Hacking Your ADHD
William Curb
Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD, where you can learn techniques for helping your ADHD brain.
ADHD can be a struggle, but it doesn't always have to be. Join me every Monday as I explore ways that you can work with your ADHD brain to do more of the things you want to do. If you have ADHD or someone in your life does and you want to get organized, get focused and get motivated then this podcast is for you.
You Might Also Like: ADHD Aha! from Understood.org
Hey team! This episode, we’re doing something a bit different—I want to share an episode of another podcast with you. It’s called ADHD Aha! and it’s hosted by Laura Key. You may remember that last year I actually had the chance to be a guest on ADHD Aha! But if you haven’t heard it before, ADHD Aha! is all about those moments when people finally connect the dots on their ADHD—those “oh, that’s why I do that” realizations. Each episode dives into real, candid stories from people with ADHD, and i
Evolutionary Basis of ADHD with Dr. Ryan Sultan
Hey Team! Today, I’m talking with Dr. Ryan Sultan, a distinguished psychiatrist specializing in ADHD, anxiety, depression, and substance use disorders. He serves as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. And he has also been exploring the evolutionary basis for ADHD. Now, let’s get to a few things up front here because often when I hear about evolution and ADHD, I know I’m about to hear something ab
Planning with Purpose: Antonia Bowring’s Guide to ADHD Success
On today’s episode, we've got a returning guest, Antonia Bowring, an executive coach and author who's reshaping how we think about productivity in the ADHD community. In our pervious conversation we explored her journey writing 'Coach Yourself!' and today we will be diving into how she developed her ADHD Success Planner, and how these tools can help you manage daily tasks more effectively. Antonia breaks down her simple yet powerful three-part planning system designed to transform your weekly gr
Navigating the Tangle of ADHD and OCD with Natalia Aiza
Hey Team! In this episode, I’m thrilled to welcome Natalia Aíza, a multilingual counselor and OCD specialist. Natalia is the founder and executive director of Kairos Wellness Collective, a therapy center that focuses on holistic care for clients experiencing OCD and Anxiety - located in Boulder, Colorado. They offer therapies including Exposure Response Prevention (ERP), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Play Therapy, Art Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Eye Movement Desensit
Quitting Isn't Failing
Hey Team I was recently thinking about kids being picky eaters and how there is a movement where we’re not supposed to say picky anymore; we’re supposed to say they’re selective eaters. And you know what, I get that. I grew up as a picky kid, and… let’s be honest, I’m a fairly picky adult as well. Scratch that, selective adult. And I know it’s semantics, but I often find semantics are important. Because if we’re reframing this idea of being picky into being selective, it loses a lot of that nega
ADHD-Friendly Goal Setting with Chris Wang
Hey team! Well, it’s 2025…. It doesn’t quite feel real yet; I mean, we’re a quarter of the way into the 21st century, but it feels like we got here fast. I’m not quite sure I’m ready, but regardless, time marches on. I know a lot of you are working on making plans for the year, so we’re going to be starting this year with Chris Wang, CEO and co-founder of Shimmer, an ADHD coaching platform designed to meet people where they are. I had a lot of fun in this conversation, where we covered a bunch o
How to Make your Smart Phone ADHD Friendly (Part 2 rebroadcast)
This is the second part of the series on how to better manage your smartphone with your ADHD - you don't have to have listened to part 1 to listen to this episode, but if you like this episode I'd definitely recommend going back and listening to last week's episode as well. In that episode, we covered how we can limit the distractions that our smartphone can present and also how to make it easier on our ADHD brains when we're setting up our smartphone. This week we're going in a bit of a differe
How to Make your Smart Phone ADHD Friendly (Part 1 rebroadcast)
I've been carrying around a smartphone in my pocket for more than 10 years - I started off with the first iPhone and have since gone over to Android, dabbled with the Windows Phones for a few years and then ended back up with an iPhone again. Through my years with my phone I've learned that it can be a great asset and help me with a number of my ADHD difficulties; however, I've also felt the dark side of the phone as well. Games, social media, email and all those notifications. ADHD makes it re
How to Get Refocused After Your Vacation (rebroadcast)
Last week was all about getting there and this week we're focusing on what to do when you get back. Travel disrupts our routines and habits - and we should take those disruptions seriously. One thing that I've had to learn over and over again is that ADHD makes transitions hard - and coming back from a trip is a big transition. This Episode's Top Tips Identify your routines and habits before your trip so that when you get back you know where to pick things back up. Make sure you are paying spec
Focused and Balanced: ADHD Strategies That Work w/ Skye Waterson
Hey Team! This week we’ve got Skye Waterson of Unconventional Organization back on the show to talk about the book she’s working on, Focused, Balanced Days with ADHD. Skye is an academic and ADHD coach with over seven years of experience in adult education. She has studied various fields, including Psychology, Sociology, and Public Health, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Population Health. Skye also hosts "The ADHD Skills Lab" podcast, where she discusses research-backed tips and advice
Reflections on the 2024 International ADHD Conference
Hey team! Feels like it’s been a while for me but hopefully I was able to prepare enough material ahead of time so that you didn’t have to notice. And the reason it’s been a bit for me is because of the 2024 International Conference on ADHD which is a collaborative event put on my CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), ADDA (Attention Deficit Disorder Association), and ACO (ADHD Coaches Organization). always been. The conference caters to adults with ADHD, edu
Madeline O’Reilly and Jonathan Hassall
Hey Team! This week I’m joined by Madeline O’Reilly and Jonathan Hassall to talk about their new online program called Decoding Doing that is based on a book they wrote with the same title. And that’s fair, Decoding Doing is a great title when we’re talking about procrastination. And just a little background, Madeline is a clinical psychologist with a Masters in Clinical Psychology. Additionally, Madeline is a member of the Australian Clinical Psychology Association along with the Australian Pro
Neurofeedback and ADHD with Sean Brock
Hey Team! We’ve got another exciting guest teed up for this week. I’m talking with Sean Brock, a neurofeedback expert and the owner of Neuro Colorado. Now I’ll be honest that I had a lot to learn in this interview because I wasn’t terribly well versed on the science behind neurofeedback. In the interview, Sean shares the fascinating history behind neurofeedback and how it’s evolved from training cats to helping humans regulate their brain waves. We get into how neurofeedback works and its longer
Navigating ADHD Facts and Fiction w/Dr. Stephen Faraone
Hey Team! This week, we’ve got an incredible guest, Dr. Stephen Faraone, one of the world's foremost experts on ADHD. Let me just give you a quick rundown of just how influential Dr. Faraone is: He has authored over 700 journal articles, editorials, chapters, and books Listed as the eighth-highest producer of High Impact Papers in Psychiatry from 1990 to 1999 as determined by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). In 2005, the ISI listed him as the second-highest cited author in the ar
Mythinformation
Hey Team! This week we’re following up our last episode on misinformation—and this is going to be our last episode in the research saga that I’ve been working on for the last… couple of months? Yeah, I think I’m ready for something new as well although as a preview for next week, I had an amazing researcher as a guest and we do cover a lot of similar topics, but don’t worry, it’s a fantastic episode, great capstone to the series. But today we're diving into a topic that’s critical for navigating
How to ADHD with Jessica McCabe (rebroadcast)
Hey Team! We’re kicking off 2024 with the incredible Jessica McCabe - creator, writer, and host of the award-winning YouTube channel How to ADHD. I’m sure a lot of you are already familiar with Jessica’s work as her YouTube channel has more than a million subscribers, but for those of you who haven’t, her channel contains a wealth of knowledge about ADHD and is one of the things that kicked me in the pants to start taking my ADHD more seriously. And now she’s coming out with a book: How to ADH
200 Episodes In: Reflecting on Podcasting with ADHD w/ Brendan Mahan
Hey team! This week we’re celebrating a milestone for Hacking Your ADHD - 200 episodes… also 5 years of running the podcast. I honestly don’t know exactly what to say about how far this podcast has come. It’s been an incredible run so far and I have a lot of plans for the future as well, which, honestly is a little scary, but also exciting that even with ADHD I’m sticking with it. For this episode, I’ve invited Brendan Mahan, the voice behind the ADHD Essentials Podcast, to help mark the occasio
The Art of Misinformation
Hey Team! This week we’re talking misinformation which is an interesting topic because it feels like it should be something where its easy to define and identify. We’ve all seen stuff online where we looked at it and felt, “how the heck does anyone fall for this kind of stuff?” And that’s actually something that plays right into the hands of falling for misinformation. When we think we’re immune to something, we’re not on the lookout for it when it isn’t quite as straightforward. It’s the stuff
Decoding Research
Hey Team! We’re diving right back into the world of ADHD research, continuing on from what we were talking about a few episodes back. In this episode, we’re going to be more focused on what goes into making ADHD research reliable. I go in-depth into what you can expect to find when reading a study and then also into what thing to look out for when trying to determine what’s really going on in those studies. We’ll discuss how to navigate the sometimes confusing world of peer-reviewed journals, wh
Overcoming Self-Sabotage with Dr. Judy Ho
Hey team! This week, I’m talking with Dr. Judy Ho, a clinical and forensic neuropsychologist with a PhD in clinical psychology. She focuses on mental health, ADHD, and various psychological disorders. She is triple board-certified and is a tenured associate professor at Pepperdine University, where she teaches graduate-level psychology. In our conversation today, we talk about how ADHD can impact self-esteem, the importance of understanding your brain’s wiring, and practical ways to manage atten
Understanding ADHD Research
Hey Team!This week we’re going to look at what is entailed in ADHD research—what it is, how it works, and what it all means for us.Before we get going though I wanted to start with a brief explanation of what really drove my thinking about this topic—which now looks like is going to end up as a multi-part series.So there’s an idea called the illusion of explanatory depth, which occurs when people believe they understand something but, when asked to explain it, realize that they don’t quite under
Unapologetically ADHD with Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright
Hey Team! I’m excited to bring you my conversation with Nikki Kinzer and Pete Wright, hosts of "Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast."If you haven’t checked out their podcast before, Nikki and Pete have been a mainstay in ADHD podcast realm with over six hundred episodes across twenty-nine seasons - if there’s an ADHD topic you’re interested in, they’ve probably covered it. And Nikki and Pete recently released their new book, Unapologetically ADHD, A Step-by-Step Framework For Everyday Planning On Y
Pacing
Hey Team! It’s that time of year again where I feel like I need a kick in the pants. My kids are back in school and it feels like I have a glut of time available. It feels like I should be knocking things off my todo list left and right. But I’m not. I’m tired and I’m not getting things done. And it’s frustrating because it feels like now that I have this time, I’m wasting it. It feels like if I take this time for rest that I’m going to look back later and regret that I didn’t push myself harder
The Dichotomy of ADHD
Hey Team!I was recently thinking about some of the ways that ADHD can manifest in seemingly opposite ways. One moment, we're laser-focused, and the next, we're completely derailed by the tiniest hiccup.In this episode, we’ll be exploring the idea of the dichotomy of ADHD. How it can feel like even our symptoms are inconsistent. We’ll be looking at how our ADHD brains can take us from hyperfocus to total distraction, from being impulsive to utterly paralyzed, and why sometimes we thrive in chaos
Outsourcing Executive Function with AI
Hey Team! While AI has become a buzzword that has lost much meaning, there are still many use cases that can help with our ADHD. One of the places that I have been enjoying exploring is how I can outsource some of my executive functions to these applications so that I can save my brain for the important stuff. In today’s episode, we’ll first examine executive function so that we know what we’re really working with here. Then, we’ll explore a number of tools that we can use—from large language mo
Easy Mode
While ADHD is described as life on Hard Mode, that phrasing got me thinking about what would life look on easy mode. And more importantly, how can we make our lives feel more like that?In this episode, we’re going to explore what life on easy mode might look like and discuss actionable strategies to shift the dynamic of living with ADHD so that it doesn’t always feel like an uphill battle. How we can take steps to shift our ADHD from making life a struggle to something more manageable. From simp
Dopamine Fasting
Hey team! I’ve recently been seeing a lot more stuff around the concept of dopamine fasting.Now, I’m going to start by saying that I’m entering this conversation with a bit of trepidation because it comes from a side of the internet that… well, they tend to have good intentions, but this basically amounts to bro science despite the backing it does have.The idea behind dopamine fasting is to reduce or eliminate activities that provide instant gratification and a quick release of dopamine. So, som
Gardening with ADHD: Building Routines and Having Fun
Hey team!This week, we’re diving into another listener question.“Hi, William. I'm Emily, and I live in Chicago, Illinois. I'm a lifelong gardener and love growing flowers, veggies, houseplants, and more. As someone with ADHD, plant care is something I either hyperfixate on or procrastinate and ignore because of all the things that my plants need to thrive. For some reason, creating routines around plant care has been really challenging for me.”Hey Emily, I love this question because there are al
My Own Worst Enemy
Hey Team!I was listening to the radio the other day when My Own Worst Enemy by Lit came on - a fine example of pop-punk from the late 90’s.And while I enjoyed the song, what stuck with me was thinking about the name of that song, My Own Worst Enemy. This is a feeling I have often felt with my ADHD. I seem to have an endless supply of maladaptive and self-destructive behaviors that stem from the condition.Poor time management, hyper-focusing on non-priority tasks, overcommitting, and procrastinat
Accessible Wellness for Neurodivergent Folks with Jackie Silver (rebroadcast)
Hey team,This week I’m talking with Jackie Silver about nutrition and wellness. Jackie is a Registered Dietitian with a Master of Health Science (MHSc) in Nutrition Communications. She has a firm belief that neurodivergent and disabled people deserve to live a healthy lifestyle but found the opportunities for these communities lacking, so she decided to start her own practice, Accessible Wellness. Her area of expertise is in working with kids, teens, and adults with autism, ADHD, and those with
Bad Advice (rebroadcast)
With ADHD we get to hear a lot of advice on how to get past our various symptoms. Sometimes that advice isn’t so bad, sometimes it’s pretty good - I mean that’s what I’m trying to do with this podcast. But more often than not the advice we get for how to deal with our ADHD is downright bad.In this episode we’re going to be exploring some of this unhelpful advice and what makes it bad and hopefully how we might be able to turn it around into something useful.Support me on PatreonAsk me a question
The Before We Get Started (rebroadcast)
Hey team,I’ve recently been thinking about task initiation a lot, but while working on the first draft of this episode, I realized that there were a few ideas that were important to explore first.So in this episode, we’re going to be exploring some ideas of executive dysfunction, but then we’re also going to be getting into stuff surrounding our mental and physical health and then how we can work on our systems that help keep everything in order. Support me on PatreonAsk me a question on my Cont
