EP. 374: You Don’t Need One System. You Need 100 with Dani Donovan

We are almost halfway through the year and I'm curious. What number planner are you on? Number two, three, four. Because if you're anything like me, every planner starts with the same promise. This one is finally going to be the one. You know the planners, the ones with 400 pages. The ones that want your tenure vision, your life purpose, your goals before death, and possibly your blood type, before you're allowed to write down by dog food. Yeah, you know what I mean, right? It's almost like planner companies believe the more complicated a planner is, the better it must be. But what if that's actually the problem? Every single time you want to use a traditional planner, think about it. You have to tab to the right month, then the right week, then the right day. By the time you find Thursday, you've forgotten what the hell you even wanted to write down. You know what I'm talking about, right? Look, after years of abandoning planner after planner, I finally realized something. Maybe the problem wasn't me. Maybe the problem was the planner. So I started removing things instead of adding them. And that's what led me to create a OK every day. In fact, we call it the unplanner. It's a simple card-based planning system that keeps your current week right in front of you. Visible, accessible, easy to use. I've spent my entire life abandoning planners. This is the only planning system I've ever been able to stick with. I've used it every day for the past eight years. A few years ago during COVID, I released a hundred of these planners. They sold out immediately. Then production costs got out of hand, so I stopped selling them. After years of people asked me to bring it back, we're finally bringing it back. But we're starting again with just 100 planners. When these 100 are gone, they're gone. So if you've been looking for a planning system that's simple enough to actually keep using, head over to tracyoutsuka.com/planar and grab yours before they sell out. Richard Branson, Michael Feltz, Justin Timberlake, James Carville. Wait a minute. Where are the women? Greta Gerwig, Lisa Ling, Audra McDonald, Simone Files. That sounds like a list of highly successful titans in a variety of industries. They all have ADHD, but you don't hear much about that now, do you? You know what else you don't hear about? Are the 43% of people with ADHD who are in excellent mental health? Why aren't we talking about them and what they're doing right? I'm your host, Tracyoutsuka, and that's exactly what we do here. I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, a lifelong student, and now the author of my new book, ADHD for Smartass Women. I'm also a certified ADHD coach and the creator of your ADHD brain is A-OK. A patented system that helps ADHD women just like you get unstuck and fall in love with their brilliant brains. Here, we embrace our too muchness and we focus on our strengths. My guests and I credit our ADHD for some of our greatest gifts. And to those who still think they're too much, too impulsive, too scatter, too disorganized, I say. No one ever made a difference by being too little. Hello, I am your host, Tracyoutsuka. Thank you so much for joining me here for another episode of ADHD for Smartass Women. You know my purpose is always to show you who you are and then inspire you to be it. In the thousands of ADHD women that I have had the privilege of meeting, I've never met a one, not one that wasn't truly brilliant at something. And so of course, I am just delighted to introduce you to Danny Donovan. Danny Donovan is an award-winning ADHD creator, best-selling author, designer, and artist who's honest, funny, and uncannily accurate comics have helped millions around the world finally see themselves and make sense of their brains. What started as a goofy infographic, she threw on Twitter, exploded into a global phenomenon. Her first ADHD graphic hit 100 million views in hours and was shared by celebrities like Mindy Kaling. She's the founder and CEO of the Anti-Boring Project, a creative lab flipping productivity advice on its head for neurodivergent thinkers. Her book, fabulous book by the way, Danny, we're going to talk all about it, is called the Anti-Planer How to Get Shit Done When You Don't Feel Like It. It isn't a planner at all. It's a toolkit of 100 plus strategies for getting moving when your motivation tank is empty. Her comics don't just make people laugh. They help people get diagnosed and understand themselves and explain invisible ADHD struggles to partners, bosses, and therapists. They've been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, BBC, NPR, and more. Danny, welcome. Did I get all of that right? I was about to say, I'm like, I need to take some notes. This got to be the sense to be my new bio. Are you even impressing yourself? Right now, I'm like, dang, all right. When I have a bad day, I'm just going to come back and listen to this and remind myself a little bit because some of those were like a little while ago and it's very easy for that like, recent CFACC. Because now, you know, when you kind of get in the mode of like work, work, work, it's I think easy to forget some of that stuff. So thank you. Yes, that is me. Wow. I always like to start with our guest, ADHD diagnosis story first because it really helps us connect. So would you mind sharing it with us? Absolutely. Mine, I think resonates with a lot of smart ass women, especially. I didn't get diagnosed until I was a freshman in college. But my parents suspected earlier on. I know a lot of women get missed because they are not outwardly showing symptoms, but I am combined type. And so I have the like chatty, Kathy version of ADHD. And so I was getting in trouble a lot at school, getting to merits and in Catholic school for not raising my hand, not respecting authority enough and asking too many questions and a lot of things like just kind of goofing off and needs to like work independently and stop distracting others. Because I finished my work early. And you know, I want to talk to other people. And so my mom asked my fifth grade teacher or my third grade teacher and fifth grade teacher. I used to only think it was fifth grade. She just corrected me. Third grade and fifth grade teacher. Do you think that she could have ADHD and was told she can't have ADHD? She's too smart. Mm hmm. And my fifth grade teacher, I guess too, was like, yeah, she's she's doing well in school. And nobody was really paying attention to the fact that like I was struggling socially. Like I'd have a bunch of friends who would really like me and then they kind of like get tired of me, start to get annoyed with me. And then suddenly it felt like switch flipped. And suddenly my friends all decided I was annoying. And now I had to start over. And so that was really challenging. But it wasn't until I got to college because I found out in high school that a lot of people I hang out with, I suspect probably had a diagnosed. And so you find your people, you don't feel weird anymore. Went to college and found that I was struggling to like take care of myself because when your parents aren't there and you lose the strength and it's like I have to feed myself and do laundry and and a lot of things that I just wasn't used to doing on top of working on top of school. And I was such a perfectionist wanting to get good grades that I would just stay up late. Right. I'd put everything off to the last minute and then pull all nighters. And it just wasn't sustainable. But I went into a psychiatric nurse practitioner to talk about depression because I was having a hard time connecting and making friends even though I joined a sorority and I went to talk to her and she heard how fast I was talking and how my tangential thinking between ideas and she goes, have you talked to anybody about ADHD or has anyone talked to you about ADHD? And I remember this moment of I don't want to have that because I associate, I've learned obviously since then but I associated it with like no, no, no, everyone I knew who had ADHD growing up were like little boys who didn't have friends. And like that's what I that's the negative association I had. And so I was like no, she handed me a piece of paper that had the symptoms on it and I remember reading it and going, oh no. And she goes, you know what though? It's she shared with me that she had ADHD and she didn't have to do that. But it instantly like flipped my the switch in my head of the stereotype that I had and it was like, oh, well you were awesome. And obviously like successful and cool and not, you know, this vision I had. And so being able to know that and that she, she clocked me because I reminded her of herself. She clocked me because of my communication style. I wasn't even talking about the symptoms yet. She could just hear it and how I talked. And so it's kind