Smart Tools for Smart ADHD

[1:04] Hello and welcome to the smart ADHD podcast. I'm Ian Anderson Gray. And in this episode, I'm going to be exploring some smart tools for ADHD, whether you are a business owner, a creator, or an entrepreneur. These tools have helped me with lots of different things like focusing and organization, remembering things like having a second brain, all that kind of stuff.

[1:30] Now, these are some of the tools that I use. But there are so many, and we all have different circumstances, different things that we struggle with, different things that we excel at. And so I'd love to hear from you. What you think are the best tools. What tools have you used? Pop them in the comments. If you're watching on YouTube, or wherever you are consuming this, whether you're listening, you can email me at Ian at smart ADHD dot me as well.

[2:00] There are loads of things that can help us and to help us manage our daily lives more efficiently. And the first section, the first segment, of apps and tools are focus apps that help you focus. Now, for me, I need to Be in different places. I, if I get stuck in the same place, I get frustrated.

[2:27] It stops my creativity. So I love being in my studio where I currently am, but. I also like to be somewhere else. I may go downstairs with my laptop or I may go to, for example, like a coffee shop or something like that. Now, the problem with coffee shops is, I find coffee shops work really well for me in that there are other people there and it helps me almost be more accountable.

[2:52] I know that sounds really weird because it's not like the people in the coffee shop are checking up on me, but I'm around other people and I'm And so I, it helps me focus on what I'm doing and be more creative. Now, the problem is though, with working somewhere that is there are lots of distractions that are happening.

[3:12] There are noises, that's the coffee machine making, the gushing noises or whatever it does. And, and so like I find listening to, either white noise, brown noise, or, some kind of music that helps me focus really makes a big difference. One of the best purchases that I've ever got are noise canceling headphones.

[3:36] So I'm wearing some at the moment. These are the Bose quiet comforts, headphones, and these are amazing. I also have my Apple. What are they called? AirPods. they are amazing. They've got the AirPods Pro 2. They're noise cancelling. So for me, noise cancelling headphones, they cut out a lot of the noise.

[3:54] But still, I find this app here called Brain FM makes a massive difference to helping me focus. Because what this does is it, and apparently this is, there's a lot of science that backs this up. they have different types of music. Now I could use that in inverted commas, Because for me, playing music distracts me.

[4:18] If the music is, can draw me away because I'm starting to analyze the music. But this is more sounds, ambient sounds. So we've got different categories here. We've got focus, relax. If you're into meditation, it's got that. And we've also got sleep, which helps you sleep. And, I'll come back to that in a minute, but the, focus ones.

[4:41] So for example, we've got here, this, is more of a relaxing one. so if you'll, if you're trying to relax, you can play that, which is really nice. So that's a. A relaxing sound, but focus ones. So let's have a look here. We've got, if it goes to focus, got deep work, creative flow, study and read and light work.

[5:03] So if I'm really getting into the zone, if I want to get into the zone, I'll choose deep work and then it will pick a track for me. So this has got the breath of life. It's got a high neural effects there, which means that it's on the left. It kind of pans around and, that's particularly useful in for people with ADHD, I find.

[5:24] that's electronic, but we can change that as well. if we prefer something else, this is called cognition. Now, I'm not going to play any, much of these because I don't want to get into trouble for copyright or whatever, but Brain. fm is fantastic, that helps you focus on those things. Let's try, for example, Creative Flow or maybe let's try Lightwork actually.

[5:49] Oops. that's quite good. Or there is, Lightwork. So maybe you're checking your emails or something like that. now for me, this is really useful because it just helps me get in the zone. Get the stuff done as well and at the end of that if you want to then relax and just get your heart rate down which is I think a really important thing for people with adhd because As I was speaking with dr.

[6:17] Tamar azir about this actually one of the things that Often we struggle with is getting our nervous system back to, relaxing mode. So I find things like having a bath, having a walk, breathing exercises really work, but Brain. fm really is amazing when it comes to all of those things. It helps you focus.

[6:40] Now it's not free. You have to pay a monthly fee. I, in, in all honesty, I got this ages ago. I just paid a one off fee when they were doing a special deal years and years ago, but I use this. So if you find music distracting, but you want to work it in somewhere a coffee shop or somewhere where there's a lot of noise and a lot of things happening, then that really helps.

