In the hustle and bustle of running a business with ADHD, the word 'procrastination' often feels like a dark shadow looming over every unchecked item on our to-do lists.
But what if I told you that procrastination isn't the villain it's often made out to be?
Hey, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and your host of "The Weeniecast"!
In case you prefer watching me explain the benefits of procrastination for adhd entrepreneurs... video version's above!âï¸
Hey, I'm Katie McManus, your host of The Weeniecast, and in this episode, I'm flipping the script on procrastination and revealing how it can actually be harnessed as a powerful tool to manage anxiety and boost productivity.
As an ADHD entrepreneur myself, I've been doing a lifelong dance with the total death eater that is the procrastination beast.
But I learned a lot about the world of dopamine-driven decisions and anti-linear productivity.
I'll walk you through the intricacies of managing a business with an often misunderstood psychology.
We delve into the fear of diving into unknown tasks, the relentless planning churning in our minds, and the hidden creativity within procrastination.
By revealing my own stories and dissecting the complex interplay between ADHD, procrastination, and fear of failure, I'll show you how to redefine productivity norms to cater to your beautifully unique neurological wiring.
From organizing tasks into manageable categories to breaking down complex projects into digestible pieces, this episode is designed to help you navigate your workday with intuitive grace.
Stick with me, weenie, and you'll discover the secret sauce to optimizing your work life by realigned task management to harmonize with your body's natural dopamine levels.
By the time we wrap up, you'll have the tools and a fresh mindset that defies traditional business strategies.
You'll know how to turn the tide on procrastination and use it to your advantage.
You'll have been guided you through the process of identifying and prioritizing tasks according to your energy levels.
And you'll feel empowered to tackle them not just with efficiency, but with enthusiasm.
Timestamped Summary:
00:00 ADHD procrastination sparks creativity, fear plays role.
06:12 Our brains absorb things easily, but not everything.
09:24 Manage cortisol with dopamine, avoiding unwanted tasks.
10:31 Acknowledge low dopamine, prioritize tasks accordingly.
14:00 Reluctantly leaving dishes leads to more chores.
17:32 Understanding technology, organization, segmentation, targeted distribution and decision-making.
21:24 Thoroughly planning day, assessing energy levels.
26:19 Use procrastination to manage anxiety, book call.
Mentioned in this episode:
The Hyperfocus group
Speaker:
In this episode, I'm going to show you how you can actually use
Speaker:
procrastination to manage your anxiety and get more shit
Speaker:
done. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset
Speaker:
coach, and welcome to the Weeniecast.
Speaker:
My whole life I've been a procrastinator. There was not
Speaker:
one essay that I wrote in high school or in
Speaker:
college that I did before the the night before is due. There was
Speaker:
no project that I was ever given in any of my jobs that I didn't
Speaker:
procrastinate to the last minute. I've also procrastinated throughout my
Speaker:
entire professional career when I worked for other people and working for myself.
Speaker:
That doesn't mean I wasn't providing really top tier
Speaker:
value
Speaker:
for ADHD entrepreneurs. We know
Speaker:
that if we're assigned something, that thing will only get
Speaker:
done with the minimum amount of time left to. Do
Speaker:
it, and we get a lot of flak for it. A lot of people
Speaker:
have a big problem with us leaving things to the last minute now
Speaker:
to them, to neurotypical. People, they can't
Speaker:
imagine procrastinating to the last minute. For them, the
Speaker:
anxiety just would not be healthy for them.
Speaker:
They need to chip away at a. Big project little
Speaker:
by little as they go to be able to do it well.
Speaker:
What they don't understand about people with ADHD
Speaker:
is that even though we're procrastinating, writing the paper for
Speaker:
four weeks and. We're going to do it the night before, it doesn't mean we're
Speaker:
not working on it. But the work that we do in procrastinating
Speaker:
is in our heads. And you know this, I'm describing this, and I bet you
Speaker:
you're remembering that paper that you wrote about the bubonic.
Speaker:
Plague in college for History 101
Speaker:
and. How you had pulled some
Speaker:
books, read some stuff, done a little bit of research, and then
Speaker:
for three weeks before. The paper was due. In your
Speaker:
mind, you're structuring and restructuring. And restructuring your
Speaker:
argument. In your mind, you're playing out how. You'Re
Speaker:
going to phrase everything and what your
Speaker:
thesis was going to be and. How you are going to line up.
