123. It's Not Procrastination -- It's Paralysis

Why you freeze when it’s time to start (and how to finally get unstuck).

Today I'm unpacking the difference between procrastination and paralysis -- and what’s really going on in your ADHD brain when you can’t make yourself begin.

I’ll take you inside a real coaching session where we:

🔥 unpacked what was really going on beneath that frozen, “I just can’t start”  moment

🔥 uncovered small shifts that helped my client (and could help you) get moving again without the guilt or shame.

If you’ve ever sat down to write progress reports, opened your laptop, and just stared at the screen, frozen, this one’s for you.

What You’ll Learn

• The real difference between procrastination and paralysis and why it matters.
• How to spot when your executive functioning (task initiation, emotional regulation, response inhibition, etc) is the real culprit.
• Why “just start” is the least helpful advice for ADHD brains — and what actually helps instead.
• How I coached my client “Beth” through a documentation spiral (and how you can use the same process).
• A few small but powerful ways to pause, regulate, and move forward — even when your brain wants to bail.

If This Resonates…

If this hit home, I’d love to help you work through your own version of “I just can’t start.”

🗓 Book a free 1:1 consult — we’ll figure out what’s really keeping you stuck and how to work with your brain, not against it.
 

Resources & Links

📌 Book a free 1:1 consult → https://cutt.ly/ywVWsPy5

🎧 Related Episodes:
Ep. 45 - Conquering Procrastination: Strategies for SLPs
Ep. 62 - Overcome Procrastination With This Simple Strategy
Ep. 120 - Executive Functioning and Productivity: What Every SLP Needs to Know
Ep. 121 - Why Documentation Feels Impossible (and What to Do About It)
Ep. 122 - The ADHD Burnout Cycle (and How to Break It)

👥 Join the FB group → SLP Support Group

📝 Download the ADHD-friendly handout that goes with this episode 

Keywords

ADHD paralysis, procrastination vs paralysis, overwhelmed SLP, executive dysfunction, ADHD documentation tips, time management for SLPs, ADHD productivity coaching, neurodiversity and work

Progress over perfection, always.