[7:04] It helps you focus on stuff. Now, that's not going to be for everybody. there are other ways of driving out the sound. And for me, that is, like a white noise, white noise option. So there's loads of different apps for this. You can also go to YouTube, Apple Music, whatever. You'll be a search for white noise that will help you.

[7:29] Now, what white noise is, it basically plays all the frequencies of the spectrum from low to high. And so it really plays. Drowns out background sounds that's what white noise is and it can really help you focus now I personally find white noise a little bit too harsh, but This is a this is an app called white noise for ios.

[7:51] There is options for android as well So this is what white noise sounds like and I think you'll probably agree with me. This is quite abrasive quite harsh

[8:04] So yeah, that's that is white noise The one I prefer, okay, before I get into the one I prefer, this is pink noise. So pink noise, what this does is it accentuates the higher frequencies. So this is in my mind even, harsher. I wouldn't personally recommend this.

[8:29] That's weird. It actually seems like that's the lower frequency, but I believe pink noise should be the higher frequency. The one I like I'm going to go back to gray noise in a minute, but the one I really like is brown noise. So this is slightly lower frequency and I just find this a little bit more relaxing.

[8:48] Or less abrasive, I should say. So that's got a much deeper, sound. So grey noise, what grey noise does is it gets rid of the middle frequency, so it's low and high.

[9:04] Yeah, I don't mind that. So anyway, these apps can really help you focus on what you're doing, particularly if you're wearing noise cancelling headphones. A lot of these apps also have other things like, this is ocean waves crashing, which is very good if you're wanting to relax. Heavy rain pouring.

[9:23] I don't need. I don't need that one because I live in Manchester. It's always raining here. Extreme rain pouring. so you've got all these different, things here. Now, what's really interesting here is that, Dr. Russell Barclay, who is he's co, co wrote one of the big, books that has influenced so many of us, driven to distraction.

[9:46] he recently did a YouTube video. This was when was this? Yeah, this was on this was a few months ago as I record this and This was does white pink brown noise improve attention in adhd? And I definitely recommend if you're interested in this I definitely recommend watching It's only eight minutes long and it goes through some studies on why this might Make a difference and apparently there are meta analysis studies on whether white noise or other types of noises work So but basically the what he was focusing on does it actually help you focus in of itself?

[10:35] What I felt that video didn't talk about was Does it stop the distractions? And for me, I, I'm going to get distracted if there are lots of things happening. There's, too many, quite often with ADHD, you get overwhelmed with too much stimulation happening. So what I find these apps do, the white noise, brown noise, all those kinds of things.

[10:57] It just stops all of those distractions and helps you focus. I don't think it's. The noise in of itself that helps me for example at the moment in my studio If I was working on my own I probably wouldn't put on white or brown noise on because it's already pretty quiet. I would use brain fm though for that.

[11:17] So Interesting. I'd love to know what you think about that. now what's interesting Is if you have an iphone, let me see if I can get this up. Yeah, so if I You if you go to accessibility on this, so if I, on, I think this is called mission control. When you, scroll down and you have all the options, there is an option for background sounds, which I'm going to click on here and then you've got options.

[11:48] So you've got. Balanced noise, bright noise, dark noise, ocean, rain, and stream. And so I can then just click on this, and that is an ocean sound. Balanced noise? So balanced noise, that sounds, that's that's like white noise, but that's balanced noise. I need to look into that because I actually quite like that sound.

[12:16] Background sound settings. Yeah, you've got all of these different options here. You can you can even have it while media is playing and I highly recommend that is that's built in to ios So definitely check that out. There are loads of other apps out there. There's my noise is a good one.

[12:36] There's dark noise, but I found with dark noise in order to get anything really, you have to pay. so definitely check that out. Okay. Other things that you could do in terms of helping you focus, there's, an app called forest, which is an interesting one. So forest, what this does, I've not used this for a while, but basically you, it helps you grow like a virtual forest and the only way to grow the forest is by not using your phone.

[13:09] I can plant this, let's plant a tree. and I've got, it's saying I've got 120, Minutes of non screen time. So currently the this is giving me a little little seedling here You can see some little green leaves the problem is if I give this up if I have to toggle and go to another app like facebook or Instagram or something that plant dies And this kind of does weird things with your head.

[13:40] obviously we know this isn't true. It's not an actual plant dies, but, yeah, it, really helps. So if I go away from that now, is this going to, let's see if I go, I might not have set this up properly. I haven't, but if I give up, there will be four withered trees in your forest, it's saying.