Speaker:
Evidence to prove it. That's not necessarily procrastinating.
Speaker:
First and foremost, that's finding a way that works for you
Speaker:
to do the work. Now, just because the
Speaker:
work is not. Visible to other people doesn't mean it's not existing.
Speaker:
Just because it's something that's happening in. Your head doesn't mean it's not real.
Speaker:
One of the things that we forget about as
Speaker:
ADHD entrepreneurs is when we procrastinate, we actually give ourselves more time
Speaker:
to be creative. Because how you would have written that paper the
Speaker:
day it was assigned is very different from how you would have written it
Speaker:
a week in, which is very different from how you would have written it three
Speaker:
days later when you learned something in your chemistry class that could possibly
Speaker:
impact what you were going to write about. And it's very different
Speaker:
from that one book that you found in a library two days before the paper
Speaker:
was due. It's genuinely part of our creative process.
Speaker:
And let's talk about what procrastination is.
Speaker:
Right? One of the definitions out there is procrastination
Speaker:
is avoiding the bad feelings associated
Speaker:
with doing something. And oftentimes the
Speaker:
bad feelings associated with doing something have to do
Speaker:
with this fear of doing it badly, of failing, of
Speaker:
fucking it up, of not being perfect. If
Speaker:
you're a fellow recovering perfectionist. Hi, my name is
Speaker:
Katie. It's good to have you at our meeting anyway. And why
Speaker:
am I talking about this? Like, what does this have to do with starting a
Speaker:
business? When I started my business,
Speaker:
that's when my procrastination went through the roof. That's when I
Speaker:
would assign myself the work and give myself the deadline and then blow past
Speaker:
the deadline and then start procrastinating a lot more. Because
Speaker:
whatever it was that I assigned myself, not even acknowledging all
Speaker:
the other aspects of why there's bad feelings attached to it now,
Speaker:
it's already associated with failure because I'm behind on it already.
Speaker:
When we start business, we are venturing into the
Speaker:
unknown. We're doing something that we have
Speaker:
never done before. And because we've never done this
Speaker:
before, there are so many little tasks that we've
Speaker:
never done before. We've never set up an email marketing
Speaker:
system. You've never written a newsletter all
Speaker:
about you and your services before. You've never asked people
Speaker:
to spend money on your services before. Maybe you've never posted to
Speaker:
social media to try to get people to buy something. Something
Speaker:
that most ADHD entrepreneurs experience is we tend
Speaker:
to be really good at things really fast. We tend to learn things really
Speaker:
quickly. Not to brag or anything, but
Speaker:
when I used to work at a knitting shop, which, I mean, this is going
Speaker:
to sound like such a cool story. When I used to work at a knitting
Speaker:
shop, I was working on this one project and it called for cabling
Speaker:
needles. So, like, if you know, cabled sweaters, it has like, the braid. I
Speaker:
didn't know what those were? And so I went into the shop and I asked
Speaker:
the woman who was the manager at the time what cabling needles
Speaker:
were, and she was like, oh, they're over here. Here you go. And I was
Speaker:
like, cool, how do I use them? And she's like, you want me to
Speaker:
teach you how to cable knit? Right now, in the middle of the shop being
Speaker:
open and all stuff.
Speaker:
She'S. Like, she looked at me like I was crazy. And so she showed
Speaker:
me, and I was good. And I sat there and
Speaker:
I did the whole part of my knitting project that required
Speaker:
cabling. And she watched me with her eyes wide
Speaker:
open and her jaw on the floor because usually when she taught people how to
Speaker:
cable, it took several sessions for them to actually
Speaker:
learn it. There are lots of mistakes. There are lots of oopsies.
Speaker:
Oh, God, I dropped the stitches. What do I do? And if you're a knitter,
Speaker:
you know what I mean? If you're not a knitter, then that sounds bad, doesn't
Speaker:
it? You don't want to drop stitches. And regardless if you know anything about knitting
Speaker:
or not, you know that experience. Of being shown something,
Speaker:
all of a. Sudden you get it and you can do it, and people look
Speaker:
at you like you're a mastermind. But it's just
Speaker:
how our brains work. We absorb things certain
Speaker:
things very easily. Now that doesn't
Speaker:
go for everything. And there are enough things associated with our
Speaker:
businesses that we've experienced being too hard for us to figure out
Speaker:
that when we're about to do something that we've never done before,
Speaker:
we will procrastinate it. We will put it off
Speaker:
because we've never learned how to do it before. And if we've already
Speaker:
proven to be bad at, say, email marketing and
Speaker:
setting up those kinds of systems, why do you think you're going to be good
Speaker:
at setting up a task manager like ClickUp
Speaker:
or Monday or notion? Because not only do you have
Speaker:
to understand how it's going to work best, but you also have to know what
Speaker:
the language is to get the thing to do the thing that you need it
Speaker:
to do. There's a lot of potential bad feelings there.