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

Theresa Harp: 0:28

Hey podcast listeners. Welcome back to the show. I am laughing to myself, I was laughing before I started to hit record because I am in the middle of recording and, um, batch recording some episodes about A DHD for the month of October, a DHD awareness month, and I planned these episodes out. Um, maybe like a month or two ago and put a lot of thought into it. Got really excited about the, what the topics were gonna be. And then this morning when it was time to sit down and prep for the podcast recordings, I was like, where the heck is my. Schedule, like where, where is my schedule of episodes of episode topics and what is the topic I'm supposed to be recording today? And I couldn't find it, couldn't figure out where it was. I didn't spend very long at all looking for it. I was like, I actually had another tab open, shocker, that had a list of 50 episode topics related to A DHD and SLPs and you know, 50 solid topics that I'd already come up with that list. And so I said, okay, I'll just pick from one of these and. Was not feeling inspired about any of them. So got on the horn with, uh, Chad, GBT, my thinking partner, and figured out what I actually was motivated to talk about. Came downstairs to hit record. Decided to tidy up my office a little bit 'cause it was pretty cluttered. And lo and behold, as I was decluttering and tidying, I found the schedule. I had made months ago with the original A DHD topics. So if that is not on brand, I don't know what is. I like, this is, ugh, this is hilarious. And. It would be very easy, by the way, to get stuck in imposter syndrome with that. Like, who am I? And this is what I would, would have done in the past. Like who am I to here I am recording podcast episodes that are supposed to be helpful for SLPs with A DHD, and give tips and strategies and value, and I can't even find the GD schedule that I created months ago. So who the hell am I to be doing this? But I have worked through that, and that's not even. That thought doesn't even enter my mind. It didn't enter my mind today anyway. It was like, oh yeah, this is very much confirmation that I am talking about exactly what I am meant to be talking about. And I am the person who is meant to be talking about this topic because I can relate. I can so relate. And my diagnosis of A DHD came when I was an adult a few years ago, and. Today's podcast episode is not about that journey, but I at some point maybe will record an episode just kind of sharing what that was like for me and what I learned and some of the challenges that I faced when I got that diagnosis. And because I haven't really talked about that on the podcast, and I think it would be interesting. To hear. I wasn't ready to talk about that I think for a while because it was still, I was like still sort of in it, like processing it and working through it, and now I feel like I am a bit more on the other side, like less emotionally attached to it and a little bit more objective. So. I think that will be an interesting podcast episode for the future. But for today's episode, I'm talking about procrastination versus paralysis, and I don't know what the title is gonna be yet. I, I know what I wanna say and what I wanna talk about, but I, I don't really know how this episode is gonna be titled or described in the show notes. I figure those things out after I do the recording because I don't. I often go off script or like don't follow my outline or my plan. And I also don't know when this is gonna come out, but it will be coming out sometime during the month of October, 2025. And I do wanna acknowledge that I have recorded episodes about procrastination in the past. I will link to those in the show notes in case you wanna hear more about this topic. But what I wanna do today is share a story from a client. You know, totally anonymous. I've changed information and, you know, obviously wanna protect privacy and all of that. But I wanna share a, a coaching scenario that has come up as you, as you probably know, I coach other SLPs and, and health practitioners and providers on time management work-life balance, especially through a Neurodiverse lens. And I get. This topic so much like some flavor of this topic so often, and it's funny, like it comes up so much that I, you would think that would be indication to talk about it. And usually it is when something's coming up a lot in coaching sessions. I usually record a podcast episode on this, but for whatever reason I was kind of under the assumption. Which is always a red flag for me when I hear that word right. I was under the assumption, the mistaken assumption, misguided assumption that procrastination and paralysis are. Clearly different for everyone. Everyone understands the difference and they know and understand how their A DHD is showing up, and that is such a bogus, I don't know why, I don't know why I was thinking that, because it's not, it comes up all the time and this is clearly something that a lot of you are struggling with. This is something that I have struggled with, so. That is my goal for today. I am gonna kind of tell you this through the lens of a client, a client story, and then I'm gonna give you some tips of how I coached her and what, what I offered. So you kind of have an idea of like what coaching looks like too and how we, or how I do it from a, an executive functioning standpoint. Okay. So let's, this is, let's imagine we have Beth, okay. Client, she's an SLP. She works in, it doesn't matter what setting, but I guess we'll say for this, uh, story, she, let's say that she works in a school setting and she is a, an ongoing client of mine who was came to the coaching session with the topic of struggling to write overdue progress reports. Sound familiar? We've all been there, right? And in general, what I, what I do with my coaching clients is we start the session with a specific topic that they have in mind, but we're looking at how that topic relates to or aligns with their bigger goals or goals that we set together when we first started working together