of funny and ironic that my first viral comic was about ADHD storytelling and how I tell stories and this like roundabout way of a runaway trade of thought and that that was how I got diagnosed. and that is what kind of kicked up my whole ADHD journey. - You weren't struggling in college. It wasn't great. The struggle was just the personal stuff. - Yeah, it was the one of the reasons why I struggled to get, yeah, so much stuff done was because I was putting off stuff for the last minute, pulling those all nighters, and then was so burnt out all the time because I was neglecting my body needs, and then it really was the like, adulting part of it. It was the difficulty managing life on top of school. I'm good at school. School has like, here's a rubric. Here are your deadlines. Laundry doesn't have deadlines. Laundry is like, I could put it off until I have no clean clothes anymore, and now I have to do eight loads of laundry. So I keep associating, doing laundry with like back pain because I do eight loads at one time and like, you know, crumpled my bed, folding laundry. So now I've got this negative association with laundry because I associate it with how much time it takes because I'm only associating it with doing eight loads of laundry at one time. Right. Absolutely. You know, a follow-up question that I have on the school experience to that first year. So I don't know. I always associate sororities and ADHD girls with, oh my gosh, what a prescription. What a prescription for disaster. And so I'm curious what your experience was there. You know, because of all the stupid rules, and I can't speak to other people's Greek life experience. I was in a, I was in the sorority all four years. And so I found that I had this kind of preconceived notions about what it was going to be like to be an sorority, what the type of women who joined sororities were like. And I was, I went through rush because I wanted to like meet people and I was very happy to be wrong about a lot of my, my, those stereotypes. What school were you at? I was at the University of Nebraska, the Carnegie. And so I was, I was in Alpha Phi. And I found that the girls that I was, you know, connecting with, with just like nerds, just like me, you know, and so when we'd have like snow days and everybody would pull their mattresses down off their, off the bunk beds. And we'd have a, you know, Harry Potter movie marathon, kind of thing. And so it was really just a fun way to, to connect with people. But I found at first that I was really struggling. And I will say that my best friends who ended up being my best friends in college were not in my sorority. For the most part, like they were in my art program. Because that's also where I spent in the art buildings, where I spent all of my time. But I, and I found that it took a while for me to find the people, I think in, in my sorority, who were kind of more on my, on my wavelength, because it's one thing to like connect with people. And there's another thing to have like a best friend. And so I found that I was like connecting with people, but I wasn't having that level of like, oh my God, I want to like, sit down and know every single thing about you. And let's stay up till 5 a.m. talking about, you know, what we were like as kids or what have you. So I really found though that the thing that connected me at first, especially was that I was always like an extracurriculars kid, right? I am very, very privileged to have been able to try a bunch of different things. I joined a bunch of clubs in high school, just to like try on little club hats and figure out what I liked, what I didn't like. And a lot of times it was to design the t-shirts, because I've been a graphic designer. I've known I wanted to be a graphic designer, since I was in middle school, since I found out what graphic design was. And I wanted to design t-shirts. So I joined these clubs, design the t-shirts and like quit the clubs. And in college when I was doing rush, I found out how many events they did and that they designed their own stuff. I'm like, oh my God, I can design so many t-shirts. So I already make so many t-shirts. And so I had just this portfolio of t-shirts. I was like director of marketing and doing social media stuff. So it was really an opportunity for me to get to flex skills that I enjoyed doing for causes for philanthropy events, stuff like that. Because I think a lot of people also don't realize how much philanthropy is involved in being in Greek life. So then what you're saying is the sorority was not part of your angst at all. That was actually a good thing. It was truly the all of the things that I've gotten here in the anti-planet about how to clean out your fridge and how to get yourself to answer, you know, messages and emails. And the things that I struggled with in college, I do still struggle with, but I didn't have any kind of like support. And I will say that I, this kind of second part of my diagnosis journey was I started getting meds and meds were like life changing for me. They are not, they are not for everyone, but they are for me. And they work, they work, they work, they work, and they worked for me. And it was like getting glasses rigged. Oh my God, it kind of been like this the whole time. Because now I can actually kind of make the space to focus on things that aren't interesting. Because when I'm engaged, I will like lock in. When I'm not engaged, I will get distracted at the drop of a hat. And this helped me to be able to not get distracted by things I wasn't interested in. And like that was really where it was, was I could stay focused on things that I didn't really care about. And so being able to have that and have meds was one part. But I was on meds from, you know, my freshman year of college until I was what, like 26, I think. And I, but I wasn't in therapy and I wasn't talking to anybody about it. I was just taking meds and I didn't really understand myself differently. I didn't tell anyone I had ADHD. It was just this sort of like background thing that I knew I took meds for because of the meds helped. And I started talking to a, who I thought was a talk therapist, but she was just actually like another, like psychiatric nurse practitioner who let me have 60 minute appointments. And then I brought in a workbook. I'm like, Hey, I think I want to like work on this stuff. And she goes, Do you want to get a talk therapist? I'm like, Are you not a talk therapist? And so she mentioned going, she's like, maybe you can find some resources online. And I stumbled across Jessica McCabe's How to ADHD YouTube channel. When I was watching her videos and I was bawling, she had one on laundry and on showering. And I was just like, Oh my God, this is why this stuff is hard. Because I had only associated my ADHD with work and school. I had never put together that I have a hard time with hygiene and brushing my teeth because of ADHD. I had never put together that these things that made me feel like I'm using heavy air quotes on like a bad woman, like at a bad adult, like not showering, right? Like my hair being greasy was this big thing that I felt like I didn't care about my appearance as much as I was supposed to or something like that. And the truth was I'm like, showering is boring. It feels like a waste of time. Like it feels optional. I have so much other stuff I could be doing. And I now understood this other little like final puzzle piece that finally clicked, which was, Oh, things that aren't interesting are extra super hard. And so I felt it's really funny now because Jessica's one of my best friends at this point. And we went to Italy together. We had so much fun. Before you figured out that, oh my gosh, this whole part is also ADHD, you know, life stuff, life skills. Did you know anyone else with ADHD or are you totally private about it and wouldn't say anything to anyone? That is 100% what happened is I had never, I had never talked to anyone about it who was not a clinician. I didn't talk about it really with my family. I never mentioned how I never thought about how it impacted my life. I never, whenever something hard, whenever I was having a hard time with something, no part of me clicked like with, oh, maybe this is hard because of my ADHD. I did not have this like zoomed out self awareness of being able to separate myself from my struggle because it all felt like a character defect. Like it felt like a flaw. I felt like I was being lazy. Even though I had an ADHD diagnosis, I had not yet internalized that my break, you know, when I say like disorder, what disorder means, you know, for me at least for ADHD is I want to do something and I can't get myself to do it no matter how bad I want it. Or I don't want to be doing something and I can't get myself to stop even though I want to stop. And so this what feels like a lack of control, it feels like I'm not in the driver's