Smart Creating with ADHD Part 2

[1:04] Hello, welcome back to smart ADHD. Well, this is the second part of an episode that was broadcast a few weeks ago, and it's from the social media news live show, and that's run by my good friend, Jeff Sieh. And this is all about smart creating with ADHD. They were actually interviewing me. And I wanted to split this into two because there was so much stuff that we talked about and I'm trying to make these episodes really short.

[1:31] So this is the second part of it. We talk about some of the techniques and the tools that I use to help with ADHD. And yeah, it's a really interesting conversation. So I hope you enjoy it. Let's get on with it right now.

[1:44] Connor: have to imagine that when you're living with ADHD routines and processes are, probably especially useful, to help you stay productive you've talked a little bit about it, but could you share some other effective systems and routines that help you.

[2:02] Ian: Yeah, I back to the quickly back onto the quadrant thing.

[2:05] I think that we all have energy tanks, it doesn't matter what kind of brain you have, an energy tank and but understanding if you spent. any time in the red zone, you're going to drain your tank and you could get leading to burnout. if you spend too much time in the blue zone, you, yeah, it might be fun watching Netflix, but if you do that all the time, you're going to get drained.

[2:25] So it's just balancing that. And this is yet where routine comes in. The ADHD is that it's a balancing act because if you have too much routine, it gets boring. and. But if you don't have any routine, that's not exactly going to help you get stuff done. So it's finding the right balance for you. And we're all different.

[2:47] So time blocking, I have a kind of a flexible approach to time blocking because I, find it does help, but again, if it becomes too rigid, I ignore it. It's just the way my brain works, but Google calendar for me. Oh my goodness. It's the most amazing thing ever. It's, helped us as a family.

[3:12] We have shared calendars. We know what we're doing. If it's not in the calendar, it's not going to happen. I've got really good. at making appointments. It's incredibly rare that I miss an appointment because it's in the calendar and I've just got my brain focused on that. Not being too rigid, but you do need to have some, routines, absolutely.

[3:33] I've mentioned having a virtual assistant or somebody to help, accountability as well. So actually, sometimes I've spent time with my VA and actually, she's just been there saying, Okay, you got these five emails. Oh, can I just reply to them now? And she's waiting there while I reply to these emails. But the fact that she is there is helping me to do it.

[3:55] I find How would I call this like artificial deadlines can help. my kids are at the time when I'm basically dad's taxi. So like I'm taking my daughter to swimming or to music practice and I'm in the car park, like for 45 minutes, an hour, I get some of my best work done because I've only got 50 minutes to do stuff.

[4:17] And, I'm almost artificially firing up my. I think it's called my limbic system in my brain. I'm getting all technical now, but this is the stuff that I've been learning. And so like artificial, time limits can help, , and then things like getting out of the house. So changing the environment.

[4:34] So sometimes that could be. working. So it could be like working in a different room of the house, going to a coffee shop. Don't forget your noise cancelling headphones, and play some white noise or brown noise through that. We can talk about that in a bit. I use timers as well because of this kind of weird perception of time that ADHD people tend to have having Pomodoro technique.

[4:56] I'm not entirely convinced Pomodoro works in the sense that I think you need to be flexible with ADHD because sometimes you're just so in the zone, you're so hyper focused that there's no way you're going to stop. In fact, if you stop, you're going to find it very difficult to get back into it. But, this is particularly for stuff that you don't want to do your yellow zone tasks.

[5:18] Timers are great. and then there's of course this technology as well as, I use things like notion, we've mentioned Google calendars as all this kind of stuff, which you can maybe talk about in a bit.

[5:28] Jeff: Yeah, I think that's all, really good. One of the, and this was a question somebody sent me, when they knew that we're going to be talking about this topic, so I'm really interested in your thoughts on this, It's creating, consistently. So creating consistently can really be challenging. We as creators, entrepreneurs, we know all about that. So how do you maintain motivation and continue to produce new content or ideas, particularly during, you mentioned before, like sometimes just the, with the, the ups and downs, those unmotivated phases.

[5:58] Like when you're unmotivated, how do you continue to produce this new content and ideas that you have to do as a creator or entrepreneur?

[6:07] Ian: This and this is a tough one, I think, because so that this is why people do go down the medication route, I believe that can sometimes help. But in a holistically, I've mentioned a few of those things, getting exercise.

[6:23] But Putting all those to one side, like I, again, following my curiosity, making sure that the tasks that I'm doing are stuff that I enjoy. and I found this with my show that I needed to be flexible enough in order to be able to keep my curiosity going. And actually I found with my confident live show, and we can maybe talk about this in a bit, but there were things that I really wanted to talk about that weren't.