Decluttering and Self-Discovery w/Star Hansen (rebroadcast)
This week I’m talking with Star Hansen, a Certified Professional Organizer (CPO©) and Clutter Whisperer on a mission to help you banish your personal Clutter Monster. Her methodology focuses on helping you take control of your stuff and create a life you’re truly proud of. Star looks at the deeper meaning of your stuff to help you figure out why you feel overwhelmed by your clutter in the first place. Star’s best-selling book, “Why the F*#@ Am I Still Not Organized?”, has inspired countless indi
Automating ADHD: Chris Cameron's Tech Tools for Everyday Ease
Hey Team! In today's episode, we’re taking a deep dive into the transformative power of automation with Chris Cameron, a workflow efficiency consultant specializing in helping neurodivergent individuals harness the benefits of AI and automated tools. Chris shares his personal journey with ADHD and how technology has played a pivotal role in managing daily challenges. From practical learning to creating inclusive support systems, Chris discusses how specialized automation can alleviate everyday p
Building Systems When You Are Consistently Inconsistent
Hey team!I’ve been working on this episode for quite a while now and was kind of worried it would never be finished, but I managed to salvage what was useful and polish it up quite a bit.Today, we're discussing long-standing goals and how we can create systems that help us achieve them. I’m really interested in exploring this topic at length, so I expect this won’t be the only episode we have discussing systems.In this episode, we'll be diving into the tools and strategies that make ou
ADHD on Purpose
Hey team!I had a listener write in recently asking about finding purpose and how they just feel like their life is a bit of a mess. They don’t know what they want to do and they feel like everyone else has it together. So in today’s episode we’re going to be exploring these ideas, while at the same time questioning if these are even the right questions that we should be asking. I’m going to dive into a number of ways that I don’t have my own life together and we’ll also be getting into self-det
You Might Also Like: ADHD Aha! from Understood.org
Hey Team!This episode we’re doing something a little bit different, I’m going to be sharing an episode from another podcast that I think you’ll enjoy.It’s called ADHD Aha!, hosted by Laura Key. It features candid stories from people who share the moment when it clicked—their ADHD Aha moment—when everything started to make sense—that they, or someone they know, has ADHD.I recently checked out a few episodes like the one with Caren Magill where she shares her story of going from dropping out of hi
Getting Started With Your ADHD Management (Rebroadcast)
One of the questions that I’ve been getting a bit more frequently recently is just trying to understand where to get started with ADHD - and I think this is a question that a lot of us have because there is just so much out there on ADHD and it’s hard to know where even to begin thinking about what you might want to be doing.In today’s episode, we’re going to be exploring this idea by first looking at some of the areas that ADHD entails, how that knowledge can boost your ability to manage your A
ADHD and Pregnancy with Dusty Chipura
Hey team!In today’s episode we’re joined by Dusty Chipura, a passionate advocate and ADHD Coach, to explore the nuanced world of ADHD and pregnancy. With her personal and professional experience we will be looking into the challenges and questions that often come up with this subject.There is a huge gap in what we know about ADHD and pregnancy and it can be hard to find good information. Dusty is an outstanding coach and a font of knowledge in this area. Even if you aren’t pregnant or planning o
Finding Your Groove with Joshua Greene
Hey Team!Accountability is one of the best ways to help you work through those things on your to do list that you just don’t want to do. But finding accountability isn’t always easy. In my conversation today, I’m talking with Joshua Greene, co-founder of the co-working app Groove.In our conversation today we’ll be talking of course about how Groove works - and specifically what sets it apart from many of the other co-working and accountability apps. We talk about following our energy flow, espec
How to Perform a Weekly Review (Rebroadcast)
Hey team, this week we’re talking about our weeks and how we can get more out of them with a weekly review. The idea behind a weekly review is to look back on how things went and use that to help us figure out how we want our next week to go.In this episode, we’re going to go over the benefits of performing a weekly review, look at some of the ways to make doing it easier, and then get into the nitty-gritty of how to actually perform it.Find the full show notes at HackingYourADHD.com/122Feel fre
Sleep Tools - Part 1
Hey team!After last week’s episode on toolkits I got a request to do another episode like it but specifically on sleep tools.Now before I jump in on the episode I want to talk for a minute about why I typically haven’t been doing so many episodes on specific tools. What it comes down to is that often the specific tools aren’t what’s important - what tends to be more important are the strategies and reasons behind the tools.I kind of think of like if someone told me that they needed help fixing t
Crafting Your ADHD Survival Kit with Maddy De Gabriele
Hey team!We're chatting with Maddy De Gabriele, an Australian science communicator who's turned her personal journey with ADHD into a mission to help others. Through her Adult ADHD Starter Kit and corporate workshops, Maddy breaks down ADHD management into bite-sized, easily digestible pieces.In this episode we dive into specific tools that can become part of your everyday toolkit for managing your ADHD. We discuss timers, headphones, pillboxes, blankets and more in this episode. If you’ve been
ADHD, Communication, and Creating Connections with Dave Delaney
Hey team! This week we’re talking with the host of the ADHD Wise Squirrels podcast, Dave Delaney - as many of us Dave wears many hats — keynote speaker, author, and of course podcast host. Dave has actually been podcasting since 2005, although he only recently started up ADHD Wise Squirrels after his recent diagnosis. With that diagnosis, Dave has been on a mission to support others in the community and break down stereotypes that surround ADHD. In our conversation today we discuss everything
From Impulse to Insight: Ellie Hino's ADHD Adventure
Hey Team!Today on the podcast, we're exploring the lighter side of living with ADHD, featuring the hilariously honest Ellie Hino. A stand-up comic who finds humor in the everyday, Ellie has featured for comics such as Maria Bamford, Laurie Kilmartin, and Atsuko Okatsuka. She recently released her debut album, Soft Bones.In our conversation today she brings her personal journey with ADHD into the spotlight, sharing stories and strategies that hit home for many of us. We discuss getting a diagnosi
Listener Questions: Building Relationships and Self-Acceptance
Hey team! This week we’re going to be discussing the challenges of managing ADHD within a relationship where both partners have ADHD and how that can lead to the amplification of symptoms and the struggle to maintain routines and tools. We’ll also be diving into the potential difficulties of managing ADHD later in life but also how we can lean into the strengths that we have already developed. This is another listener questions episode and if you’d like to potentially have your question answer
Listener Question: On Being Late
Hey team!We’ve got another listener question today, this time from my friend Aggie: Hi, Will, Aggie here. Longtime listener, first time caller. To give listeners context, you and I did admin work together and accountability coaching groups. Then we actually got to meet in person at the Chad conference before COVID hit. I myself have a background as a special education teacher, uh, specializing in severe disabilities and autism specific programs. So behavior is one of my strong skills. Implement
Occupational Therapy and Sensory Issues with Jamie Cutino
Hey team!This week I’m talking with Jamie Cutino, a licensed Occupational Therapist, TEDx Speaker, ADHD Coach and a fervent advocate for the ADHD community. In today's episode, Jamie shares her insightful and empowering journey from discovering their ADHD diagnosis to utilizing skills she learned as an occupational therapist to enhance daily life. Jamie has her own podcast, Outsmart ADHD, where she and her guests go over the latest research, share stories and look to provide you with actionable
From Restless to Restful with Dr. Roberto Olivardia
Hey Team!I’ve got an exciting interview today that I’ve been hoping to do for a while now.Dr. Roberto Olivardia is a clinical psychologist and a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He specializes in the treatment of ADHD and within the field of ADHD, he further specializes in comorbid disorders, such as OCD, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and body dysmorphic disorder.However, in true ADHD, fashion during our pre-interview chat we decided to switch the directi
Navigating the Dual Diagnosis of AuDHD with Mattia Maurée
Hey Team!With us today is Mattia Maurée and we’re going to be diving into the experiences of living with both autism and ADHD, also known as AuDHD. I was recently on Mattia’s podcast, AuDHD Flourishing, to talk about subclinical autism (which I was diagnosed with in 2022) so if you want to hear more about that head on over to their show, links in the shownotes.In our conversation today, Mattia shared their story and the insights they've gained through their journey. Our conversation aimed to she
At the Root of ADHD: Trauma vs Genetics
In today’s episode, we have a listener question dealing with the root cause of ADHD and whether or not ADHD comes from trauma or it's something we're born with.I’m sure a lot of people have had similar thoughts on what the root cause of ADHD and sometimes it’s hard to find accurate information because so much of it can conflict.In today’s episode, we’re going to be looking into the issue of whether or not ADHD is an issue of genetics or if it is one of trauma - but I also want to be upfront abou
Confluence of Crafting Your ADHD Toolkit
Hey team! No interview today - getting back to some monologue episodes - and completely off topic here, but I just have this negative connotation to the word monologue, like, in my head it sounds like it’s supposed to be something boring? Maybe that’s just me. In today’s episode we’re tackling the complex reality of ADHD management. Forget about finding a silver bullet; it's about piecing together a puzzle of habits, routines, and strategies that work for you. We’ll be exploring the mosaic of st
Saman Kesh Returns Pt. 2
Hey team!Welcome back to the second part of my conversation with Saman Kesh - In part one of the conversation we covered a lot of the ground around Saman’s ketamine treatment and how that influenced his ADHD.And just as a quick reminder, this is not a condemnation nor a defense against ketamine-based treatment, the conversation is simply about what his experience was. And if ketamine treatment is something that has piqued your interest, be sure that you are following up on that under proper medi
Saman Kesh Returns Pt. 1
Hey Team!We’ve got a returning guest this week who was a real hit last time, Saman Kesh - Saman is an Iranian-American filmmaker who has worked with artists such as Basement Jaxx, Calvin Harris, Kygo, Placebo, !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk)Anyway, we’re not here to discuss any of that today, instead we’re going to be talking about his recent ketamine treatment. A while ago, Saman reached out to me asking if this was something that I’d like to cover on the show, and yeah, this is absolutely somethi
ADHD and the Art of Mindful Living with Ying Deng
Hey Team!This week we’re joined by Ying Deng, known as ADHD Asian Girl across social media. I was able to get to know Ying a bit at the recent International ADHD Conference and thought she’d be a great guest for the show. Meditation is something that I’ve wanted to discuss on the show for quite a while now, but it also isn’t something I’m super knowledgeable about so it was great to have a chance for this discussion.In our conversation today we get into what mindfulness and mediation actually is
Utilizing the Planning Funnel with Skye Rapson
Hey team!This week, we have the return of Skye Rapson of Unconventional Organization to discuss an innovative tool she developed, the Planning Funnel, which is designed to help us break down our goals into manageable steps.This was a really fun conversation, and the planning funnel looks awesome - now, as a note, the planning funnel is part of Unconventional Organisation’s ADHD Academy - but they do have a promotion going now that includes the Planning Funnel and 15% off your first month. So if
Nine Parts of a Transition with Brendan Mahan
Hey Team!Today we’ve got a real treat, I’m talking to one of my favorite people, Brendan Mahan of the ADHD Essentials Podcast. I last had Brendan on to talk about the Wall of Awful, his model of how everything that we do can be made harder from repeated failure. It’s a great episode and I’ll link that in the show notes if you want to get caught up on that.I asked Brendan back on the show because while we were at the International ADHD Conference I got talking to him about a different model of hi
Gut Health and ADHD with Josh Dech
Hey Team!This week I’m joined by former paramedic turned holistic nutritionist and gut specialist Josh Dech to delve into the critical role of gut health in overall well-being. In our conversation, Josh challenges common health misconceptions and highlights the profound impact of the gut microbiome on various body systems, including mental health and in turn ADHD. We try to combine scientific insights, personal experiences, and practical advice on improving gut health through diet and lifestyle
Extra Focus with ADHD Jesse
Hey team! I’ve got a fun episode for you this week - I’m talking with Jesse J. Anderson about his new book, Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD. I actually got to meet Jesse in person last November at the International ADHD conference (and I got to be on a panel with him as well) although we recorded this before then. And if you don’t immediately recognize the name, I’m sure you’ve seen some of his stuff online where he posts as ADHD Jesse. In our conversation today we delve into hi
How to ADHD with Jessica McCabe
Hey Team! We’re kicking off 2024 with the incredible Jessica McCabe - creator, writer, and host of the award-winning YouTube channel How to ADHD. I’m sure a lot of you are already familiar with Jessica’s work as her YouTube channel has more than a million subscribers, but for those of you who haven’t, her channel contains a wealth of knowledge about ADHD and is one of the things that kicked me in the pants to start taking my ADHD more seriously. And now she’s coming out with a book: How to ADHD:
State of the Pod
In today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about what’s going on with Hacking Your ADHD over this last year and what’s coming up next year.No real show notes for this episode but feel free to ask me a question on my Contact Page
You Need a Budget with Jesse Mecham
Hey team!This week I’m talking with, Jesse Mecham, the founder of the hit budgeting software, You Need A Budget - or as it’s more commonly abbreviated YNAB - now I understand, that the term, “hit budgeting software” does come off as a little strange, but it is honestly something that has quite the cult following. And I know that the idea of budgeting can seem a bit overwhelming so don’t worry we get into that. Also while the software is called You Need A Budget, that isn’t quite the focus of wha
The Writer's Journey: ADHD, Fantasy, and Teaching with Terry Bartley
Hey team!In today’s episode we are talking with Terry Bartley, the author of Tyranny of the Fey, host of the podcast Most Writers Are Fans, and a full-time English teacher. In our conversation today, Terry shares his journey as a writer, revealing how he channels his creativity while managing ADHD. We also get into Terry’s diagnosis and how learning about the symptoms led to his self-recognition of the condition. We discuss some the misunderstandings of ADHD and how that can lead to some of the
Getting Focused on Focus101 with Shane Thrapp
Hey team!This week I’m talking with ADHD coach Shane Thrapp - but specifically, today we’re going to be diving into the service Focus101 - which is a free body-doubling site designed to help you get the most of your work time. Now, funny story, I’m actually working on this while body-doubling through Focus101 right now.Now in this episode, we’ll be getting into exactly what body-doubling is and how it can be incredibly helpful for completing those tasks that are hard for us to follow through on
Strength-Based Education with Caitlin Meister
Hey team!This week I’m talking with Strengths-Based Learning Expert Caitlin Meister who has made it her life’s work to bring her strengths-based, neurodiversity-affirming, joyful learning approach to other parents and educators.Caitlin is the Founding Director of The Greer Meister Group, a New York City-based private tutoring and educational consulting practice. She attended Wesleyan Unversity and went on to receive additional training through the Harvard Graduate School of Education and in the
Accessible Wellness for Neurodivergent Folks with Jackie Silver
