[0:53] Ian: Hello and welcome back to the smart ADHD podcast. Today we're tackling the thorny issues of procrastination and motivation. These are definitely two of my biggest ADHD struggles, but there is definite hope, especially as Jonathan Hassall is returning back to the podcast. He's an ADHD and executive function coach and the director of connect ADHD coaching, working with clients around the globe from Brisbane, Australia.
[1:20] He's a speaker, author and trainer. And we're going to be covering some of the methods he talks about in the book he co authored with Madeleine O'Reilly, which is called Decoding Doing ADHD Solutions for Procrastination. So let's not procrastinate. Let's get on with it right now.
[1:37] Hello, Jonathan, welcome back to the show. How are things going with you?
[1:41] Jon: I am very well. Thank you. And how are you?
[1:43] Ian: I'm I think I'm good. Yeah, my brain is exploding with all these new ideas. We're just actually just recorded the last interview. And yeah, it's just so interesting to think about how the brain works neurologically. But in today's episode, I'm really interested, excited to learn about Your views on procrastination and motivation and breaking the cycle.
[2:05] This has probably been the biggest thing I've struggled with. And before I was diagnosed, I think it was the bit that I was pouring so much guilt on myself when I was then diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago. So much of the guilt that I was holding disappeared because I've thought, ah, that's why I struggle with procrastination.
[2:23] I'm not lazy. Maybe I am a bit lazy, but it's not down to, it's not down to the ADHD. So, procrastination is clearly, it's a struggle for everybody, but that chronic procrastination is a particular struggle for those of us with ADHD. What's going on in our brains when we procrastinate?
[2:41] Jon: Wow. Okay. So now this is the stuff I love talking about because now we're taking what is known research and theoretical research and then trying to apply it to behavioral models. Now, if we look at ADHD and procrastination, I prefer to say, let's flip that and let's look at doing with ADHD. Because the thing is, it's not like we never do anything.
[3:03] However, there's a few factors that are at play in there that we need to be aware of. So for anyone to achieve or do anything, they have to be able to see the task. They have to be able to see themselves doing it. So the process or procedure, they have to have the right resources to do it, including time.
[3:20] And then they have to convert it across into real time. They have to make it an action that happens reliably. Now with ADHD, if you think about the problems that are involved with that, even if we use an executive function framework as a starting point. So the first thing is, okay, we've got to hold our attention on one thing long enough to decide, yes, we definitely want to do it and also validate why we want to do it.
[3:42] And if it's reasonable. But the bigger question really there is keeping our attention and our working memory, holding all the steps to get it done. Now with ADHD, we usually skim it. 30, 000 feet and think, we see the tops of the mountains. We don't see all the details of the task. We, it's not that we can't figure it out and that's part of the problem.
[4:01] We know we can figure it out. If it was something that we'd never done before, it was difficult. We're probably going to give it attention because it's interesting. So the second part is then I've got to. convert those tasks and resource them, which often, if we can't see the detail of the task, we're not going to resource it effectively.
[4:19] And then I have to find a place for it in time. Now, guess what? Everyone I've ever met with ADHD is effectively time blind. So we have a very different relationship with time to the rest of the world. And I don't think we can under underestimate that. It doesn't need, to be a significant impairment in life, but until we address it, it will be so you can see there's multiple stages where we trip up.
[4:41] And, when I worked on the book with my colleague, Madeline O'Reilly, who's a lovely clinical psychologist here in Australia we switched our focus from the idea of procrastination, like the error in effect. And okay what's not happening. Let's come back and look at those functional areas and then look at it through an executive function lens with ADHD.
[5:01] Ian: So that is a very different way of looking at it. I've heard there's so many myths and things that people talk about. We've talked about dopamine in the last episode that we don't have enough dopamine. That's might be the reason or that we struggle with these things.
[5:15] I've heard people talk about like the motivational bridge where you want to get to the other side, but there aren't enough rings on the what do you call them on the bridge? And it's like a rope bridge. And it's steps or whatever it's called. Yeah, my, this is my brain's gone.
[5:28] But this is a different way of looking at it, isn't it? Maybe if you could talk a little bit more about motivation, I think you've in the past, you've talked about the illusion of motivation. So what is that and what's going on in our brains?
[5:39] Jon: I gave this talk last year to our National Professional Association, and you can find it on online on my website. Basically, I called it the illusion of motivation because something I became aware of is that all of my clients with ADHD were talking about motivation in a very consistent way. It was this big feeling.