[6:50] really appropriate, they weren't really part of about live video and which is my, what my podcast and show is about. So I ended up realizing, I need to create a new show. And so I can talk about that, but also I think you need to give yourself permission. And this is a really hard one for me.

[7:08] You need to give yourself permission to that's it's okay to stop and it's okay not to be consistent. Like next week, I'm going to be totally honest with you. I don't have an episode ready for the confident line marketing show. I've got, I've had three out and next week I don't. So like I could really stress about that or I could say, okay, I'm going to do a little bonus episode.

[7:31] I'm going to record five, 10 minutes and that's okay. The world is still going to be here. and so you think it's just like understanding that it's okay. However. What really helped me at the start when I, when I'm thinking about how I was consistent with my, the ConfidentLive marketing show from May, 2019 until last year, I did it every single week or the podcast was every single week.

[7:54] And the only way I did that was I had a solid plan and a process. And so I knew why I was doing it. I knew how I was going to do it. I had a good process and I had people helping me. Yeah. and so although you might want to be alone, yes, you can be alone in terms of the creativity, but you need help from other people as well, I think.

[8:14] And you also need to give yourself permission to change and stop along the way.

[8:19] Connor: Great advice. Yeah. you've, hinted a little bit at tech helping you. And I love this question from Dustin, who says, I'm curious if you've been able to utilize AI in any way to help with your ADHD.

[8:32] Ian, let's take that and, combine it with just tech or digital tools in general? What have you found useful to help, when it comes to managing your ADHD scheduling, time management activity, all that stuff?

[8:50] Ian: so I want to preface this and saying that for some people like AI is Like the new technology can be overwhelming and will explode people's brains.

[9:00] And but you if you can get over that, for me, I'm immensely excited about using AI to help me. It's like in, In preparation of coming onto the show, for example, I had so many things that I wanted to talk about. I was thinking, Oh my goodness, like, I'm going to be asked this, I knew that you were probably going to ask me, how would you explain what ADHD is, what is it?

[9:27] And so I had, so I actually used AI to go back through some of the stuff that I've talked about and not, to tell me what I was going to say, but to give me an idea, to move me from a blank piece of paper. To something which I can then tweak and put my own creativity in so like tools like chat GPT or whatever, , have been so helpful to getting me off the blank page, , into kind of creating stuff, , some summaries of meetings, and I remember Jeff, when we went to create a camp, I actually kept this audio note that was converted into chat GPT summaries of, what was happening every day.

[10:09] I use notion to, I've built my own kind of CRM. So I basically put all everyone I know it, most people I know, into that. And then I've linked them up with which events I've met them at. So I can go in there and I can see, every event that I've seen you, Jeff in it. And that is brilliant, because it's basically like my second brain or it is my brain.

[10:32] Basically. I've become like a cybernetic organism. and then there's obviously there's, Google calendar at the moment. and maybe somebody can, correct me on this. Doesn't have AI. I'm a little bit. nervous about putting AI into organizing my week. I don't think we're there yet, or I'm not there yet, because I want to have some control over that.

[10:59] But I think with some of the processes, it can be really helpful. , so things like that, , but there were other, some kind of non AI tools. , so I do want to big shout out to, , things like Apple air tags. I no longer forget my keys. I know where they are. there's tools like brain FM. I use that.

[11:17] All the time with my noise cancelling headphones because it just, gets rid of any distractions. It helps me go to sleep. So BrainFM basically, it plays sounds and music to either, get rid of distractions or it helps you actually focus on what you're doing. And I use it all the time. Things like reminders, whether it's Apple reminders or whatever it is to, help you like with shopping lists, read wise, I use that to keep a track of all my, books, and things like that.

[11:47] I could go on, but there's a big, yeah. So I

[11:50] Jeff: think that's,

[11:50] Ian: I

[11:50] Jeff: mean, read wise. Is

[11:52] Ian: you

[11:52] Jeff: have a follow up you're gonna ask

[11:53] Connor: I have a follow up because this is just me personally Getting started with notion. I find so daunting because I Get overwhelmed and my brain starts going a hundred miles an hour when I just see the blank page and that I can set it up anyway, almost fills me with more anxiety versus someone just saying, this is how you should do it.

[12:15] So Ian, I'm curious when you started with that, was it buying templates? Was it, you knew exactly what you wanted or did you just go in and go crazy?