[14:02] let's not do that. That, would be awful. I don't want any withered trees. there you go. some things to think about there. Noise cancelling headphones, forest app. there's other apps that you could check out. There's Rescue Time, there's Focus at Will. Loads of things like that. next segment is more to do with, relaxing and particularly at the end of the day, I think this is important, we're on the go all the time I've mentioned brain FM.

[14:31] I think really works. but things that were going to help our nervous systems. Calm down and one of those ways which I was a little bit dubious about is breathing and Box breathing can really help but I found that this actually really does Help me calm down exercise, of course really helps as well.

[14:53] So going for a walk Going to the gym, but at the end of that Calming down the app that I used to help me with. This is called iBreathe. So if let me click on this and there's different settings here. This is, thing I like about iBreathe is it's a really simple app. So we can change the voice. Do we want a voice?

[15:14] Do we want, haptic feedback? All of those kind of things. So if I click on breathe, I'm currently, yeah, I want intervals. I'm on four, seven and eight. So what it's going to do. It's going to, I think I breathe in for four, hold for seven, breathe out for eight. there's box breathing, there's a few different ones here.

[15:34] So if I go to breathe now, click on the breathe, click on start. What it's going to do is, so it's going to start in three seconds. So I'm inhaling for eight cycles. Eight and then after the eight it's going to then tell me to exhale I can't really do this now while i'm recording the podcast, but hopefully this gives you the idea And this is this gives you eight of these And I don't know about I don't know about you, but this really helps.

[16:10] It really helps me Relax at the end of this Okay, I'm not going to do any of that, now. But, iBreathe is a really cool app. It's just really simple. there we go. Anyway, that's, I'm sure there are other things that I should be looking at with the relaxing and the breathing side of things. I'd love to know from you.

[16:35] What you think because i'm going to be coming back to some of these in the future okay. The next segment is creating a second brain now I don't know about you, but I tend to forget things very easily. I just Struggle sometimes with short term memory And even long term memory. So for example, i've been to events and i've Forgotten where I first met a person and so I have decided to, I decided quite a few years ago to make a note of all the people I met at each event.

[17:13] and I use a tool called Notion. Now you don't have to use Notion. You could use whatever tool you like, but I particularly like Notion because it just helps me. Create a system that works for me the problem with notion I think for a lot of people a notions free by the way, and there are apps for iphone android and on desktop as well the problem I find with a lot of people find with notion is that they overcomplicate it and As soon as I said, okay, I'm just going to start simply and build it over time.

[17:53] I'm not going to focus on making it look beautiful or anything like that. If you watch any YouTube videos, they're all about how to make these things look beautiful. that's all great, but it's not actually going to help you get stuff done. So, I have here is, so if you're, listening to the podcast, you can watch this if on the video as well.

[18:15] So if you're interested in that, so this is my travel database and I'll explain what I've got here on the screen. I basically, if I ever, I go on a vacation holiday. I don't know, like a trip, a business trip, an event, that kind of thing. I put it in here. In fact, actually we've just come back from Wales, a lovely family trip.

[18:33] I need to put this in here. I haven't done that yet, but I was at an event back in March called Uplift Live. And if I click on this, I've got a little image of this. It says Uplift Live 2024. If I click on that, I can see this was a business trip. I, this was in Birmingham. So I've listed the place, which is in a different database.

[18:54] I was staying at the Easy Hotel because I always think like, why stay at a posh hotel if it's just me? It's just a kind of nice, basic hotel. I ate at these restaurants. So there was an amazing Indian street food restaurant, which I went to. So I can remember that and I can click on that. And that will take me to a little bit more information about that.

[19:15] and it was the Uplift live conference. Now, the really important thing for me is the list of people. And so I can see at this event, I met Tim Lewis, Lenker, Kopparvaar, Jane Eggers, lots of people here. And the cool thing is, for example, if I click now on Richard Tup, who is who I saw there, I can also then see the other events that I have seen him at.

[19:40] Now, I'm not entirely sure. I think this probably needs updating. So it's not perfect, but I can see here that I met him at new media, Europe, 2015, new media, Europe, 2016, you print a 2018. And in fact, what I need to do there is put also put uplift live in there and that add that in, but, I'm pretty sure I'm also sort of other events, some social media marketing and things like that.