[5:59] I've either got to really want to do it, it's got to be rewarding and exciting thing I want to do, or it's got to be a very threatening thing. And it has to be close in time. So either the thing is really appealing, or it's really threatening, or something associated with it is, and it's close in time. Now if we think about that.
[6:15] That's a really dangerous approach to motivation, because we're relying on a very big emotion, which is expensive. Then on top of that, we're relying on these external things to create that emotion. That's not me creating it. That's the thing being fun or the thing being threatening. Now, which, so I'm not in control of that.
[6:35] I'm just reacting to that. And then the other part of it is, it has to happen in a very close period of time. Which means. I don't have a lot of room for error there, and that's the problem we come across all the time. I, one of the, one of the areas I work in beside adults and couples is with uni students.
[6:51] And the recurring problem with uni students is that they try and do the assignments at the very last minute. Of course, they usually, it's more work than they thought it was. They run over time. They still have trouble activating, but they still have a mythology that it's the best work, best way they work.
[7:06] last minute. I do it under pressure. That's the best work I ever deliver. And I'll tell you, categorically, it is not. I don't care who you are. It's not. It's just what it feels like. And I can say that because I've been there. So motivation, if we look at how people without ADHD use motivation, they do it very differently.
[7:24] They imagine at first they decide that the task is worth doing. And that's just a simple cost benefit argument. Then they move very quickly onto imagining the task. So they see themselves doing it. And obviously, the more often they've done it, the easier it is to see it, but they can see it in detail.
[7:39] They're, they can hold their attention on it and hold the different procedural steps in working memory quite easily. They're not relying on emotion here at all. So they're just saying practically, is it possible? Yep. And this is what I'll need to do it. Then they do a really interesting thing.
[7:52] They say well, when will it fit in my life? What's the time context? Oh yeah. So Tuesday morning is a good time to do that. I can fit it in then, and then get on with the rest of my life. It's fine. So they end up with a feeling of it's doable. And yeah, that's a good time to do it. Now, for someone with ADHD, that almost feels like a flat emotion.
[8:12] That's Oh my God, it's like giving in. And that's another awareness we got to have that this is a very different feeling now. And just if I can tell a very quick story, I was coaching this wonderful artist who had to do a very boring update. of a very boring document for work and they were really struggling with it.
[8:28] So I applied this approach and we got to the end of a 45 minute session and I foolishly asked the wrong question. I said, so are you motivated to do that thing now? And the person looked at me and said, Oh God, no. And I thought, there goes, that was, I've wasted his time. That was a terrible session.
[8:47] And then he said, but I'm going to do it. And I said how do you know that? And he said it just feels doable. And it's a good time to do it. It's fine, but don't call it motivation. And that, which highlights the fact that we actually have this distorted perspective of what motivation is.
[9:00] So now if we do it. The neurotypical way, if you like, it means we decide what motivation when we create motivation, we create it by imagining the task, we create the appropriate time because we can see it in the detail of the task, and we choose a time that works best for us. Which is all lovely and internally driven.
[9:23] It's not, doesn't require to be close in time because we can generate that emotion anytime we want. In fact, we can generate it six weeks before and have heaps of time to get it done. And all we have to do is practice that approach and we can completely shift how we approach. Motivation and procrastination.
[9:40] Ian: mean this I think this is so Mind blowing I think that I'm probably gonna have to go back and listen to what you just said a few more times because it is so radically different I think to the way I've been used to my brain working. I've always relied on having an emotion to push me forwards to get the stuff done and I think about like the blog posts that I've written in the past that I've had to wait until I've been in my, I don't know, whatever you want to call it, zone of genius, down the rabbit hole, hyper focus.
[10:13] And then when I'm not like that, I beat myself up and I try and get myself into this anxious state in order to do the stuff. But what you're saying is there is actually Another way. I have a question, though, that what you say sounds amazing. It seems to me to sometimes lack the spark. So like I've seen, for example, I'll use my blog post thing as an example.
[10:36] I've written some like blog posts that have gone viral in the past, people have thought they were like really helpful. And that's because I got into this hyper focus down the rabbit hole side of things. I was so motivated. I was excited about it. And my concern would be that if I was to do it the more neurotypical way that it would lose that spark how do we get that balance between doing it this way?
[10:57] We by doing it not necessarily, being motivated to do it, but just doing it but also have that spark
[11:03] Jon: I think a big thing we got to remember with ADHD that this is a lifestyle. Like we're, we're not changing our brains. So by all means if you have the spark and you want to write, I do the same when I'm writing or when I'm doing music and stuff and I'll get lost in it.
