111. Time Management Myths That Are Screwing With Your ADHD Brain

If you’ve ever heard popular productivity strategies like Eat That Frog, the Eisenhower Matrix and--my personal favorite-- just do it and found yourself thinking, "Why CAN'T I just do it? What's wrong with me??" then this episode is for you. 

In this kickoff to a new mini-series on ADHD and time management, I’m breaking down:

• Why popular productivity strategies fall flat for neurodivergent brains
• How executive functioning actually impacts “simple” tasks like writing a report
• Three well-known approaches (Eat That Frog, Just Do It, and the Eisenhower Matrix) that might be stressing you out
• A reframe that’s way more helpful than “I’m just lazy”

💡Spoiler: The problem isn’t you—it’s the strategy. Let’s talk about what actually works for ADHD brains.

To find out how I can help you improve your work-life balance, click here.

Come join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for more tips and tricks!

Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp

Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists. I'm Theresa Harp, an SLP and Productivity Coach, and this podcast is all about how to build a successful career as an SLP and still have time for yourself and the people and things you love. So if you're ready to ditch stress and burnout for a more balanced and fulfilling life than you are in the right place. Let's dive in.

Hello SLPs. Welcome back to the podcast. This is episode one 11 and it's kicking off a four-ish week series on A DH, D and time management. So for whatever reason, I, well, I know what reason, but I like to do little like sprints or spurts of topics. It helps my brain focus and it helps me, I think, create more important or more helpful content and deliver [00:01:00] that I think with more value.

So the, the topic that I've chosen to focus on for this month, like I said, is neurodivergent or Neurodivergence or a the A DHD brain and how time management. Effects or shows up for individuals who have a DHD. But I wanna say this, if you are listening and you don't have a DHD or, and you have no, you know, concerns that you don't, that you do, you're not like sitting here thinking, yeah, I definitely have it, I just haven't gotten the, the evaluation, or I, you know, I'm not interested in pursuing that.

That is. That is okay. This episode and these, these episodes are still going to give information to help different lifestyles, different learning styles, different brain styles. So if you are somebody who has read the, you know, traditional time management tips, the. [00:02:00] Most common productivity strategies and found yourself thinking, oh, well that's great, but I tried.

It didn't work, so move on right? Then this episode and the ones that follow are going to be helpful. One of the things that's all, you know, inherent in coaching is about figuring out what works for that person. It is about increasing somebody's self-awareness in understanding. How they learn best, what they value, what they need, and really getting to know yourself to the point where you're able to create and build a life that fits for you.

And I think that's probably one of the reasons why I was drawn to coaching, because I always have felt that there isn't. One size that fits all when it comes to anything. Even when I was [00:03:00] working with children who have hearing loss, I went, went through the certification program to become a certified auditory verbal therapist or listening and spoken language specialist, and that is a very dense, robust training that teaches a very specific way of.

Helping deaf and heard of hearing kids learn how to listen and learn how to talk. But I still never believed and still don't, that that was the best way for every child. Right? And I still feel that way now when it comes to time management and productivity, and I'm, I think, frustrated, maybe annoyed, uh, disappointed with the.

Social media world that you know, promotes these tips and these hacks on how to build work life balance, but don't provide any [00:04:00] context or help the people who are viewing these things to understand. How it would work for them or if it would work for them. And then what happens is we're sort of bombarded with all these messages telling us, you know, oh, try this, do that.

And when it doesn't work, we feel incredibly discouraged and we think that we are the problem. Oh, it must be me. There's something wrong with me. I'm just lazy. I'm just distracted. I just can't focus. I can't do this. And that to me. In my opinion is such a disservice. It's a disservice to our field. Uh, it's a disservice to the clients and the patients and students that we work with, and most importantly, it's a disservice to ourselves.

So I wanna talk about why those time management strategies and productivity strategies don't work for the A DHD brain or any brain for that [00:05:00] matter. And. What you can what, how you can come to peace with that, and then what doors that might open for you, you know, in terms of starting to figure out what does work.

Okay, so I'm gonna kind of go through a few different strategies that are common. In, in the productivity world, and this is not to tell, like, to tell you or to, to announce that these strategies don't work. This isn't about saying that these strategies are wrong, but I just wanna offer a perspective on why these strategies might not work for you.

Okay. So the first one is, it's a book and it's really, it's a book and, and sort of a, an approach called Eat That Frog. Where essentially, I'm summarizing here, but essentially it is, you know, the premise is that you do the biggest, you know, [00:06:00] most, uh, I don't know, most difficult or task, or the task that's causing the most friction, the one that, you know, you're stressing over what's bothering you.