[12:25] Ian: Yeah. Yeah. So like it was, So hopefully this is encouraging. I think I was overwhelmed. I watched all these YouTube videos and I probably got hyper fixated or hyper whatever it is.

[12:37] I was thinking, oh my goodness, there's all these amazing opportunities and all these amazing YouTubers talking about it. But I realized that a lot of them was spending all this time making it look beautiful. And I'm not against I, think that's all great. but what I thought was, and I bought lots of templates.

[12:55] And so do you know what, what's always helped is start simply and build. So I knew that, I wanted to create a way to help me remember the people, like friends, contacts and where I met them. So all I didn't worry about the way I just created a really simple database in notion with people's names.

[13:17] and. Links to places. And then I created another database of events that I'd been to, and then I linked the two together. So you can have database of contacts, database of places. So it could be places like, e comm creator camp, social media, market world, whatever. And so I can link those two together.

[13:37] And I think that's what I love about notion. You can create databases and then link them together. and so I just create, made it really simple. And then now I've got a travel database and I've got, my stuff database. So I've got all my cables and all that kind of stuff and tech. And I've got that in that.

[13:56] But I didn't start off with that. Oh my goodness. No way. I just started simply and built it over time. So I would say just start like that. Don't worry about making it beautiful. Mine's still not beautiful. maybe I will make it beautiful at some point, but it just works. And at the end of the day, the, these tools are to help us solve a problem.

[14:16] And I'm not against spending time making them look beautiful, but that's more, that's actually not going to help you. It might give you fun along the way. And that's, I'm not, that's not Saying that's a bad thing, but a lot of these that youtubers that they're just like having fun Building the system as opposed to thinking about what actually what problem actually solves at the end of the day And I think that's what you need to focus on

[14:41] Jeff: so what I've did because I now my life is in notion Is I bought templates cause I wanted to do second brain.

[14:46] I wanted to do something that would have my content because as I got more and more clients and doing more and more shows, I could easily miss things like I, so I have checklists for each one of those things. And I am very disciplined now that I can go checklist. And so I can know where, who has, what, where are things at, what content I put out on the different platforms.

[15:06] And it sounds like a lot, but the peace of mind that I have that I can look at that and go. Oh, that is done. Okay. I can move on to the other thing. So I bought a template and then don't do the, there's some things that I don't even use on it, but it got me set up to start. But like Dustin says, like he is he's like Huey and he goes, he's the same way, start simple and build from there, perhaps take bits of inspiration from the temples I find.

[15:28] And even when we had the cap, Millville on our show, she was talking about, just do it like that, make it your own or buy one and don't worry about the stuff you're not going to use. Don't stress about it. I think either way, as long as you get it and you are disciplined enough to do that.

[15:44] I think it was important. Another thing from Dustin, I want to pull up says, Pomodoro definitely helps me. So much that I built an app for it specifically for out best works with my flows. So Dustin is a little bit of a genius and kind of makes me mad that he can do that. But, I use a Pomodoro technique called focus to do, which puts actually my task lists and I can go through each one and have that time.

[16:06] It's really good. Like you said, Ian, for stuff that you don't want to do, okay, I'm going to work 20 minutes on my, or 25 minutes on my taxes, which I just. But I have to have that timer to make me get focused. And, but if I'm working on something like preparing for a podcast or in it, I need to go over that.

[16:23] It's fine. Like you said, have flexibility. back to ADHD and this time management thing, is there anything else, any advice you have for entrepreneurs, that have, or struggle with ADHD? In terms of managing time and setting realistic goals. Because I know you and I've talked before, it's we, say I'm going to do all of this and I'm going to do it in the next day.

[16:49] And then we're like, then we feel bad. Cause we, the day went by and we'd got maybe one of the tasks that we have trouble figuring out. What we can actually do versus what we want to do. So how do you manage time and set realistic goals for yourself?

[17:04] Ian: Oh yeah. You speak in my language here. It, yeah, it's, so I've mentioned that the way we experienced time differently, but also we tend to the, I've not mentioned the whole dopamine thing.

[17:16] we, it's difficult to get the dopamine, which is that kind of hormone that gives us that positive feedback on things. And so we, and a lot of us tend to be perfectionists and compare ourselves with others and think, Oh, I've got, all this stuff that I need to do. and just like the feeling that you, that, the, you're going to do it sounds amazing.

[17:42] but then you forget that most of those tasks aren't actually tasks. They are tasks of tasks They're projects. and you don't also know about other distractions that are gonna come in that day like a phone call or somebody comes to the door or an email's popped in and You got distracted and then you get to the end of the day and you've probably done like 20 tasks But there weren't probably about two of them were on the list.