seat of my own life even though I want this so badly, I must not want it bad enough or else I'd be doing it, right? And so that's really where that that sense of choice because there were occasionally times where I got myself type up and hyped up enough, but I was using that self shame in order to motivate. I was I was using this like I have to be mean to myself in order to get myself to because other people shaming me or being mean to me was motivating and this is the only way I know how. And so finding that motivation outside of being mean, finding that that those means of self forgiveness and that the struggle is not your fault. The struggle is because your brain is wired differently and you might not have the support that you need to succeed. And every ADHD brain is also different, right? So some of us don't struggle with any of those kinds of more hygiene type things because that is so important to us. So I am really curious. Okay, when you were like a teenager or in college and you liked a guy, did that help? Yes. Yes. Yeah, that was a big thing. It's like, oh, shaving your legs is optional. And until it's not. And so there there really was this sort of like what my brain labels is optional sort of thing. And so much of it was like, if I am like work mode, focus mode, like I went my first, you know, few years of college where it just it was not a priority, like dating was not a priority for me because I cared so much about my about my design program. And so it was one where yet, but that motivation was still driven by other people and the shame of someone else and what they might think of me. - Absolutely right. - Yeah. And I want him to like me, right? - Yes. - This is what I need to do. - Yeah. - So you're telling your story, you must have felt different than other people than your friends because your friends probably were focusing on all that crap. - Yeah. - Instead of focusing on what you were focusing on, which frankly is what moves your life forward, right? - Yeah. - School and work and career and, well, because I found my passion super early. - Well, and that's incredible. That you have always done what you've loved. Just, you know, various permutations of it. So I want to know when you graduated from college, you were, I'm assuming a like a graphic design major? - Yeah. I have visual, visual communication and design. - Okay. So what did you do? What was your first job? - I was a senior in college and was working an art director job on top of 15 credit hours of classes. Of course you were. What overwhelmed me? I was the art director for a, actually for a weight loss company. It was very focused on, it wasn't like, hey, eat this food, restrict yourself from this food. It was like, here's, eat 25 grams of fiber a day, drink eight glasses of water, work out for 30 minutes and count your, just write down what you're eating. So it was like, didn't feel like a lot of these kind of other companies felt to me. But I got, it was a small company and I graduated from school, you know, went to doing it full time. And they did not need a full time graphic designer for how much work they actually had. And I was doing a lot of templated stuff. I was kind of doing everything I loved wearing all the different hats. But I was late to work one time because I, my, I had a kitten die that I had just got, yeah, it was really, it was really traumatic. I had been crying about, I'd stayed up really late and I overslept and I came into work at like 10, 30 instead of eight. I did not miss any meetings. There was not anything important. I'd work for this guy for two years. And there was a, well, I'm going to have to think about this because, you know, you need to go home because I need to know that I can trust you. And you had explained to him that you're kitten died? Oh, yes. Yeah. Later in life, I have realized he was looking for a reason to be able to make, because then he goes, I could either fire you or you could quit and I'll write you a really great recommendation letter, which turned out the, I don't want to pay on employment like the side of things I found out later. But this, this, you are the reason why this happened. You are to blame. Because then I knew it wasn't about that. Because then he brought me back on and said, I'll pay $15 an hour to do freelance work. Which is, should have been, again, a little, little ding ding ding red flag. But I, I felt like it was my fault. Being on time was actually the hardest part for me with jobs was, was you awake in the morning? You'd never been late. Yes. Yeah. That was the first time after two years. Yeah. It was-- Yeah. When I was in school, it was like I made my own, I made more of my own hours, but it was really difficult. Because getting up early was really a struggle for me. So graphic design positions later on, my last job before I transitioned into, you know, working for myself full time. I worked as a graphic designer at Gallup, which I loved, because I got to-- The whole company? Yeah. Yeah. And they did Clifton Strength II. And so they did strengths-based learning for companies. I got to design for-- they do different brands. So you get to design stuff in different branding for-- we had clients like Netflix or National Geographic and Target and stuff like that. So you get to design in different brands. So that novelty factor is there. But you don't have to work for those companies. It was infographics, which definitely impacted the types of comics I started making, which were charts and infographics, but translating my kind of art therapy brain into it. But a lot of the reports I was designing were about the health care crisis in America, or different types of things that were very interesting and felt very important. And so the work itself was rewarding, but they were a very like strengths-based environment. So the way that Clifton Strengths works is different than a personality test, where you take it. It tells you, this is what you are. You are an ENFP, or you are whatever any of your grams are. What it does is here are 34 human strengths that we have identified through scientists. And everybody has these in some form or fashion, but in a different order. And a different-- yeah, in a different order. And so here's the order of your strengths based on your thing. And I had different strengths than the rest of the people on my team, because I had like seven out of 10 or influencing themes. They have like influencing relationship building strategic and executing. And all of the executing themes were just like at the bottom. But the way that they looked at it as a team was we don't want everybody to have the same stuff, which took me so long to realize, because other people had executing themes. They had responsibility and discipline. And I was like, oh my god, I don't have those things. That makes me a bad employee. But then it kind of like really realized over time, like I wouldn't give up, you know, woo, woo, which is like winning others over or communication or like actuator for discipline. If I had to choose, I wouldn't give it up. But it helped me kind of see those like strengths, a lot of strengths in there. And so I actually had my ADHD friends take granted now. This is not official science. This is definitely impacted by the types of people I'm friends with. But I had 10 different people with ADHD. I knew, take them. And I had a list and access list to the top-- the order of like the most popular strengths, the ones that most people had of all the people who have taken this quiz. And the differences were so interesting, because we shared so many of the same strengths. And all of us had our executing themes, all of the body. And a shocking twist, the executive dysfunction people have difficulty with executing themes. But anyway, that was one of the things. And the reason I got on this tangent in the first place was because they allowed me to have a flexible schedule. So I could come to work at 9.30 and work until 7. And that was completely fine. And nobody was whispering about me making me feel like I was inadequate, because I needed flexible hours was all it took for me to be able to show up as my best self. Yeah. So was that the last job that you had before you went out on your own? Yes. I quit my job to go full time, because I had Patreon made enough money on Patreon to be able to pay my bills. And I left. It was February. It was my last day. It was the last day of February, 2020. And then two weeks later was locked down. And I thought to myself, oh my god, what did I do? I just left a job that I loved. And everyone's going to-- people are going to have money issues. My Patreon's going to go down. And I was so freaked out. But then it worked out. It worked out great. But I-- well, also, I was all worried about-- all I want to be have no co-workers. I'm going to be working from home and suddenly everyone's working from home. But it was