You do that first and you get it done with. And then once you get it done, once it's done with, then you have, if you do nothing else that day, it would've been a success. And in many cases, you know, the idea is that then that sort of momentum fuels more momentum, yada, yada, yada. Right? My problem with this strategy.

The strategy rarely works for me, but my problem with this strategy is that especially for those who have a DHD, one of the executive functioning skills that is critical to a strategy like Eat That Frog is task initiation. It is. You have to be able to start that task and if somebody [00:07:00] is out there listening to.

Eat that frog and why that is the the best approach to take. And they're invested in that approach and they start thinking about how they can implement it in their life. And then they realize that they can't, but they're still stuck on it. They're still committed, so they're trying everything they can to get the one thing done, and in the end, nothing gets done or they're more stressed about it, or they're less happy, they're less content.

And so what I wanna offer is that for those of you who have tried something like that and it hasn't worked, check in with yourself about why. Because for me, the tasks that are the hardest, the tasks that are, you know, the most stressful or the most challenging, those are the tasks that I am going to avoid.

I'm absolutely going to avoid them. And. I'm aware of that and there are strategies [00:08:00] that I can put into place to support myself with that. But the strategy for me is not make myself do that thing first, because then nothing will get done. Okay. So that's one example of a common productivity strategy that may not work for an A DHD brain.

Okay? Then the next piece of advice, which I'm sure. You've heard people say this before when it comes to your to-do list and things that you have to get done is people will sell, will tell you, just do it. Like just, okay, well go. Just sit down, go sit down and do the thing. Just go get it done. Right? As if that's just as simple as deciding that you're gonna do it and doing it, and.

Maybe for a neurotypical brain it might be that simple, but for a neurodivergent brain, it is not. And in fact [00:09:00] that advice, just do it. Just go get it done, can perpetuate this, you know, cycle of shame. Doubt, insecurity. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just do it? Why can't I just do it? Right? And it just perpetuates that struggle that a lot of people with a DHD experience, if the person could just do it, they would have just done it, it would've been done.

But I wanna give you an example of how a relatively straightforward task. For someone with A DHD is not at all straightforward. Okay? So take the example of writing a report. Okay? As SLPs, we have written many, many reports, right? This is a task that's familiar to you. This is a task that you've done many [00:10:00] times.

You know what's required. You know what is expected, and yet. I would venture to say that many of you have struggled to write the report. It's not about forcing yourself to sit down and write it for the neurodivergent brain. Here's what it looks like. Okay. Well, I'm gonna write the report for, I don't know, Brianna.

Brianna needs her report written. Well, where is the file for Brianna? Was that a file that I saved on my personal computer? Was it on my work computer? Oh, maybe I put it on the external hard drive. I think I'm gonna have to go back there and find it. Oh, and while I'm gonna find it there, I might as well pull up some other reports that are sort of similar.

To her so that I can use those as [00:11:00] like a template and I'll have information to really get me started. So then you go and you start looking for those two things. Brianna's file and similar reports that you can use as templates or examples and could get lost. You may never come out of that step. You could be lost forever, ever.

You could be lost for a very long time trying to find that stuff. Then let's say you've, you get that information. Right now you're sitting down and you're thinking, okay, but wait a second. I know that the report has to be, it has to include the data from the most recent sessions, and I know I recorded data in that session.

I remember doing it on that little piece of paper. It was white and it had like the little dog-eared spot on the side and it had lines on it. I know I wrote it down. I can picture it. I just dunno where it is. Oh my gosh, why didn't I put it in the file? Why don't I have a better data collection system?

[00:12:00] Why am I so disorganized? So now the shame spiral is happening. You're trying to find another piece of information, right? And by the time you get there, if you ever do. Let's say fast forward to the point we're actually starting the writing process. If your mind is disorganized, is sort of cluttered and going a million miles an hour in a million different directions, how are you going to narrow your focus?

To the point where you're able to write in a clear, organized manner. Right now you're trying to to separate information out and you're thinking, oh, but wait, I don't know if I should mention this here or if this actually belongs in this [00:13:00] section. Oh my gosh, I totally forgot to mention this about the history.

So I've gotta go back to the. To the file or I've gotta go back to the background information section and add that in. But wait, I don't know exactly how to report that. I have to see how it was documented in the paperwork. So I gotta go back to the file and find that information. And you're just sort of bebopping or like ping pong or, or ping pong machine, right?

All, all around the report. By the time, the by the by, you know, by the time you reach the point where that chunk of available time has passed, you may have nothing written down. You may, may have very little accomplished, you may have actually created more work for yourself because you've, you've taken out a million different things from a million different places trying to find this one thing or the information that is necessary, and then you're exhausted.[00:14:00] 

You're stressed, you're anxious. So if you think about the executive functioning skills that go into writing a report or any task that you're doing as an SLP, as a mom, as a human, when you have a neurodivergent brain, it's no wonder. It's exhausting. It's no wonder it's difficult. It's no wonder that the traditional productivity strategies are not going to work.