Hey team,This week I’m talking with Jackie Silver about nutrition and wellness. Jackie is a Registered Dietitian with a Master of Health Science (MHSc) in Nutrition Communications. She has a firm belief that neurodivergent and disabled people deserve to live a healthy lifestyle but found the opportunities for these communities lacking, so she decided to start her own practice, Accessible Wellness. Her area of expertise is in working with kids, teens, and adults with autism, ADHD, and those with
Childhood Trauma, ADHD, and the Path to Healing with Neha
Hey team!This week, I’m talking with Neha (name changed for anonymity) - she is a first-generation Indian immigrant who worked in big tech based out of the Bay Area, California. She now works to create awareness about undiagnosed ADHD in South Asians, especially women, and sells ADHD and autism-friendly products on her website pawtistictravel.com. And just as a quick note, Hacking Your ADHD listeners can get a 15% discount code with Hacking15 on all purchases.In our conversation today Neha talks
Navigating the Art of Conscious Conversations with Chuck Wisner
Hey Team,This week I’m talking with Chuck Wisner, an expert in effective communication. He was a senior affiliated mediator with the Harvard Mediation Program and is president of Wisner Consulting. And he recently published the book, The Art of Conscious Conversations: Transforming How We Talk, Listen, and Interact.In our conversation today, he introduces us to the four archetypal conversations that underlie all our interactions, from storytelling to collaboration and from creativity to commitme
Mastering Calendars and Empowering Kids with Kim Nguyen
Happy ADHD Awareness Month!This week, I’m talking with Kim Nguyen of Skylight -Now, real quick, before we jump into the rest of the introduction, I just wanted to mention that Skylight Calendar has sponsored the show in the past, but this this episode itself isn’t sponsored.With that said, in this episode, we discuss the Skylight Calendar in depth. We delve into how we can use digital tools like the Skylight Calendar to help families create easier coordination and reduce the stress associated wi
From Challenges to Triumphs: Rethinking ADHD with Peter Shankman
Happy ADHD Awareness Month!This week I’m talking with fellow ADHD podcaster Peter Shankman. Peter is the host of the Podcast Faster Than Normal where he talks with people around the world who have learned how to unlock the gifts ADHD diagnosis, and use it to their personal and professional advantage. He is also the author of Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain and also just recently came out with a new children's book, The
Recognizing the Hidden Struggles of Inattentive ADHD w/Cynthia Hammer
Hey team,This week, I’m talking with the founder of the Inattentive ADHD Coalition and author of Living with Inattentive ADHD: Climbing the Circular Staircase of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Cynthia Hammer. In our conversation today, we discuss Cynthia’s journey with a late diagnosis of inattentive ADHD and critical lessons that she’s learned along the way. We also explore the challenges of recognizing ADHD, dispel common myths, and emphasize the importance of early diagnosis. From
Designing for Diversity with Helene Nørlem of Tiimo
Hey team!This week, we’re talking with the co-founder of the productivity app Tiimo, Helene Nørlem. In our conversation today, we discuss what Tiimo is and how it can help with planning, especially for the neurodivergent community.The discussion also explores the broader aspirations of Tiimo to advocate for neurodiversity, the potential of integrating AI to enhance user experience, and the importance of creating awareness and resources for the neurodivergent community.Be sure to check out the Ti
Navigating and Embracing ADHD w/Anontia Bowring
Hey team!This week, I’m joined by Antonia Bowring - Antonia holds a B.A. in Political Science, an M. Phil. in Development Economics, and an M.B.A. She is an ICF-certified coach with an Executive Coaching Certificate from NYU. She is a frequent speaker to on topics ranging from mindfulness, ADHD in the workplace, and communication best practices.In our conversation today, we delve into the challenges and strengths associated with ADHD and how we can work on leveraging those through creativity and
New Frontier in ADHD Treatment with Dr. Scott Kollins
Hey team,This week, we’re diving into the innovative world of digital therapeutics with Dr. Scott Kollins, exploring the potential of a unique game-based treatment for ADHD.Dr. Kollins works for a company called Akili that has been developing a video game that is designed to help treat the symptoms of ADHD. The game EndevorOTC was only available for iOS, but they also just recently launched an Android version.In our conversation today, we discuss the challenges, successes, and future of this pio
Beyond the Labels: Queerness and ADHD Unpacked with Rachel Scanlon
Hey team,This week I’m talking with Rachel Scanlon, a stand-up comedian, actress, writer and co-host to the podcast Two Dykes and a Mic. Seen on Don't Tell Comedy, JFL’s Straight Up Stand Up, and Comedy Central, Rachel is a high-energy comic that buzzes with positivity.In our conversation, we hear about Rachel’s journey with ADHD and her decisions to manage it. We also explore the intertwining worlds of ADHD and queer identity. From the challenges of school to the joys of podcasting, our co
From Chaos to Clarity: Decluttering and Self-Discovery w/Star Hansen
This week I’m talking with Star Hansen, a Certified Professional Organizer (CPO©) and Clutter Whisperer on a mission to help you banish your personal Clutter Monster. Her methodology focuses on helping you take control of your stuff and create a life you’re truly proud of. Star looks at the deeper meaning of your stuff to help you figure out why you feel overwhelmed by your clutter in the first place. Star’s best-selling book, “Why the F*#@ Am I Still Not Organized?”, has inspired countless indi
Balancing ADHD: Myths, Management, and Mindsets with Dr. Jessica Stern
Hey team ,this week I’m talking with Dr. Jessica Stern about ADHD, mental health, and trauma. Dr. Stern is a licensed clinical psychologist, consultant, and clinical assistant professor at NYU Langone Health. Her areas of specialty are depression, anxiety, ADHD in adults, and trauma, as well as burnout, productivity, and corporate wellness.In our conversation today we discuss the intersection of ADHD and trauma, the need for routine and structure while still maintaining our need for spontaneity.
A Fresh Start (rebroadcast)
In just one more month we're going to be coming up on the halfway point of 2021 — I know, I have no idea how it got here either.But with this mark in time we're starting to see a shift going on - while COVID certainly isn't a thing of the past, the vaccine role out has opened up a lot of possibilities for what we want our future to look like.At the end of 2020, I did some planning for 2021, but I knew that a lot of it was going to be uncertain so I didn't make too many specific plans. But now th
Meeting Yourself Where You're At (rebroadcast)
As we've been working on goals one place I want us to take a step back on and think about is meeting ourselves where we are.As we get going with our planning we tend to decide that well we want to do all of the things. And I mean why not, there are a lot of things that I want to do, if I don't start now, when am I going to start? I can't tell you how many ill-fated adventures I've started because of that whole "if not now, when?" line - there are so many things that
Caffeine Deep Dive (rebroadcast)
Trimethylxanthine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug - for many caffeine is such a ubiquitous substance that calling it a drug seems like a misnomer. How could something so widely used that has so few regulations around it be a drug? But a drug is simply a chemical substance that affects our nervous system function and can result in changes to our perception, mood, cognition, and behavior. I feel like caffeine ticks the box pretty well on all those accounts.In today's episode, we'll b
Too Much (rebroadcast)
Over the last few weeks, I have hit a number of points where it all just felt like too much - now there are a number of things that have contributed to this, but one of the keys always behind when I get overwhelmed is doing too much. This is despite the fact that even when I have too much on my plate it always feels like I should be doing more. That I could squeeze in just a few more things and then… well then I’d probably also still be trying to add more things to do.In today’s episode, we’re g
Seasonal Planning (rebroadcast)
One of the ideas that I’ve been playing with lately is how to go about my planning in a more natural way or perhaps a better phrase would be functional, because while I love the idea of planning it doesn’t always work out how I want to it to.And to be clear, I don’t mean that my plans don’t work out, what I’ve been grappling with is that often when I do my planning I’ve failing to do it in a way that encompasses both my professional and personal life. I think this is an aspect of layering on my
Creativity and ADHD with Saman Kesh (rebroadcast)
Today we’ve got a bit of a different episode coming your way - in this episode, I talk with award-winning director Saman Kesh. Kesh is known for his narrative music video work with artists such as Basement Jaxx, Calvin Harris, and Placebo.In our broad-ranging conversation, we talk about the creative process and having ADHD, medication, therapy, and a whole host of other topics. This episode is a bit more of the practical side of managing ADHD, and there are great tips littered throughout the epi
Unmasking Introversion and Harnessing Neurodiversity in Entrepreneurship with Jodi Lasky
Hey team,This week I’ve got an awesome conversation for you with Jodi Lasky -Jodi is a seasoned entrepreneur, coach, and author with extensive knowledge in neuropsychology, accountability, productivity, and introversion. Drawing on her background in Communication, Culture, and Technology, as well as law, Jodi has dedicated her career to understanding leadership and personal tendencies. Her coaching program, 'The Introvert Founder', leverages her understanding to help introverted entrep
Understanding the ADHD Subtypes (Rebroadcast)
When it comes to understanding our ADHD it can be a bit of a minefield to navigate - one of our most pernicious problems is that often we're never really educated in what it means to have ADHD. And to top that off, what we learn from pop-culture just reinforces stereotypes that don't really reflect what ADHD is actually about.One of the most important ways to help manage our ADHD is to accept it, but that can be really hard to do if we don't actually have a good grasp of what having ADHD means.
The Before We Get Started
Hey team,I’ve recently been thinking about task initiation a lot, but while working on the first draft of this episode, I realized that there were a few ideas that were important to explore first.So in this episode, we’re going to be exploring some ideas of executive dysfunction, but then we’re also going to be getting into stuff surrounding our mental and physical health and then how we can work on our systems that help keep everything in order. Support me on PatreonAsk me a question on my Cont
Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs and Embracing Individuality with Leigh Collier
Hey team, this week I had a great conversation with leadership coach Leigh Collier. In this episode, we go over the process of how she helps individuals discover the best version of themselves by overcoming limiting beliefs. We also delve into topics such as identifying personal strengths, the importance of seeking support from communities, and get into how we can challenge those self-limiting beliefs. We also go over the value of individuality, working with your own brain, and distinguishing co
Exploring Neurodiversity and ADHD with Dez Rock
This week I’m talking with Dez Rock, an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience and currently serves as the CEO at SIEMonster - a web security company. But today we’re focusing on her ADHD and how she believes it has made her into an exceptional leader.In our conversation, we discuss our experiences with ADHD and its impact on our lives. We also talk about the importance of deadlines, the challenges and benefits of ADHD, and also touch on the significance of routine. And we also get into t
Bad Advice
With ADHD we get to hear a lot of advice on how to get past our various symptoms. Sometimes that advice isn’t so bad, sometimes it’s pretty good - I mean that’s what I’m trying to do with this podcast. But more often than not the advice we get for how to deal with our ADHD is downright bad.In this episode we’re going to be exploring some of this unhelpful advice and what makes it bad and hopefully how we might be able to turn it around into something useful.Support me on PatreonAsk me a question
Embracing Your Nervous System and Empowering with Your Inner Healer with María-Victoria Albina
Hey team, I’ve got a great conversation for you this week with María-Victoria Albina - she’s a Master Certified Somatic Life Coach, UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner, and Breathwork Meditation Guide. With over 20 years of experience in health and wellness, she brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to our conversation today. She holds a Master's degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College.In today’s
How to do Hard Things - Part 3 (Rebroadcast)
All right, I’m back from my little break and we’re just heading right back into the hard stuff - or at least how we can start getting it checked off our to-do list.Today we’re going to be looking at some more ways that we can adjust our mindset around doing hard things and also looking at some of the reasons we might be choosing to do certain hard things. Then we’ll finish up this series by digging into a few of the more concrete things that you can do so that you can tackle those hard things.Su
How to do Hard Things - Part 2 (Rebroadcast)
Last week we began this series on how to do hard things and looked specifically at how we define hard things and ways that we can work through some of our problems so that they can become more manageable.This week we’re going to be continuing that conversation but with a lens that focuses on why it can be so hard for us to even attempt to do hard things. We’ll be looking at some of the misconceptions we have about doing hard things as well looking at how acknowledging the hard things we’ve done
How to do Hard Things - Part 1 (Rebroadcast)
One of my favorite sayings from Brendan Mahan of the ADHD Essentials podcast is that ADHD is life on Hard Mode.The executive dysfunction that comes with ADHD makes everything just a little bit more difficult. From doing the dishes to filling out tax returns we find ourselves needing to put in more effort than our neurotypical peers.But what’s important for us to remember is that while these things can absolutely be harder for us to do, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.Today we’re going to be expl
ADHD and the Fawn Response
Hey team,Recently when I was talking with my therapist, they mentioned that it seemed like I would frequently go into the fawn response - I was a little taken aback by this because while I felt like I’d heard of the fawn response before, it wasn’t something I was familiar with, or even could even particularly put my finger on what it was.Fortunately for me, I run a podcast where I can dive into topics and gleam a bit more understanding about things I’m interested in.While most of us have probabl
Finding Your Path with Shell Mendelson
Hey team, this week I had a great conversation with Shell Mendelson, a career counselor who specializes in working with adults with ADHD. We talk about how traditional career advice often doesn’t work as well for ADHD, how we don’t want to dictate success purely on financial outcomes, the importance of deadlines, and whether or not we should consider disclosing our ADHD at work. Support me on PatreonAsk me a question on my Contact PageFind the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/139This Episode’s
The Value of Inconsistency with Kristen Carder
Hey team, this week I’m talking with Kristen Carder, the host of the I Have ADHD podcast - in this episode, we dive into the nitty gritty of ADHD and how advice for neurotypicals often doesn’t work for those of us with ADHD. We often hear about the need to be consistent, but with ADHD, not only is that hard, it can feel downright impossible. Instead, Kristen and I discuss how we can embrace our inconsistency and instead focus on being persistent.Support me on PatreonAsk me a question on my Conta
Executive Function (Rebroadcast)
Executive function is a hot topic around ADHD - and more specifically how we often have a deficit in it.One of the trickiest parts about executive function is that there isn’t a universally accepted model of executive functions - I know that feels kind of surprising because it seems like something that is talked about as much as executive functions is that we’d have something that is generally agreed upon. So for this episode, we’re going to be focusing on Russell Barkley’s self-regulation model
Traveling and Invisible Disabilities with Daw Barclay