Speaker:
And a, like folks with ADHD, we don't want to feel those bad feelings
Speaker:
because we're used to being good at things. And b, we
Speaker:
really do need that time to figure out exactly how we want it in our
Speaker:
minds before we go and exert the effort
Speaker:
into making it real. That, or we need a deadline. But it's hard when
Speaker:
you have a business because you create the deadlines, and you're the boss.
Speaker:
Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to
Speaker:
find out. But first
Speaker:
is
Speaker:
if you're the boss. And you create the deadlines and you get to change the
Speaker:
deadlines and so. On and so forth, and we all know how that goes. But
Speaker:
would it surprise you to hear. That maybe you could use your
Speaker:
procrastination. Actually as a stress management and productivity
Speaker:
tool? My friend Laura recently asked me how
Speaker:
I avoid procrastinating so much because I. Get a lot done.
Speaker:
And we do like a monthly check in. We both run businesses. We do a
Speaker:
monthly check in with. Each other, and we kind of go over what we did
Speaker:
the previous month. And she asked me, like, how do you keep yourself
Speaker:
from procrastinating? And I laughed in her face because. I procrastinate all the time.
Speaker:
But I didn't realize that I've actually created a system for procrastination,
Speaker:
that a. Helps me get shit done, and b. Helps
Speaker:
me actually manage my stress in. A fairly healthy way. So if you've
Speaker:
been listening to the. Podcast for a while, you know, I. Talk a lot about
Speaker:
feeding yourself dopamine. Finding different ways to get that
Speaker:
dopamine running. Because one of the things that we have discovered about
Speaker:
ADHD is like, it's not a disorder really, it's
Speaker:
just a deficiency of dopamine. And dopamine is the
Speaker:
hormone that tells our brain that we have the get up and go to go
Speaker:
and do. The thing and then gets us to get up and go and do
Speaker:
the thing. When we don't have enough dopamine in our
Speaker:
systems, a, we get kicked into executive dysfunction where we
Speaker:
know what we have to do and we want to do it, and we want
Speaker:
to get up and do it, and we just can't get ourselves to get up
Speaker:
and do it. But the other interesting thing about dopamine is that
Speaker:
when we don't have enough of it in our bodies, you know which hormone
Speaker:
likes to spike up? Cortisol.
Speaker:
Cortisol, the stress hormone. Now,
Speaker:
cortisol can wreak havoc on your body. It
Speaker:
can wreak havoc on your mental health. So
Speaker:
learning how to spike your dopamine every single day is
Speaker:
going to help you really manage your cortisol levels, which means that
Speaker:
you're going to get shit done and you're going to lower your anxiety at the
Speaker:
same time, which if you're like me, that is a really, really good thing
Speaker:
to do. And to do this, we're going to use a
Speaker:
very sophisticated system
Speaker:
where we avoid doing the work that we really, really
Speaker:
don't want to do with the work that we only really, really don't want
Speaker:
to do. And we're going to avoid doing the work that we really, really don't
Speaker:
want to do with the work that we just really don't want to do.
Speaker:
And then we're going to avoid doing the work that we really don't want to
Speaker:
do, the stuff that we just don't really particularly care to do and so on
Speaker:
and so forth until we get to the actual things that we
Speaker:
enjoy doing. How this works is essentially for
Speaker:
you to do the things that you triple do not want to do, you're going
Speaker:
to need a lot of dopamine. And so it doesn't mean that you can do
Speaker:
those things on any given day. You genuinely do have to wait
Speaker:
for the day when you have enough dopamine in your system to tackle them.
Speaker:
And where a lot of ADHD entrepreneurs fall into a trap of self punishment
Speaker:
is you tell yourself, okay, I'm going to do that terrible thing tomorrow.