interesting, because I don't think that if I had quit right before that happened, I think it would have been too scared to leave. I think that I would have the insecurity of everything that was going on at that time. I don't know how long it would have taken me to quit. So in a lot of ways, I'm like, you know what? That was actually very good timing. Oh my god. It happened for you. Yes. Yeah. So it was good for the plot. So let's talk about this planner. Thank you so much for sending these. Man, this is a big planner. You've said planners don't fail people with ADHD. Planners just weren't designed for them. So I'm curious, what did you see that others in the productivity space were missing? Planners and to-do lists are like static-- like a single tool. It is a single tool that has one purpose, which is you to write down the things that you need to do so that you don't forget about them. And that's kind of it. It gives no guidance on how to get those things done. It gives no guidance, no validation about any of those things being difficult. And it only provides one solution. And so kind of like stepping back and I initially had started to be like, what am I going to do to make an ADHD friendly planner? And in order to work on this ADHD friendly planner, I was using these weird ways to get things done to trick my brain into working on it. And at a certain point, I looked over at this pile of weird stuff I was doing and went, well, this is what I'm actually using. Maybe this is the answer. And then having this aha moment of, oh my god, I don't need one tool. The answer really is having 100 tools. And then realizing that tools are there to solve problems. And to everybody says, oh, it's a toolbox. Things are a toolbox. But tools are there to solve different types of resistances. And so I really kind of had this moment that was like, OK, if the resistance I'm feeling is perfectionism. And let's pretend that perfectionism is like a screw, right? And someone hands you a hammer or like a planner. You can try to get the screw to the wall with a hammer, but you're not going to have a good time. And the reality is, is if you can find a strategy that like pairs up. well and is specifically designed to solve for that problem, it'll make it so much more easy. And so like the way that the anti-planar works was, you know, there are these different sections of like stuck and overwhelmed and unmotivated, disorganized and discouraged. And you flip to that section, you know, and stuck and there's different types of stuck and you say, "Okay, I feel perfectionistic and then go to that section." And my favorite activity that I use time and time and time again is how to half-ass it and it separates things instead of it's a similar concept as a to-do list, but you separate you've got the project at the top and the components underneath it and it is must-haves and nice-to-haves. And the must-haves are just things that like this cannot be considered complete without these parts. And everything else goes in the nice-to-haves for if I have more time. And you do just the must-haves and after you've done the must-haves you go, "Do I want to spend more time on these nice-to-haves?" And sometimes the answer is yes because I want to make it pretty and I can't help myself. But a lot of times it turns out, "No, I'm just glad it's done. I don't actually care. I want to go do something else." And it prevents those like perfectionistic rabbit holes of getting like, "Oh, I'm in the design stage. So I'm going to spend six hours making this PowerPoint pretty even though that's not what actually matters." Because it's easier, right? Than doing the thing that actually matters. Yeah. So that's what I kind of mean as far as like the tools weren't designed with ADHD brains in mind because they don't address novelty and they don't address, I would say shame. So a big thing with the anti-planar is I wanted to make it anti- like shame proof, failure proof. So you can't, it doesn't expire on December 31st. It's like an evergreen resource so you don't have to worry, you know, wasting money every year on something. I'm just going to quit, feel bad about myself. Because that's what we do. Yes. It's like, "I am the problem. I spend money. I quit. I suck." I realized until after I understood this and was diagnosed with ADHD, but I literally had several planners every year. And you can go through them now. We're in the process of moving. After 25 years of raising our kids in this house and my husband just sent over, you know, a big box full of all, he's like, "What is this? They are all planners and most of them are from the same year." You know, many of them are from the same year. And literally if you look at it, there's two weeks that are felled out. He said to me, "What do I do with this? Like, two weeks here and two weeks here and I'm like, just pull the two weeks out." Yeah. Fill them and send them to Danny as a case study. And that is what you hear over and over again, right, from ADHD people. So I found this so interesting because this is not what most people will picture when they hear the word planner. There are no dated pages. There's no Monday through Sunday grid. What grabbed me though is there's these tabs, stuck, overwhelmed, unmotivated, disorganized, discouraged. And you have organized all of this by how you're feeling. And that felt really different and you kind of alluded to it. But can you talk more about that? Why you made that decision? Yes. So I would love to. And thank you for bringing me back on track. So what I actually did was I brainstormed a bunch of, so it's activities and challenges and games and exercises and journal problems and coloring pages and I brainstormed all these things and I love them. And there's over a hundred and I was sitting there and I was looking at it and I'm very big into like user experience design. And so I looked at it and I go in, if someone handed me a book of a hundred strategy, of over a hundred strategies, I would be so overwhelmed trying to pick something. I would spend so much time trying to look to find something and it would just waste time. I would not get stuff done. I get overwhelmed. How do I organize this? How do people navigate this in a way that's not going to be intimidating? And I kind of started to think, okay, well, why do I procrastinate? Why do I procrastinate? And so I brain dumped onto all the, I'm at the huge on post-it notes, post-it notes and note cards are my life. And I just brainstormed on all these different note cards, what is every reason I can think of of how I'm feeling when I procrastinate? And then I took those and I sort of arranged them into, all right, well, which of these mean the same thing and I can kind of combine those and then realized as I put them together, they kind of fell into these buckets and that the, you know, that the overwhelm and resistance are stuck in overwhelm, like the tabs are the resistances really. So like being stuck is like an inertia problem and, you know, overwhelm is like a capacity problem and being unmotivated is like a dead battery problem. And so, but each of those have these different kind of issues within them. And so I ended up accidentally creating like an executive dysfunction framework in the same way that like the feelings wheel has like happy, sad, you know, angry and then each of those has more like complicated feelings and that you can often like identify maybe the big core, but it's difficult to identify the specifics unless someone defines them for you. And that's what I accidentally did. Like it was not on pride and not sit down and went like, how am I going to map out an emotional framework and instead just started with how do I solve this problem of how to navigate which activities to do? And initially it was like, oh, I could do it. Here are the strategies here are the challenges here are the this, but I'm like, that doesn't actually help. I want these to help people in order for them to help. They have to actually solve whatever problem they've got. And then another issue that I ended up running into though by organizing it this way was what do I do about activities that fit in more than one section about tools that solve for more than one problem. And so initially I was going to print those activities in each like the instructions for each like in two different sections or three different sections, but that was like it's going to take up so much space. Maybe that's not the right solve. And so what I ended up having at the beginning of these different sections that say, you know, here are the contents and then you might also like. And so it's sort of like a like a website that gives you recommendations based on these are like the secondary ones. So if these ones in this section aren't working for you, you can still go to these other areas and find one, you know, find ones that work. And at the bottom it might