as coach and client. So Beth's. One of Beth's overarching long-term goal, long-term, in this case, six months, was that she wanted to feel, well, there was two. Okay. So I'm trying to, trying to focus as much as I can, as much as my A DHD brain can focus and not give you all the unnecessary details like I'm basically doing right now as I'm saying this out loud. So she had this goal of. I'll just say being more timely with getting her documentation done, getting reports, progress reports, and evaluation reports completed and submitted on time. Okay. And we'll just leave it at that. So her topic was, her topic for this session was very relevant to her overarching goal. By the way, we, when. In terms of that goal, that overarching goal of being more timely, we definitely don't write it that way. Like I work that out in a, in a more specific way with my coaching clients, and at some point, sooner or later we get to the place where the goals will often shift from for like, for example, in this case, submitting documentation on time to. Feeling less stressed about submitting documentation on time or being more, uh, forgiving and giving yourself more grace with getting documentation done in a timely fashion. So anyway, just wanted to throw that out there because I don't want anyone listening to think that the way that I coach and what I do is about how to get more done in less time. That's. That might be a benefit of our coaching, but for me and for my coaching clients, that is not the driving force. That's not the, that's not the goal. That's a bonus. Okay. Anyway. She had four overdue progress reports and she kept, she told me that she kept opening her computer and then she would, you know, open up different files and then she'd like, walk away or she'd freeze. She said sometimes she would know that she had to go sit down to the computer and start working on it. But then next thing you know, she's like, like I was doing earlier today. Clearing her desk off or, you know, filing papers, or all of a sudden she's doing the load of dishes in the sink that she'd been ignoring or putting off or okay with, you know, for the past hour, you know, number of hours. So. She was having trouble initiating the tasks and getting them done. The tasks being the four, the four reports, and then it leads to this spiral, this spiral, a, a shame spiral. What's wrong with me? I, and I'm paraphrasing here, but like, what? Why can't I do this? I've been in SLP for forever. Why is this so hard? Why? I just want to get these done. And I don't know, like, what am I doing wrong? Why is this so difficult? I'm so overwhelmed, I don't even know where to start. And then it becomes this like internal, this internalized self-concept of I'm a crappy SLP, I'm a crappy employee, I'm a crappy colleague. Right? I want to do it, but I, it's as if I literally cannot start. If you're thinking that sounds very familiar, or, oh yeah, that sounds a lot like me. I need you to hear this. There's nothing wrong with you. You are not a bad SLP. You are not lazy. You are not unprofessional. You are not irresponsible, okay? You're just stuck. That is a big difference. And I want to talk about how to get you unstuck. Okay? So one of the things that we do is Beth said, I, I will say, okay, so this is your topic. What do you wanna walk away with at the end of this hour? So we've got an hour together. What, like, what do you wanna walk away with? I just leave it very open-ended and she said she wanted to walk away with some strategies that she could use to help her the next time she needs to or tries to get going on reports and can't. So that was our sort of specific focus. Okay. And in within this coaching session, one of the things. Dug into is what's actually going on here, because if we don't know what is underneath the surface, it can be really difficult. To use strategies that are going to be effective, and it can also be really difficult to help clients feel better, because really that's what Beth wants. It's not just that she wants to get the reports done, right? Yeah, you wanna get your reports done, but really what you wanna do is feel better. You wanna feel better. You wanna feel better as a person, you wanna feel better as an SLP, you wanna feel better with having more time with your family and being more present. You wanna feel like you have more freedom in your day. You wanna feel better, okay? And if you want to feel better, we have to look at how you're feeling now and what you're thinking now. So those are some of the things that we weaved. We weaved into that. We're woven into this coaching session. So when we explore what was actually going on, and Beth, I should have led with this, hopefully you knew Beth has a DHD. Okay. So we look at what is going on here, and one of the questions that I'll often ask coaching clients is, what role is your A DHD playing here? How is your D showing up now? Some clients come to, and they have a pretty good understanding. A DHD, how it affects them, how it shows up, what it looks like for them and others are earlier on in this journey. And they have less awareness, less understanding. And so, you know, this is gonna look different the way the co the coaching questions that I ask are gonna look very different depending upon where the client is in their journey. Just like you, you know, cater your, or customize your intervention and your. You know how, what you share with your clients and what information you share and how you share it, you cater that according to where your client is, right? Or your patient, or your student, however you refer to the people that you work with as an SLP, same thing. Okay? So Beth has a a pretty solid understanding of how the A-A-D-H-D affects her. So we had the then ability to really get very specific with this. So how is your A DHD showing up? And when she thought about that question, she said, well, I know that, like she mentioned how, um. Like with a DHD, you can't focus on one thing. So she focused, she opens up one thing and then she would shift over to another thing and then she would think of something else and she