Do I have ADHD?

Productivity Hacks for ADHD...
Listen at [27:54]

There are a number of things that you can do to help yourself if you have ADHD symptoms. These will help you become more efficient and productive.

1. Create a Personal Manifesto
2. Create a Nice Words File
3. Create a Team
4. Use Productivity Apps
5. Other hacks…

Let’s look at these in a little more detail...

#1 Create A Personal Manifesto
Listen at [27:54]

This idea is something I got from Jeff Sieh, and he suggested that I make a personal manifesto.

It’s a list of things that you want and that are really important to you. These could be things in both your personal and professional life.

This could be as simple as that you want to be free between 3pm and 4pm because your child gets home from school then.

Creating a personal manifesto will allow you to focus on what’s really important, and keep you on track to achieving those things.

#2 Create A Nice Words File…

Another thing is a nice words file, which is exactly what it sounds like.

I have a habit of comparing myself negatively to people. So when someone says something nice about me I write it down.

That way I can refer back to it in moments of doubt, and help myself move out of the cycle of self-loathing and guilt.

#3 Create A Team...
Listen at [29:32]

Building a team has been one of the most important things for me, as it has allowed me to delegate tasks. Even if you only hire someone for eight hours a month, it’s a great start.

If you have ADHD there will likely be lots of things that you are struggling with and you may procrastinate instead of getting them done. You might not be very good at blogging, organising your email or your calendar but an assistant or virtual assistant can help you with this.

My assistant Tonia has been amazing, not only does she help me organise my system, but she can give me a kick up the bum when necessary.

While assistants are great, you also need to learn how to delegate and be patient with yourself. This has taken me two or three years, but I’m now at the point that I’m a lot better at delegating.

#4 Use Productivity Apps
Listen at [31:50]

It’s important to utilise apps that will help you improve your productivity, and decrease procrastination. There are a few apps that I use and recommend.

Focusmate is something that I’ve not used yet, however, it’s been recommended to me by a number of people. It’s essentially an online accountability partner app.

It’s a buddy system that allows you to schedule a meeting time with someone else anywhere in the world. You then share your webcam and microphone with your buddy and commit to getting stuff done over the next 45-50 minutes.

It holds you accountable to another person and eliminates the likelihood of procrastination.

Google Calendar or Fantastical (if you are a Mac user), are also very useful apps that help prevent procrastination. They allow you to share your calendar with other people, as well as setting reminders. Again this is great for organising your workflow, and also for keeping you accountable.

Many people have recommended using the Pomodoro technique, using a physical timer clock. The Pomodoro technique allows you to balance focus with deliberate breaks. You usually focus on working for ten minutes, and then take a five-minute break, and then repeat.

The only problem is that when I get in the zone, I find that I become super focused, and the Pomodoro technique then interrupts this. However, if you have hyperactive ADHD attributes then this might work well for you. It is also a good way to deal with things that you don’t enjoy doing i.e. replying to emails.

Utilising apps can help you stay focused and on track, especially for tasks that you struggle to get through.

5. Other Productivity Hacks...
Listen at [38:32]

Being productive with ADHD can be hard, however, there are some hacks and processes that I put in place in daily working life in order to increase my working efficiency.

My inner dialogue can be very loud, and that makes it a struggle to think things through. Noise-cancelling headphones or BrainFM radio station really help me to remove distractions and focus on the work at hand, while drowning out the external noise.

As a solopreneur, I find it helpful to leave the house without technology and use a pen and paper to write things down. It’s been a struggle during lockdown, but I’m looking forward to going out for half a day and spending time thinking things through and planning out my goals and dreams for the weeks, months and years ahead.

This also goes hand in hand with diet and exercise, which I find will help improve my productivity. A personal trainer might be a great idea if you struggle to get motivated exercising, and it will help you avoid procrastination as you have to turn up and make the effort.

I struggle to talk things through in my head, so both accountability groups and therapy allow me to get out of my head and talk things through.

Consider a mastermind or an accountability group or partner that you meet up with as it will allow you to have some human interaction, as well as someone to bounce ideas off of and keep you accountable for achieving your goals. It makes it a lot harder to procrastinate if you’ve shared your plans with someone else.

Another thing that has helped me become more productive is therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Therapy helped me articulate what was going on in my brain, and talking things out really helped me understand what I was thinking. I think therapy is going to become even more important as people come out of lockdown.

I’d also recommend the Facebook group called Inattentive which has loads of really useful posts from other people living with ADHD.

Finally, you could hire an ADHD coach who can help you hack your symptoms and find a way to make them constructive. I think I’ve come up with some pretty amazing hacks, but if you are struggling to find your own then a mentor might help.