Speaker:
And tomorrow rolls around and you don't have enough dopamine, but you don't
Speaker:
actually acknowledge that you don't have enough dopamine to do it. So
Speaker:
you sit there agonizing over, I need to do this, I need to do this,
Speaker:
I need to do this. Stuck in executive dysfunction all the while,
Speaker:
more cortisol is entering your system, so you're feeling more and more and more
Speaker:
stressed out and you become less and less and less
Speaker:
likely to be able to even start that thing. And throughout the
Speaker:
day, you will probably mess around your email inbox, you
Speaker:
might write something down, you might post something, but you're not going to
Speaker:
actually get any real work done when you're holding yourself to the standard of I
Speaker:
need to do this one big thing and I don't need to tell you that
Speaker:
that's not helpful to running a business. So on days when
Speaker:
we don't have enough dopamine for the thing that we really, really, really do
Speaker:
not want to do, we check in with ourselves and we say, okay, cool,
Speaker:
how much dopamine do I have? Can I do the next tier down
Speaker:
of terrible? What about the next tier down from that? The next tier
Speaker:
down from that? Until we find the task that
Speaker:
is a tolerable level of miserable for us to do
Speaker:
that we have enough dopamine to do and then we go and do it. It's
Speaker:
still something that had to get done. It's still something that was on your list.
Speaker:
You still get credit for finishing it, and it still moves you forward in your
Speaker:
business. Now, this does make for a really
Speaker:
haphazard kind of random smattering of, like,
Speaker:
moving forward in different projects. Who says that you have to get
Speaker:
projects done linearly? Neurotypicals. Great. That's good for
Speaker:
them. Great for them. So happy that that works for
Speaker:
them does not work for us. And we don't have to
Speaker:
force it to work for us. We get to find different ways to
Speaker:
work that allow us to be
Speaker:
calm and feel accomplished and
Speaker:
know that we are moving closer towards our goal every single day.
Speaker:
So to be able to do this, literally, you just have to be a
Speaker:
little bit organized. Not crazy organized. I'm not going to set that expectation
Speaker:
for you. So first you have to let go of linear.
Speaker:
Linear does not work for us. Setting arbitrary
Speaker:
deadlines also does not work for
Speaker:
us. Expecting yourself to chip away at something for 30 minutes a
Speaker:
day, also not going to work for us. Let it go. Let
Speaker:
it go. We're not doing that. And something you have to
Speaker:
be aware of when you're starting to organize your
Speaker:
tasks in a way where you're kind of giving yourself the whole buffet of
Speaker:
options of miserable things that you need to get done is we have
Speaker:
to break down what I call layered tasks. A layered
Speaker:
task is when you say, okay, cool, I need to meal prep for the
Speaker:
week. I want to make all my lunches Monday through Friday, and I
Speaker:
want to put together some stuff that I can really quickly put together for dinner
Speaker:
every single evening. You go shopping, you come back
Speaker:
ready to dive in, start cooking, and then you realize, oh,
Speaker:
shit, I didn't do the dishes over the last couple of days. So the sink
Speaker:
is full of dirty dishes. Great, so now I have to do that. And
Speaker:
then you open the dishwasher to start loading the stuff that can go into the
Speaker:
dishwasher into the dishwasher, and it's full of clean dishes that you
Speaker:
didn't unload from a couple of days before. And you're like, oh, yeah, that's right.
Speaker:
That's why I left the dishes in the sink, because I needed to unload the
Speaker:
dishwasher, but I just didn't have the energy for it. So now
Speaker:
you have to not just start cooking the food,
Speaker:
but you have to unload the dishwasher of clean dishes. Probably you're going to get
Speaker:
distracted by cleaning the kitchen around the same time because as you're putting things away,
Speaker:
it's just kind of how your brain works, that you're thinking, okay,
Speaker:
everything can go into its place. Now then you're going to have to
Speaker:
load the dishwasher again. And then you're going to have to wash the dishes
Speaker:
like the pots and pans and sharp knives that couldn't go into the dishwasher. Because
Speaker:
fun fact, if you put good. Chef'S knives in the dishwasher, it actually. Fucks up
Speaker:
the blade. Don't do that. Also, anything with non stick, you
Speaker:
ruin. By putting in the dishwasher. This is a game changer for
Speaker:
keeping quality kitchen stuff around for a long time. When you know this stuff,
Speaker:
they don't. Teach this shit in schools, which I. Think is fucked up. I think
Speaker:
there has to be a whole. Here's how you take care of your stuff so
Speaker:
it lasts longer. Lesson in schools. If you're involved in
Speaker:
the education system in the United States, can you please get on this?