would go do that. And so she was just bebopping around to different tasks. So, okay. Sustained attention is impacted here. Heard, but I challenged her a little bit. Before you can get even into action, right before you can before or before you can get into the sustained attention you have to get into action and not just any action, but. The action around the task that you are setting out to complete. So task initiation is one of the executive functioning skills, and it's one that, of course is affected by A DHD. So we looked at, okay, we're seeing some challenges with task initiation, right? Initiating the thing that you're setting out to do. So we can't just. Jump to strategizing on sustained attention when we're not getting our attention and shining our attention in the direction where we want it to go. Okay, so we're sort of backing up a few steps and you know, we've identified that task initiation is a piece of this puzzle that we're going to be probably working through together. Another piece of this. In terms of executive functioning skills is response inhibition, inhibition. So not only because these o these. Executive functioning skills, as I'm sure you know, they overlap, right? We can't always separate them out very cleanly and distinctly, and that's okay. We don't have to. But in this case, what I was also hearing was some challenges with response inhibition because Beth said that when she sits down and she opens up the tab, she remembers something else she needs to do and she's all of a sudden going to do it. Okay. It's just like a re a response, a reaction. She's off onto the thing that she's thought of. Okay. Like I said, bebopping around or playing whack-a-mole, I'll often describe it as, now this is, there's the, it's not that. This is shameful. Okay? This is like, I wanna be super, excuse me, super clear here. This is not about judgment. This is not about shame. This is not about, you're doing it wrong. This is about, this is about, let's figure out what pieces are at play here. Then what we wanna do about them. Okay. So task initiation, response inhibition, and sustained attention. Okay. We also looked at, uh, planning and prioritization. Okay. So in order for Beth to. Work, start working on these reports. In her mind, she's sitting down with the thought of, I have four progress reports to write. So now her brain is trying to decide, which 1:00 AM I starting with? Have you ever gotten stuck at that point? Like, I've got this list of things to do, I don't know which one is most important. Prioritization. Prioritization comes up. All the time. So figuring out how to prioritize, where to start, and then planning, because let's say we work through the prioritization together, and then she's decided which report of the four she's going to be begin with. If she goes to start the task, and let's say we've worked through task initiation, if she's just jumping right in without any. Prep or planning the A DHD brain is gonna get lost. It's a, it's not setting the brain up for success, because think about it. Where do you, what materials do you need to write this report? Where can you find those materials? I mean, those two questions right there are huge. How many times have you started a task before you've gotten what you need in order to get it done? And then you go to start it and you're like, oh, crap, I needed, I forgot. I need this. And then you're trying to find a said item, and as you're trying to find said item, your response inhibition isn't inhibiting. So now you're seeing other things and bebopping around and you forget where you were. Right? So we need to also look at the planning. What's going to happen? What materials do you need? Where do you find those materials? And then what is it that you're going to do? So sometimes we think that our brain, because we're skilled clinicians who have written so many reports, we should be able to just crank it out very quickly, but. The cognitive load, especially for a neurodivergent brain is intense because you've got a million other tabs open in your mind, and now you're asking your brain to execute on a task that is pretty heavy in terms of the cognitive load, and you're just expecting your brain to be able to recall. Where all the information is and how to write it and, and how to get going, right? That's, that typically only happens on a unicorn day, on a day with rainbows and butterflies, where everything is just going according to plan and your environment just happens to be set up for success and your meds are working and kicked in if you are on medication, like all the right things are in place, but that's not the reality. So. Why not put some supports in place to make things easier? Okay. And Beth also noticed, I could notice actually as Beth was talking, as we're talking through this and coaching on it, I can see. The stress. I can see the stress on her face. I can see the body language shift. She's rubbing her neck and her shoulders. She is, you know, like got her hands on her, like on her eyes and sort of like rubbing her face. I can see the tension that has come over her simply by talking about this. Now, does that mean that anything has gone wrong? No. But emotional regulation. Is a big piece of the executive functioning framework that plays a role here. And we think that we can just ignore so many of us and we could just ignore the stress, ignore what's happening in our mind and in our body, because we don't have time for that. We gotta get a report done. So we try to bulldoze our way through. But spoiler alert. The more that we actually pause and pay attention to what's happening in our body physically and emotionally when we're in a stressful situation or any situation, the more that we give that attention, the easier it is to move through it, because the amygdala, which is like sending you into that fight or flight or fawn response, is now able to sort of quiet and regulate itself so that you're able. To start to to get emotionally regulated, self-regulated, and take action. So instead of just kind of stepping over that, we paused for a minute and I pointed it out and just looked at how can we help you feel? Calm and regulated here because if you, if this is what's happening in your body right now, when we're talking about doing the task, I am sure that it's happening when you're trying to do the task and probably at a higher level, at a stronger level. And for the neurodivergent brain, when the self-regulation is not there, when we are dysregulated, it is so much harder to use our executive functioning skills quickly, efficiently, and effectively. Okay, so. That is another piece of this puzzle for Beth. Okay. Now there's lots of other elements to this and one of the challenges as a coach and as a coach who is neurodivergent, is getting stuck in the weeds. 