[11:17] I'll hyper focus. And that's a lovely place to be. The only thing we have to watch out for is if there's any detriment attached to it now. So when that happens. Brilliant. Go with it, do it. Just be aware that you still need to manage it. So you don't, effectively hyper focus by definition can be problematic because what hyper focus is, as opposed to being in flow, is that we lose all concept of time.
[11:42] We usually we can actually drift off the target activity because we're doing a lot of free association. So it can become a little bit unfettered. And a little bit inefficient, however, that can be fine. But I'll tell you what you can do better. So you can still have that. That's great. The way I'm talking about is how we make things happen far more reliably.
[12:04] Now, but if you think about it, there's actually a few different systems that are, I was actually just coaching someone before I came on this call. We were talking about that, we went through all the principles about, we now see my code. We talk about connecting, we talk about imagining it so we can see it, which creates the motivation, which in turn, We call up whenever we want to activate.
[12:24] And then we utilize that imagined state for the actions where we problem solve in real time. And then we recognize achievement and change right now. But then we got to the end of that theoretical approach. And then we talked about what, how are we going to make it happen now to make it happen? You need tools, anything in life, in real life, you have to use tools.
[12:43] Now, what are the tools that we need to make that happen? Reliably? Well, We need time. Which we've already covered and we're not great with and we don't have, we're not good at using the tool so that we can be. The other thing we need to be able to do is we need to be able to manipulate our environment to support us.
[12:58] And the other thing too, as you mentioned before about having, the dopamine to do it. And this is where, we're really talking a couple of steps back along the chain. There's, it's not as direct as that. But if we think about dopamine availability if I'm exhausted, why would I try and do some detailed work?
[13:17] And the only reason we think we have to is because we've worked unreliably in the past because we had to do it when we're exhausted because we left it to the last minute. Whereas if you have your life organized, so if you learn how to effectively use a calendar and, you know, the way I talk about a calendar and I've got to stress, I was terrible with calendars at one point in my life for the last 15, 20 years, I've been brilliant with calendars.
[13:41] I never miss anything. I'm never stressed by time. I get more done than I ever thought possible because my calendar is a topographical map of my time and my energy. I see my life in my calendar, and because I can see when I'm active, I can see when I plan to have breaks and rests, so I can make my time very reliable, and even with any task I have to do, I always have a fallback time somewhere in there that I could utilize, that I just leave as a space, so once you get to that point, And you're utilizing that way and you've learned to manipulate your environment and to be aware of your own function, your internal functioning, then before you know it, it's very easy to set yourself up for success.
[14:22] Ian: Wow, I just I'm just my mind is blown by your your calendar. I'm just I kind of want to see your calendar. Now. How is it? How are you planning it all? Because like, so I mean, one thing that I know a lot of people recommend is time blocking. So you're putting your tasks in those, but it sounds like you'll take you're taking that a step further.
[14:39] And you're thinking about the, you know, You, you have an idea, it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that when you're, you've got higher energy, when you've got your downtime, you're planning in your rest. I've always been told in the past, planning your date times with your wife or what, with your partner or whatever, put it that in your calendar as well.
[14:58] So can you tell us a little bit more about how you use your calendar and what you're planning in there? Because that sounds fascinating to me.
[15:04] Jon: No, that's a really good question. So the first part is, yeah, the whole time blocking thing. And I've even heard of people being quite rigid with their time blocks. The first thing I'll tell you is It actually removes the need for extensive planning. The way I do it is I call it organic calendaring.
[15:20] So that it's very simple when something pops into my head that I think I want to do, I put it in my calendar straight away. So if you said, Hey, let's go and catch a movie. That would go straight in the calendar. Now, why would I do it straight away? Firstly, obviously, because I might forget it. Secondly, though, more importantly, it allows me to see the logistics of okay, you're talking about tomorrow night going to movies.
[15:42] Oh, I've got a massive day tomorrow. I might be pretty brain dead and you want to see the whole trilogy of the Lord of the Rings back to back. Oh, Ian, I'm not going to cope. So I might look at that and go I can see the lack of energy there. So that, which is now I'm, now I'm visualizing the future, something that we don't do well with ADHD.
[16:02] So instead I might say, maybe not tomorrow night, Ian, but what about if we did it on Saturday? And I can even see the travel time in there and I can even now start projecting and say I'm going to make sure I keep some time free before Lord of the Rings epic. So you put things in. So first off, what do you put in the calendar?