say, uh, pairs well with and it's got other activities and other pages because some of these, you know, strategies can be combined and remixed into ways that make them interesting and novel again or that make them even more efficient for you. And so I had a really fun time figuring out how to help people navigate their own executive dysfunction in a way that felt like kind of universally relatable and just starting from what's going to help me because it helps me. It's probably going to help other people is kind of where I went. But you also go in another direction because like you said, it's just this giant toolkit and what you may relate to and what might work really well for you won't work for me. But I love that it's all set up in, I mean, there's just, you know, the ideas and the different strategies and how much time did this take you to create? I don't know where you started this. I did track my time, three thousand hours. How did you track your time? That does not sound like a thing. Well, because it was one thing where I was realized though that I, that's what made me realize when I was, I was working like 60 to 80 hour weeks, um, which I should not have been doing. And it was because I had, I took pre-orders. So I did not want to take out money. I did not want to take out alone. I wanted to kind of test and see. I did beta testing and I took pre-orders not through Kickstarter through my own website. So I didn't actually have to like give out any like, it was a perks or anything that I could disappoint people with. And I, and you gave yourself how much time? Yes. Well, uh, to do it initially, I gave myself like six months and because I already had some stuff working like in the works as I was, was putting up pre-orders. And so I thought I was just going to be like finalizing it. And I opened for pre-orders. The day that I did it was, I announced it at, when I was giving the closing keynote at the International ADHD like Chad conference in 2021. And so I, I got to tell everybody about it. Crashed my website felt very cool. Um, but I, yeah, more than half the attendees at that keynote bought anti-plotaries. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So it was, it was, I felt very, very cool. Um, but then what ended up happening was I was planning on ordering like 500 to a thousand I, because that's what I had the money for kind of like at the time. And, um, I ended up, uh, during the pre-order phase, which did last longer than I thought it was going to, I got 40,000 pre-orders. And yeah. So then I started to realize, oh my god, this is going to be big. I have to make this as cool as possible because I don't want to like send out a version that I'm not so proud of and then make a second version and change everything. So I ended up like I, people were waiting on me and, but I'm still a perfectionist who wants to do her best. And so that ended up with me working in a definitely unsustainable, unhealthy, burnt out mode. Um, and the end product is great. But how I got there is not pretty. How did you do this in six months? I did not do it in six months. That is the secret is that I, um, so what ended up happening was there is a, that truth or dare page with lettering that I couldn't figure out. How do I, I don't like how this looks. I'm going to keep iterating on this. Tell you how it looks. And then I stumbled into a letter. that I loved so much and I would hell yeah, this looks amazing, but then I looked at the rest of the book. I go, the rest of the book isn't as good as this. So now I have to redo the rest of the book to match. And I sent out an email and I'm like, hey everybody, I am really sorry, but like I added a bunch of new activities. I read, I like, up to the illustration quality, I fixed the design on stuff. I made things that look, it looked like a workbook. And I changed it into looking like an illustrated art book. And that I think made a huge difference visually interesting is what kind of did it for a lot of people. But it didn't used to look like that. So I sent out an email showing the before and afters and like apologizing to people. But so many people related to my email. And I told them like, I'm going to send you a activity every other week until the book arrives. And people actually that secretly was a great idea because that secretly, but it was a great idea because people told me that they got to interact with anti planer activities slow drip way. And they got used to looking forward to it. And they had one activity to try. So when the book arrived, they already knew that they liked it. They already knew some of these activities. They weren't intimidated by it. And they were part of it. Yes. Yeah, that's important. Yeah. So I got hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of emails from people who were like, I love you even more now. It's okay. We're like willing to wait. I'm so happy that you're just doing this, making this for me. But I feel people saw themselves in me saying, I cannot in good like conscious release something I'm not proud of. And I was going to be proud of it. But now I know I could make it better. So everyone's like, you're never going to be happy with it lies. I look at it and I'm like, I wouldn't change. I would change. But it took me so long to get to that point. How long did it take to actually make it? Yeah. So I have five different versions of five different iterations of the book that are all posted, noted up. They're different. Like some of them have different. Oh, this one has like a different cover because I was sending them for proofs. And so you can actually see that I was drawing like the avoidance log on here looks like this. And I was like, I want to put a pencil on it. But this is what, you know, it looks kind of like a workbook. And then the one that ends up being in the actual anti-planar was a different kind of, of course, as soon as I pick one that is. Okay. Then the one in the anti-planar. It is still the same. And then so then there's like ones for you to fill up. It's still the same content. But it is presented in a way that does not make it look like a workbook. That page does not look like any other page in the whole thing. So when you flip through it, nothing looks the same. And I think that's what makes workbooks hard is that it looks like homework. Oh my gosh. Okay. So tell me how long did this take to create? So it took 3,000 hours. And that's including that is including the self publishing aspect that went into the back end. But the illustration design, concepting, writing, editing, that was that was right around 2000 hours. And so it was really. And 750 of them were that second part. Right. I need to redo it all because I've got a better idea. I'm like, I got to make this a best seller. And I know I'm capable of it kind of thing. And so was this about a year then? Yeah. I would say it was about a year. And it was difficult because like we moved down like in the very like throws of it, I we moved to Atlanta. We were like shopping for our first house. And like house hunting is stressful enough, but house hunting and trying to finish a book because people are waiting on you. But I will say that like the waiting on me part is what got this done. Absolutely is what lit the fire under my butt. And like I wanted to make these people proud because they were like real. Everyone's like a real person. And it's a real number. And the pressure was real. But so was this like drive I had to be like, I cannot stand the idea of taking people's money for a product that they won't use. So everything at the end of the day was how do I eliminate roadblocks? How do I find and spot the friction points of what's going to make it difficult to use and get rid of those early? Because I have a thing at the beginning that's a page that says RE like reply self defeating bullshit. And it's got all of these excuses and all of these fear is all in there in quotes of like I'm just going to lose it or I never stick with anything or I don't want to mess up the pages because they're too pretty. And I address all of those because then people a feel seen they are like, oh, you do know how my brain works. Okay, maybe I will give this a shot. But it addresses those concerns because we come in expecting to fail because so many of us have quote unquote failed at all of these other things that we've spent money on and we convince ourselves of this storyline of I am a screw up like I am the problem. And this is just one more thing. It's just a matter of time. When in fact the thing I love about this is that it is like a momentum machine because all we need a lot of time is like a little push out the door. Once we get started we'll keep rolling picking up and opening the anti planner. It means that you've made a decision to do something and making a decision to want to figure out how to do something is the first step. It's not the first step of