to do with it unless it's something like in if I still have my notes on a page and I'm over here like doodling in a corner until they get especially if someone's like talking circles where you're like yeah I get it okay I got it I took all the notes I'm gonna doodle over here and then once they move on I'll continue to take notes and so even with like I would say it work that I got permission I asked per per mission from hip-boss to doodle during meetings and I told him like hey I'm gonna take notes but I wanted to let you know especially you know I had ADHD and saying like doodling helps me stay present in the moment and so if you see me drawing I wanted to let you know I'm still paying attention this is just forcing me to kind of stay focused on what it is we're talking about so even if it's like oh I drew this header I'm listening to the next part and I'm like drawing flowers and abstract stuff around the title you know I'm still doing my best to be present in that moment and even making that header abstract or adding flowers to it even that's gonna help you remember what's being talked about because you can then picture in your mind this flowery header and remember what that was about and what's going on underneath the thing that I love about especially the I would say stick figures that I love to use them in history any kind of history class you know if you want to draw you're learning about Napoleon and his other guy as you draw this like little teeny short stick figure next to you know and he's got this little silly hat on and he's saying saying your brain processes that and it codes the information because you came up with it you came up with that little phrase and that little
phrase will probably skin your head better than notes that you're copying down verbatim from someone else. That's such a good point that I would not have considered but it makes complete sense. Yeah, it's like they would tell you like, oh, you should write down your notes and then you should go back and rewrite your notes in your own words. I'm like, I'm not going to do that. That's so much time. Even your example of the girl you preggers, like that to me feels disrespectful to the content but also who cares because it's going to help you remember, right? Yeah, the one above it, it was like this, I had this stick figure of like this beautiful like serene version of that where you know, they've got little like closed eyes and it's like, oh, you know, and the one below it, you know, Mary's got these big like eyeballs kind of popping out because that was truly the like feeling from the painting. That's what made it different from the other paintings and how I needed to remember it was that like she was shocked in this one. So like, that's the important part that I need to remember about this painting and I can do it for me through like humor because this looks, I would say so silly, especially in contrast with the other one. The reason that I brought up the idea that that sort of feels a little disrespectful to the content is because I suspect there's going to be college professors or teachers, maybe a boss seems unlikely, but maybe who take that kind of a doodle as disrespect and if you're listening to the show right now, get over yourself because it's not disrespectful like it just isn't it's a it's a tool for helping that person remember what it is that you're teaching them. So actually, they're being incredibly respectful of your lessons and instruction and content. Especially if you're again using it to remember things and so there would be different moments where, you know, he'd it's difficult if you're listening to someone who's going through a lot of topics kind of at once, you know, we're going to learn about all these different types of Roman column and he has, you know, the picture on the screen and we're going through each one and I'm within the short amount of time that I've got trying to just draw a super quick look up at the screen, draw a super quick version of that so that when he moves on, I can see at a glance here are the five ones we talked about and I didn't just have to like write out the explanations for what makes them different and so having these kind again, this is art history. So it's like a little specific, but for different, you know, I'm sure there are people in site, I know in science class, we'd be talking about, you know, the different parts of the cell and I, you know, you draw a little cell and you point like the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell or whatever it is so that you can visually hopefully come back to that because I think you're more likely to remember your own drawing than the one from like a textbook. Even if you're not exactly drawing, but you're like kind of flow charting out a concept, that's still doodling. That's still this whole idea of using images married to the text of your notes to help you remember what it is that's going on in this meeting or this class so that you can access that information later either by pulling it out of your brain because you remember the picture or the flow chart or the image or because that doodle looks different on the page than the words that you wrote down. So when you look back in, it's easier to see where you were and what was happening. I mean, it's studying a lot easier. I didn't even think I would say about it too much, but then I noticed because I'm one of the few people that I know who doodles during conferences and so even from going to, I want to, the how conference, which is a design conference, in Atlanta back in like 2016 I think and they gave us a little notebook that had, you know, the schedule and stuff and the back was all just a notebook for taking notes and I would doodle during the speaker's presentation and I did that for pretty much everything I attended and at the end I had this really cool visual notebook where you could kind of tell the different add a glance, the different important takeaways from those talks because I'm not going to go back and read notes. Other people who from my work who didn't go to the conference weren't going to read pages of notes, but they enjoyed kind of looking at this visual cliff notes essentially of the important parts of information because I know for me, especially when I'm on a computer, I will just, I'm a fast typist, a typist, I will write verbatim what they're saying and I'm going straight from what you're saying to my keyboard and my brain's not fully processing and I'm not summarizing it. So unless I hold stuff, I am taking in too much information and therefore nothing is important because I'm not forced to fit or out the fluff, you know. That's awesome. I'm sold. I'm going to have to start doodling more while I. Yes. While I sit and listen to webinars or something. I'm watching informational YouTube videos. There's actually some YouTube videos about how to do this and different techniques which are helpful, but that's how I kind of started doing it was I would listen to TED talks and you know if you need to pause it occasionally, you can and I never got rid of those. I would find little pieces of paper from oh this is that TED talk that I watched a while back. I forgot I watched that and I'll sit there and I'll read the whole little sheet because it's interesting to look at and it stimulates my brain and if I found a sheet full of regular notes, I'd be like well. And ladies and gentlemen, just rewind back to the beginning of this episode and start taking doodling notes while you listen and you can practice here and and just to throw the men to as much of a tizzy as possible. Just being mindful of time. Do you have any ending essentials that you'd like to share with the audience? I really can't emphasize enough how my I would say doodling has impacted my life because I always used to draw these little cartoon characters in the margins of things that were really simple and then I went to school. I did all this fine art. I learned all these artistic you know techniques and stuff, but at the end of the day, I now have kind of I was a forged a career that involves simplifying things and especially for an ADHD audience where we don't want to take in too much content like we need to get to the meat of things and so whether it be really simple flow charts or just like a word or whether it's a comic and my comics are glorified stick people. They're just stick people wearing clothes. It gets the message across. It's it's important the artistic nature of it doesn't matter. If I drew a stick person like an actual just stick with lines person, it would still get the meaning across and I think that that's the important thing to remember with doodling is that it helps again summarize things and just really gets meaning across in a visual way. Hey, you're still here. Nice. Thanks for staying focused all the way through. If you have any thoughts or questions about today's episode, feel free to email me at
[email protected] and don't forget to check out the website, ADHDessentials.com and visit our Facebook community. I'm looking forward to talking to you again next week. In the meantime, keep focusing on improvement over perfection. 10% better is all you need.
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