Hey team, this week I’m talking with Dawn Barclay about her book, Traveling Different: Vacation Strategies for Parents of the Anxious, the Inflexible, and the Neurodiverse. Regardless of whether or not you have kids, traveling can be difficult when you have an invisible disability, such as ADHD. There are so many things that we have to keep track of, and even when we get there, there are still a host of things that our ADHD can make even more difficult.Dawn has spent her career working in the tr
How to Handle Low Capacity Days (Rebroadcast)
One of the ideas that I was presented with during the pandemic was that of surge capacity - this is the idea that we all have reserves of emotional energy that we can call on when we’re in a crisis situation. And this was an important idea for people to grasp as the pandemic wore on because people were finding themselves depleted. Despite having been able to handle everything they eventually came to a wall where they didn’t have any more to give.This is an important concept, but not specifically
The Joy of Saying No with Natalie Lue
Hey team, this week I’m talking with Natalie Lue about her book, The Joy of Saying No. Natalie is the author of the popular relationship and self-esteem blog Baggage Reclaim, as well as the host of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast.With ADHD, we can often end up as people-pleasers, always putting other people’s needs above our own. And while being helpful is a great trait, we also need to make sure that we’re taking time for ourselves as well.In our conversation today, Natalie and I discuss h
Using Our Tools
Hey team, this week we’re going to be talking about using our tools but, more specifically, getting back into the habit after we’ve stopped using them.ADHD has the tendency to make us consistently inconsistent, and that can lead us to finding ourselves having dropped habits, routines, and tactics that had been helping us. Sometimes we need to find new habits, but sometimes we need to look back and figure out why we stopped doing all those things that were helping us get through the day.Support m
Cleaning, Organizing, and Decluttering w/Roxie Martin
Hey team, this week I’m talking with one of my favorite people Roxie Martin - I got to know Roxie back when I was doing ADDmin work for the ADHD reWired Coaching and Accountability groups. Since then we’ve become fast friends and frequently check in with each other.Recently we were talking about Roxie’s decluttering coaching, and I thought this would be an excellent topic for the show because cleaning and decluttering are things that just always seem to come up.In this episode, we talk about the
Daylight Saving & Circadian Rhythms
Hey team, this week we’re going to be talking about the upcoming change to Daylight Saving Time in the US - but don’t worry, if you’re not one of those places that experience a spring time-switch, there is still going to be a lot of great stuff we cover in this episode.Our natural sleeping and wake times are controlled by our circadian rhythm, so we’re going to be discussing that in some detail and what we can do to help get ready for the time change so that it doesn’t hit us like a ton of brick
Burnout and Boundaries w/Skye Rapson
Hey team - this week I’m bringing you a conversation I had with Skye Rapson about burnout and boundaries. Skye is the founder of Unconventional Organization - a New Zealand-based coaching group that specializes in online coaching. They focus on providing research-backed and strengths-based ADHD support to help you get unstuck in your life.You may remember Skye from a previous episode last year, but we had such a fun conversation then that we decided to have another round. In this discussion, we
Slowing Down: Activation Energy
Hey team, we’re back at it for another episode about slowing down, but this time we’re looking at activation energy, which is the idea we’re going to need to have a certain amount of energy available to get started on a task. When we’re getting ready to get to the next thing on our to-do list, sometimes it can feel like it’s just too much, and getting started is really going to be the hardest part.Activation energy is that minimum threshold for us to get going on that thing, and some days it jus
Slowing Down: Task Management (Memory)
Hey team, this week we’re going to keep up our discussion of slowing down, but we’re going to be focusing on memory - well, kind of. With ADHD, it can be hard for us to remember all of the things that we need to do, so what comes into play is the good old to-do list.Because when we’re talking about memory, what we’re really talking about in this context is task management. How we’re going to remember the things we want to do and how we’re going to go about doing those things.Support me on Patreo
Slowing Down: Time Management
Hey team, this week we’re going to be talking about slowing down. One of the worst parts of ADHD is that we often feel like we have to do all of the things right now. That if we don’t jump from task to task to task, we’re just not going to get anything done. We live a life where we only have two modes, doing nothing and super speed. It’s exhausting, and we often find ourselves missing important things because we can’t keep up that pace.In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about how we c
Important But Not Urgent (IBNU)
I’ve been thinking about the phrase, “I want to hit the ground running,” and how that’s kind of how many of us try and start the year. I know that’s how I felt - and honestly, in that first week of the year, I was doing great… but then I got covid. That really threw a snag into things.With ADHD we tend to like to go fast with things; we don’t want to wait around. But that’s usually not actually our best strategy. Going from one urgent task to the next can keep us motivated, but it can make it ha
What’s life like without ADHD?
Hey team, this week we have another listener question:Hi there. I just wanted to say thank you so much. I was riding my bike while listening to your podcast and that really helped my brain to be able to digest the information and I was audibly saying, “Yes. Right. Okay.” And it was like I was talking to you, so I just wanted to say thank you so much. I'm not even sure if I have a question, but today I did Google, “What's it like for people who don't have ADHD?”And in the three years of you havin
Hey team, Happy New Year!I’m excited to get going into 2023, but I also don’t want to just be doing everything by the seat of my pants, so it’s time to do a little planning and think about how we want this year to go. In this episode, I will be talking about rest and planning and getting into some of the things I specifically want to do with the podcast in 2023.Support me on PatreonFeel free to ask me a question on my Contact PageFind the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/2023
Fresh Start: The Deep Clean (Rebroadcast)
One of the things I never quite got a grasp on is seasons... I mean I grew up in Hawaii and we basically had hot and not quite as hot. But this comes up for me because technically we're still in Spring right now so I guess this could still be a Spring Cleaning episode - officially Summer starts on the Solstice in June on the 20th... so I made in by like a week if you're listening to this when it comes out.Regardless of if this is Spring Cleaning or not, cleaning can be a great way to signal the
Listener Questions: Loose Ends
Hey team, this week we’ve got a listener question:"My name is Mike and I have a question about wrapping things up. I have a really difficult time on the last lap of projects, or sometimes there is like a secret lap after what I thought was the last lap, which, you know, sometimes depending on the project includes like sending thank you notes or thank you emails or a bunch of stuff where I sort of feel like I already spent all of the dopamine and executive function of the rewards of a project. An
Understanding Nutrition and ADHD with Aleta Storch
Hey team, this week I’m talking with Aleta Storch of Wise Heart Nutrition, a small nutrition practice made up of 3 neurodivergent-affirming dietitians. She is a Registered Dietitian, Licensed Therapist, and a Body Trust Provider.Many of us with ADHD face many issues around eating and feeding ourselves - from things that can arise from choosing what to eat, when to eat, or just not having the executive function to get ourselves to eat.In our conversation today, Aleta and I talk about some of thes
Should we even be setting Goals?
Hey team, as we begin to get ready to roll into the new year, we’re going to be seeing a lot more about New Year’s Resolutions and goal setting - but we’re also going to be getting a lot of pushback articles as well. Articles telling us how setting goals is only setting us up for failure and what we need to do instead. And the question is, who do we believe?In this episode, we’re going to be examining some of the arguments against setting goals and also looking at what we might want to be doing
Energy Drinks
Hey team, in this week’s episode, we’re going to be diving into energy drinks… well, not literally, that would be sticky… and well, that amount of caffeine would probably be lethal.Anyways… Our topic for the week is energy drinks, how they affect us and as I just mentioned, that means we’re also going to be talking about caffeine.Support me on PatreonFeel free to ask me a question on my Contact PageThis Episode’s Top TipsThe main concern with energy drinks is how quickly they can provide a high
How to Perform a Weekly Review
Hey team, this week we’re talking about our weeks and how we can get more out of them with a weekly review. The idea behind a weekly review is that we’re looking back on how things went and using that to help us figure out how we want our next week to go.In this episode we’re going to go over the benefits of performing a weekly review, look at some of the ways to make doing it easier and then get into the nitty gritty of how to actually perform it.Support me on PatreonFeel free to ask me a quest
Emotional Regulation
Hey team, this week we’re getting emotional and talking about the relationship between ADHD and our emotions. While emotional dysregulation isn’t part of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, some studies have found that 70% of adults with ADHD exhibit emotional dysregulation.In this episode, we’ll get into why it isn’t part of the diagnosis, as well as examine what emotional regulation is and what we can do to help ourselves keep our cool a little bit better.Support me on PatreonFeel free to ask me
Coping with your ADHD
Hey team, this week we’re talking about coping - our ability to cope with stressful situations but more specifically, how we can work on coping with our ADHD. When we’re coping with something, we’re trying to figure our way through a tough situation. When we’re trying to cope with our ADHD, it is often less about our emotional response (although that is important too) and how we’re using our problem-solving skills to alleviate some of our ADHD mishaps. If you'd life to follow along on the show
ADHD Management: Sleep and Exercise
All right, back on track with this series on Getting Started with ADHD Management, and this week we’re going to be focusing on some of the more physical areas that can really help us get our ADHD under control, and those are sleep and exercise.During the monthly ADHD reWired Live Q&A, we frequently get questions about what are the top things that we all do for our ADHD, and inevitably the answers come back as sleep and exercise. It’s just that important. And also, it’s understandably hard fo
Three Years of Hacking Your ADHD
Hacking Your ADHD just passed the three-year mark, which I’m just amazed at. Amazed with having stuck with it, amazed with how the show has grown and amazed with my wonderful audience. It also feels like I was just doing the 2-year episode not so long go… you know, like 12 months ago or so. That’s the funny thing about time, it just keeps marching on regardless of how well we’re paying attention to it.For this year's anniversary episode, I decided that I’d take a look back at some of the things
Getting Started With Your ADHD Management Part 2
As I was finishing up my Getting Started episode I realized that if I had been talking to someone I’d also still have a ton of questions and feel like that episode really didn’t answer anything for me. Or rather I think I’d have felt like it didn’t answer the question I thought I had asked. Now to be fair to past me, while, yes, I kind of did that, but also when we’re talking about where to get started with our ADHD management we really don’t know those things but nonetheless those are really im
Getting Started With Your ADHD Management
One of the questions that I’ve been getting a bit more frequently recently is just trying to understand where to get started with ADHD - and I think this is a question that a lot of us have because there is just so much out there on ADHD and it’s hard to know where even to begin thinking about what you might want to be doing.In today’s episode, we’re going to be exploring this idea by first looking at some of the areas that ADHD entails, how that knowledge can boost your ability to manage your A
Listener Questions: Working from Home and Building Better Eating Habits
Hey team - thanks for sticking with me during my break and to everyone that filled out my survey a few weeks back. Your input was really incredibly kind and I’m excited to get back into the show.To get things going we’re going to come back at it with some listener questions - questions that I kind of let build up while I was on break, so I may be doing a few of these episodes to try and catch back up on things, although don’t be shy to drop a new question on me at hackingyouradhd.com/contact In
Energy Management: Spiritual Energy (Rebroadcast)
I know the term spiritual energy is going to throw a lot of people - so let's start off by getting clear on what I mean here. When I'm talking about spiritual energy I'm not talking about anything religious here, I'm simply referring to the idea that you have an energy reserve that you can tap into when you're doing something that matters. And specifically, something that matters to you - this doesn't have to be some higher calling type of idea.One thing that really illustrates the idea of diggi
Energy Management: Emotional Energy (Rebroadcast)
Help me out by taking my podcast survey!Emotional Energy isn't as cut and dry as physical energy - there are no emotional calories that we can track and measure. And while there is no scientific delineation of how to measure emotional energy it’s still something that we can all feel - we're not robots. We know that when we're feeling those positive emotions that sometimes we can barely contain the energy we're feeling - when we're seething with rage it can feel like we're going to burst. When we
Energy Management: Mental Energy (Rebroadcast)
Help me out by taking my podcast survey!Today we're going to be looking at ways that we can work on cutting down distractions and staying focused. We'll also be looking at ways that we can better schedule our time to focus on when our brain is going to be working best and we'll also be looking at better ways to end our workday.Support me on PatreonFeel free to ask me a question on my Contact PageFind the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/mentalenergyThis Episode's Top TipsMental energy is about o
Energy Management: Physical Energy (Rebroadcast)
Before we get going here, I just want to make sure you know that I'm not a doctor, and while this episode is a lot about your health, it is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice. Just because I say something on this show doesn't necessarily mean it will be the best advice for you - be smart and be safe. And when in doubt always consult your doctor before changing your diet or exercise routine.Today's episode is a follow up to last week's on Energy Management, but this week w
Brainworx with with Alma Galvan and Bob Dietrich
Hey team, in today’s episode, I’m talking with Alma Galvan and Bob Dietrich - Alma is a neural researcher and Certified Brain Gym instructor, Bob Bob Dietrich is an award-winning public speaker, event producer, and entrepreneur, and together they run Brainworx, an educational program that teaches adults and children how to help manage anxiety, behavior, and improve focus through simple, scientifically-proven techniques.In this conversation, we talked about Alma’s journey with raising two childre
Creativity and ADHD with Saman Kesh
Today we’ve got a bit of a different episode coming your way - in this episode, I talk with award-winning director Saman Kesh. Kesh is known for his narrative music video work with artists such as Basement Jaxx, Calvin Harris, and Placebo.In our broad-ranging conversation, we talk about the creative process and having ADHD, medication, therapy, and a whole host of other topics. This episode is a bit more of the practical side of managing ADHD, and there are great tips littered throughout the epi
Celebrating Your Wins (Rebroadcast)
I want to start this episode off by saying that this is something I'm bad at - and not in the sense that what I do to celebrate is bad or that I'm not celebrating the small wins throughout my day. It's bad in the sense that I almost entirely skip the whole thing.Recently this podcast tipped past half a million downloads. That's a pretty big milestone and is pretty indicative of how successful this endeavor has been. But it was barely a blip for me. I didn't want to acknowledge the success becaus
The Emotional Freedom Technique with Theresa Lear Levine