'cause I'll see and hear so many things and I'll be taking notes and I'll be making note of things of, of stuff that we could. Coach on. It's kind of like when you're in a speech session and you have your plan, but then you notice something that your client is doing that's an area of need and you sort of wanna like, Ooh, this is a great opportunity to target this skill. It wasn't in the plan. And I wanna hit this and I wanna go there and I wanna touch on this. Um, but. And you can, it's not necessarily that you can do that, but hello squirrel brain, right? So we have to sort of, I like partner with my clients and figure out, okay, which of these things do you feel like would make the biggest difference? Or which is kind of getting your attention the most. Let's start there, right? Because look, this is exactly like what's happening. In us, in for Beth when she's trying to get a task done is. She's trying to focus on one thing, but the brain is going in a million different directions. That's essentially what's sort of coming up in a coaching session as well, right? We're pulling out all these little like scarves in the box, like I'm picturing a little box with like the colored handkerchiefs that like a magician would just kind of pull out and we're pulling out this one and this one, and it just keeps on coming, right? We gotta pick which scarf or scarves are the most colorful, the most. Um, bold and the ones that are gonna make the biggest difference and just start there. Okay. All right, so we've kind of identified some of the pieces that are going on with this situation with getting reports done, so this is a great opportunity for you to pause. I talk with my clients all the time. About a pause, the power of the pause, the power of the pause, even just a micro pause. So pausing because in that pause, that moment between the pause and the action, that moment in between is where the executive functioning skills come. They turn on, they, they come into play. Like that's when the executive functioning skills execute. But if we. As neurodivergent brains if, and people, if we don't pause long enough before taking action, we miss that opportunity for the executive functioning skills to do what they need to do. So we pause and I want you to pause and think about what. Are you hearing in this episode that is landing for you? What's resonating? What isn't resonating? What's striking, uh, you know, kind of evoking a response from you? That's information and that's gonna help you to notice where do you wanna direct your attention? What are the pieces within this podcast episode that you can take? Not all of them, one or two that you can take and start digging in and working on those areas to get some small wins because it's the small wins that lead to the big long term success. Okay, so within our coaching session, we slowed it down. We worked on first emotionally regulating. Her, her body, her mind, and getting to a place where she was more regulated so that she could access the logical part of her brain and really get the most out of the things that we were coaching on instead of being stuck in a shame spiral. So we did some deep breathing, taking some deep breaths. One of my favorite strategies for regulation is. Simple breathing in and out. But when I breathe in and when I breathe out, breathing in a second or two longer and breathing out a second or two longer, so the inhale is extended and the exhale is extended, and the research supports the benefit of this as a strategy and being more effective in slowing down your nervous system and really helping you to regulate. Okay, so taking some deep breaths, pausing. And looking at what micro steps we can take. Okay. So when I was, when I kind of, we got her, we got the regulation piece in play and pointing out, notice how now that you're feeling calmer, I can see it in your body language. I can see it on your face. I can see it. Hear it in your voice. You can probably hear it in my voice. I am a little bit more regulated now. Right. So now that you are regulated, where do you wanna start? You had said that your coaching topic was the thing that you wanted to walk away with, was some strategies that you could use when you feel stuck. So we've talked about some of the executive functioning skills at play. Where do you wanna go next? She said, well, I know what my so-and-so would do. They would tell me like, I know what they, what people would tell me, what my friend or my spouse or whoever would tell me. They would say, just start. And I said, okay. Yes. We hear that a lot, right? People who are, who have a DHD will often hear from others. Just do it like what is wrong? Like just start all the time that you've been sitting here talking about the task, whining about the task, complaining about the task. You could have just started it. It's gonna have been done by now. Right. Well, that's not very helpful. If we could just start, we would. That is true for most. In most cases for someone with a DHD, if it is not a task that is interesting, exciting, motivating, stimulating, holds the attention. It is really hard to start. That's why you'll see inconsistencies in our focus. You'll see some hyper-focus where certain things we can focus. For like days at a time, you can just keep on going right down that rabbit hole and stay, stay, stay. And then other things we can't even initiate. It's inconsistent, right? Well, it