Speaker:
And also, if you want to email me, I have a lot more suggestions.
Speaker:
We need to have a meeting. Back to the point. Now,
Speaker:
instead of it just being one. Task cooking food, it's now
Speaker:
become three tasks. Putting clean stuff away, loading the
Speaker:
dishwasher with dirty dishes, and cleaning the dishes that can't
Speaker:
be put in the dishwasher. And then, of course, those things you have to dry
Speaker:
and put away. So that's kind of a fourth task. And we all know what
Speaker:
happens at that point. We get to this point and then. We look at the
Speaker:
groceries that have. Been sitting on the floor because we were like, okay, well, I
Speaker:
don't want. To put them all away just to. Bring them all out again while
Speaker:
I do this stuff. And then you're like, well, now I don't have any energy
Speaker:
to actually do the cooking. I'm tired. That was a lot
Speaker:
of work. I just cleaned the kitchen. I don't really want to make it messy
Speaker:
again. Let me do this. Let me just put everything in the refrigerator.
Speaker:
I'm going to order a burrito and have it delivered. That'll be my dinner tonight.
Speaker:
And tomorrow I'll plan on grabbing a salad
Speaker:
for lunch. And then tomorrow night I'll meal prep. And we all know what happens
Speaker:
from there, right? You never meal prep. All that food
Speaker:
you got, you might. Cook some of it throughout the week. For dinners and
Speaker:
stuff, but come the next weekend, some of it started
Speaker:
smelling in your fridge and you have to. Really guiltily
Speaker:
just drag the garbage bin over to the fridge along with a chair, and
Speaker:
you have to go through. And just throw shit out because you didn't get
Speaker:
to it in time. Okay? So when we think about a layered. Task,
Speaker:
we have to figure out what. Are all the steps that are required of
Speaker:
me before I can actually do. The thing that I need to do. So,
Speaker:
meal prepping. When you have to meal prep, you really do
Speaker:
have to take into consideration. Did I empty the dishwasher? Did I
Speaker:
load the dishwasher? Did I do all of the dishes that can't be put in
Speaker:
the dishwasher? Did I dry them, did I put them away? Because those
Speaker:
are all extra tasks that. Will slow you down from getting to. The thing
Speaker:
you actually need to do. Okay, I want you to think about. How this shows
Speaker:
up in our business. You tell yourself, okay, I'm going to. Start sending a newsletter
Speaker:
to everyone who. Has ever booked a call with me. Or
Speaker:
downloaded a freebie on my website. Great. You've never
Speaker:
actually learned how to send. An email out of your email marketing thing,
Speaker:
right? It was something that you set up, so maybe you had a va set
Speaker:
up so that you could have a. Freebie and collect email addresses. But
Speaker:
there's something called lists. You're not really sure who you're supposed to send this thing
Speaker:
to. And then you have to figure out, well, what's the content, what's going to
Speaker:
be interesting to them and inspire them. To book a sales call
Speaker:
with me. God. Okay. So now you have to figure out the
Speaker:
technology. You also have to figure out the organization of it. You have to
Speaker:
understand how you're going to segment out this list. So you're sending it to the
Speaker:
people who would be most interested in getting this newsletter. Then you have to
Speaker:
figure out what. To put in the
Speaker:
newsletter, and then. You have to figure out how to
Speaker:
send it at the right time on. The right day to the right people. And
Speaker:
the issue with this, this one action that you want to take, send an
Speaker:
email newsletter to a bunch of. People has become
Speaker:
multiple different tasks. So you have to learn how to use this system. You have
Speaker:
to understand it on deep level. And the stakes are super fucking high
Speaker:
because if you get it wrong, everyone's going
Speaker:
to see, and we love catastrophizing little
Speaker:
actions that we take in our business, don't we? It's like if
Speaker:
I send my newsletter on a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday, no one's going to
Speaker:
read it. It's going to be a waste of words and blah, blah, blah, blah,
Speaker:
blah, blah, blah, blah. Because someone sometime told you that Tuesday. Was the best day
Speaker:
to send a newsletter. Fuck off. We get
Speaker:
really attached to the best ways of doing things. I
Speaker:
want you to notice that in yourself the next time you go to do something
Speaker:
that's a little outside your comfort zone. What's that little
Speaker:
standard that you're holding yourself to? And does it actually make a difference. At the
Speaker:
end of the day? Probably not. Whenever we're
Speaker:
approaching a project in our. Work, something that we want to get done,
Speaker:
what I do, how I use. My procrastination
Speaker:
to lower my cortisol levels. To increase my
Speaker:
dopamine, to actually create. An anxiety
Speaker:
controlling system. Where I get shit done is I.