[20:08] I also know that the preferred method of communication with him is on Facebook messenger. So I know that. But I can go back and I can re I can remember all these things. I can remember my trip to Orlando where I hung out with my friends Jeff C and some other people there and I can go all the way down.

[20:24] So this is amazing. the other thing that I've got is I've got a learning centre. So in there I've got all the books that I'm reading, podcasters that I'm listening to, and all that type of stuff. So I list all of that in there as well. so I've got my CRM, which is that got a learning center database and travel.

[20:47] And I'm going to come back to Notion in one of the other, sections later on, but there are lots of other tools that you could use those tools like Trello, there's Evernote, just find a tool that works for you. Now the learning center, uses a service called readwise and readwise is really cool if you have adhd because what this allows you to do it synchronizes with your highlights on kindle so if you're highlighting little you're reading a book or listening to your book You can highlight little segments of the book so you can remember later.

[21:28] But the problem with that is you then forget about it and you just, you never look back at it. What, Readwise does, it will take those from your Kindle and then post them into Notion or Evernote or whatever. And it helps you remember those things. So it's not just your Kindle, but it also use, you can, if you use Instapaper or Pocket, it also synchronizes with certain podcast apps as well.

[21:53] So if there's a podcast that you're listening to and you're really interested in one little snippet in there, you can, save that bit and then that will be added. to your learning center or your second brain in Notion. It's pretty amazing. So that really helps you recall information and something that my daughter was learning at school is the whole idea of, now what, I'm going to probably forget this, but it's the learn, I think it's called the learning curve.

[22:22] And it's all the, thing of being able to, learn it, wait a few days, and then learn it again, and it's all about recalling it, and, I need to talk to my kids about it, because they're learning loads of cool stuff about that at school, so definitely check that out. Okay, we're now on to the next segment, which is decluttering your brain.

[22:49] And so what I find really helps here is I'm a verbal processor. So talking with other people about my day and what I've achieved really helps. But if there isn't another person there, I, or if I'm not wanting to bore my wife, then sometimes AI can help here and with chat GPT. chat GPT has for iPhone and Android has this really cool thing.

[23:19] If I just put in chat, search for chat GBT, I can start a voice conversation. this is great if I'm walking out, walking about, and I just want to try and summarize my day. So I could say, please can you summarize my day from what I'm about to, tell you, and then I'll talk about my day. So today I went for a walk with Helen, And then I talked with my dad about business, and then I recorded my smart ADHD podcast episode.

[23:53] and, you could go through all of those things and you can then get it to summarize that, into a list. Now there are more kind of fancy ways of doing this. There is Thomas Frank has created this amazing System where you can, just record on your phone and then it will summarize it and send it to Notion.

[24:12] There were loads of cool things, but just using the ChatGPT app on your phone to help summarize really works. You could also use your voice app, voice recording app on your phone and then just feed that into the likes of, there were lots of transcription softwares out there and then just get to summarize it.

[24:30] And for me, that really helps. It helps me manage my thoughts and also my tasks as well. So you can use, whether it's, the voice assistants on your phone, I won't mention any of them, don't want to trigger them for you. but that's, that really, works very well, I think, for, me at least.

[24:50] so yeah, decluttering your brain is always good. Now, about, how about you? Are you forgetting things? This is segment five. Are you a person that kind of loses your keys or your, watch or whatever? In this modern age There are, it is arguably more and more difficult for people with ADHD because the life is traveling so fast.

[25:11] There's so much data that we have to deal with, but technology can really help here. And I use Apple AirTags to help me. Now you don't have to use Apple AirTags. You could, if you're an Android user, you could use other, Tags that will help you but this is for real world items I never really use my lose my iphone because I can always find it using Find my which is apple service for this and it's the same with my Apple airpods The my headphone my earphones.

[25:41] I never lose those because again I can track them and I can Make them ping a sound which is great. But what about real world items? So I have my wallet. I have my keys I have my sunglasses all with air tags so I can find them later and that really helps me It's absolutely brilliant but you can't put air tags on everything and something that I got really frustrated with is The fact that, for example, cables, there's a specific cable that I need, it might be like an HDMI cable, and I'm pretty sure I have it, but I have no idea where it is.

[26:19] what I'm about to show you is gonna be, is gonna, you're gonna think this is completely over the top. And, yes, you're right, I went into a complete, how would you say it, like a complete, Hyper focus mode with this, but this has changed so much for me. And again, I'm using notion for this, but this is my items database.