depends on, like we look at the patterns. What kinds of tasks are you unable to start? Well, one pattern is that it's the ones that are hard. Another pattern is it's the ones that aren't motivating. They aren't exciting. Okay. They're not giving us that dopamine. So I said, okay. I heard someone else would tell you to just start, but what are you gonna say? Like, what is what? You know your brain best, you know you. Where do you want to start in terms of how to help you get into action? I said, what is one of the biggest struggles, like we've talked about all these steps. All these executive functioning skills at play, which one feels the heaviest for you? And she said, knowing where to start, she said, I can get myself to the point where I'll open up the file. I'll open up that patient or that student's file, but then I don't know where to start. She's like, I'll even open up an old template or I'll open up, um, the previous report for that client. For that student. But then I don't know where to start. So one of the things that we did right was figure out, well, let's see what. You what are the steps to starting? You've already identified that one step is to open up that file. Okay. Now, you've also identified that the next step isn't always clear because sometimes you open up the previous report, sometimes you open up the template, sometimes you open up a report from a similar student. So we've now, we now have like three different options for step two. And that can feel really overwhelming for the A DHD brain especially. So decision fatigue here. Prioritization is coming up here. Okay, so let's figure out what's the path of least resistance. And as we were coaching through, Beth ultimately came to the realization that it's gonna be different depending upon the student. Sometimes it's a new student. She doesn't have a former report from that student that she could pull up. Sometimes it is a new tool that she's used, a new assessment tool that she's used that she doesn't have a template for. Okay. So what we started doing, as she's talking, I'm writing down these steps and these questions and giving her some specific concrete. If then statements that she can look at when she goes to sit down to write a, a progress report to help her figure out which step to take next. So I. Is this, you know, and just those questions that I just kind of pointed out, or those factors that I just pointed out, is this a student, do I have a former report, a previous report for this student? Is this a student who is similar to another student? Like figuring out what her, how her brain tries to solve the problem. And that might be different than the way your brain solves the problem. Like for example, I had another client who would. Try to go and pull up a past report from a similar client, and what we realized in coaching was that actually became more overwhelming for her brain. She thought it was saving her time because she didn't then have blank page syndrome. But what actually happened was then she had so much information and her brain was getting lost in trying to weed out what fit and what didn't. And where, what she changed already and what she hadn't changed and where she left off. So we do this very individualized, figuring out what is going to be best for your brain, the way that your brain works, the way that your brain processes information. And so we came up with a step by step. Like a, um, a workflow or what we'll say, um, what my husband will say in the military SOP Standard Operating procedure. You know, basically just what the heck are you going to do step by step, outlining it. Now, this may seem unnecessary. This may seem. Silly or juvenile. This may seem like it's taking more time than you have, right? I hear these ops, these objections all the time. I don't have time to sit here and like plan out my steps. Are you kidding? I've got four reports to write. I have to just write the reports. But sometimes if you invest five, 10 minutes in the planning piece and the prep piece, you can save 20. 30 plus minutes on the backend when you go to actually execute the task. It's like investing money in the stock market. You invest some money and hopefully that stock hits and you've gained interest. Right? Same thing here. So we're investing some time now and we're going to gain time on the backend. Okay. Now, it's also easy for the A DHD brain to get stuck in this step. Like, okay, I'm here. I'm with you. Theres Theresa. We are going to create this step-by-step piece, but it's very easy for a neurodivergent brain to get overwhelmed in trying to outline those steps because. You might think, oh, there's so many, and Well, I don't know. I'm having trouble thinking and blah, blah, blah. That is the power of coaching, because I could hear Beth rattle it off verbally, like she's just talking through what she would do, and I am sitting here writing it out, listening, noticing patterns, listening for things that she's saying, oh, she's telling me as she's describing what information she goes to find. She's telling me, oh yeah, I look for the file that has the purple tag on it. Right? So I am noticing that and picking up on, okay, visual processing here. She benefits from those, that visual input. We're gonna work that into our strategies, right? So this is the stuff that a coach listens for and observes, and then brings to her attention to see how we can use that. To find a, a, a workflow, a system, an SOP that works for Beth's brain, not a system that works for the Pinterest picture. Perfect brain that we see on the highlight reels that are not very realistic for most of us in life. Okay, so I'm listening to her. We outline those steps. And then, um, once we had those steps, I share those with her. We figure out how, like we're presenting them on the paper. Like now she has this document that has the step-by-step process for how to start the report, like what she has to do. And we together format the document so that she can look at it and within seconds, see exactly what she needs to do. I had a client once tell me that she said she thinks in. I think she