[16:19] You put in anything you want to happen, including your rests and breaks in the day. Really important. When we first use calendars, it's like, it's like somebody who does no idea what time is uses a calendar. We just cram things in there one after another, and then we wonder why we don't do them.
[16:35] Because we're exhausted. Like we can't do them all. We don't allow transition time. We, retooling time. We don't have backup time. So for example, in my calendar, every day there were three breaks in there. Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. All or half an hour. Morning tea and afternoon tea might be just five minutes, depending on what I need.
[16:53] But morning tea is a pause, reflection and projection. It's a way of breaking the flow for a bit to allow myself to recharge. Lunch is a check out. I check out for half an hour. I eat. I don't think about work. It allows me to refresh my perspective. So whatever was I was working on before, I see with new eyes when I come back.
[17:13] And then the last one, afternoon tea, is my favorite one. It's interesting. Afternoon tea is the first one most businesses cut, but I love afternoon tea. Afternoon tea breaks up that afternoon. It allows you to check to see how the day's gone, or if there's anything you need to rescue. It allows you to plan finishing on time, so you can finish feeling finished.
[17:33] Because it's only a couple of hours by that point, but even better, you can see tomorrow. I can look at my calendar tomorrow and say, Okay, is it looking good? Is there anything I need to put in there for tomorrow that's not already there? And most importantly, what will I hit the ground running with tomorrow morning?
[17:49] And how will I set myself up for that? Now, so then, see how it's all happening organically, right? I'm just sticking in as it comes in. I'm leaving gaps between things. I'm making sure I allocate for downtime. And this is all just my breaks I just put on a recurring, repeating appointment with myself.
[18:06] But the other stuff is just going in as it comes up. And it populates itself. Now, I hear you. I hear you wonder, but what about if something of a greater priority comes up? How do we prioritize? It's easy. Something more important comes up. You bump something less important from now. If let's say if Prince Charles says, come play polo, does he play polo?
[18:27] Who can say? He's king. Oh my God. He's your king. Sorry. King Charles. Um, Sorry. Sorry. It's us colonial people. We're a bit behind the times. Um, I apologize. But So if there's something really exciting and important comes up, I can just reschedule something that I've scheduled for now that's not as important.
[18:46] So it takes away all that idea as I have to see my entire life to be able to prioritize things before I put it in the calendar. The other thing is too, you abandon lists. Lists are only useful to to use as a default working memory to capture like process or break down the steps. Soon as you've got it in a list, you need to move it into the calendar where it's allocated to time.
[19:07] I'm sorry you got me going on calendars. I could talk for hours on calendars.
[19:10] Ian: We should probably be back to talk deeply about calendars, but I'm aware of time. I just wanted just another remaining in a few minutes. Would you be able to go through, I think it's the CIMAA model that you talk about have you, , got like a, an example of a task, for example, that somebody might want to do, and can you take us through the process of actually coaching that person to be able to actually do that task and to do it?
[19:37] Jon: Yeah, sure. If it's okay, I'll use, say, a university assignment because
[19:41] Ian: Yeah, that
[19:42] Jon: fairly generalized experience that most people have had. So if we think about a university, so C in the CIMA stands for connect. So that's where we're effectively making a cost benefit argument. Now, remember with ADHD, we have to be a bit careful there because sometimes we can exaggerate the cost if it's something we don't like.
[20:02] And minimize the benefit. Or if it's something we're really excited about, we can exaggerate the benefit and minimize the cost. So it's still worth being wary of. But basically it's a cost benefit argument. Now let's use the uni assignment. Within a uni assignment, the day I signed up for uni, I basically decided that I was going to be doing that assignment even before I knew it existed because that was part of the requirement.
[20:24] So the reality is a lot of the time we've already agreed, we've already committed to doing things and I think we're kidding ourselves. When we rationalize, or maybe I don't want to do it, the second stage, the imagine stage, which is my favorite bit, because I think that's where we solve a lot of the problems.
[20:40] So process. So I have to see the process. So problem with an assignment is it's not one task. It's multiple tasks. We've already said working memory and attention isn't going to cope with that. And we're going to have an emotional reaction to feeling overwhelmed. Okay. So what we've got to do is we've got to break it down into clear process steps.
[20:58] So I can see discrete steps. And the way I like to do it is I work backwards. I start with the end result. Okay, I'm handing in the assignment. What I've got to do immediately before that, I've got to review to make sure I didn't write nonsense in there. Then what I've got to do before that, I've got to do the introduction and conclusion, say, and then before that, the body points.