what it is you're doing deciding to do something is the first step. And so the even just the some people are like having it on my desk. I don't even need to open it. I feel motivated because I just know that it's there if I need it and somebody called it like a procrastination. I've spent called the Bible for procrastinators. But you know a productivity spell book someone called it and I'm like, oh, I will be taking that. Yeah. What's impactful to me is that you don't have to start at the beginning because I never start anything at the beginning. And you can literally just have it on your desk and then when you're struggling in a certain area, there's all these options and recommendations and suggestions and information. And there are one teachers. Exactly. No, I think it's brilliant Danny. I know enough as far as aesthetics to know what I really like. And so I'm very picky. But I could never do it. I was like, I was like, cursed with your taste. And so there's this, this like drive inside me to like, yeah, make myself, make myself happy. And it really is a thing that I wanted to self public self publishing is very hard is actually like very hard. But if you're not going through like a kind of like KDP, a lot of self published people go through a couple different avenues where you give all your money to Jeff Bezos to print your book. And yes. And so I wanted to pick gold foil on the cover. I wanted to make it spiral bound and making exactly what I wanted means I had to find my own production, you know, and printing. I had to figure out how to do. I like have people help me figure out how to do shipping and fulfillment and customer service and like all this stuff. I didn't realize I had to like. It was so silly that I didn't fully realize how much work it is to essentially build an ecommerce company for one product. But the reality was I didn't I got offers from some major publishing firms when I was still doing pre orders. And I realized though, I'm like, they're going to tell me that I can't do some of this stuff. They're going to make me take stuff out. They're going to make me change things. And I want this to be exactly what I want. I want you to people to play the first thing they see to be holy shit. I can't believe I actually finished this. Unless they have ADHD and or are neurodivergent, I don't think that they would even be capable of editing a book like this because they would not understand. Yes. And as I'm sitting here looking at this, I am thinking, well, we've got the manual everywhere for a neurotypical brain. All this is is the manual for a neurodivergent brain, right? A total shooting operating system guide. No, it's you I'm sure you are. Well, I can tell how proud you are of this. It's like a baby, you know, a baby and some of the thing that's difficult for me now is I had so much fun making it. But like it turns out after you have a baby, it like grows up and becomes harder to take care of who would have guessed that you have to continue looking out after things after they're born. And so I now were in this, you know, I'm in the stage of like figuring out how to optimize internal operations of a company that I run. And that is not as fun as designing things. So I'm really excited to, you know, especially selling things to people when I'm not having like organic viral bangers because I will say that what made this take off was I was having viral tweets like back after back after, you know, back to back to back to back. And saying like, hey, I don't have a sound cloud, but if you struggle with this thing that my viral tweet is about, you'll probably like my anti planner. And so that get me a lot of organic reach now at the point where I'm doing stuff I don't know how to do and paid marketing is hard, you know, like getting people to find out about it is hard. And it's not as fun. So I'm excited to try to transition into this phase of figuring that out so that I can get back to making more stuff because I'm really I've got so many ideas. I've got the anti planner to plot it out. I just need the time to. Okay, so this is goes right into my next question and perfect segue. So you went viral, you built a physical product, you scaled and you did not come from a business background, right? Nope. I'm not happy. I'm excited. What are the things that just really blindsided you? I am not good at managing people. So I love leading when I know what I'm doing. I was like the cat. of a lot of stuff. I was president of art society. Like when I feel competent, I am confident. I am on top of it. I know how to direct people. When I don't know what I'm doing, I don't like being wrong. And I was a debate kid, but like most people don't like being wrong, but like I really don't like confidently being wrong about something and then somebody being like, I told you so. Like people doing I told you so is on me, like does not sit well. And so I tend to go along with what other people recommend, especially if they put in research and I haven't done research 'cause I'm busy. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that sounds great. I let a lot of those decisions go because I was like, people told me to delegate. I'm supposed to delegate, right? Everybody tells me to delegate, but I like took my hands off the wheel because I didn't like having to drive. And it turned out that a lot of the things that my intuition was telling me, a lot of my gut instincts, even though I don't have a business background. A lot of my gut instincts were serving well with a kind of company that I'm running. But when we kind of switched over into people who had more of a traditional business background, trying to run this like a traditional business, it didn't work. And it was really challenging because the stuff that works for other people, it doesn't really work for this product, or this audience. And so being able to find out a, managing people when I don't know what I'm doing is difficult because I'm such a people pleaser. And I've kind of got these tendencies that I'm sort of like figuring out, how do I step back into this role where I can feel confident and feel like I can trust my gut even if I don't 100% know something's going to turn out exactly how I hope it does. So I think that that's really the biggest thing is like, learning to get back into my own intuition and learning when to listen to other people and when to like push back a little bit more, I would say. I am exactly like you. I love reading. I hate managing. Yes. And I will tell you, Danny, if you get the right people in there that you really trust, we're still gonna screw up. You know, it's just business. That's just what happens. But I have gotten better and better at it where my daughter will overhear me and she'll say, "Mom, you are just so nice because I didn't use to be. I used to be very very boom, boom, boom." We're so nice. How come you're not like that with our family? (laughing) Ouch. She was joking. But I had never thought of myself as nice, right? I have always thought of myself as, okay, that's the goal. And you know, that drivenness, that ADHD drivenness in the things that I'm interested in. Yes, yes. I like, I love her, have to do finance things. I don't wanna do finance things. And my attitude is just do it. Just figure it out. And then they don't do it. The way I would have done it, right? But that's not fair to them. The control factor is a big thing. And it's especially difficult for me when it's like, I am a one woman content creation engine. And so when I have to step over and be doing CEO things, and I don't have someone that, you know, and people, this is the other thing, is I'm like the face of the anti-planar. My little avatar that looks like me and my voice, you know, is in parentheses kind of having like metacommentary, like, and my ADHD comments, like people know me. So getting people to be able to help write captions or make comics or do things that are creative. And, because I don't feel authenticity is important to me. And having, I don't feel good about anyone pretending to be me. And so now that one, the big content thing that I'm switching over into working on is how do I make anti-planar content that doesn't revolve around just Danny Donovan, because that makes it so challenging to be able to scale, to be able to post consistently. And so I'm finding now that in addition to the managing and the content kind of engine part of it, another part is being able to hold other people accountable and hold myself, because I also started to hold myself accountable. And I'm like, I feel like I need someone to be able to set deadlines for me, because if I set a deadline and tell people to hold them to it, if I don't meet it, what are they gonna do? You know, like, so it doesn't feel real. And so being able to manage my own time, when technically I am like directing the ship, then they think they can slide, because you