In today’s episode, I’m talking with Theresa Lear Levine and we’re going to be talking about the emotional freedom Technique or as it’s more commonly known, tapping.Now, I think it’s important off the bat to acknowledge that EFT is a little more out there than a number of other topics that I’ve covered on this show. And while there are studies to support EFT, what I think is more important to take away is that we want to be doing things that work - and that isn’t to say that EFT will definitely
Too Much
Over the last few weeks, I have hit a number of points where it all just felt like too much - now there are a number of things that have contributed to this, but one of the keys always behind when I get overwhelmed is doing too much. This is despite the fact that even when I have too much on my plate it always feels like I should be doing more. That I could squeeze in just a few more things and then… well then I’d probably also still be trying to add more things to do.In today’s episode, we’re g
Unconventional Organisation with Skye Rapson
Hey team, today I’m talking with Skye Rapson of Unconventional Organisation, a New Zealand-based coaching group that specializes in online coaching. They focus on providing research-backed and strengths-based ADHD support to help you get unstuck in your life.In our conversation, we cover a lot of different areas, including one that I’ve really been interested in recently, systems. We get into what systems are and how important it is to tailor these systems to our own ADHD and then how we can eve
The Wandering Mind and Hyperfocus (Rebroadcast)
One of the thoughts I kept coming back to while working on my episode's on multitasking was what it really meant to be multitasking. I settled on using the idea of doing two cognitive tasks at the same time, but that left me with another quandary - what about when I'm doing one thing and just thinking about doing something else. Surely just thinking about something else wouldn't count as multitasking.But still... There have absolutely been times when I've been thinking about something else and f
The Myth of Lazy (Rebroadcast)
In last week's episode, I talked about the Hot-Cold Empathy Gap and how it can be hard for us to really remember or predict how our state is going to affect our actions - one of the consequences of this is that we often label ourselves as lazy when we didn't do something. Our cold state brain tells us that we should have just done the thing, all the while neglecting how we felt. This disconnect is what leads to a lot of our self-judgment and in particular, those of us with ADHD often find oursel
Why We Make Decisions We Don't Understand (Rebroadcast)
Why do we make bad decisions in the moment?We've all done things that we regret doing right? yeah me, neither - but let's say hypothetically there was something that we regretted doing - something that we said or did that we feel like doesn't really reflect on as a person.Why is it I can have the best of intentions and still when it comes time I still make the wrong decision?Today we're going to be exploring the hot-cold empathy gap and why it can be so difficult for us to predict what we're act
ADHD, Psychology and Finance with Rick Webster of Rena-Fi
Today I’m talking with Rick Webster of Rena-Fi - a psychology-based financial education platform. Rena-Fi provides ADHD-friendly ideas, articles, and materials to help with managing your finances.Be sure to check out Rena-Fi.comIn our conversation today though, Rick and I cover a lot of ground outside of finances as well. Of course, we do talk about some ADHD financials as well, including that dreaded ADHD tax.I had a lot of fun during this interview and I hope you’ll enjoy it too.Support me on
ADHD Success with MJ
This week I had the pleasure of talking with MJ Siemens from the ADHD Diversified Podcast and what a conversation we had. In it, we talk a lot about the imposter syndrome that often accompanies success with ADHD and why we often don’t feel successful despite hitting all those metrics we were supposed to. We also talk a lot about how we can work on reframing our views on success so that we can feel good about all those things we accomplish.Support me on PatreonConnect with me on:FacebookTwitterIn
Self-Diagnosis
Self-diagnosis has become a hot-button topic in the mental health world as social media has ramped up many people’s awareness of many of these conditions. But how valid is that self-diagnosis? Some people argue it's dangerous while others argue that self-diagnosis is as valid as a formal diagnosis.In today’s episode, we’re going to wade into this minefield and see what grains of truth we can pull out and where this tool is useful and where it isn’t.Support me on PatreonConnect with me on:Faceboo
Executive Function
Executive function is a hot topic around ADHD - and more specifically how we often have a deficit in it.One of the trickiest parts about executive function is that there isn’t a universally accepted model of executive functions - I know that feels kind of surprising because it seems like something that is talked about as much as executive functions is that we’d have something that is generally agreed upon. So for this episode, we’re going to be focusing on Russell Barkley’s self-regulation model
Retrain Your Brain with Ben Ahrens
Today I’m talking with Ben Ahrens the CEO and Co-founder re-origin which is a science-based, self-directed neuroplasticity training program. Ben was a former trainer and semi-professional surfer who became bedridden with Chronic Neurological Lyme Disease for over 3 years. In his search to help heal himself, Ben sought out and consulted with top neuroscientists and cutting-edge doctors from all over the world. His successful recovery led him to working with these same neuroscientists to develop t
Listener Questions: Doom Box Follow-Up
My friend and colleague, Bob Dietrich, is interviewing me and over 40 other amazing experts on The ADHD Toolbox LIVE!This FREE video series is packed with tools and strategies for overcoming overwhelm, anxiety, procrastination, executive function challenges, and much more. This is a must-have for any parent looking for solutions for their child.Join for FREE here Hey team, welcome back to another questions and answers episode - today I am going to be giving a follow up to my episode about doom b
Success with ADHD: Finding Balance with Brendan Mahan
This week I’m coming in with my second episode in the success with ADHD series and I’m talking with Brendan Mahan. Brendan is a dynamic ADHD/Executive Function consultant, coach, and speaker. And he runs the ADHD Essentials Podcast on this network. Brendan is also probably one of the people I quote the most when I’m doing this podcast because he just has so many great ideas about ADHD and how to approach those issues.You may remember him from when I interviewed him a few years ago about The Wall
An Even Deeper Dive Into Multitasking
To recap from last week we learned that are there are three kinds of multitasking - Classic Multitasking where we're trying to perform more than one task at the same time. Rapid task switching where we're just going from one task to another in quick succession. And interrupted task switching where we're interrupted from one task and switch what we're doing without finishing what we were doing.We also covered how we're more likely to try and multitask with things we're familiar with but how that
Deep Dive Into Multitasking
This week we're going to be deep-diving into multitasking - this is one of those topics that I frequently mention in episodes, but I've never featured before. Not because it doesn't deserve its own episode, but because multitasking is actually a fairly complicated issue and is going to take a bit of time to dissect. So this is actually just going to be my first episode in a series on multitasking and we'll really try and dig into the nitty-gritty of it.In today's episode, we're going to be talki
Building Mindset and Fitness with Karen Broda
In this week’s episode, I’m talking with Karen Broda, a Personal Trainer & Wellness Coach who helps ADHD-ers look & feel good naked!Her purpose is to have you thrive in your body, both physically & mentally so you can show up with confidence every day.The focus of her work is on uncovering & busting past the self-sabotaging beliefs that are causing you to get in your own way.Karen is a Pro Bikini Athlete, Circus artist & instructor, & lives in a Tiny Home she built herself!In our conversation to
Get Ready for Spring with Seasonal Planning
One of the ideas that I’ve been playing with lately is how to go about my planning in a more natural way or perhaps a better phrase would be functional, because while I love the idea of planning it doesn’t always work out how I want to it to.And to be clear, I don’t mean that my plans don’t work out, what I’ve been grappling with is that often when I do my planning I’ve failing to do it in a way that encompasses both my professional and personal life. I think this is an aspect of layering on my
Success with ADHD ft. Eric Tivers
This marks my 100th episode of Hacking Your ADHD and I’ve been thinking about how to celebrate this milestone for a while now.And along with this milestone, I’ve also been thinking about what it means to be successful with ADHD. In my initial ponderings I thought that this would be a fairly easy question to ask, but I also found that I was failing to come up with any easy answers.So I thought that I’d reach out to my fellow podcasters in the ADHD reWired Podcast network and see what they thought
Listener Question - Doom Boxes
In this week’s episode we’re going to be diving into a listener question about cleaning and specifically about doom boxes - and if you don’t know what those are don’t worry you’ll find out soon enough... and I’m sure you probably already have some around that house.Support me on PatreonConnect with me on:FacebookTwitterInstagramor ask me a question on my Contact PageFind the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/doomboxesThis Episode’s Top TipsDooms boxes are the collects of odds and ends that all en
How to Handle Low Capacity Days
One of the ideas that I was presented with during the pandemic was that of surge capacity - this is the idea that we all have reserves of emotional energy that we can call on when we’re in a crisis situation. And this was an important idea for people to grasp as the pandemic wore on because people were finding themselves depleted. Despite having been able to handle everything they eventually came to a wall where they didn’t have any more to give.This is an important concept, but not specifically
Your Brain’s Not Broken with Dr. Tamara Rosier
Hey team, I’ve got a real treat for you today - as I mentioned earlier in the year I’m going to try and include a few more interviews on this podcast, and this month I’m bringing you my conversation with Dr. Tamara Rosier. I just had a blast talking with her and so this episode is a bit longer than I normally go simply because I didn’t want to stop the interview.Dr. Rosier is an ADHD coach and runs the ADHD Center of West Michigan. In this interview, we talk about her book Your Brain’s Not Broke
How to do Hard Things - Part 3
All right, I’m back from my little break and we’re just heading right back into the hard stuff - or at least how we can start getting it checked off our to-do list.Today we’re going to be looking at some more ways that we can adjust our mindset around doing hard things and also looking at some of the reasons we might be choosing to do certain hard things. Then we’ll finish up this series by digging into a few of the more concrete things that you can do so that you can tackle those hard things.Su
How To Apply What You Learn
One of the questions that I frequently get is how people can actually apply what they're learning - in this podcast and from all the other things we learn. I know this is a particularly pernicious problem for ADHD because often we see things that we think would really make a difference in our lives, and yet we can't seem to get ourselves to apply these ideas.Today we're going to explore how we can start working on getting a better understanding of what we're learning, why we might want to start
Give Yourself Some Slack: Perfectly Imperfect
One of the reasons that many of us have trouble giving ourselves slack is because of our internalized perfectionism - it's something that controls our workflow and prevents us from ever taking a break because in our head we know we could be doing more. Even during the writing of this episode I had to fight off some of this internal perfectionism - this episode wasn't supposed to be entirely about perfectionism, but it was going to take a lot more than just one section to really tackle the topic
How to do Hard Things - Part 2
Last week we began this series on how to do hard things and looked specifically at how we define hard things and ways that we can work through some of our problems so that they can become more manageable.This week we’re going to be continuing that conversation but with a lens that focuses on why it can be so hard for us to even attempt to do hard things. We’ll be looking at some of the misconceptions we have about doing hard things as well looking at how acknowledging the hard things we’ve done
How to do Hard Things - Part 1
One of my favorite sayings from Brendan Mahan of the ADHD Essentials podcast is that ADHD is life on Hard Mode.The executive dysfunction that comes with ADHD makes everything just a little bit more difficult. From doing the dishes to filling out tax returns we find ourselves needing to put in more effort than our neurotypical peers.But what’s important for us to remember is that while these things can absolutely be harder for us to do, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.Today we’re going to be expl
The Power of Accountability with Sharon Pope of Shelpful
In this episode I'm talking with the CEO and founder of the company Shelpful, Sharon Pope - we've all had times when we needed a little help getting ourselves to follow a routine and sometimes we don't have the accountability in our lives to make that happen. Shelpful is all about solving that problem of getting that daily accountability. The program works through text messaging but you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself - this is all in the interview.Be sure to go checkout Shelpful at Shel
The Dog and The Dragon
As I’m getting ready to head into the holidays I thought I’d deliver you something a bit different in your podcast player - a story.I don’t want to give anything away so get snuggled in and prepare yourself for The Dog and The Dragon by Brandon Sanderson.Be sure to go check out all of Sanderson's work at BrandonSanderson.comSupport me on PatreonConnect with me on:TwitterTiktokor ask me a question on my Contact PageFind the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/dragon
Caffeine Deep Dive
Trimethylxanthine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug - for many caffeine is such a ubiquitous substance that calling it a drug seems like a misnomer. How could something so widely used that has so few regulations around it be a drug? But a drug is simply a chemical substance that affects our nervous system function and can result in changes to our perception, mood, cognition, and behavior. I feel like caffeine ticks the box pretty well on all those accounts.In today's episode, we'll b
Comorbidity and Depression
Hey team, today's episode is coming in a bit more seriously than some of my others so I just wanted to give you all a head's up.In today's episode, we have listener questions dealing with depression so we're going to be talking about comorbidity in ADHD and specifically, we're going to be talking about how ADHD interacts with depression.comorbidity - this is a term that comes up with ADHD frequently enough and really what we're talking about here is two or more disorders or illnesses occurring i
How To Think (Critically)
The ADHD brain has a strange relationship with thinking. One of my biggest gripes is that it often feels like I can't ever turn my brain off. No matter what I'm doing, I'm thinking about something. I could be washing dishes, but I'm thinking about what else I need to do before I go to bed. I could be walking to get the mail, and instead of wondering what's in the mailbox, I'm thinking about a conversation I had three years ago. Even when I'm trying to meditate, I'll often find myself thinking ab
A Question Worth Asking
In a lot of my episodes, I have touted the virtue of asking questions - this is something that is embedded deeply in my philosophy. When we engage ourselves and others with curiosity we are able to solve problems more quickly and with better answers.One idea that I see pop up frequently is that questions are more valuable than answers - to some extent I agree with that idea, but I think it's a bit too hyperbolic. It feels like it stems from the counter-intuitive branch of self-help whereby sayin
Listener Questions - Procrastination and Taking Breaks
Hey team this week I'm jumping on some listener questions - if you'd like to leave your own question for me to answer on the air just head over to HackingYourADHD.com/contact and leave me a messageIn today's episode, I'll be answering a question about procrastination and how we can work on getting past issues of low confidence, and then we're going to be dive into some ways we can take breaks when our mobility is a limiting factor.Support me on PatreonConnect with me on:TwitterTiktokor ask me a
How To Give Yourself Some Slack