[18:18] And so I think having a little bit of flexibility here is, good because, you just need to be aware that's going to sometimes happen, but this is why having some kind of, to do app where you're listing things, but getting that help to break them into those. actual tasks as opposed to projects, again, getting help from maybe a virtual assistant, ideally, and a virtual assistant who understands the way the ADHD brain works is helpful as well.

[18:57] and, all the stuff that we've talked about before about understanding the different zones that your tasks are in, if they're all financial and to do with taxes and bookkeeping. Good luck with that. That's all I can say. Just maybe focus on one or two things, for 15 minutes and then reward yourself afterwards with something.

[19:14] Because again, like it is, that dopamine thing. We don't want to get addicted to those tasks, but maybe you can say, after that, I'm going to do something, a fun task, as well. I think be realistic with your goals. Thanks. Because of that perfectionism.

[19:29] However, I'm going to like almost contradict that. I think because of that potential for that negative self chatter, you also need to dream big sometimes. And sometimes think, I can't, achieve that because I'm no good at it. And actually, when I have given myself the permission to dream big dreams, I have ended up achieving those, because, I've over time, I've built those strategies to get there.

[20:00] So yeah, hopefully all that helps.

[20:02] Jeff: So I know we've talked about this before is a lot of times we struggle with, we compare ourselves to others. And we don't look back seeing how far we've come. if we look back to 2015, when we first met in the real life, Social Media Marketing World. Yeah. We would have never dreamed what we were doing right now and who we were working for and the project we'd be able to do and accomplish and continue to work.

[20:23] It's trying to create that new groove in your brain. Instead of comparing yourself to others, look how far you've come. And that's something I think, you and I've talked about a lot. So now let's dive into this. This new project that you've been cooking up for a while. Yeah. I know you've talked about this for a while and we've talked about in our masterminds and stuff. but, yeah, Connor, I know you had a question about it

[20:43] Connor: as well.

[20:44] I'm excited about this. So the smart ADHD podcast, a new launch, new show, all that fun stuff. So I know you and you talked. a little bit about hesitations, but what inspired you to one launch this podcast? And two, what were some of those hesitations that you might've had initially when it came to starting this?

[21:05] Ian: Yeah. I love the way you, asked that question, focusing on the positive first. Cause I would always like focus on the negatives first, but yeah. So for me, going down the ADHD route and realizing that I, I had ADHD and that I have my brain works differently, took away so much guilt and has helped me become much more productive and just this, that understanding is it's been amazing.

[21:30] And I've spoken to so many other people who have had similar experiences. And so I've always known I was different. and I also, I questioned my own intelligence. And so I think that was part of it, but also, I met, That's ADHD coach called Dr. Tamara Rosier. I came across her on YouTube.

[21:49] I invited her onto my other podcast. We became really good friends. She became our ADHD coach and we were just talking about this. And I was thinking, Oh, I'd really to, launch a podcast about this. And she said, you need to do it. You need to do it. And. Like she's quite a big name in the, ADHD expert world.

[22:07] And so I felt compelled partly because she was saying I should, but also like I had this feeling inside of me that I just almost felt that I should be doing this. Like I, I said, I came up with something a few years ago, which was like one of what I really love is to, what I really love to be is like a catalyst for the transformation in people's lives.

[22:33] And it, and I feel that this podcast could, be that. But there's a big but, and the but was that, yeah, okay, lots of people have been struggling, but, there's still a lot of stigma attached to it as well. And, some people have said to me, yeah, Ian, you shouldn't do that because ADHD people are seen as unreliable.

[22:53] they're always late for things and while that might not be the case, you might not get hired if you say that about yourself and, do you want that to define you? So there was that and the fact that I'm calling it smart ADHD as well, and I have a double problem here because first of all, as I said, people with ADHD tend to question their intelligence and they have that kind of low self esteem.

[23:17] But also I'm British, and as Brits, we don't tell, we don't tend to talk about our successes. this is why I love spending time with you Americans. Not that you're all like this. I want to paint stereotypes, but like in the UK, we don't want to pick ourselves up.

[23:35] And I'm not saying I'm like super intelligent, but I think I've realized I'm Probably more intelligent than I was giving myself, permission. You can say it,

[23:45] Jeff: credit for, you can say it Ian. I know you're British, it's

[23:47] Ian: hard to say, but you can say it. No, I can't, even bring myself to say, but that's the focus of this podcast is, for smart people with ADHD, but it's not just smart people.