slid, right? It's kind of like if you take four days to get back to someone, they're gonna start taking four days to get back. - Yes. - Yes. So that is the biggest thing is the like, show up as the employee that you want to have. But it's really challenging, 'cause it's like, but then also cut yourself some slack. But also not to do it too much or other people will do it. And it's just, it's a hard place to be. So have you learned so much about yourself and how your brain works through building this planner? - Yes. I did not use to have, it's really easy to like think that I always used to have this sort of like insight into my, you know, into my own inner world. But the reality is that like, I kind of forget that I had, I went to an art therapist two times. And I had, I lost my insurance, insurance, and so I wasn't able to go back and see her. And then by the time I did get insurance, I went back, she had passed away very suddenly from a aggressive cancer. So like that sucked. But I went and saw her the first time, and we were working on things, and I kept apologizing and she said, why is it, oh, 'cause I'm talking too fast, and I'm changing the subject too much, and I'm being annoying. And she said, who said you're being annoying? And I was like, everyone started crying. And she goes, okay, well, let's draw what annoying feels like. And so I drew, you know, this big kind of like bright, spiky, like orange and yellow ball, make and exploding in these like waves and all of these little similar circles, like being like disrupted, and, and, you know, there weren't facial expressions on any of them. It was just like a metaphor. And doing that and realizing how can I take this experience I'm having, and translate it visually into something that connects, and that feels true. And so it's very interesting because that first kind of exercise into how do I translate thought into meaning, and feeling into meaning, was such a big kind of step for me, and understanding that this is something that I'm good at. And then I remember being in college going, why isn't my major called graphic design? It's called visual communication and design. But now I get it because I learned how to think and how to communicate ideas, and not just how to sell more shoes in an advertisement, you know, kind of thing. So being able to transform ideas into something that is easy to understand so that people can like hand off to people, it was helpful. And so with the comics, that was one thing, translating that into the anti-planar was so interesting because I had to step into not just what's my ADHD experience feels like, and the, and stepping into the why am I procrastinating and what might actually help. So ADHD coaching was like game changing for me. And Dessie Chapura has been my coach for forever. And now we are dear friends. And she is like the person who really made me step back and go, what is making this hard? And what can I do about it instead of just like having a pity party, which is what I was doing before. Yeah. Yeah. So do you have a favorite strategy that you use all the time? From your book? Yes. So there's ones that I kind of came up with. And then there's ones that are sort of more like strategies that existed before me that I have learned about from elsewhere. I would say that my favorite strategy that I learned about from elsewhere that I do use the most frequently is Conbon Boards. So it's, because I love, love me post it notes, because they represent like little ideas. I guess I can have a single thing and I can move them. They're very tactile. But you've got the to do column, you've got it in progress column, a like on hold column and a done column. And it is somewhere that I can see it. I can't put it in a to do list on my computer and forget about it. I can't lose it underneath a notebook. I can't, it's very big and very visual and very tactile. And it feels like ratifying to like move things across columns and to see the status of things and to feel like, oh my god, look how many are in the done column. But the best remix that I have kind of put on this is I use my computer monitor as a conbon board. So along the bottom are all of the to do's. And then on the right side of my monitor, I have the post notes for in progress. The left side of the monitor, I have post notes for on hold. And then when I finish stuff, I put it at the top for done. And what this does is it limits the number of post notes. It limits the number of things I can have in my in progress. Are these like physical post notes, physical post notes? Okay, say that again, because I'm thinking, oh, you're putting them on your computer. And so I'm like, I'm out. But now that you're telling me it's physical post notes with none the post and a queen, tell me again. I keep all of them as decor. But I, so I have physical post notes. And I honestly do like label color coding a lot of the time. So if things that are like when I've got a lot of stuff that's like, oh, this is writing and this is illustrating. I might have writing be red post or you know, pink post notes and illustrating be green. So I'll write with a Sharpie. What each task is or what each project kind of thing is. And. I will put the things that are to-do along the bottom of my computer monitor. So there's a limited number of spots there. Do you have a 27-inch monitor? Yes. So only so many can fit there. A 27-inch monitor. Everybody should have a 27-inch monitor if you have ADHD. Then along when things get started, I move a post over to the right side of my monitor. So the right side of my monitor is my in-progress. And there are only so many that can be in-progress at a time. And then things are on hold. If I'm waiting to hear back from someone, they go over to the waiting on hold thing, which is on the left side of the monitor. And when things are done, I move them to the top. So they're sticking upside down on my monitor. And I will often keep those there for a while because I will just stack those. And then it'll have, it's like it's got hair that is just made out of to-do or done post it notes. But I found that it's helpful because it's not behind me. It's not somewhere that I can't see it. It is in the one place, the one direction I am looking every time I'm at my desk. And so I can't forget about it. And I can't ignore it. And I can't have it again in a digital space that gets minimized or closed out. And I forget about it. So like not forgetting about systems is the biggest challenge that I have. And even this system of the combat board thing, after a while, if it's when it starts to like fizzle and I'm not using it anymore, I take down all the post notes. I gotta do a different strategy. And then after, you know, a month, a new project comes up that's got a lot of components and I start doing it again. And I get back on the horse because I don't see it as I had this one strategy that I need to do forever and ever and when I stop doing it, I am a failure. It's, I'm gonna see how long I can do this. And no, no deep down. It will not last forever. I have come to programs with that. That is the plan. If the plan is I'm not sticking with things. Then when it happens, I'm not surprised. When it happens, it was a thing that I knew and I know what to do next, which is to find another thing to try. Right, absolutely. And I'm not sticking to things is not a character flaw. It's curiosity right around. Okay, this isn't working again, you know, right now. So I'm gonna try something new, but I may come back to it later. Yeah, exactly. So being able to be someone who, the acceptance, the self-acceptance of being consistently inconsistent instead of trying to convince myself, if I find this silver bullet, then I will be neurotypical. Like if I find this thing, then I won't struggle. And if this, then that, and it's not true, it's a lie. There is not one thing that will suddenly make life easier forever and ever and chasing that idea was self-harm. And today, you don't wanna be neurotypical, right? No, no, no. No, you'll lean into it and I'm like, oh my God, the reason I was able to make this is because I think differently, is because this stuff wasn't working for me. If things weren't working for me, I wouldn't have to make a whole book about how to trick by brain and to do stuff and help all of these people. Okay, so your comics have helped a lot of people recognize themselves. Do you ever feel the way to that? Yes, there's a lot. I get a lot of emails and a lot of personal stories, which I love. A lot of personal stories. A very long, which I can't fault them for 'cause a lot of times it's like people might feel seen for the first time ever. And I will be honest, I can't read all of them. And a lot of them, we are, many of us tend to be oversharers myself included. And, but there's a lot of people out there who have felt so misunderstood for so long to feel someone understands them. It's like