Often when I think about productivity I envision something like a well-oiled machine - everything fits together, everything has its place and when it is running smoothly it produces amazing results. But the part that my imagination doesn't usually pick up is a few important words - well-oiled machine... what does it mean to be well oiled - well, for one thing, it means that there is someone maintaining the system. It means, that left to its own devices that the machine would break down - and for
Taking Breaks
We all know that one of the biggest hurdles from ADHD is starting, but paradoxically one of our other hurdles is stopping. Sometimes it feels like we're better off if we just power through until we're done, but if we really want to get the most out of our workdays, we need to have some breaks.In today's episode, we're going to be looking at the benefits of taking breaks, some different ways that we can take breaks, and also exploring going beyond breaks and actually taking some time off.Support
Measure What Matters
One of the most important aspects of planning is knowing where you've been and this typically comes from some kind of review process. The reason for the review is so that we can plan an accurate course based on where we are now. But that review is also a lot easier said than done. I've sat down for many a review sessions and realized that I don't have a great way to look back. I'll skim through my calendar and wonder what exactly happened over the last few weeks or months and kind of shrug and g
Coaching for your Brain with Dr. Norrine Russell
This week I am talking with Dr. Norrine Russell of Russell Coaching - Dr. Russell has a Pd.D. from Bowling Green State University with a focus on psychology and education and began her ADHD coaching practice in 2009. In our conversation today, we talk about what you can expect to get out of coaching, how we can work on working with our brains, and ways we can help our kids with ADHD.Today's episode is focused more on children with ADHD, but I've always found that these are lessons that we can tr
Waiting for Inspiration
One of the easiest ways for procrastination to creep into our lives is through the thought that we just need to wait to do something until we feel like doing it. I totally get this. I feel this way all the time - it's super easy to put something off because we don't feel like doing it right then.But that's not always our best strategy - in fact, for a lot of things we're never really going to feel like doing them and so waiting for that inspiration to come means that we're never going to get to
How to Find a Therapist
This week I'm bringing back an episode from the archives while I'm working on getting some new content put together.One of the hardest aspects for me with ADHD is that I can quickly become overwhelmed when I can't find a clear path forward - I know I could do the research, but setting aside the time feels like it's going to be too much and so I just procrastinate forever on starting. For me finding a therapist was one of those things that seemed too murky to get started on. There were just so ma
How to Plan Your Day
While working on the last episode on laziness, one of the themes that came up was how we can become paralyzed when we don't know what our next step is - this can often be seen as laziness from other people or even ourselves. We know we should be doing something, we just don't know what. And this is where the importance of planning comes in.Today we're going to focus on how to plan our day because it's easy to let our days get away from ourselves when we don't plan them. It feels like we shouldn'
The Myth of Lazy
In last week's episode, I talked about the Hot-Cold Empathy Gap and how it can be hard for us to really remember or predict how our state is going to affect our actions - one of the consequences of this is that we often label ourselves as lazy when we didn't do something. Our cold state brain tells us that we should have just done the thing, all the while neglecting how we felt. This disconnect is what leads to a lot of our self-judgment and in particular, those of us with ADHD often find oursel
Why We Make Decisions We Don't Understand
Why do we make bad decisions in the moment?We've all done things that we regret doing right? yeah me, neither - but let's say hypothetically there was something that we regretted doing - something that we said or did that we feel like doesn't really reflect on as a person.Why is it I can have the best of intentions and still when it comes time I still make the wrong decision?Today we're going to be exploring the hot-cold empathy gap and why it can be so difficult for us to pr
The Trap of Low Quality Leisure Time
Hey team, good news, I am finally over Covid - it took me a bit longer than I would have liked but I'm healthy again and ready to get back at things.This is an episode that I started working on before I got sick, and one of the areas that we had been looking into was that of planning and goal setting. So I thought it was time to shift a bit onto an area that we often forget about - leisure time.Now, I want to be clear here, leisure time is not in opposition to goals and planning, in fact, i
The Wall of Awful with Brendan Mahan
We've all got things that we think we should be able to just do - for example, I've had on my to-do list for weeks to make a phone call to the bank - it won't even take that long, but I keep putting it off. I keep finding reasons not to do it - what I've done is I've created a wall of awful around making this phone call (really most phone calls) and the more I put it off the more it builds it up. Today we've got Brendan Mahan from ADHD Essentials to explain what the
Building Gratitude
One of the hottest trends to come out of the self-help world over the last few years is gratitude. And it's no surprise, gratitude has been found to be one of the greatest indicators of overall well-being. I'm usually pretty skeptical about things that get hyped quite as much as gratitude has been - I mean when you see the list of things that a gratitude practice can help with it's pretty easy to roll your eyes. I mean can gratitude really do all those things that people say it can?Today we'll b
How To Save Time with Sequencing
Sequencing is all about the order in which we do things. Sometimes it seems like it doesn’t matter what comes first, but also try putting your pants on after you put on your shoes.Sequencing is something I’ve come to realize is a big deal with ADHD. The order in which we do things has a big impact on our overall productivity, but more than that, some of our other issues with ADHD make the sequence in which we do things much more important.Today we're going to be exploring how the order we do thi
Beyond Time Management
Hey team, I'm going to be taking a little time off in August and I thought that I'd dredge up a few episodes from the archives.Today we're going to be hitting on an idea that has been a reoccurring theme in the last few episodes and that's personal energy management.While many of us have realized that we only have so much time in our day, we tend to still believe that we're going to have the same amount of energy from sun up to sundown. But we know this isn't true. Our energy levels vary through
Celebrating Your Wins
I want to start this episode off by saying that this is something I'm bad at - and not in the sense that what I do to celebrate is bad or that I'm not celebrating the small wins throughout my day. It's bad in the sense that I almost entirely skip the whole thing.Recently this podcast tipped past half a million downloads. That's a pretty big milestone and is pretty indicative of how successful this endeavor has been. But it was barely a blip for me. I didn't want to acknowledge the success becaus
Meeting Yourself Where You're At
As we've been working on goals one place I want us to take a step back on and think about is meeting ourselves where we are.As we get going with our planning we tend to decide that well we want to do all of the things. And I mean why not, there are a lot of things that I want to do, if I don't start now, when am I going to start? I can't tell you how many ill-fated adventures I've started because of that whole "if not now, when?" line - there are so many things that I should be investing my time
When to Quit
The first thing we've got to understand is that when we ask, when should I quit? We're also asking, when should I persevere? And they often serve as the same answer - I should quit when it doesn't make sense to keep going. I keep going when it doesn't make sense to quit. Unfortunately is really easy to get those messages mixed up and with ADHD we've all got a trail of unfinished projects and ideas that are weighing us down every time we need to make this decision again.Support me on PatreonConne
Five Frameworks to Build Powerful Goals
Last week dove into how goals work and the science behind them - now we're going to be taking all of that and looking at how we can better create our goals through simple frameworks. A lot of these frameworks come from a business setting, but with a little tweaking, we can absolutely make them work for personal use as well.Today we're going to be looking at a few of the different frameworks we can use for our goal setting as well as hitting the why behind setting those goals.Support me on Patreo
Freshening Up Your Goals
As we continue to think about our fresh start one clear area that we're going to hit is that of, well what should we even be focusing on. That's where goal setting comes into play and while I did touch on this in the original fresh start episode, I think it's worth giving more consideration.When we think about goals there's a ton of different ways to think about them, but at their basics, a goal is simply a future result that you are directing your effort. Now there are a lot of different ways t
Fresh Start: The Deep Clean
One of the things I never quite got a grasp on is seasons... I mean I grew up in Hawaii and we basically had hot and not quite as hot. But this comes up for me because technically we're still in Spring right now so I guess this could still be a Spring Cleaning episode - officially Summer starts on the Solstice in June on the 20th... so I made in by like a week if you're listening to this when it comes out.Regardless of if this is Spring Cleaning or not, cleaning can be a great way to signal the
Get Going With A Fresh Start
In just one more month we're going to be coming up on the halfway point of 2021 — I know, I have no idea how it got here either.But with this mark in time we're starting to see a shift going on - while COVID certainly isn't a thing of the past, the vaccine role out has opened up a lot of possibilities for what we want our future to look like.At the end of 2020, I did some planning for 2021, but I knew that a lot of it was going to be uncertain so I didn't make too many specific plans. But now th
Exploring ADHD with Eric Tivers
This week I'm talking with Eric Tivers - the host of the ADHD reWired Podcast and the head of our podcast network. He just opened up a new membership community for something called Adult Study Hall, which is an online accountability program to help you get stuff done. The way it works is that you enter a zoom room with a bunch of other people who are working - you state what you are planning to work on and get to it. It is pretty amazing how effective just having someone else there is even if it
The Happiness at Work Business with Will Henshall of Focus@Will
In this week's podcast, I continue my conversation with Will Henshall, CEO of the music service Focus@WillIn this part of the interview we talk about how we can use music to affect our state of being → and to jump on this because I realized I didn't really hit this in the interview, by state of being I mean how you are currently experiencing things - so this encompasses your mood, energy level, and your motivation level - okay, back to our intro - we also discuss a number of various ADHD tips an
Using Music to Create Focus with Will Henshall
Whenever I sit down to do some serious writing I always make sure to have something to listen to - music is often a key piece of how I keep myself engaged in the task I'm doing. In today's podcast, I'm going to dig into that idea, by I won't be doing it alone.Today I'm joined by Will Henshall, CEO of Focus@Will which is kind of like Spotify for concentration music.In this episode, I talk with Will about how music can be critical in our ability to focus while working, how ADHD brains need a certa
Habit Challenge: Obey Your Thirst
Today we’re going to be talking about a chemical that is responsible for countless deaths worldwide every year - a chemical so ubiquitous that it can be found practically everywhere - in the air, in our homes, and even in our bodies.I’m of course referring to dihydrogen monoxide or its more common nomenclature H2OYes, we’re finally going to be talking about water.One of the tips I go back to over and over again to help manage ADHD is that of making sure you are properly hydrated. It's absol
Putting the Hyper in Hypersensitivity
With ADHD we often have trouble filtering things out - we can't ignore the hum of the air conditioner, we can't ignore the scratchy tag on the back of our shirt, we can't ignore the fact it seems like the lady standing next to us in line seem to have marinated herself in perfume.We don't want to pay attention to these things, but we can't get our brains to focus on what we want to in the best of times, so how do we expect them to when something is calling for our attention so urgently.Many peopl
Tweaking Your Habits for Better Results
This week we're going to be exploring the power of habit and how small changes to our routines can have a big impact. One of the easiest ways we can help our ADHD is by working on routines and habits. It's easy to let our default habits run our lives but when we consciously choose what habits we actually want to cultivate we aren't hamstringing ourselves. In this episode we'll be learning why we don't need to use discipline nearly as much as we think, the importance of sequencing in our habits a
Rationalization and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
Resistance is the embodiment of the I don't wanna's - the part of us that keeps us from doing our work - or anything for that matter. And a big part of resistance comes from our ability to rationalize what we're doing - I'll jump into one task and find myself doing something else and then my brain will come up with a reason why I needed to be watching youtube instead of working on this week's episode.In today's episode we're going to be exploring what rationalization is, some of the ways that we
A Nudge in the Right Direction
Making the right choices isn't always easy - we've got so many options of what we can do and when I'm tired I don't want to weigh all my options. It would be great if I could just get a gentle push in the right direction. Something that would make the choice I want to make easier to make.What I'm talking about here is a nudge and that's what we're going to be talking about today. We'll be learning about what a nudge is, why they work, and when they don&apo
The Wandering Mind and Hyperfocus
One of the thoughts I kept coming back to while working on my episode's on multitasking was what it really meant to be multitasking. I settled on using the idea of doing two cognitive tasks at the same time, but that left me with another quandary - what about when I'm doing one thing and just thinking about doing something else. Surely just thinking about something else wouldn't count as multitasking.But still... There have absolutely been times when I've been thinking about something else and f
Multitasking Deep Dive Part 2
To recap from last week we learned that are there are three kinds of multitasking - Classic Multitasking where we're trying to perform more than one task at the same time. Rapid task switching where we're just going from one task to another in quick succession. And interrupted task switching where we're interrupted from one task and switch what we're doing without finishing what we were doing.We also covered how we're more likely to try and multitask with things we're familiar with but how that
A Deep Dive Into Multitasking
This week we're going to be deep-diving into multitasking - this is one of those topics that I frequently mention in episodes, but I've never featured before. Not because it doesn't deserve its own episode, but because multitasking is actually a fairly complicated issue and is going to take a bit of time to dissect. So this is actually just going to be my first episode in a series on multitasking and we'll really try and dig into the nitty-gritty of it.In today's episode, we're going to be talki
How To Apply What You Learn
One of the questions that I frequently get is how people can actually apply what they're learning - in this podcast and from all the other things we learn. I know this is a particularly pernicious problem for ADHD because often we see things that we think would really make a difference in our lives, and yet we can't seem to get ourselves to apply these ideas.Today we're going to exploring how we can start working on getting a better understanding of what we're learning, why we might want to star
Understanding the ADHD Subtypes
When it comes to understanding our ADHD it can be a bit of a minefield to navigate - one of our most pernicious problems is that often we're never really educated in what it means to have ADHD. And to top that off, what we learn from pop-culture just reinforces stereotypes that don't really reflect what ADHD is actually about.One of the most important ways to help manage our ADHD is to accept it, but that can be really hard to do if we don't actually have a good grasp of what having ADHD means.