Speaker:
Will sit down and I will break. Down any task I want to do.
Speaker:
I will delayer them. I will figure out every
Speaker:
single step. That I need to
Speaker:
take before I get to the thing. I do this with things
Speaker:
that I. Have done for years. One of the things that you'll
Speaker:
notice in my social media is I have. Kind of a cadence,
Speaker:
and I'm not. Perfect about doing this. You're going to hear this and be like,
Speaker:
oh, cool, I'm going to go. Check out her LinkedIn right now. And probably by
Speaker:
the time this episode. Has come out, I will have gotten bored of it for
Speaker:
a little while and you won't see this. But
Speaker:
when I'm perfectly in my game, I do content on kind of a
Speaker:
five day rotation. So, day one, I kind of look at the pain of the
Speaker:
things that. My clients struggle with and how it. Feels for them, and I just
Speaker:
kind of normalize it. It's called empathetic marketing. It's one of the things I train
Speaker:
in my programs. The next day, I talk about a. Desire that they all
Speaker:
have, and I champion it. I tell them
Speaker:
that I believe in you. You can actually have this if you want
Speaker:
it. And then day three, I'll generally do a testimonial or
Speaker:
a case study. Day four, I'll do something about my. Story,
Speaker:
and I might even talk about giving myself a little
Speaker:
testimonial, which is. Kind of a fun way of showing
Speaker:
people how you work and how you. Help your clients, because
Speaker:
generally, you help. Your clients with things that you had. To help yourself with
Speaker:
first. And then finally, day five, I try to share some
Speaker:
details about my programs. Okay? So if I have a five day.
Speaker:
Spread of content that I'm going to. Be creating for
Speaker:
the month, and I. Want to post every single day, let's. Just do the math.
Speaker:
There are 30 days. In some months, we're going to ignore. The 31 days and
Speaker:
the 29 days. For the sake of this.
Speaker:
Okay? So that means to post every single day on a five day rotation,
Speaker:
I. Need six pain posts. I need six desire posts. I
Speaker:
need six testimonial posts. I need six my story posts and. I need
Speaker:
six posts that have to do with the details of my programs. And I will
Speaker:
literally create a word. Document that has
Speaker:
pain, one. Pain two pain three
Speaker:
pain four. Pain five. Pain six
Speaker:
desire one. Desire, two. I'm not going to go through the. Whole thing, but you
Speaker:
get the point, right? I break it out. So literally when
Speaker:
I'm going through my list, and of course I break down every single project
Speaker:
that I do, like this. So as I'm sitting down at my desk in the
Speaker:
morning, I'm kind of doing a body scan, a little like mental check to
Speaker:
see how much juice I have in the tank. To do what? I can
Speaker:
literally look at a whole map of options
Speaker:
of the things that I could focus on for the day. And I get to
Speaker:
pick the hardest one that's possible for me on that. Given day
Speaker:
and I get it done. And what happens when we get shit
Speaker:
done? We get dopamine. So oftentimes
Speaker:
when I get something done that requires less dopamine than one of. The bigger,
Speaker:
scarier, awful, miserable tasks, if.
Speaker:
I get that done early enough in the day and I get that dopamine. Hit
Speaker:
from it, sometimes that dopamine rolls. Over and
Speaker:
I'm able to tackle the bigger thing. You know that advice that
Speaker:
says eat the frog first thing in the morning, which sounds disgusting.
Speaker:
Don't do it like frogs aren't that tasty. I've had one. It's just weird.
Speaker:
Don't do it like you were a fish once and now you have four.
Speaker:
Legs, you jump around, you have like a voice.
Speaker:
I'm good, and I don't support metaphorical. Frog eating
Speaker:
for people with ADHD. Anyway, back to the point. The reason that doesn't
Speaker:
work is because it requires a lot of dopamine. If we
Speaker:
don't have enough dopamine to do the thing, we're not going to do the thing.