a gift, it's like an actual gift to let that go. And I go, I am giving someone that moment that Jessica McCabe gave me when I watched your video about how ADHD makes her a way to show her her heart. I am able and it feels so, I'm giving myself goosebumps. And to be able to have know that like some people are having that moment, to know that people hit me up and are like, "Hey, I'm 80 or 79 and I went and got diagnosed with ADHD. I know that it's really late in my life, but it's so nice to have a reason. And I'm so glad that people like you are making things so that others, other girls who are much, much, much younger will not have to live their entire life wondering why they feel so different." And like, stuff like that just sticks with you. And, but it is also this weight of being afraid of like disappointing people, even though nobody's ever told me, no one's ever emailed me. Like, Danny, you're not putting up content. You are such a disappointment. Where did you go? Everybody is just really nice when I come back. They're like, "Oh, I see you on my feet again. That's so nice." And my brain's like, "Oh, you did notice I was gone." And so being able to know that people are excited to see this content, but to have trust now that since I started making this stuff in 2018 and there were not a bunch of ADHD, like ADHD content creator was like, not really a thing. There was like Jessica and there were people with podcasts and books, but there weren't like comics and like memes in the same way that there are now. And so now there are so many other people who are making amazing content who are professionals talking about it from a scientific perspective, who are making tick talks about it, there are people who are just talking about their lived experience. There are lots of people making comics. And I don't feel responsible for educating everybody or for relating to everybody in the way that I definitely felt like there were so few of us that we had to go on and being able to sort of pass the torch a little bit so that I can move on to, instead of just doing ADHD comics forever, making something no one else was making. And so I'm excited to see where else that leads. - Well, and if you have a typical ADHD brain, we can only do things for a certain point, at a certain time and then that anacinus and okay, there needs to be something more, something better and I'm assuming you are exactly like that. - My ADHD brain has an idea parking lot that has hundreds of things in it. I have so many products where I'm like, I just wish that there was some button that you could just push and the stuff could just exist. And unfortunately, that's not how it works. And I now have a better understanding of, if you're going to come out with something, you have to plan on what happens if it gets more popular than you thought very quickly, you know, which is a good problem to have. But it isn't a problem because you're building the airplane when you're already in the air. So, - Well, and if you're all about authenticity and you're all about over delivering which many of us are, that stressful. - Yes. - Well, and now I came out with this. It's got like 4.9 stars. It's, you know, sold, now it's sold over 100,000 copies. - And now the bar's here. - And the bar, and it is the same thing as my ADHD viral comic where I'm like, wow, but the thing is, is that one got the most views, the most likes, the most, you know, things, and because it was the first. And I never had any, this is very good. I've never really stumbled into this line of thinking. So thank you for taking me there, which is that I, I technically like, was a peaked then, right, where that was my biggest, that was my biggest banger, that was, I never hit that level again. But it doesn't matter because consistently putting stuff out there is what made a collection and that collection as a whole made such a big difference for people instead of just one really amazing new thing. And so that new thing can kind of make way for a new genre of stuff. But being able to make something like the anti-planar and thinking, I'm never gonna be able to live up to this and knowing like, well, maybe the point isn't to live, you know, to live up to this. It's different when things have ratings, like my, you know, I don't have like ratings on my comics. I think I, in the way that products have ratings, but that, that I did so good, I did so good, I can't let people down is very, runs very deep. So you being like, over-delivering, I'm like, oh, that is a core part of my personality. - No, absolutely. It's never good enough, right? It can always be better. I used to have my poor kids. They were just like, we're so glad you ditched that. My motto used to be good enough isn't. - Yes, I've been in college, you know, my teachers are like, good is great, but done is better. I'm like, for you to say, you're gonna give me a D if I don't do great. - Yeah, now it's just friggin' get it done, you know, because it's never good enough. It can always be better, but if you don't get it out there, you're never gonna be able to make it better. So yeah, I completely relate to that. Okay, last question. What are the ADHD traits, Danny, that you possess, that you feel are responsible for your success? - Wow, let's see. I think that my general, and again, I am making, this is not a thing that's on a diagnosis anywhere. This is my own interpretation of this being a trait that I have from my ADHD. So I'm gonna like, asterisk, disclaimer that, like right up front, which is questioning, that I got in trouble for as a kid of, why is this the way that this is? Why can't, this doesn't make sense to me. This could be better. Why are we doing it this way? And that answer of, because this is how it's always been done. And I'm like, that is not good enough for me, right? Like that's not a reason. That's actually, that's like the worst reason. - Opposite, right? That's why it needs to be everyone. - And I'm like, do you not want to come up with something that actually works? Like this is what frustrated me the most at jobs, where I would come up with an amazing solution. And they're like, well, we don't know for sure if that's gonna work, so we're not gonna do it. - We're not gonna do it. - I'm gonna try. - I'm gonna do it. - But this thing we're doing was gonna work the first time you did it. But like, okay, but people wanna play it safe. And I think that that risk takes, I know I do know that risk taking is needy she thing and so that which is hilarious because there's certain things that I'm like No, no, no, I'm uncertain. I don't want to but like that intuition that comes from pattern recognition The injured paired with the risk taking up I feel in my gut that this is gonna work I don't know how I know but I know and and kind of pairing those two with the why Shouldn't this be different if it's not working is really I think what what led to a lot of my a lot of my success and It's interesting as a child it led to all the problems right oh 100% the things that get you in trouble as a kid will make you famous isn't it? Absolutely just now school system oh well, we haven't changed in 150 years. Why should we change now? That is exactly why you should change Danny you are such a delight where can people find you if they want to know more about you Where do they buy your beautiful planner the anti planter so anti planner you can get anti planter.com and My comics are on ADHD DD dot com. It's ADHD with my initials Danny Donovan at the end And then at Danny Donovan on you know tiktok and blue sky and so D.A.N.I D.O.N.O. V.A.N. at all of the places I haven't been posting a whole lot recently, but I am now figuring out how to get oh an anti planner HQ is the new are the new social media Handles for the places where we're gonna actually post anti planner content that I am not making all of so therefore There will be much more that if I am the only one making it wow wow a lot of places to find me but anti planner dot com is the cool one anti Dash planner Hi Okay, anti high planter dot com. Yes, we got it finally Danny, thank you so much for spending time with us here today. It was a delight Absolutely. Thank you for having me. This was so much fun So that's what I have for you for this week if you liked this episode with Danny Please let us know by leaving a review our goal. It's to change the conversation around ADHD Helping as many women as we possibly can learn how their ADHD brains work so that they too may discover their amazing Strengths. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you here next week You've been listening to the ADHD for smart ass women podcast. I'm your host Tracy out Suca Join us at ADHD for smartwomen.com where you can find more information on my new book ADHD for smart ass women and my patented your ADHD brain is a okay system to help you get unstuck and fall in love with your brilliant brain