Building Your Touchstones | Listener Q&A
All right everyone, we've got another listener Q&A episode coming your way today with questions looking at ways we can declutter our phones, re-establishing our routines when life is in flux, and how to recover after taking on a heavier workload.Be sure to checkout ADHD Diversified with MJ Support me on PatreonConnect with me on:FacebookTwitterInstagramor ask me a question on my Contact PageFind the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/buildingtouchstonesThis Episode’s Top TipsA lot of ou
Digital Declutter: Tabs, Tabs, And more Tabs
Did you think I was all done with tabs last week... well I wasn't because there's actually a ton we can still talk about. Tabs are one of those small things in our life that can have a fairly outsized impact. Don't think so? Well, keep listening to find out why.Today we're going to be talking about how tabs can literally change the way our brain works, some ways we can cull having all those tabs open, and then talk a bit about those precursors to tabs... bookmarks.Support me on PatreonConnect wi
Digital Declutter: Too Many Tabs
A few weeks ago I asked around on Facebook the number of tabs that my friends had open at the time.Answers I got included:500 on their phone and 20 on their computer, 50-60 across 5-6 windows, 4-5, 16, 3, 80 across 9 windows, 2, 4, 7, 45, 112 over 17 windows…and of course, at the time of my asking, I had 70 across 12 windows, although as I mentioned earlier I'm down to just a few right now - oftentimes these episodes are just as much about helping me as they are about helping you.Clearly, a lot
Decluttering Your Digital Life
We all have an idea of what clutter is - it's just all that stuff. It's that frustrating feeling when you can't find something just because there are too many other things to look through. Clutter is disorder.While we typically see clutter as a physical thing - the junk on our desk. The pile in the corner of the room. The stuff spread out all over our counters - we can also experience its digital counterpart because we also amass a lot of stuff digitally.Today we're going to start our journey of
Masquerading As Adults
#AdultingNow there's something a lot of us can relate to - or relate to the idea that adulting is something we sometimes do, but being an adult is not something we are.ADHD can make us feel like we're not really adults.An adult would get their bills paid on time.An adult wouldn't let their house get this messy.An adult would be eating healthy meals for dinner every night.Now it would be a stretch to say that I feel like an adult all of the time, but I'm certainly getting there. A big part of the
The Surprising Magic of Setting a Deadline
When I was in school, I always wanted to be the kind of student who able to finish a project well before it needed to be turned in. I loved the idea that I could write a paper and still have a week left to polish it. Of course, I was never actually that student. For me to get started on a paper, I had to actually be able to feel that pressure from the deadline building up on me. That usually meant that I was mostly working on papers the night before - I'm sure a lot of you can relate. Since
Breaking Down the ONE Thing
In this week's episode, I am going to be going over the book The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan - I was introduced to this book by Eric Tivers through the ADHD reWired Coaching and Accountability groups. I can't remember if it was required reading or just strongly encouraged when I took the groups, but the messages in this book were key to getting through the coaching groups.My first reading of the book was on audiobook and since then I've listened to it three more and read the physica
Among Us
Last year there was a surge in the popularity of the game Among Us - 1000's of people jumped on to be funny little scientists running around there spaceship running various little tasks... all while trying to find out who among them didn't belong - the one who was trying to sabotage the mission. The one who was an imposter.I definitely played my fair share of the game, but always felt like I didn't get to play as the imposter nearly as much as I wanted to... yet in real life, far too often I fee
On The Razors Edge
Occam's Razor is a philosophical rule (and that's rule in a very soft sense) that we can use to help us with problem solving. In philosophy a razor is a tool used to eliminate (or shave off) options that might lead us astray.Occam's Razor is one of the most popular examples and has made it's way into popular culture from the movie Contact to Sherlock Holmes to The Big Bang Theory.I imagine that a lot of you have heard of the famous razor before, which states that: plurality should not be posited
Lagging Indicators
I'm going to be diving into some more aspects of planning in the coming months - I know, shouldn't I have done this before the end of the year? Well I'm going to us my being completely unprepared for the end of the year to illustrate a great point - it's never too late to start working on planning.One of the most important aspects of planning is knowing where you've been and this typically comes from some kind of review process. The reason for the review is so that we can plan an accurate course
Top 5 ADHD Tips
Hey there team, we're nearly at the end of 2020 and I thought I'd deliver a bit of a shorter episode this week focusing on some of the strategies that I find are the most important for managing my ADHD. This is definitely not a definitive list and as for the order of things... well I moved things around a number of times trying to decide what the best order would be and honestly I'm not sure there really is an order or truly a most important thing. When we're trying to manage our ADHD an importa
Sequencing
Sequencing is all about the order in which we do things. Sometimes it seems like it doesn’t matter what comes first, but also try putting your pants on after you put on your shoes.Sequencing is something I’ve come to realize is a big deal with ADHD. The order in which we do things has a big impact on our overall productivity, but more than that, some of our other issues with ADHD make the sequence in which we do things much more important.Today we're going to be exploring how the order we do thi
Even More Automations
Part of the reason that automations is such a ripe topic is that it can help in almost all areas of our life - this week we're going to focus more on the work side of things, because when it comes to our jobs there are a ton of things that usually can be automated fairly easily, because we all have those little tasks that we have to do all the time that aren't that hard but do require us to shift our attention to them for just a little bit. And that's what I think is the best benefit of setting
More Automations to Make Your Life Easier
In this week's episode we're going to focus on the money side of things and go into how we can use automation for our shopping and then also how we can use automations with our finances.And as a reminder, automations are things that we can set up in our life that are just going to happen regardless of what else we do. So think clicking a button and having a form filled out or even more basically think about something like your dishwasher, you put the dishes in, click a button and then all your d
Automating Your ADHD Life
One of the paradoxes of ADHD is how much work we can get done when we're interested in something... but then how little we get done when something is boring. Unfortunately in life there are a lot of things that are going to bore us. And this becomes especially true with those boring tasks we have to do over and over again. So this is where automation comes in - automation is simply something that accomplishes tasks for us without our intervention.Whether we know it or not, all of us already use
Fighting Resistance (Rebroadcast)
"There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What's keeping us from sitting down is resistance." This is how Steven Pressfield introduces the idea of resistance in his book the War of Art, and to me, resistance is the root of the "I don't wanna's." While I don't agree with many of the things in Pressfield's book (I mean, he states that ADHD was made up by pharmaceutical co
Cleaning House (Rebroadcast)
I'd say I have a love-hate relationship with cleaning, but that implies that there is a part of me that loves cleaning. There isn't. I like having cleaned and having a clean home, but I seldom enjoy the actual cleaning part.ADHD tends to not make cleaning any easier. Time blindness makes me think most of the cleaning tasks I need to do are going to take forever. I have a natural propensity for clutter, and that clutter often fades into the background of what I notice - so I just stop seeing that
One Year of Podcasting: Interview with Kari Gormley
This week's a little bit different - today you're going to be hearing an interview I had with my friend Kari Gormley - now I say interview with a bit of hesitation because our conversation absolutely did not start out that way.Kari is a Certified Applied Positive Psychology Practitioner, Coach, and Trainer as well as a fellow podcaster - her show is The Flourishing Experiment.but so, I was having a zoom call with Kari and we were just chatting to catch up on a few things and I had mentioned that
Give Yourself Some Slack: Self-Compassion (Part 2)
Last week we started our journey of self-compassion.Self-compassion is key part of cutting ourselves some slack - it's the combination of empathy and action. We're doing the things that'll let us put ourselves at the front of the line when it comes to self-care.But self-compassion isn't easy.When we're being self-compassionate we're trying to relate to ourselves in a way that's forgiving, accepting and loving - many of us have grown up with the view that the only way for us to push ourselves for
Give Yourself Some Slack: Self-Compassion (Part 1)
In this episode we're going to focus on the difficulties of self-compassion and then talk a little about mindfulness - next week we'll be going into the ideas of self-kindness, common humanity, and some other ideas I've been playing with. Support me on PatreonConnect with me on:FacebookTwitterInstagramor ask me a question on my Contact PageFind the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/selfcompassionThis Episode's Top TipsSelf-compassion can help with ADHD because it can help us realize that our self
Q&A: Writing Past the Hard Parts
In today's episode, we have a listener question about writing and how to get back into it after quitting at the hard parts.Support me on PatreonConnect with me on:FacebookTwitterInstagramor ask me a question on my Contact PageFind the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/writingpastThis Episode's Top TipsUse prewriting to focus your thoughts and to help build your momentum into writing so that you aren't relying so much on inspiration to keep working on your project.Create notes as you're writing so
Give Yourself Some Slack: Perfectly Imperfect
One of the reasons that many of us have trouble giving ourselves slack is because of our internalized perfectionism - it's something that controls our workflow and prevents us from ever taking a break because in our head we know we could be doing more. Even during the writing of this episode I had to fight off some of this internal perfectionism - this episode wasn't supposed to be entirely about perfectionism, but it was going to take a lot more than just one section to really tackle the topic
How To Give Yourself Some Slack
Often when I think about productivity I envision something like a well-oiled machine - everything fits together, everything has it's placed and when it is running smoothly it produces amazing results. But the part that my imagination doesn't usually pick up are a few important words - well-oiled machine... what does it mean to be well oiled - well, for one thing, it means that there is someone maintaining the system. It means, that left to its own devices that the machine would breakdown - and f
Building Gratitude
One of the hottest trends to come out of the self-help world over the last few years is gratitude. And it's no surprise, gratitude has been found to be one of the greatest indicators of overall well being. I'm usually pretty skeptical about things that get hyped quite as much as gratitude has been - I mean when you see the list of things that a gratitude practice can help with it's pretty easy to roll your eyes. I mean can gratitude really do all those things that people say it can?Today we'll b
When To Quit
The first thing we've got to understand is that when we ask, when should I quit? We're also asking, when should I persevere? And they often serve as the same answer - I should quit when it doesn't make sense to keep going. I keep going when it doesn't make sense to quit. Unfortunately is really easy to get those messages mixed up and with ADHD we've all got a trail of unfinished projects and ideas that are weighing us down every time we need to make this decision again.Support me on PatreonConne
Rationalization and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
Resistance is the embodiment of the I don't wanna's - the part of us that keeps us from doing our work - or anything for that matter. And a big part of resistance comes from our ability to rationalize what we're doing - I'll jump into one task and find myself doing something else and then my brain will come up with a reason why I needed to be watching youtube instead of working on this week's episode.In today's episode we're going to be exploring what rationali
How to Find a Therapist
One of the hardest aspects for me with ADHD is that I can quickly become overwhelmed when I can't find a clear path forward - I know I could do the research, but setting aside the time feels like it's going to be too much and so I just procrastinate forever on starting. For me finding a therapist was one of those things that seemed too murky to get started on. There were just so many things to consider and so many things that I don't know. Not only did I not know where to start, but I also didn'
Energy Management: Spiritual Energy
I know the term spiritual energy is going to throw a lot of people - so let's start off by getting clear on what I mean here. When I'm talking about spiritual energy I'm not talking about anything religious here, I'm simply referring to the idea that you have an energy reserve that you can tap into when you're doing something that matters. And specifically, something that matters to you - this doesn't have to be some higher calling type of idea.One thing that really illustrates the idea of diggi
Energy Management: Emotional Energy
Emotional Energy isn't as cut and dry as physical energy - there are no emotional calories that we can track and measure. And while there is no scientific delineation of how to measure emotional energy it’s still something that we can all feel - we're not robots. We know that when we're feeling those positive emotions that sometimes we can barely contain the energy we're feeling - when we're seething with rage it can feel like we're going to burst. When we're sad it can feel like we want to melt
The Wall of Awful with Brendan Mahan
We've all got things that we think we should be able to just do - for example, I've had on my to-do list for weeks to make a phone call to the bank - it won't even take that long, but I keep putting it off. I keep finding reasons not to do it - what I've done is I've created a wall of awful around making this phone call (really most phone calls) and the more I put it off the more it builds it up. Today we've got Brendan Mahan from ADHD Essentials to explain what the Wall of Awful is and some way
Energy Management: Mental Energy
Today we're going to be looking at ways that we can work on cutting down distractions and staying focused. We'll also be looking at ways that we can better schedule our time to focus on when our brain is going to be working best and we'll also be looking at better ways to end our workday.Find the show note at HackingYourADHD.com/mentalenergyThis Episode's Top TipsMental energy is about our ability to focus and keep our focus. To effectively do this we need to stop trying to multitask and reduce
Energy Management: Physical Energy
Before we get going here, I just want to make sure you know that I'm not a doctor, and while this episode is a lot about your health, it is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice. Just because I say something on this show doesn't necessarily mean it will be the best advice for you - be smart and be safe. And when in doubt always consult your doctor before changing your diet or exercise routine.Today's episode is a follow up to last week's on Energy Management, but this week w
Personal Energy Management
It's an hour after lunch and your staring at your computer monitor. There are words in front of you, but you've read the same sentence over and over again five times in a row. Your eyes are glazed and curling up under your desk for a quick nap like George Costanza is seemingly a better and better option by the minute.Except you have things to do - you have stuff on your schedule and taking a nap is just not an option.Enter Personal Energy Management - this is an idea of scheduling your work arou
Taking Breaks
We all know that one of the biggest hurdles from ADHD is starting, but paradoxically one of our other hurdles is stopping. Sometimes it feels like we're better off if we just power through until we're done, but if we really want to get the most out of our workdays, we need to have some breaks.In today's episode, we're going to be looking at the benefits of taking breaks, some different ways that we can take breaks, and also exploring going beyond breaks and actually taking some time off.For show
A Nudge in the Right Direction
Making the right choices isn't always easy - we've got so many options of what we can do and when I'm tired I don't want to weigh all my options. It would be great if I could just get a gentle push in the right direction. Something that would make the choice I want to make easier to make.What I'm talking about here is a nudge and that's what we're going to be talking about today. We'll be learning about what a nudge is, why they work, and when they don't. We'll also be looking at some of the var
Fighting Resistance - Part 2
Last week we started off our discussion of resistance - a term that I got from Steven Pressfield's book, the War of Art.While there are parts of the book that aren't that ADHD friendly, I do like this idea of resistance. And basically resistance is what is keeping us from doing our work. It's procrastination, rationalizations, comparison, perfectionism, and everything else that keeps us from working all rolled into one idea. It is the embodiment of the "I don't wanna'sIn part one I talked about
Fighting Resistance
"There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What's keeping us from sitting down is resistance." This is how Steven Pressfield introduces the idea of resistance in his book the War of Art, and to me, resistance is the root of the "I don't wanna's." While I don't agree with many of the things in Pressfield's book (I mean, he states that ADHD was made up by pharmaceutical co
Moving From Defense to Offense