said she, like she thinks in pictures, so she'll read something and then she will visualize an image and then she'll refer back to like, she'll imprint that image and use that image to support her working memory and to help her, you know, recall that information later. I do do this myself. I noticed when I was making a grocery list, I have a grocery list that repeats. That's just a. Repeating, whatever. I have a grocery list that just had the words on it and my brain would get overwhelmed. So I started putting in the emojis of what the items were on the list, and I can't tell you how much easier it was for me to get the grocery shopping done. Seems so juvenile, right? Seems so silly. But it works, so why not use it? Okay, so we've now formatted it in a way that works for Beth Sprain, and then we're drawing. Observations and, and learning from this like, okay, Beth, what are you learning from doing this? What are you noticing? What about this is getting you excited? What about it seems helpful? Because that's information that we can utilize and put in to future. Obsessions future strategies. Right now, if Beth can't notice all of those things, or notice if she's like in the weeds and not able to, you know, tap into the meta cognition, which by the way is an executive functioning skill. So those with the A DHD struggle with that. If she is struggling with that, that's what I'm here for. I've been listening for all those things so I can point them out if she's not noticing. I can also fill in the gaps for what I'm noticing and see if they resonate with her. Just because I notice it doesn't mean it's accurate. Doesn't mean it lands. Okay. But this is an example of how, of what the, that coaching partnership will look like. Okay. So now she has something clear, specific and built for her brain. And then we circle back. Beth, you had said at the start of this session, you wanted some clear strategies to help you get started on your progress reports. Do you think we've gotten there? So checking in to make sure that she has what she needed, what she wanted to walk away with, did we meet that outcome? Right. And we did. She felt like she had a good place to start. Did we hit every executive functioning skill on there? No, I mean they're all inter intertwined in there, but we didn't explicitly coach on all of them because we don't need to time management, right? We are prioritizing what's gonna make the biggest difference. That's what we coached on, so that's where we started. Now the hypothesis is that having that list, having that SOP will help Beth initiate the task. That's the hypothesis. So then what Beth agreed to do is go out and test it. Okay, Beth, this week you're gonna go out, you're gonna test it out, see what happens. Let's notice what about it worked? What about it didn't work? What new observations do you have? What did you learn? What do we wanna do differently going forward? Sometimes these, these strategies are a total flop. It's rare, but sometimes they are, and that's okay. That's information. 'cause we're like, oh, okay. Why was it a flop? Was it the strategy or was it the scenario and the circumstances? Was it the thinking about the strategy? Like let's kind of figure that out together. Other times it's the strategy itself that was an issue. Right? Other times like sometimes they just completely forget, like Right. You might just forget that that's what you're working on. Well, that's information. Because if that's happening here in coaching, that's gonna happen other places too. So how are we going to help you remember to remember what do we need to do? Okay. Retrospective. I'm sorry, prospective memory. Prospective memory. So that's another executive functioning skill. So you can see hopefully how these executive functioning skills are woven into coaching. Yes. But also for you, even if you're not a coaching client or you're not working with somebody on these things, I want you to hopefully walk away with a different perspective. Why you might be putting off that task, why you might be quote unquote procrastinating. It's not as simple as, I'm just choosing not to do it, or I should just start, I should just get it done. It's not that simple. If it were, everyone would be getting it done. Okay, so. If you want support with this, I always share a link in the show notes to book a free consult. I can walk you through how I can help you. And as always, make sure that you're in the SLP Support group on Facebook. It's a free Facebook group where we just continue this conversation. We have Facebook Live trainings and support, and just a community where, and you don't have to have A DHD by the way, to be in this community, but just a community of people, like-minded people with also with different perspectives who are really coming together with the common goal of feeling more in control of their time and in their day. Alright, that is it for this episode. I believe this is gonna be the last one in this series of A DHD productivity coaching topics for SLPs, at least for this month, but. These topics, A DHD related topics are woven into so many of these podcast episodes, not just during a DHD awareness month. So make sure you tune back here next week, or click the link in the show notes to catch some past episodes on procrastination. All right, that's it. This is a long one. I hope you held in with me. Oh, and one more thing I almost forgot. I almost forgot. Luckily, I had a reminder. I just had to look at the reminder. I have created a handout that goes with this podcast episode. I'm trying to think of ways that I can better support those of you who are listening with. Taking this information, learning it, and using it, right? So I've created a handout that outlines this information in a very neurodivergent friendly way. There is a link in the show notes. All you gotta do is click the link, enter your email address where you want me to send it. I will send it your way so that you have something you can refer back to. Alright, that is now it wrapping this up. Thank you so much for staying with me and I will see you all next week. Bye.