[26:41] So in here, I have a list of a lot of stuff that I own, not everything. I've even got clothes in here. So I've got my super dry t shirt here. Now, I've even got things, I've got the URL of, I've got the, email that I ordered it with, I've got the, I think I've got the receipt in here as well somewhere, but I've also got Jack Tofono adapters.

[27:03] Now, the cool thing about this is, so I might need these particular adapters, but I don't know where they are, but I can see here that it's in my studio and it's in box four, which is really cool. there might be my Apple pencil. Now, the only problem with this is I need to keep this up to date and I don't always do that, but, this really, helps me, keep on top of things.

[27:28] And like with my son is looking for a particular adapter. I can look in the database and we can find it. that has really made a massive difference. Other thing, other apps that you can use, to help you remember things, Google Calendar. We've got a whole family on Google Calendar. So we all know what we're all doing.

[27:46] That really helps. I also use a, an app for my Mac and my iPhone called Fantastical, which is basically Google Calendar on steroids. And it works with other calendars as well. The other app that I use is Todoist. Todoist is really cool. It's, it's a basically a to do app. that's all it is.

[28:09] I'm not going to show you my list of things because it's got some personal information in there, but, basically, and I have a virtual assistant who goes through my emails and then, Puts makes basically converts those into actionable items in my to do list and then I can mark them off as well.

[28:26] Now the important thing here is though to Make sure that they are actual tasks because quite often we Actually will mark a project down here. So for example, I need to buy a new camera, you know For example that I don't need to buy a new camera, but that's an example. that's actually many tasks So I'll need to do some research for the camera.

[28:48] I'll need to then Go to amazon I might need to check if i've got enough money in my business account to buy it and there's All those different things so you need to be careful about that. But Todoist really helps. Okay, the next segment, we're nearly at the end, is getting stuff done. Now, I don't use this next app because the idea of it makes me a little bit anxious, but I know some people who do use it and it is called Focusmate.

[29:17] Now what so what I said before that one thing that I like to do is go to a cafe And I feel I have a sense of accountability there. because there are other people there but focus mate does is it puts you together with some random person in the world? Who is wanting to get stuff done? So you book a slot in the day and then focus mate matches you with somebody else you're on Ideally you're on camera and microphone And you talk to each other right at the start of say the hour and you say I want to get this done I need to reply to 10 emails in this next hour and the other person says I need to write an article.

[29:55] I at least need to plan my article you then basically Get on with your stuff. You're you've got your video there. They can see you I mean, you're not looking at each other, but you're getting on with the stuff. And at the end of the hour, you just basically then say to each other, so did you get your stuff done?

[30:11] And they'll say yes, hopefully. And that's it. Now, I think this is a genius idea. The only thing that I feel about this is I feel a little bit anxious about being put together with some random person. It doesn't really work for me, but it might for you. So Focusmate is definitely something to check out.

[30:29] Now, I have a virtual, I have two virtual assistants who help me in my business. And actually they sometimes will do exactly that. So we'll spend half an hour together. my VO will say, okay, you've got some emails to reply to. I'll say, can I just get on with that now? And okay. I know I'm paying her for that time, but the fact that I'm paying her and she's on the call and she's waiting for me to do it means that I do it and I will get the stuff done because for me, it's those little boring tasks that I will just put off and put off That really helps. Timers as well. So the time timer, I don't know whether you're going to be able to see this, but, if I go over there. I've got this time timer on the wall over there. So that works. so set myself like 10, 15 minutes or half an hour to get something done. also I find just working somewhere else again, that really helps.

[31:25] And also artificial deadlines. So like I do a lot of waiting around in car parks, waiting for my kids, they've got different activities and I find that if I've got 45 minutes in the car, that's. Artificial time limit means that I just do stuff. I just get it done, which really helps So that is it.

[31:46] Those are all the tools and gear and all that kind of stuff that I wanted to mention that's what helps me, but i'd love to hear from you What tools do you use? any of the ones that I mentioned new to you? Do you think you're going to use them? Let me know in the comments below or send me an email to ian at smartadhd.

[32:06] me. I'd love to hear from you. We'll be back with another episode soon. I've got some other experts planned, to come onto the show as well. But until next time, I encourage you to get smart with your ADHD and I'll see you soon. Toodaloo!

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