Years ago now, before I started this podcast, I worked as a sports writer. It was fun work and I also found that a lot of the things I was writing about could be applied to real life. One of the areas that I really saw it was in the difference between teams playing offensively and defensively.No matter the game teams are going to be playing on both offense and defense, but what I often saw was that teams that had an offensive mindset often were able to take advantage and play better. What I mean
Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer
Following up last week's rebroadcast about creating better reminders I thought I'd add in some more ideas on how we can remember things. One of the tools that I most often use is the camera on my phone.I think the first time I tried to use a photograph to remember something was when I was a kid and saw a commercial on TV for a bow and arrow and shield set - it looked like the best toy, but the only way I could think of to record the phone number to call for it (yes this pre-internet) was to take
How to Create More Effective Reminders (Rebroadcast)
When you've got ADHD making reminders is a given. There's just too much going on in any one given day for me to keep track of it all and without reminders I know I'm going to drop the ball somewhere. I've got reminders for big things like when I need to leave to pick up my kids from school and little things like having a cup of tea in the evening but not too close to bedtime.So when I get told I just need to create a reminder to remember something I just want to shout that I already am using a l
How To Make Time For The Important Stuff (Rebroadcast)
One of the things I want to look at while I'm taking my break is what my prioritizes are - it's easy to let yourself just get pulled along with the flow of things and often that means you aren't following your prioritizes. What you end up following is the path of least resistance and overtime you going to find that you just aren't able to make the time for the things that are important to you. So during this break I thought it would be a great time to revisit this episode on how to set your prio
Burnout (Rebroadcast)
This week we were supposed to have a new episode going up but I'm really starting to feel it. I feel like I've been stuck for a while now and pressing on the gas is just spinning my wheels, so I've realized that I need to step back and take a break. And I thought what better way to start off that break than rebroadcasting my episode on burnout. I know I'm going to have to work on picking up a few lessons from this episode again so I though you might appreciate them too.Exhausted, empty, overload
How to Think (Critically)
The ADHD brain has a strange relationship with thinking. One of my biggest gripes is that it often feels like I can't ever turn my brain off. No matter what I'm doing, I'm thinking about something. I could be washing dishes, but I'm thinking about what else I need to do before I go to bed. I could be walking to get the mail, and instead of wondering what's in the mailbox, I'm thinking about a conversation I had three years ago. Even when I'm trying to meditate, I'll often find myself thinking ab
Cleaning House
I'd say I have a love-hate relationship with cleaning, but that implies that there is a part of me that loves cleaning. There isn't. I like having cleaned and having a clean home, but I seldom enjoy the actual cleaning part.ADHD tends to not make cleaning any easier. Time blindness makes me think most of the cleaning tasks I need to do are going to take forever. I have a natural propensity for clutter, and that clutter often fades into the background of what I notice - so I just stop seeing that
The Science of Fidgets
My desk usually has a least a few fidget toys on top of it. I say usually only because my children sneak into my office and steal them. But the rest of the time I have a couple infinity cubes, a tangle and a piece of sea glass I use as a worry stone. I love having them to play with as I think through sentences while I'm writing and also as something to keep my hands busy while I'm reading.Today we're going to talk about the rise of fidgets in over the last few years and then dive into how they a
Best-Laid Plans and COVID-19
Trying to plan in a pandemic has been... well really what's been a problem is all the plans that I made before the lockdown. Every week I look through my calendar and have canceled events and plans that just aren't going to happen. I mean this was the first Easter I didn't have to pretend to be sick during to avoid going over to the in-laws, but that's a pretty weak silver lining.We've got a lot going on so planning is more important than ever - I mean going to the grocery store takes a lot more
When Good Science Goes Bad
Going online has its perks - we've got a wealth of information at our fingertips - but with so much information it can be hard to find the truth. Often we can't find the signal for the noise because well, it is just really noisy. And by noisy, I mean there is a lot of bad information out there.In today's episode, we're going to be looking specifically at science journalism, but really most of what we're going to be talking about can be applied to everything that we read online. We want to be get
Controlling What You Can When Everything Feels Out of Control
I hope everyone is staying home and staying safe. I know that everyone is going through a hard time right now and ADHD isn't making it any easier. So today we're going to be talking about what we can do to try and regain some of that control you may feel you have lost in your life. We'll be talking about staying in contact with friends, setting up routines and using accountability. We'll also be talking about ways to get in a little more self-care.For show notes go to HackingYourADHD.com/Control
Compassionate Ass-Kicking For The Win (Rebroadcast)
When I'm working on this podcast sometimes I wish my boss would be a little harder on me because it can be easy for me to get behind - but my boss is kind of laid back and lets me get away with more than I should - and that's probably because my boss is me. When I can't count on myself to get the things I need to turn to others to help me out. A lot of us with ADHD can have trouble turning to others when we need help, but we don't have to do things alone. And one of the best ways others can help
Working With Your ADHD (Updated and Rebroadcast)
This week we're going to be hitting Working With Your ADHD. One of my biggest struggles with ADHD often comes from my belief that if I just tried harder I'd be able to overcome anything that my ADHD was throwing at me, but surprise surprise that just isn't the case. In today's episode, we're going to be looking at why we don't want to just keep trying to do the same things as neurotypicals, why we struggle so much with the idea of trying harder and also some of the strategies that are going to s
The Surprising Magic of Setting a Deadline
When I was in school, I always wanted to be the kind of student who able to finish a project well before it needed to be turned in. I loved the idea that I could write a paper and still have a week left to polish it. Of course, I was never actually that student. For me to get started on a paper, I had to actually be able to feel that pressure from the deadline building up on me. That usually meant that I was mostly working on papers the night before - I'm sure a lot of you can relate. Since I wa
Getting off the Hamster Wheel (Before You Burnout)
Exhausted, empty, overloaded, unable to cope - these are some of the words I'll find myself using when I'm feeling burned out or on the path to burnout. We tend to find ourselves in burnout after prolonged periods of stress - it isn't something that sets in all at once. It isn't that we finally have a straw that breaks the camel's back, instead we just eventually find ourselves waking up one morning and realizing we just can't even. We find that we've lost our passion and drive for everything in
How to Create More Effective Reminders
When you've got ADHD making reminders is a given. There's just too much going on in any one given day for me to keep track of it all and without reminders I know I'm going to drop the ball somewhere. I've got reminders for big things like when I need to leave to pick up my kids from school and little things like having a cup of tea in the evening but not too close to bedtime.So when I get told I just need to create a reminder to remember something I just want to shout that I
Life Lessons From Video Games
Talking about video games so much last week got me thinking about games a lot and so I ended up getting a new game for myself called Stardew Valley. The game was originally released in 2016 but because it was so popular it has been released for a bunch of other systems - I got my copy on the Nintendo Switch. In Stardew Valley you escape the hustle and bustle of the city by moving to a farm you inherited from your grandfather. And then the gameplay is basically just running your farm. Clearing yo
ADVGD: Attention Deficit Video Game Disorder
I've played video games since before I was able to read - although that statement loses some of its weight once you find out that I didn't learn to read until I was in 4th grade - you know, dyslexia and all. Nonetheless, video games have been a part of my life for a long time. I mean, games are so ingrained in me that while I am writing this, I am listening to video game music - it's excellent for creating a relaxed focus. Video game music was specifically designed to help with attention - I'll
ADHD in the Gym
This week we're going to be jumping - yeah, jumping because we're talking about exercise. I hope you're ready for some Jazzercise - but if that's not your groove I've got some other options for you as well. Somewhere in our heads, we all know that exercising more is something we "should" do, but it feels like the easiest thing in the world to put off. I mean just because when I look out my window and I can see it's raining doesn't mean I need to stay
How to Make your Smart Phone ADHD Friendly (Part 2)
This is the second part of the series on how to better manage your smartphone with your ADHD - you don't have to have listened to part 1 to listen to this episode, but if you like this episode I'd definitely recommend going back and listening to last week's episode as well. In that episode, we covered how we can limit the distractions that our smartphone can present and also how to make it easier on our ADHD brains when we're setting up our smartphone.This week we're going in a bit of a differen
How to Make your Smart Phone ADHD Friendly (Part 1)
I've been carrying around a smartphone in my pocket for more than 10 years - I started off with the first iPhone and have since gone over to Android, dabbled with the Windows Phones for a few years and then ended back up with an iPhone again. Through my years with my phone I've learned that it can be a great asset and help me with a number of my ADHD difficulties; however, I've also felt the dark side of the phone as well. Games, social media, email and all those notifications. ADHD makes it rea
Tweaking Your Habits for Better Results
Find the full show note at HackingYourADHD.com/habitsThis week we're going to be exploring the power of habit and how small changes to our routines can have a big impact. One of the easiest ways we can help our ADHD is by working on routines and habits. It's easy to let our default habits run our lives but when we consciously choose what habits we actually want to cultivate we aren't hamstringing ourselves. In this episode we'll be learning why we don't need to use discipline nearly as much as w
Breaking Down The ONE Thing
Find the full show notes at HackingYourADHD.com/TheONEThingIn this week's episode, I am going to be going over the book The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan - I was introduced to this book by Eric Tivers through the ADHD reWired Coaching and Accountability groups. I can't remember if it was required reading or just strongly encouraged when I took the groups, but the messages in this book were key to getting through the coaching groups.My first reading of the book was on audiobook and sin
Dear ADHD
Find show notes for this episode at HackingYourADHD.Com/DearADHDThanks for joining me for the very last episode of 2019 - in this episode, I'm writing a letter to my ADHD. This is an exercise I got from Eric Tiver's ADHD reWired Coaching and Accountability groups. I'll be honest, I wasn't all that keen on writing a letter to my ADHD when I first heard about the exercise, but it was surprisingly refreshing to address that part of myself. Since my first letter to my ADHD I've tried to write anothe
How to Plan Your 2020 Without Getting Overwhelmed
Be sure to check out the full show notes at: HackingYourADHD.com/planning2020Today we're going to be working on planning out our 2020. If you haven't given much thought to planning your year before I think you'll get a lot out of this episode - planning is one of those things that we sometimes think doesn't play well with ADHD, but I've learned that planning is actually one of the most effective ways to manage my ADHD. We're always going to be impulsive and that's not a bad thing but sometimes w
Looking Back on 2019 for a Great 2020
Today we're going to be walking through the process of how to conduct an end of year review by letting you in while I went through my own review. Head over to the show notes page to grab a copy of the Review Your Year PDF that I use in this episode: HackingYourADHD.com/2019ReviewSince I've started doing yearly reviews, I've realized that I'm pretty bad at looking back. Often I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels, but it turns out that it's just that my rearview mirror is broken. The problem is
How To Make Time For The Important Stuff
Let me ask you, what's the most important thing on your to-do list? What the thing that if you did it would make you satisfied with what you accomplished today? Sometimes we've got a clear picture of what our most important thing we've got to do is - usually it's something that's due that day - maybe even something that was due, yesterday. But we can't always rely on urgency to be our guide for prioritization. If you're struggling to figure out what's the most important thing to do, you're not a
Prioritizing Your Needs For a Better Holiday Season
We all picture different things when we think about the holidays. Some people think about family and food, others think about putting up all those sparking lights and some people think about the shopping - but one thing we all probably think about is all the things we have to do.Find the full show notes at HackingYourADHD.com/podcast/holidayThis Episode's Top TipsPick and choose your events - let your mantra become "I'll have to check my calendar"Prioritize self-care by adding it to your calenda
Compassionate Ass-Kicking For The Win
When I'm working on this podcast sometimes I wish my boss would be a little harder on me because it can be easy for me to get behind - but my boss is kind of laid back and lets me get away with more than I should - and that's probably because my boss is me. When I can't count on myself to get the things I need to turn to others to help me out. A lot of us with ADHD can have trouble turning to others when we need help, but we don't have to do things alone. And one of the best ways others can help
How to Get Refocused After Your Vacation
Last week was all about getting there and this week we're focusing on what to do when you get back. Travel disrupts our routines and habits - and we should take those disruptions seriously. One thing that I've had to learn over and over again is that ADHD makes transitions hard - and coming back from a trip is a big transition.This Episode's Top TipsIdentify your routines and habits before your trip so that when you get back you know where to pick things back up. Make sure you are paying special
Seven ADHD Friendly Travel Hacks For An Awesome Vacation
ADHD loves novelty and what could be more novel for an ADHD brain than going to a new place? While you might love the destination, getting there can be really hard for those of us with ADHD. The process of traveling some place new takes a lot of work and a lot of attention to detail that can even escape neurotypicals. Recently my wife was booking our tickets to go visit family during Thanksgiving - except after she booked the tickets she realized she booked them for the wrong weekend. Fortunatel
How to Journal Even When You Have ADHD
Find the Full Show Notes:HackingYourADHD.com/podcast/journalingThis Episode's Top TipsJournaling allows us to think through our problems and improve our emotional well beingYou've got a lot of options for how to journal - be it with pen and paper, digital, or an audio or video journal make sure you are choosing the option that is best for your ADHD brain. To be successful at journaling we've got treat it like any other habit that we want to form and start off easy - by thinking ahead we can come
Goals, Strategies and Tactics
Find the full show notes at HackingYourADHD.com/podcast/GSTToday we're going to be exploring the differences between goals, strategies and tactics.Simply put:Goals are a desired result we want to achieve.Strategies are the processes we use to achieve goals.Tactics are actions we take to implement strategies.Let's take a look at an example.A while back I decided to set the goal planning my week every week. My strategy at the time was to do my planning on Monday's right when I started work. This w
Working With Your ADHD
It's easy to get caught up in what neurotypicals do for productivity that we can forget that we're not neurotypical, we have ADHD. And when you've got ADHD sometimes you need to do things differently because our brains are wired differently. Even though neurotypicals sometimes struggle with a lot of the same issues that we are struggling with it doesn't mean we should always be trying the same strategies and tactics to get over those hurdles. What we need to do is find ways t
How to Remember Anything
ADHD can make it hard to remember all the things that you need to remember on a daily basis. Things get forgotten and we end up missing important appointments because they simply slipped our mind. While everyone can have trouble with memory, it can be especially hard on those of us with ADHD because of how memory works with executive function.When we are thinking about memory it is important to distinguish between long-term memory and short-term memory. Long-term memory holds memories from weeks
Timing Your Day
ADHD can make it very hard for us to accurately tell what time it is now, how much time is left, and how quickly time is passing. This is referred to as time blindness and it creates a host of issues for those of us with ADHD. When you are unable to accurately tell what time it is, you are going to be late. When you don't know how long something is going to take, you are either going to take too long to finish or finish well before you predicted.When we are unable to accurately gauge how much ti
Building Your Toolbox
ADHD can make it hard for us to work on our intentions. This is even harder when we forget the things that we want to do. When you are learning about new ADHD strategies while reading books or listening to podcasts (like this one!) it is really easy to forget your intention of implementing those strategies. In these instances when we learn about a new tool, what we can do is write down our intended strategy and put it into our ADHD Toolbox. Our toolbox is simply a way for us to record the strate