[21:15] And then before that, the essay plan then the research questions right back to understanding the question. So now I've got maybe seven steps. Okay. That's if counting maybe multiple body points. So I've got seven steps. None of them should be more than about an hour and a half.
[21:30] Two hours for the average university undergrad assignment, right? So I'm just, again, generalizing for that. So I can see the process and straight away I'm saying to see the resources. I'm going to need access to research. I'm going to need time. Is the other big thing I'm going to need. So now I can sit down and say in context, the assignments due in three weeks, there's seven lots of an hour and a half.
[21:53] I could cram them all into one day, but realistically looking at my topographical map of my life and my calendar, does that look fun? Probably not. So what I'll do instead is I might space it out a day, an exercise, maybe two chunks at different ends of the day, but. Have breaks in between. The value of that too is that if we leave a gap, a sleep between some of these steps, we actually do a lot of free processing when we're asleep.
[22:20] We know when we're asleep that we revisit content up to 15 times faster, new, particularly new content. So it's, we're reprocessing. So when we wake up in the morning, we'll be more articulate on the topic than we were the day before. So there's an advantage to that too. Now, the other big advantage is every day I can do that amount of work and know that I've finished for the day.
[22:41] I can say, no guilt, I know this assignment is going to happen when it should happen. I've got heaps of time, but I can see the allocated time. So there, now I have it in context. So now I've plotted it around my other lectures or work or whatever else I've got to do. And then I move into motivation. So I've created, I've just created the motivation.
[22:59] Feels doable. That's a good time to do it. All I have to do is every time I activate to task, I have that particular task in my calendar for a specific time, not for Tuesday, but for 10 a. m. Tuesday. Because then at 10 a. m. Tuesday, that's my signal. I have an alarm just before 10 a. m. to help me activate because often we wait to the start point and then we don't want to start.
[23:22] So we give ourselves a warmup. I make sure that I've got the materials and things I'm going to need. So there's no barriers to me starting. And then I sit down and I do the task, even if I need to have a little checklist of stepping through the task, right? That which is going to support my attention, but also support my motivation.
[23:38] Then that, so now I'm activating. So that's the A, the first day, which is I'm activating. I've called up the motivation. I remembered it's realistic and doable. So now I'm as I'm activating, I'm doing it, I might run into a problem. All I have to do is notice if a step's not working. I need to be able to stop, assess what the problem is, correct for it, and then restart.
[24:00] And if we're only doing it in small steps, that's not hard. And then last but not least, I have the last A, because we have two A's, C I M A A. The last A is about achievement. So it's about being able to stop regularly and say what worked well today, what didn't. What would I do again? What would I change?
[24:17] And if you do that, you actually grow, you actually learn a whole new toolkit because I guarantee everybody out there will have one little trick they know works for them to activate most of the time. I get someone today who said they have an Apple pencil, but without that Apple pencil, that was like their Achilles heel.
[24:33] So what's yours, Ian? What's your magic trick?
[24:36] Ian: Oh, I don't know. There must be loads that I've got to help me with all that I do. I'm gonna have to think about that one and write it down in a blog post that I'm going to write next week.
[24:46] Jon: and I'll take it one step further with that achievement. If you can track what you've achieved, like what's worked and what you would change. So let's again stay with the uni example, right? So I'm just going to apply to a project to work or anything. When you go to that crunch time of that deadline is always when you have amazing clarity.
[25:05] Like hindsight's 20, 20. That's when you look back and go, I wish I'd started earlier, or if only I'd done that or this or the other. And if we also notice the positive things that work cause with ADHD, we usually ignore them. Then what you can do is you can look forwards in your calendar and say, Ooh, I'm going to have another assignment next year or next semester.
[25:27] At the beginning of the semester, I'm going to put a note to remind myself of the things I wished I'd done, which means I actually can learn from this experience and grow.
[25:34] Ian: Wow. That is so helpful. Thank you so much, Jonathan. I'm aware of time. I you've been very gracious with your time today. I think you've blown my mind. I'm sure you're blowing the minds of people watching and listening. So I do encourage If this has really made a big difference to you watching or listening do go back and listen to it again and Read jonathan's book as well and connect with jonathan.
[25:57] Where's the best place to Connect with you jonathan. You've got your website.
[26:00] Jon: Yeah, through the
[26:01] Ian: well?
[26:01] Jon: Yeah, the easiest way is connectadhd. com. And there's emails and links and phones and messaging and all in there.
[26:09] Ian: All that kind of stuff. Thank you so much jonathan. It's been great to have you on the show Thank you so much. And until next time, I encourage you to be smart with your ADHD. Toodaloo.
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