Speaker:
We're going to be in executive dysfunction. And what happens when
Speaker:
we set the expectation that we should be able to do the thing and then
Speaker:
we get kicked into executive dysfunction and we can't. Do it, we start punishing
Speaker:
ourselves. When we start punishing ourselves and feeling. Like a failure, our
Speaker:
cortisol spikes and. Cortisol really
Speaker:
eats away at your energy. So you're going to be able to get less
Speaker:
done that day because you're going to be more tired, more defeated, more
Speaker:
distracted. It's going to be harder for you to get dopamine into your
Speaker:
system. We really do have to come up with kind of a
Speaker:
scattershot, chaotic approach. To get stuff done that
Speaker:
works with how much dopamine we have in our systems. So here's
Speaker:
what you're going to do. As a business owner, I know you have a shit
Speaker:
ton on your plate and you're probably trying to manage it. All in your head.
Speaker:
You're probably trying to prioritize and figure it out. And like, what should I do
Speaker:
first? Stop doing that. What you're going to do is you're. Going to sit
Speaker:
down with a few. Pieces of paper and you are going. To write
Speaker:
down every single thing that. You think
Speaker:
you need to do. And this is personal, and this has to do
Speaker:
with work and this has. To do with your kids to do. Lists and your
Speaker:
spouse. Like anything that you have to do. With your family, everything that's
Speaker:
floating around in your brain, you have to put on this list. What I like
Speaker:
to do from here is I like to then rewrite the list
Speaker:
into different categories. So, like, anything personal goes onto
Speaker:
the personal list. And if you want to create subcategories, like, is there something
Speaker:
that has to do with health? Is there something that has to do. With your
Speaker:
house and taking care of it? Do you have to book a reservation at your
Speaker:
best friend's favorite restaurant for their birthday? All that goes on the
Speaker:
personal list. And then everything that has to do with your business, you're going to
Speaker:
put on your business list. You're going to organize it into different
Speaker:
categories. So say you have an email marketing category. What are
Speaker:
all the things you need. To do there, a social media posting.
Speaker:
To LinkedIn category, what are all the. Things you need to do
Speaker:
there? And so on and so forth. From here, I
Speaker:
want you to vote. Like, obviously we're talking about your business. This is the weenie
Speaker:
cast for business owners. Go through all the things that you've. Just listed
Speaker:
out that you have to do for your business and figure out if they are
Speaker:
layered tasks. And if they are, if you do need to
Speaker:
break down every single little step. Break down every single
Speaker:
little step. There's like a joke. And it's not like
Speaker:
a funny ha ha joke. It's just kind of like a truth. That people kind
Speaker:
of find amusing to. Explain how jokes work when they're not. That
Speaker:
funny is that when you go. Into an ADHD person's house, they're
Speaker:
messy. There's stuff everywhere. You look at
Speaker:
their desk and there's like papers and piles and
Speaker:
postits and just a bunch of random shit. I know I've gone through
Speaker:
everything that's on my desk and I won't do. It right now because it's pretty
Speaker:
gross anyway. The reason we do that is because
Speaker:
once something is not visible to us, it stops existing. Anything
Speaker:
that we feel like we're going to need to remember that it exists,
Speaker:
we're going to keep out in the. Open so we can see it. When we
Speaker:
organize the work and lay it all out for
Speaker:
ourselves, we're essentially doing the same thing. We're
Speaker:
reminding ourselves that all these things. Exist in our to do
Speaker:
list. And we literally create a little buffet.
Speaker:
Of options for what we can work. On every single day depending
Speaker:
on our dopamine levels. And when we do this and when we give
Speaker:
ourselves permission to pick and choose the things
Speaker:
that we have enough dopamine for every single day and to make
Speaker:
progress in a nonlinear way towards our
Speaker:
goals, we get more dopamine in our systems. We lower our
Speaker:
cortisol. And that, my friends, is how you use
Speaker:
procrastination to manage your anxiety. If you're ready to stop being a weenie
Speaker:
and actually run a business that makes money, then go ahead and book a
Speaker:
generate income strategy call with me by going to
Speaker:
weeniecast.com strategycall.
Speaker:
On this call, we will talk about your goals, your dreams,
Speaker:
and your frustrations in getting there. And if it's a fit
Speaker:
for both. Of us, then we can talk about different ways to work together.
Speaker:
Boom. Mic drop. But I'm not actually going to drop my mic because I like
Speaker:
it and I don't want to hurt it. Squirrel, squirrel,
Speaker:
squirrel, squirrel.