They're not designed for neurodivergent brain, and instead of that being your problem, how about let it be? You are the solution. You are the one that can create the strategies that fit for you. That's what we do in coaching. And then, so we've covered number one, eat that frog. We've covered number two, just do it [00:15:00] right.

The third and final one I wanna cover in this episode is the Eisenhower Matrix. Now to be clear, I'm not knocking this strategy, but I am pointing out how it might. Uh, not work for Neurodivergent brain. Okay. So the Eisenhower Matrix is essentially where you are prioritizing tasks based on urgency and importance.

Okay? So if we are talking about neurodivergent brain, one of the executive functioning skills that is incredibly difficult is prioritization. If you are somebody who struggles. To determine priorities, simply following a two dimensional or two point criteria for determining priorities is not going to be all that helpful.

Right? Because [00:16:00] I understand that importance and urgency are are big pieces of the puzzle and certainly are often considered. In prioritization. However, if you don't know how to prioritize, and if everything feels urgent or everything feels important, how are you going to determine which things to do first?

And if you're looking at the tasks that are on your list, essentially according to the Eisenhower Matrix, you're going to categorize. It's basically like a quadrant, if you're not familiar, like a, a group of four boxes. And you're gonna organize your tasks on your to-do list in one of those four boxes. So the, what's the word?

Um, sort of the x and y axis, I guess, on those, on those boxes are important or not important. And then urgent and not urgent, but [00:17:00] important, not important. Is a matter of opinion, urgent versus not urgent is to me, and both of these are very binary. It's so much of all or nothing thinking. And when you are an SLP who is neurodivergent and you are probably filling lots of different roles in both your personal and professional life, I'm going to to venture to say that.

You're probably struggling with determining what is urgent. How do you define that? Does that mean it has to happen immediately? Does that mean the deadline is coming and I might not have a whole lot of time up, you know, up until that deadline or before that deadline? What does it mean that somebody needs it?

Right away that someone's expecting it from me. What if I don't have to turn it into anybody? [00:18:00] So looking at the nuances of this is something that I think the A DHD brain can get very stuck in, especially for those of us who are overthinkers and it fails to, it fails to, I think it fails to allow for the flexibility of.

F moving things around and having, you know, shift, uh, shifts in terms of what is going to happen and when. Because let's face it, we all know that we can schedule things, but oftentimes the schedule does not go according to plan. Things pop up, stuff happens, right? And so what do you do then? If you've got something in the highly important, highly urgent category and then life throws you a a curve ball, and now you're not able to meet that [00:19:00] deadline, well, what do you do then?

Do you move it into another quadrant? If so, where do you not do the task and then risk some sort of repercussion? That those are the pieces, the real life elements of this that I think makes this so difficult to actually implement. Right? So if you're thinking about. So basic common productivity strategies or productivity tips and how they have failed you.

And if you are thinking that you are a failure because you're not able to master this, I want you to know that it's not you. It's not you. It's you needing to understand your mind, your brain, and the way it works. It's not a failure on your part, and your value is not [00:20:00] determined by the number of things that you accomplish in the amount of time that it takes to get it done.

That's not how we define. Value. That's not how we define work-life balance. And if certain strategies are not working for you, I would encourage you, like I said earlier, to think about why. Why isn't it working? Not from a place of judgment, but from a place of expanding your awareness, deepening your understanding.

Because if you can figure out the why, what parts of this are not serving me, what parts of this are not working for me, then you can modify your approach. That's how in coaching we come up with custom designed strategies for productivity that are tailored to the way that your brain thinks. And don't even get me started on systems and [00:21:00] SLPs who have a DHD I'm, and I'm with you here, that try to implement a system and then it.

You know, doesn't last air quotes here, and you're feeling like a total failure that just to let you know, I'm not gonna go down a rabbit hole. But that also does not mean that there is something wrong with you. It might just be the way that your brain works. And the response to that, to any of this is not.

Giving up, you know, throwing your hands up in the air and saying, see, it's just totally hopeless. I'm never gonna get this, I'm never gonna be able to manage this. It's instead looking at how can I manage it? I just have to figure out a way that works for me. Okay. And if you want help with that, you can always book a call.

The link for a free consult is in the show notes. I can walk you through why some productivity strategies, like the ones you heard today aren't working for [00:22:00] you, and then more importantly, what you can do about it. Alright, so I'll be back here next week for another episode, sticking with the A DHD Neurodivergence theme for this.

Group of episodes. I'm looking forward to it, and I will see all there.