[23:56] It's also smart strategies. So even if you feel you're not smart, it's all about smart strategies. but yeah, the other thing is if you are smart, then Often you have learned tools to help you counteract your ADHD symptoms. Some of them are really good and some of them are really bad. And I've realized, so this is again, something from Dr.

[24:16] Tamara Rosier. She talks about the six bad tools that we tend to use and the things like using anxiety, procrastination, avoidance, self loathing and shame and anger, and those tools can really affect you in A negative way and so that's why I feel it's so important to do that And so that's why i'm launching this podcast and youtube channel

[24:39] Jeff: So this is an interesting question.

[24:41] I just do it because I know you do confident live and that's another part of your brand Is helping people go live, you know easily and confidently but you're doing this one as a prerecorded show. Is there a reason you did this? Is it because of, you didn't want to stress about it or why did you do it this way?

[24:57] Because you, do, you excel at do it going live and you actually remote produce for other people. What's the reason behind doing this way?

[25:05] Ian: And I've actually done it the same with, a confident live marketing show. I've actually switched that and I don't do that live. I am going live.

[25:12] Occasionally with that. And, I, so I had, again, I had this negative voice saying Ian, like it's called the confident live marketing show and you're not going live. And somebody said to me, Ian, you've already demonstrated. that you know what you're talking about when it comes to live. So it's okay.

[25:24] So for me, the, for this new podcast, we're doing short episodes. So we're trying to make them 20 to 25 minutes long. So I'm trying to cut out as much waffle and trying to get straight to the point, to make them, ADHD friendly with that, time. And, we're focusing on. I suppose it's education, addressing myths, specific topics as well.

[25:48] So the advantage with that is that in that one hour of time, I can then, I can record two. Two episodes. So that's really good. I can batch them as well. I can do multiple times today. you could still do that with live, but that's really helpful. So I can be more flexible. I love live.

[26:09] I still do it, but to be honest, it, at the level of the frequency I was doing it at before it was draining. I find live, very exciting, but it also drain drained me a little bit too. I felt like I needed to change. Also, not all guests are going to be comfortable with live, particularly, moving out of the marketing and social media space.

[26:30] Not everyone is techie. and I've got longer episodes. So the 20 to 25 minute episodes are with guests, expert guests. I'm interspersing those episodes with, I'm bringing on smart entrepreneurs, business owners and creatives who have been navigating their lives with ADHD on to tell their story.

[26:52] And we're doing the opposite. So we're actually doing really long episodes. So the recent one was almost 90 minutes and we're going deep into this story and ah, I'm so excited about those. The expert episodes are really exciting too, but actually allowing people to speak, and We can actually really get into that and you can imagine if that was live Sometimes they might get onto a sensitive topic and subject and I want to have the sensitivity Maybe if they don't feel comfortable with that, we can maybe edit it later I think in most cases they won't but I think that wouldn't work so well for live.

[27:27] Jeff: Those are great points I was just curious because of that. So so make sure you guys check out ian's podcast the smart adhd podcast. You can find that at smart ADHD dot m e. That's where you can go and you subscribe. Make sure you subscribe, listen, and then leave a rating and review. That always helps new podcasts out.

[27:46] And also you can find Ian at, what is it? I, I What is it? E I G. What is it again? I'm just gonna

[27:53] Ian: let you, I'm just gonna let you stumble over.

[27:55] Jeff: Just, I'm trying to think, do they spell the same right in England?

[28:00] Ian: I A G dot me is the other website.

[28:03] Jeff: Yes, so you can get all his Confident Live stuff, all his podcast things there, so make sure to check him out.

[28:09] Connor Brown, where can people find out more about the unsinkable

[28:12] Connor: Connor

[28:12] Jeff: Brown?

[28:13] Connor: You can go to www. opinion. com and follow me at www. opinion across the socials.

[28:20] Jeff: Thank you guys so much for your comments and questions. As if you're watching this on the replay, ask your questions. I know Ian's going to be following on the comments. We'd love to help in any way we can, but we thank you guys so much. We'll see you guys next week. Have a great one.

[28:32] Bye everybody.

[28:33] Ian: There you go. I hope you enjoyed that. Let me know what you think. You can always send me an email at ian at smartadhd. me or just let me know some thoughts in the comments if you're watching on YouTube. I've been away on a little family break, which has been lovely. So, but I've got some, uh, episodes coming up with some other guests and I'm in the middle of recording those at the moment.

[28:56] So we'll get back to some of those episodes and also some Some fantastic stories from some creatives entrepreneurs and business owners who are navigating their lives with ADHD as well So that's enough for me and I'll see you very soon. Toodaloo

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